Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns 9mm performance improvements

We�ve all seen how greatly the 9mm has benefitted from cartridge development into a very solid defensive cartridge when employed with good quality JHP ammunition. But what I find interesting is how well 9mm is working for the military. Sure we occasionally hear of stopping failures, but there�s not nearly as many as I thought I�d hear, not by a long shot (no pun intended).

Now 9mm NATO is a bit of a different animal than the old 9mm 115 grain hardball loads, but those performance differences are for barrier penetration and do very little to change terminal performance in soft tissue. Either load will drill a 9mm hole right through the upper torso of most anyone. So why the difference in performance? Why is it years ago we heard the 9mm was worthless, and these days most elite military units actually prefer it to the sacred .45 ACP?

I say the difference is the focus on handgun training, where in the past there was very little focus on handgun training. I think our soldiers shoot handguns better than they ever have in history, and therefore enemies who are shot, tend to be shot more center of mass, and thus the cartridge is doing its job.

What say you?

Ammo capacity.

Based on what I've seen, it'd be hard to find military guys who are worse pistol shots than what the Army is currently producing.

The Marines would differ with that assessment, and you would likely have to speak to the leadership of each of the 9 mm equipped elite units to ascertain "why." The answer, in some cases, is that they don't have a choice. I do know a few SOF types with multiple deployments and numerous firefights behind them who are not happy with the 9 mm.

Same here, I have talked to a few that did not talk highly of the 9mm and much preferred the 45. Of course they were Marines.

The ones I talkerd to were Green Berets.

The ones I talked to were Green Berets.

Guess I should not type while juggling cell phone plus office phone...

Aren't we talking FMJ rounds only in the military context?

Does it make a difference to anyone if you compare the 9mm to the .45 when each is loaded with HP's?

Yes we're talking FMJ.

My observations (and just MY observation) is that complaints about the 9mm FMJ are far fewer than I expected. I think it's because the training is better than in the past. Just wondering what others think.

I've slowly gotten rid of all my 9mms except one and that's a CW9 (Yes...I sold my Hi-Power)

Now, all my defensive autos other than the aforementioned CW, are .45acp. I've come to the conclusion, when shooting reactive targets, even .45 ball, is better than any 9mm hollow point for placing mass on target.

Keep in mind, I'm not talking about lethality, I'm talking about mass. We've gotten away from that discussion over the years, relying on data that may or may not reflect reality, based on a diverse set of scenarios and parameters.

My rounds of choice are 230 grains, whether ball or hollow point. And while they lumber toward the target with glacial speed, it's more a case of a rhinoceros hitting your torso, vs a gazelle.

I don't expect my targets to be swept off their feet. I expect them to wish they'd never been born.

So what are you basing your decision off of, if not studies and statistics? Of course the data is based on diverse scenarios, it's hard to get bad guys to pose the same way every time they get shot. If all the data was from the exact same scenarios people would gripe that it wasn't diverse enough.

The rhino / gazelle analogy doesn't hold water, because neither a rhino or gazelle are penetrating my body, expanding and expending energy within me. Basing your decision on a theoretical animal charge is why these discussions are never valuable.

Maybe no one is complaining about the 9mm's "performance" because they generally only actually USE it in an MP5 class weapon, and any handgun use is limited to super close range head shots, where a 22 would work just as well

What do you mean by "reactive targets", Dan? Bullet mass and momentum can make a difference when you're shooting heavy plates or bowling pins, but I would strongly disagree that they make a difference when shooting lighter reactive targets like plate racks or poppers.

As for "lethality", let's be clear: human beings are NOT "reactive targets". They are living, moving, fighting beings whose physiological and psychological and spiritual makeup combines to make something much more complex than the most complex mechanical or reactive range target system.

I take your "diverse set of scenarios and parameters" statement to mean that you think that the variables in street shootings are so many and so uncontrollable that it is impossible to draw any valid predictions from any sort of study. This is nonsense. The quantity of research on handgun ammunition performance done since the 1986 Miami FBI gunfight is staggering in its volume and scope, and it has resulted in phenomenal performance improvements in not just service caliber ammunition, but all ammunition.

The street shootings data accumulated over the past 25+ years by LE agencies and consortiums in America is pretty clear: there is no appreciable performance difference between 9mm and 45 ACP when using modern JHP ammunition that meets the FBI criteria established in 1987.

Kevin, I should have responded to your OP first, but got sidetracked by Dan's post and felt responding to it was a higher priority.

As you know I have been studying (and training people in the use of) the question of gunshot wounding and incapacitation for many years. I've accumulated quite a few gunfight/shooting stories over that time-frame, and while they might serve illustrative purposes from time to time, individual personal gunfight stories or opinions don't tell us much that we can generalize from.

A couple of examples come to mind. Let's consider two guys, both very very high-speed, low-drag, special ops guys. They've both got multiple years of experience, multiple wars, multiple weapons platforms, with just about any type of ammunition you could ask for. I know both of them passably well. I've done some range shooting with both of them, and have taken extensive training from one of them.

One of these guys has carried nothing but Glock 22's for years and insists that while "you don't need to carry a Glock, you've got to carry a .45, and please not a phuqqing 1911". The other guy carries Glock 19's and has no use for a .45 pistol other than the 1911's he owns and shoots recreationally from time to time. How could two guys with so much experience have such different opinions on the caliber question? Well, I guess it just proves that subjectivity is a really, really powerful factor in human decision-making. Personally, I wouldn't go up against either of these guys with anything more lethal than Nerf guns, not that this has anything to do with it, but you get the idea...

