9mm Carry Ammo

Which Ammo Would You Carry/Suggest?

  • Hornady Critical Defense 115gr FTX Ballistic Tip

    Votes: 41 22.8%

  • Winchester Personal Protection 147gr JHP

    Votes: 11 6.1%

  • Winchester Supreme Elite 124gr +P Bonded PDX1

    Votes: 45 25.0%

  • Other: Please Write Your Suggestion Below

    Votes: 83 46.1%
  • Total voters
    180
  • Poll closed .
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Ammo for 9MM

For my carry gun, the first two shots are Hornady Critical Defense. After that, I use Federal FMJ. My thinking is that if you don't bring down your target in the first couple of shots, your target will probably be behind cover, and the FMJ will be more effective.
 
I wanted to say one more thinh about the ''what the polic use'' idea.

True, many fantastic loadings are marketed specifically for law enforcement uses. And most shooting studies involve police officers. But politics and personal whim dictacte as much what a given pd will carry as much as performance. Policemen carried .38 revolvers for decade, even when better options were available and all studies pointed to the dismal ''stopping power'' the available loadings provided. Has bullet technology made the .38, and truthfullyall other calibers, much more potent? You betcha. But that is a newer development not pertanent to the point. Those were not available 20, 30 years ago when policemen and women were going into harms way armed with an inadequate, even by the standards of the time, round.

I know that there are certain loads in 9mm, which is a caliber I already have a weapon chambered for, that I can shoot 10 BGs with and the law of odds tells me 9 of them will stop what they are doing after hitting them just one time, regardless of the fact that some police force somewhere else doesn't use that load anymore.

When I take all loads that provide THAT performance (91% one-shot stop) and then weigh the price between them, I find the one load with the largest number of shootings by far to also be 33% cheaper than the others. Brand X or Y may be better in ballistics gelatin, but all are equal in real life situations. So why go with anything different?

The answer is personal preference, something police officers and soldiers like myself are not able to excersize when it comes to ammo choice. I don't carry nato hardball, even though the largest armed force in the country mandates it, so why would I carry any other load simply because a smaller armed force carries it?

Yes, I also do believe in ''stopping power'' as tabboo as it may be on THR. All people are different, all situations are different, but given the same circumstance with the same BG and the only variable is what he is hit with, a 10mm will stop him quicker than a .40, a .45 will stop him quicker than a 9mm, and a .50 BMG will stop him quicker than all of those. A mack truck would probably provide the best stopping power I could hope for, but I don't carry a mack truck, a .50 bmg, a 10mm, or a .40. I carry a .45 and a 9mm, so within those groups I hope to find the best load I can afford to become profficient with that will give me a slight edge over something else I could have chosen.

Yes, I have done my homework. I take a bit of offense to your remark. And I stand by my decision, which I could change on a whim tomorrow and that wouldn't make me any less correct today.

To the OP, I apologize for getting off-track.
 
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Lama said:
For my carry gun, the first two shots are Hornady Critical Defense. After that, I use Federal FMJ. My thinking is that if you don't bring down your target in the first couple of shots, your target will probably be behind cover, and the FMJ will be more effective.
Click to expand...

What if you miss with your first couple of shots? IMHO, mixing the ammo of your carry pistol is just inviting trouble.
 
Lama said:
For my carry gun, the first two shots are Hornady Critical Defense. After that, I use Federal FMJ. My thinking is that if you don't bring down your target in the first couple of shots, your target will probably be behind cover, and the FMJ will be more effective.
Click to expand...

You can fire those two shots in 1/4 second. How far could he get towards cover in 1/4 second?

What about his buddies?

FMJ in the spare mag might make sense, but not after the first 2 rds on the first mag.
 
Please vote and if you would like, comment on why you voted that way.
Click to expand...

I think any of the choices listed would do just fine.

But I voted "other" because I carry something different in my 9mm. I like Federal HST, Speer Gold Dots, and Remington Golden Sabers.
 
For my carry gun, the first two shots are Hornady Critical Defense. After that, I use Federal FMJ. My thinking is that if you don't bring down your target in the first couple of shots, your target will probably be behind cover, and the FMJ will be more effective.
Click to expand...

What kind of cover would be better negated by an FMJ pistol bullet than a JHP pistol bullet, and what kind of situation do you envision where you are firing at someone who is hiding behind solid objects that doesn't end with either a police standoff and shooting of you or a murder trial?

JHP bullets penetrate less than an equivalent FMJ bullet in heavily liquid mediums, like living tissue, but in dry materials like furniture and walls they behave identically, there is almost no difference between the two after passing through a couch or cabinet. Loading FMJ because you think your opponent is likely to have sought cover strikes me as a poorly thought out plan. If your entire magazine is JHP, then if he takes cover and you still feel like he is a legitimate threat, bullets passing through that cover at worst will behave like an FMJ bullet of the same weight and velocity. At best they will perform close to the way they were intended to, expanding once they hit tissue and causing more damage than an equivalent FMJ.

