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

I believe the accuracy/speed difference was determined by having a wide range of shooters shoot courses of fire with a Glock in a .40, and a Glock in a 9mm.

Effectiveness of "caliber" was determined by field data as well as laboratory tests with a wide range of duty ammo in each chambering.

The report doesn't really pull any punches regarding previous "data." It pretty much says everything previously determined is a huge hunk of schit.

The FBI is everybody's favorite whipping boy and probably rightfully so. I'd by no means consider the report gospel, but I honestly can't find anything wrong with any of their conclusions.






Travis

LOL. You have a way with words.

Dollars spent to train, to equip, and to maintain proficiency within various law enforcement agencies will often become the dominant driving force behind the selection of a handgun and ammo for any particular department. What becomes the best option, at that time, for a particular department, does not necessarily make for "the best option" for you as an individual civilian.

Going on three decades in this business, I've seen, trained, and lived through most of these changes going back to the days of the old defunct revolver rounds. In recent times, "the best option" for my particular agency was a Sig Sauer and .357 sig Gold Dot ammo. It proved itself an outstanding choice, and in my personal opinion, has been the single best law enforcement duty pistol I've been issued in these last three decades. BUT, with the current costs and availability of .357 sig ammo, and with the great offers made by Glock and their top shelf customer service, it is cheaper to dump these fairly new Sig Sauers for the relatively inexpensive Glocks shooting 9mm ammo. In addition, decades back we were all tall and strong, but today, we have waived these height and weight requirements and have the ranks filled with a wide swath of gen-y'ers who may be very small, with tiny hands, and having little to no firearm experience. For these, having a cheap modular gun with minimal recoil becomes a factor in these budget decisions. Again, advantage goes to a striker fired 9mm. Having this FBI study gives a professional green light for making such a switch.

I am an old baby boomer who does prefer revolvers, 1911s, and sig sauers. , but the overwhelming mass majority of those within law enforcement today, would not be able to proficiently function with such hammer guns, therefore, the best future options for the whole would be vastly different than mine as an individual.

later

Saw this when it was posted here a few years ago. Remind us of the gist.

Cost is also mentioned as an upside to the 9's.

Not only for saving money on ammunition, but less wear and tear on the guns.



Travis

Excellent, post

You'll be hard pressed to back that up with any actual research or relevant experience.

Bob, as ever, you always post great information, and over time i have to say i find myself always eager to read your posts, as well as a handful of other 'fire members....


early in this thread, i mentioned that advancements, etc., in these fields do not come from the govenmental sector--but rather--from civilians who work at their crafts everyday. with this thought in mind:

in a sense, there already has been some "study of sorts" with regard to accuracy, and lightning fast shooting calling for acceptable hits. this occurred back in the 70's and 80's in the IPSC game. in short order, world class handgunners found out in a hurry that in order to play ball, they needed to make the switch to the smaller, faster, lighter recoiling round--the .38 Super--a mighty fine round.

more "speedy, accurate shooting" happens in one day--with all manner of different handgunners displaying all manner of skillsets--than likely occurs in LE on-duty shooting engagements over many days--if not weeks, or longer. i always thought that the 9 mm should have been able to play ball in that game--with no disparity--but alas, "power factor" was there to rear it's ugly head, and the lowly 9 mm was relegated to "minor" status....

this remark is not to defend IPSC--or to compare it realistically to street shootings--but only to point out that in that game, alot of ground was covered, especially in the early to mid 80's. it was--and is--a game. nevertheless it was a good place to acquire necessary skillsets, and test oneself against others.

the 9 mm is without question my favorite round. Bob, you mentioned "the perception of the officer" carrying the gun/ammo as a factor in matters. i believe this is very much spot on. if we can enlarge the pool of individuals you mention to include private citizens who are responsible CC folks, i can say this:

through considering a cross-section of just "everyday possibles" that might occur to a person in their everyday life, i feel more confident with a somewhat bigger caliber, than i do with a smaller caliber--as i prefer to err on the side of caution. too many times i've seen in testing bullets--and in other times shooting various game--that hp pills do not expand--but rather--"cave inward", and you "end up with what you started with".

that leaves "small caliber vs large caliber speed/accuracy". when i first began timing my deltas between "9 mm and .45 auto" capability (and adding an occasional 10 mm in for spice)--there was considerable disparity of times. that was 25+ years ago. consistent effort/work narrows this gap, and today, i can shoot the .45 auto at a speed that i am comfortable with for CC.

for most in LE, they have to carry what their department demands. for the private CC citizen, they can carry many options--but they should carry what they are proficient/comfortable with--and those parameters vary widely with differing individuals....

And not due to get better anytime soon.

Was it something I said about the 9mm? Or was it my remarks about the Feeble, Blind, and Incontinent?

It was when you called my grandpa a queer.

