Those crazy Europeans and the 9mm

A 9mm may expand but, a .45 will never shrink. So, I think I'll take a .45 with my twinky thank you.

*PS*

This posting was tongue-in-cheek and not meant for reading by those with no sense of humor.

The 9mm does everything that I and many others here as well as in Europe have and/or will need it to do. Most folks don't need an 8 mpg monster SUV to drive back and forth to work and most folks who CCW don't need a .45 ACP to defend themselves. Modern 9mm HPs will get the job done. Better to invest ego in the accuracy of your shots rather than the size of your...bullet. Dennis

Choices of caliber in Europe...

Perhaps they don't complain because they are not accustomed to being allowed an opinion. Or......perhaps they haven't had any experience with anything other than the 9.

Oh good, another 9mm vs the world thread.

The efficiency of the 9mm round is questioned in only one place in the world. The USA. When you stop listening to uncle Henry telling you how in WWII he shot a guy in the thumb with a .45 and knocked him down, and look at the ballistics, you will quickly surmise that the differences are really not that great. The 9mm will get the job done if you do your part. The .45 will not forgive the "doing your part" bit, just because it is bigger and heavier. If you doubt the efficiency of the 9mm...can you say "Virginia Tech?"

Check out some of the tests done by this site. It is very informative and entertaining.

can you say "Virginia Tech?"

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Ok as stated above i carry a 9 but i will now call for a mod to look close at the thread and imho lock it as it can now sink no lower than that comment .

call for a mod to look close at the thread and imho lock it as it can now sink no lower than that comment .

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While VT was a horrible tragedy it is relevant to the conversation. We often discuss th FBI Miami shootout, why not this?

Quote:
call for a mod to look close at the thread and imho lock it as it can now sink no lower than that comment .

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I certainly don't condone what happened at Virginia Tech. It was a horrendous tragedy that should have never happened. But it did. My comment was not intended to be inflamatory or hurtful to anyone. But Virginia Tech is a fact, and so is the damage dealt by an untrained individual armed with a 9mm and a .22. If the comment was perceived as being in poor taste by anyone, then I apologize.

That soldiers rarely kill the enemy with their pistols, so a 9mm is as good as a .45 is as good as a .32.

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Actually by the time a Marine must transition to his pistol, he does need to neutralize the enemy. The 9mm penetrates better than the 45 through humans, and some other stuff. For the military that is very important.

IIRC, U.S. Navy Seals and Israeli Defence Forces aren't too keen on issuing pistols of any sort.

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I don’t know about the IDF, but I don’t know of any SEAL’s that do not carry a sidearm, when on a mission.

If you think they're counting on being able to kill someone with 9mm ball (which is what military men worldwide are restricted to), be my guest.

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Yea, the Germans have been using it successfully only since 1905. I guess in your book, the Germans don’t do war or weapons of war very well.

Our own SEAL’s see no reason to go to 45. Why, because the 9mm works. I realize to some folks who think bigger is better, that may be a shock.

I don’t know whether it is true or not, but a SEAL officer was attributed with saying while speaking of 9mm vs. 45. “If I Put two in your chest and one in your head, what does caliber have to do with it?“

Remember 9mm para. is not a first-line offensive cartridge so id doesn not need to perform like a rifle ammo.

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No pistol, cartridge will. Including 45acp. There is a reason That virtually every submachine gun in the world is still made in 9mm.

For years a lot of them carried 7.65 so the 9mm was a huge improvemnt.

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Once again, not the Germans. In fact the British carried the .455 Webly, and went to the 9mm. Again no problems.

A .45 ACP has twice the weight of a 9mm meaning "vast power improvement?" A slow rolling bowling ball produces twice the "momentum" of a .45 ACP round.

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You may talk about momentum, that is not power. Energy is power. The 45 is less powerful than the 9mm.

No less pro 45 luminaries as LTCol Cooper and Chuck Taylor admitted that the 45 struggled to get adequite penetration. Unlike the 9mm which for 80 years the knock was 'over penetration'. Some folks just can't seem to make up their minds.

