Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Case Closed: FBI Says 9mm Is The Best Pistol Round

No, I'm not suggesting that any handgun round reliably gives one-shot stops; just saying that the Bureau's reasoning seems to be somewhat circular, in that they generally look for penetration from 12"-18", and ignore (their word)anything exceeding that, then say, "Well, they all worked the same." Of course they did, because that's all they looked at.

Off topic a little bit, but it was interesting to re-read the 1989 report again. It was an evaluation of the ammunition then available, and found that, out of 40 rounds of each fired: only one 10mm round fired failed to penetrate more than 12"; two .45 (presumably ACP) rounds failed to penetrate more than 12"; 13 rounds of 9mm failed, noting that out of a 15-shot weapon, five would not have "performed as desired," and 13 of .38 (Special?) rounds also failed to penetrate 12". The Bureau only tested one load, so it was a very limited evaluation, but still, what a difference in todays ammo! No argument from me that things have improved, but I'm just not yet willing to go all-in for the 9mm.

Who knows what ammunition would have been developed if the Bureau said that 24" was the gold standard, to give an even more margin of error for when things don't go well, or to possibly accommodate longer-range shooting. Since I work in primarily rural areas, I would be interested to know if the 12"-18" penetration reportedly met by a lot of today's "premium" ammunition would still hold true for hits from 25-40 yards, not the 10 feet spec'd in the testing protocol.

Regards, and enjoy the weekend.