At least I didn't imply
that he was fbi

What is your favorite band camp story?
Mine is the story about a Border Patrol agent on a bridge who had a person that looked like he had a weapon so the agent shot him.
After the shooting no weapon could be found.
They decided that the weapon must have been dropped into the river.
The next day the Border Patrol dredged the river and a large quantity of pistols were salvaged from under the bridge. What a shock?

"I believe the accuracy/speed difference was determined by having a wide range of shooters shoot courses of fire with a Glock in a .40, and a Glock in a 9mm."

...I guess they just had to waste the ammo to prove what every halfway knowledgeable firearms instructor already knew...

...but again we have the tail wagging the dog. IPSC, IDPA and Qualification Courses have nothing to do with gun fighting. There is a whole bunch of officers who have been in gun fights with both a .40 and 9mm Glock. What I want to know is ON THE STREET in comparable shootings what is the hit percentage of the two. My belief is that there isn't going to be any. LE still has the same target shooting mentality they have had from the 1930s. In some segments it is getting better but overall not much.

Too may people are worrying about whether or not an officers "qualifies"...they should be worried about whether or not they live through a gun fight without also injuring a innocent party...

Hi_Vel...thanks for the nice words...

I really can't agree with any of that.



Travis

And how do you assess an officer's ability to do that without a standard to meet in a qualification?

Travis...don't expect you to.... But you tell me. A PD carries .40s and they switch to 9mms...qualification scores are going to go up...I have no doubt about that...no brainer. But I'll guaranty you the on the street % of hits will remain +- just about the same. AND you may find that using 9s instead of .40s you may have to shoot more...

And the reason I am sure of this is that in Dallas which had a lot of gun fights, the guys who were shooting .44s were not missing any more than the guys with .38s. The officers with 9mm were not making any better % of hits than those shooting .45s.

Much more important is that each officer have a gun that fits their hand. And in this world of "uniformity" it isn't happening.

Blue.... Next coat of paint has to go on...be back in a while...

Bob

But that's not an apples to apples comparison. To say Officer#1 hit with 50% of his shots from a .44magnum and Officer#2 hit with 50% of his shots from a 9mm......DOES NOT mean that those officers would have each had 50% hits with a different gun.

Officer#1 may have hit with 80% of his shots if he had switched to a 9mm and Officer#2 may have hit with 20% of his shots if he switched to a .44magnum.

And remember that whatever solution is proposed has to actually be viable for a LE agency in 2015. Any solution is going to have to be defensible in the litigious world LE agencies work in.

Roger that. A basic standard is necessary to assess someone's performance and ability. It also points to the training a department needs to do in order to better prepare its people. While an argument COULD be made that qualification doesn't equate to survival, an individual who has trouble qualifying on an easy course of fire is a danger to himself or his partner.

Higher qualification scores equate to higher hit ratios on suspects. I saw that enough to call it a fact, at least in my experience. I was involved in my department's transition to 9mms from revolvers; all cops that wanted to carry a 9mm had to attend (and pass) a 3 day (later 5 day) transition course. Over 1200 rounds were fired. Taught by our department's best marksmen, the course emphasized marksmanship and weapon manipulation with no tactical shooting. After graduation, all cops were monitored for NDs and OISs (shootings) over a two-year period. I personally interviewed every cop that got into a shooting with a 9mm during that time frame. That was somewhere around 100 people. Some thoughts:

1. Poor shooters shoot way better after intense training, in both OISs and qual. Statistically, the 9mm-trained cops achieved more hits on suspects than the revolver (.38) shooters. More training is always good. 9mm is easy to train with; average shooters do well with it.

2. Marksmanship is more important than tactical training. After a cop learns to shoot well, tactics can be uploaded. A good marksman will excell in most any tactical scenario. A tactical genius can lose a gunfight if he misses. The military calls this concept "crawl, walk, run". Learn to shoot, then learn to fight.

3. Multiple hits stop bad guys; one hit-stops are an urban legend. Big bullets don't kill (or stop) any better than smaller ones. At least, that's my experience, based on 24 years as a street cop, academy instructor, homicide detective and combat Soldier with more than one tour in Iraq. Yes, there's always the SWAT head shot with a .45 that saves the hostage. That's not the usual cop shooting.

4. Lots of rounds carried are always better than a few big rounds. I carried in excess of 60 rounds on patrol and had more in my ditty bag. Less recoil is also better, in both training and a firefight. Yes, you can train to overcome the recoil of a .40 or .45, but you'll shoot better with a low-recoiling 9mm and get more hits on the suspect. Superior shooters also shoot better with a 9 than a .45. Check the scores at Camp Perry; Champions excel with any gun, but they're excelling with higher scores now that 9mm has replaced .45 ball in service pistol events.

5. Big rounds are hard on the gun as well. Glock 22s break down, if they're shot a lot. 9mms last forever. Good for the budget.

My thoughts, based on working for a very large Southern CA police department with 10,000 cops to train.
Bob