Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Ruger 9mm PC Carbine and Buffalo Bore +P Hard Cast

chlinstructor made a comment in another recent thread about 9mm carbine stopping power. I was going to reply in that thread, but I decided that I should just start a new thread. So, here it is.


FYI, take a look at this and see if the 9mm may meet your performance criteria for pigs. (We don't have any around here for me to test.) I did a barrier torture test with my Ruger PC Carbine using Buffalo Bore 147 hard cast +P. The ammo chronographs at an average of 1267 fps out of my gun. (For the sake of comparison, Buffalo Bore and Mackay_Sagebrush's equivalent load both average in the 1060's out of my Sig P365 XL.)

The wind was really bad, so turn the sound off and I will narrate in text. The round penetrated a 1 gallon water jug, wallboard, jug 2, 2"X4" (probably pine) wood, jug 3, 22 gauge steel, jug 4, almost fully penetrated another sheet of 22 gauge steel, punctured jug 5 enough to cause it to leak. The bullet was later recovered on the ground just to the left of the table.



By way of comparison, I ran the exact same test twice with my P365 XL using the same wood, wallboard and steel. The round bounced off the 2X4 both times. I then ran it without the 2X4. It went like this: jug 1, wallboard, jug 2, steel, jug 3, steel (sideways), entered jug 4 and exited to the side. In a final attempt to penetrate the 2X4, I put the 2X4 in front of jug 1. The results went this way: 2X4 board, jug 1, wallboard, jug 2, steel (low), jug 3. Captured in jug 3.

That rifle and ammo combination replaced my AR15 (5.56) as my home defense rifle and general dinking around rifle. I still should do a few mag dumps to confirm reliability, but the expense and my dwindling ammo supply do pain me a little.