Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Hornady Handgun Hunter 9mm +P

Does anyone have any first hand experience shooting deer with 9mm Hornady Handgun Hunter 9mm +P? Thanks

No, the problem I see, a good number of hunters would take a less than ideal shot, potentially wounded game runs off.

One year on the lease in IL we dealt with 5 deer that were wounded or killed by neighbors but ended up on our 383 acres. These are ones we easily found, stumbled on.

That said I had an old timer gunsmith who had no problem elk hunting with a 243. He was very discriminating with his shots, hunted premo private land, and placed the shot precisely.

Que up posters that talk about the ‘22 LR in the ear’ of the whitetail.

I’m just going by more real world experience. Back in the day it took a little to take one with my 357 mag.

I was looking at that stuff too, not so much for deer as it would be illegal here, but as a high-powered (for a 9) load for walking around in the woods. Those Hornady rubber bullets have looked pretty good in expansion tests. Sportsmans Guide had them at a good price.

Although a 9 won’t bounce off, it isn’t legal in SD (500 fpe required for handguns).

For self defense in the woods, I would use the hard cast type ammunition that is out there. It will penetrate much better than any self defense type stuff, including the Hornady FTX.

I carry Black Hills Honeybadger in my 9mm and .40 carry guns, which I have also carried for Black bears while hiking, along with bear spray.

I can't imagine why I would use that over a 147gr cast.

I shot a whitetail awhile back with a 147gr XTP running 1350fps from my Kimber 38 Super and it did the job just fine.

Tony

.357 Rem velocity in a .38 Super is impressive. Didn’t know they were that fast.

The Hornady 9mm load seems pretty anemic with a 115 gr. bullet at only 1100 fps. What has that slowed down to at 40-50 yards and what is the expansion window of that mono copper bullet? Seems less effective than a bonded core 124 gr. Gold Dot or HST at 1250 fps. And a 147 gr. hard cast flat point at 1100+ fps will out penetrate either of those loads.