As for bullet proof vests, the hand gun cartridge that penetrates them best is a 9mm. Not 45, not 40, the 9mm.

But we're talking about ball ammo here, so I don't know if most of our reasons for saying "nine is fine" really apply. Nobody's going into combat with a pistol as their primary weapon that I'm aware of, though.

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Actually many are. Officers, many Staff NCO’s and NCO’s etc.

Why do they have pistols in the first place? I'd rather have a spare rifle mag and an extra twinky.

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When you do need a pistol, such as when your rifle has failed to function. In Vietnam several times I had to give my revolver to a trooper who’s M16 had failed (I carried a M14 most of my time there, it never jammed on me). If you get over run, in the trenches, bunkers, or holes the handgun is much easier to handle. Your rifle just ran dry as that NVA drops into your hole. The “New York Reload” is much faster than reloading when up close and personal.

I have known very few troopers that given the opportunity to carry a sidearm as a secondary weapon, that they didn’t avail themselves of that option. The main reason is in a word SURVIVAL.

YMMV

Go figure.

Fred

And the US army carries what? A 9mm!

Its a great round. People who talk down 9mm and praise .45 are beyond my comprehension. Why stop at 45 why not 357, 44, 50AE, etc!

9mm is a great round which easily handled and best suited for combat due to accuracy and magazine capacity.

On the top of everything 9mm offer variety of rounds, which can be better than 45s...like armour piercing rounds.

Ammunition compatibility I would imagine.
9mm fits SMG and other long guns within a Dept/Agency/ Military, add being compatible with other Depts/Agencies/Militarizes.

One of the reasons why the 9mm was the caliber chosen "officially" by the US to be compatible with NATO and other forces.


Growing up, .38spl ammunition was the caliber and where I grew up, Model 10 was the issued sidearm for Cops.
Now, State Boys were issued Model 19s and carried .357 loads, Sheriff Depts were a mix of Model 10 or Model 19.

Add FBI, Secret Service, Treasury Dept, US Marshalls, and again while these were issued Model 19s and later 66s, the carry load was .38spl, 158 gr LSWCHP

All these Depts, could use .38spl, even the ones that carried .357s, such as the State Boys.

Then again, back then qualifications were set out to 50 yards, not feet, yards and these folks, men and women, could shoot.

There is no way to answer this definitively, but the last thing I would do is rely on the experience of European armies to determine my choice of calibers.

A better question to ask is: How many U.S. police departments and government agencies still rely on the 9mm? Because I'm sure they do a lot more shooting under fire than any European army has since 1945.

The US military chose the round not because it was proven more effective than .45, but because they needed a round that girls could fire. And all other things being equal, the pistol is the smallest of small arms, and not worth worrying about.

Go figure: We're having problems stopping people with 5.56 mm. So do you still want to rely on the decisions of military bureaucracy as the last word in stopping power?

Personally, I choose the 9mm over the .45 because of penetration. But I would never count on FMJ 115-grain NATO ammunition to do anything else but punch little holes in paper targets.

Furthermore, I like the 9mm over other cartridges for several reasons. First of all, I like the pistols chambered for it, I like the ability to make quick follow-up shots, I like that it penetrates better, and I like having double-stack magazines.

However, I don't count on any hollow-point bullet to expand all the time. But those are the limits of the caliber, and I accept them. What I won't do is try to convince other people they don't exist.

Snarling Iron said:

But Virginia Tech is a fact, and so is the damage dealt by an untrained individual armed with a 9mm and a .22. If the comment was perceived as being in poor taste by anyone, then I apologize.

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I've said this before, and I'll say it again: The Virginia Tech killer was not facing down a single armed, aggressive, pumped-up attacker, experienced in violence, as you will if you are confronted by a criminal who has prepared himself to hurt you.

Sure, you could say the VTech massacre proves that 9mm works if you're shooting a bunch of scared people who can't fight back or escape from you. It proves that 9mm works great if you can put round after round into their prone bodies after you've already taken careful aim at their vitals.