You gain literally nothing by loading the rest of your magazine with FMJ, and lose much-needed terminal performance. Honestly if you're stuck trying to keep yourself alive, you want the deck stacked as heavily as possible in your favor, and just repeating that FMJ has served militaries and killed people just fine for a century ignores the reality that in a service pistol, a proper JHP load is in every way a better choice.

Unless your pistol refuses to feed them, in which case you have a hardware issue, because just about every modern pistol will run with any in-spec JHP, and the ones that won't usually don't take much coaxing to get right.
 
I don't often carry a 9mm, but when I do I carry Remington Golden Saber 124. Stay hungry my friend.
 
Hornady CD is the round I would trust most to expand the most consistently, which is extremely important. I don't like carrying a lighter weight bullet at modest velocities. I want something with a little more power. The WWB 147gr HP and Supreme 124gr PDX1 have not had reliable expansion as much as other rounds.

There are much better choices out there. I would carry first the Federal HST 147gr, second the Winchester Ranger-T 147gr and third, the Speer Gold Dot 124gr+P.

I currently carry the Ranger-T but the HSTs seem to be more reliable and have greater expansion. They're definitely on my 'buy' list. The Speer Gold Dot or Hornady Critical Defense do seem more 'politically correct' if that matters at all since you can buy them over the counter at a local sporting goods store. The HSTs or Ranger-Ts are packaged for L.E. use and you will probably have to order them online. To the best of my knowledge, there are no laws prohibiting these rounds to be owned by civilians. You can also get Gold Dots in L.E. packaging. They'll run about half the price compared to the Gold Dots in civilian packaging.
 
Lama said:
For my carry gun, the first two shots are Hornady Critical Defense. After that, I use Federal FMJ. My thinking is that if you don't bring down your target in the first couple of shots, your target will probably be behind cover, and the FMJ will be more effective.
Click to expand...

.......really?.....:scrutiny::confused:

If you want to go to prison for shooting through cover at a person who is probably fleeing and hiding from you (you know that's what a prosecutor would say regardless of the circumstances), go ahead.
Sorry, but choosing to carry FMJ for personal defense against people is plain stupid. As mentioned above, hollow points will probably penetrate hard objects just as well as FMJs because hollow points open hydraulically.

Please be more responsible in your carry ammo choice. Expanding rounds are much safer than FMJs (as long as you're not the one being shot) for a wide variety of reasons.
 
My defense 9MMs, Glock 19 and Kahr PM-9, are loaded with Speer 124gr +P JHP for defense. It's proven itself a dependable performer. Most importantly I can purchase 50 rd boxes for less than $30. (I use this load simply to maintain ammo commonality between the two guns.)

If the Glock 19 was my only 9MM defense pistol then I'd choose Federal 147gr HST, which is an excellent performer and can also be purchased for less than $30 for 50 rounds.

I don't recommend Hornady Critical Defense Ammo because it's specialty ammo. It's designed to perform well against attackers who are wearing light to heavy clothing only. It's not designed to perform well against other barrier materials that can be encountered during CCW (automotive windshield glass & sheet metal). See: "A Word of Caution about Hornady’s Critical Defense Handgun Ammunition": at http://www.firearmstactical.com/tacticalbriefs/2006/04/main.htm
 
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After eliminating any load that is less than 100% reliable in YOUR GUN, use the one that is most accurate/that YOU shoot the best with.

Shot placement is the most important factor in stopping the threat.
 
When I carried my glock 19, I prefered Speer Gold Dot 124gr +P. I think this is one of the most accurate round out of the G19, and it has an excelent record for expansion through all kinds of cloths. Generally, and each gun varries, I find the 4-5" 9x19 shoot 124-135gr closer to point of aim better than most other weights. All other factors aside, shoot what is closest in POA/POI for YOUR G19. Good luck.
 
Other

...

In any of my 4" barreled 9mm's - without doubts

147gr JHP Winchester Ranger for both my 9mm's and 180gr w/any of my 40cals

winchesterranger-t-new-1.gif

Cleanest, most consistent, accurate, shooting ammo - without doubt

OMMV


Ls
 
At the moment my 9mm carry ammo is 124 grain +P Winchester PDx1.

I'd be just as happy with Gold dot or Federal HST, but I try to stick with 124 grain +P. I'm not opposed to standard pressure, but I think that extra velocity edge is worth a little extra recoil.

For my carry gun, the first two shots are Hornady Critical Defense. After that, I use Federal FMJ. My thinking is that if you don't bring down your target in the first couple of shots, your target will probably be behind cover, and the FMJ will be more effective.
Click to expand...

Do yourself a favor and overcome this outdated and erroneous line of thought.
 
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