Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns question regarding 9mm handgun?

How effective is the 9mm against animal "pest"? Pest being animals such coyotes, racoons, and possums?

It will kill thme if you can hit them. Geneally I prefer soemthing with a little more sight radius than usually comes on 9 mm semis. Except for the coyotes a 22 will kill the rest

saddlesore,

thank you for the reply. I was talking with a college kid who was working for us. He related a story of how his friend emptied his .357mag revolver at a "rapid" racoon. Kinda took me by surprise that it would take that many shoots to crumple a racoon. Either he was using the wrong ammo or was a poor shot, or perhaps both? So I naturally wondering how the 9mm would handle these varmits.

Works just fine if you put a decent bullet in the right place on the critter. Amazing how many times that sentence has been repeated over the years... I am really partial to the 124 gr. Gold Dot at 1,200+ fps.

I like the 90 gr HP's out of my 9mm for dispatching small critters up close. 25 yds or less, as that's all the accuracy I'm good for.

Rabid animals are quite a different beast. They will fight like no other. I had a skunk take 10shots from my 22rifle and it still clawed its way towards me. Hissin and spittin with every inch. Next year I learned. Raccoon showed some sickness. Gave it both barrels with 000buck.

fishingfool,

oh yeah, forgot to mention skunks too in how the 9mm handgun would handle them. Out here in western Pennsylvania, the biggest threat while out in the woods would be coyotes or feral dogs. But did encouter rapid racoon. They sure are brazen that's for sure.

Shot a skunk, at close range in a barn, years back. My Colt Gold Cup put THREE 230 gn. FMJs in him and still the skunk managed to spray. Yes, shots placed through the middle!

Ive never felt a 9mm parabelum was a great hunting caliber.
one of my friends was walking down a seldom used, long abandoned muddy road in the everglades and came up on a large hog (about 360 lbs)lying in a muddy area, thinking someone had run over it with a large tracked swamp buggy ,(as there were buggy tracks everywhere) and killed it,he approched it with his 9mm browning high power in his hand, he got within about 10 feet before the large hog twitched and almost instantly jumped up, he emptied the 9mm into the hog, it had him down and was sliceing his legs up as he kicked at it, untill a buddy stuck a 12 ga in its ear and fired...killing it, he required a bunch of sticthes and a month of medical recovery time. he had randomly hit the hog in the chest/body 12 times with hollow point ammo at point blank range, some hits MIGHT have eventually proved fatal, but none were instantly disabling,
or as he once said" its rather difficult to get good shot placement when your main concern is not shooting your own damn foot off while your kicking a large hog in the face from the prone possition on your back,from the ground, and trying not to get bit again

In my younger days I chased and killed many coons with a 22 when the dogd treed them. Definitely a 12 gauge is better. Never have figured out where to shoot a skunk so it wouldn't spray

Hello Leomort,

Here's a late reply. About 25 years ago, I got a call on dogs savaging a sow. When I pulled up to the fence I could see four medium size dogs in with a sow. Why the farmer didn't take care of this problem himself I certainly don't know.

I laid across the hood of the squad car and sent one 9mm 75 yards into the boiler room of a 40# dog. The gun was a S&W M639 and the ammo Winchester Silvertips.

The remainder of the dogs bolted and I didn't get another shot. The sow was pretty torn up around the back end which is where the dogs were working to avoid her teeth.

Most of the time I had a Winchester M70 in 243 Winc caliber for dog work but I was using another car that day and had left my rifle at home.

Oh yeah, it was a lucky shot but I had been shooting the 639 at long distances and was pretty familiar where the bullet would go at that range.

So far, I'm getting the impression that although the 9mm is good for the two legged varmits, it isn't that reliable on the animal end of varmits.

I've used the 9MM on dogs and it works. However, it doesn't compare with the 357. I have shot coyotes with the 357 and it makes the DRT-Dead Right There.

My LEO dog gun was an SKS with cheap surplus ammo and a butler creek stock. That worked well!

Last varmint I nailed with the 9mm it tipped over pronto... Cottontail, found gnawing on my veggies... Star M43, one shot, 5 yards...

I hate rabbits..

Redneck,

You're lucky he didn't charge you!

Leo

My hunting buddy shot a coyote with his Glock 9mm at about 25 yards a couple of weeks ago. The yote went down at the shot, then jumped up after about 15 seconds and ran away with out leaving a drop of blood.

What ammo and bullet did he use, and, where did he hit the coyote? Of course he really doesn't know where he hit it since it ran off.

.357 Magnum mid-range loads with the 125 gr. hollowpoint travel 1,250 fps from a four inch barrel. 9mm +P 124 gr. hollowpoints run 1,250 - 1,300 fps from a four inch barrel. There just isn't any difference there. Full house .357's scoot along as much as 150 - 200 fps faster and there is some difference in that. However, the 9mm+P pretty well duplicates at close to mid-ranges what the full house load is doing farther out. Just can't see the 9mm load I'm speaking of not performing as well at 25 yards as the .357 mid-range loading at the same range. Anyone argue the mid-range .357 wouldn't do in a average size dog/coyote at 25 yards? If the .357 will do it, why not the 9mm+P?

Sounds like a gut shot to me. At 25 yds, any decent 9mm load will do a coyote if it's hit right. You're not talking Godzilla here.

Dick

Nah... My last name's not Carter...

MOGC,

I think where the .357mag pulls away from the 9mm is when its using the heavier 158gr and 180gr bullets that are intended for hunting use. Not sure the 9mm has that capability. But for the pest control I'm interested in, it might not be that big a difference between the two.