I've spoken at length with a lot of guys who've spent extensive time in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who have used their handguns in combat. Some swear that the 45 ACP 1911 is far superior, others are equally happy with their 9mm M9's. But when I get down to the nitty gritty of how many times they actually used their pistol as their sole weapon in an action, the counts were very, very low. That really takes the "punch" out of most of the first-hand reports of handgun ammunition performance in the Sandbox, I'm sad to report.

The military doesn't take or keep detailed reports on every shooting in a war zone. So you can't rely on military records to tell you if the 45 ACP's used by Marine SOCOM are truly better than the 9mm's used by Rangers.

Domestic law enforcement in the USA, however, does keep meticulous records on every officer-involved shooting. These records are kept highly confidential, however, and there's no way John Q. Public is ever going to see those individual records. In fact, in most LE agencies the number of people who can get their hands on those records can generally be counted on the fingers of one hand.

But there are a few agencies that have worked together to share their OIS information, which is harder than it sounds. Despite the many obstacles they've accumulated some good data, I believe, based on thousands and thousands of shootings. And the overwhelming conclusion from these data is that caliber is irrelevant when it comes to shooting people with service caliber handguns using modern JHP ammunition.

So my response to your OP, in sum, is more or less the same as I've written here and elsewhere many times. I don't think it matters a hoot whether you choose 9mm or 45 ACP. I think good modern JHP ammunition is superior to ball ammo, but if all I had was ball, I wouldn't throw down my gun and stick my hands in the air. I don't think the 9mm cartridge was ever as lousy as its critics have claimed, and I don't think the 45 ACP was ever as wonderful as its accolytes expound.

I find it rather amusing that threads like this quote 'FBI research and street shooting data' both of whch are designed to selll you something. The Bureau has a long and storied history of churning out research papers to support whatever weaponry they have decided to use.

The 9mm, 'modernized' or not, is essentially a 38 +P. If you are happy with that, drive on. Having attended a few gunsmoke picnics, autopsies and having shot a couple dozen deer with handguns- I'll go with something capable of shooting through intervening limbs wrecking major skeletal structures.

Sarge, as I tried to point out in the two posts above, your personal experience is valid and highly pertinent to your decision-making, but it doesn't generalize well.

Your statement about "going through intervening limbs" etc begs the question... do you think 9mm bullets won't do that? Because I can show you a very public shooting where a lowly little 115 gr 9mm bullet fired by Agent Jerry Dove in 1986 shot through Michael Platt's upper arm, then entered his chest and severed his right pulmonary artery and vein, which killed Platt.

Since you've brought up your personal experience (and I am in no way denigrating that, more power to you!) let's talk a bit about personal experience, and its relative uselessness: I've attended (and assisted in) dozens of autopsies and and scores of trauma surgeries, and I've been the treating doctor hundreds of gunshot wounds, and I've killed dozens of deer and hundreds of prairie dogs & gophers... I have fired my weapon in the hot zone, and I have been shot. But does that make my opinion any more valid than yours? Of course not! That's only my personal experience, and it doesn't generalize any better than your personal experience.

When I interview guys who've been in lots of shootings, their personal experiences tend to be no more generalizable than yours or mine. For example, one cop I know on a major metro force has killed (not shot, killed) seven men with his handgun(s), last time I talked to him. It might be 8 or 9 by now. The conclusion "Bill" has drawn from his experience is that he will only shoot bad guys in the head. Period. Now, "Bill" has shot more people to death than I have, or presumably you have... but does his personal conclusion hold water for everybody? No, it really doesn't.

This is why we have to take a step back from our personal experience and look at the results of many, many OIS's and look for the trends there.

Those trends tell us that, when using modern JHP ammunition, there's no difference between 9mm, 38 Special +P, 40 S&W, or 45 ACP. There might be a marginal difference when you factor in 357 Mag, 41 Mag, and 44 Mag, but not much. There is substantial evidence to show that mini-calibers like 380 ACP and smaller are really inferior to the major service calibers.

That 9mm bullet you mentioned (a Silvertip) struck Platt's right forearm, entered his right ribcage, and stopped an inch from his heart. Platt survived to fight for four more minutes, eventually killing agents Dove and Benjamin Grogan.

45 hardball would have settled his hash, with the same hit.

Sarge, I was responding your implication that 9mm bullets won't go through an intermediate barrier such as an arm or leg and continue into the body.

The 9mm bullet in question did not strike Platt's forearm. It entered his right upper arm above the elbow and passed transversely and superiorly through the upper arm, severing the brachial artery. It penetrated through the right lung and centerpunched the right pulmonary artery and vein, severing them, which resulted in catastrophic loss of blood into the chest cavity. The wound was non-survivable.

It is impossible to say that a 45 caliber bullet of any type would have done a better job... your assertion that 45 ball would have hit the heart and "settled his hash" is pure speculation, and based on the autopsy findings and what we know about cardiovascular function, very likely wrong.

The wound probes and Xrays shown in photos in French Anderson's book (and his verbal description) show that the bullet was traversing superiorly at a modest angle (10 degrees or so). This means that even if the bullet had gone completely through his chest, its path would not have perforated any significant part of the heart.

Also, you have succumbed to the layman's assumption that a bullet in the heart is always immediately fatal, and this is simply not true, especially with handgun bullets. I am aware of numerous cases where GSW's to the ventricles were not only survivable, but the "victim" (often a felon, so I hesitate to use the term) was able to fight for an extended period of time after taking the GSW to his heart.

The only thing I know is I rather shoot someone with a rifle/shotgun than a handgun!

Handgun is the last resort. I think the 9mm has benefited from modern HP and modern components like new powder ect.

I'm partial to the 40 S&W and have seen failures with it!

Most vets that return home from war, people who have been in shootings, all tend to come to the conclusion they want something bigger and better!