Does that sound like a gunfight to you?

No wonder the Germans love it. It fits perfectly into their WW2 history.

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.40 cal is a solution to a non-existent problem in my opinion, and an abomination to JMB for being made in a BHP later on.

My take, simple case of marketing BS.

I do not do .40, 9mm or 45ACP is proven, and was way before this ctg was hyped up.

The reality is, all we need for guns and calibers were designed by the year 1935, we can extend this time to the year 1955 if we need the .44 Magnum.

I find it funny as hell, how many folks talked down the 9mm, even those against the Military testing at the time "even considering" the 9mm to replace the 45ACP in testing and all the guns, and especially when the Beretta 92 was chosen in 9mm...

Mel Gibson with a Beretta 92 sold more Beretta 92 in 9mm to these same folks that were so adamant about changes in guns and calibers.

Amazing what Marketing thru Movies will do....
Applies to Lowest Bidder and dirty deals to get .40 cal in Police Depts too.

My son in law did 2 combat tours with the Cav in sandland and his opinion is any handgun is just to tide you over until you can get to your rifle - I agree. If you can put shots where you want/need to, the caliber is pretty much just a matter of personal preference. I own .22, .380,.9mm, .40, and .45 and all will do the required duty if I do my part...

For the life of me, I cannot understand how you people want to cite the experience of European armies, all of whom lost (or in the case of the Brits, nearly lost) the last war they were in, to support your choice of handgun calibers.

I don't think they have anything to teach us.

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Pistols are for REMF clerks, officers, and people who shoot prisoners in the back of the head. In any of all of those cases, caliber is irrelevant. I'm sure a 9mm ball pistol is better than no pistol than all, but that doesn't make it the best pistol in all cases. Over here, in the United States, I don't need to draw upon any of those experiences to make my decisions.

The Soviets, who've done a lot of fighting, issued .30 caliber and weak 9mm pistols to their officers, a fact which I believe endorses the pistol's relative lack of importance to that force.

I don't think pistols decide who wins or loses a war.

"What do they know that we don't?"
The 9mm was first developed in Europe for the Luger P-08. It became the German Service Pistol Cartridge. They kept the cartridge and went to the Walther P-38. As Germany was on the leading edge of technology, other countries built guns in the same caliber. Spain: Astra 600, Belgium: BHP, Poland: Radom, Finland: Lahti, Italy: Beretta Brigadier etc. The .45 was developed by the U.S. The 9mm has been entrenched in Europe for 100 years. The .45 has been entrenched here for the same.
As has been mentioned, the 9mm has some superior training advantages in those countries that don't have a gun culture as we do.

Applies to Lowest Bidder and dirty deals to get .40 cal in Police Depts too.

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Do you have citations as proof of this or is this just speculation?

For the military, and possibly a few very large law enforcement agencies, I don't think that you can have a better handgun caliber than the 9mm.

But this has more to do with logistics than actual anti-personnel effectiveness.

I just bought a .45, but I'm already dreading buying ammo for it. Whitebox at Walmart is now about $27 with tax..

nutz!

Maybe the nine would have more respect had it been called the "7.65 Magnum," since it was developed from the case of that unspectacular round with the bottlenecked bullet.

re knock down power

On duelling trees you see knock down power.

Of course people read the term literally and get confused, in general. But shooting steel plates, about 1/5 to 1/10 times the 9mm will hit the plate but the plate will not have enough work done on it to knock it over.

Do you have citations as proof of this or is this just speculation?

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At one time some notes on a Floppy and I have no idea where that Floppy went.

LEOs , active, retired, and reserve that used a private range shared how Glock came in and would offer to send the Armorer to Glock Armorer school offer to buy all existing issued guns, sell New Glocks really less expensive .
Low ball, and the HK rep was totally pissed!

Armorer and TPTB would get targeted with hype, and the .40 was hyped big time.

One of our guys, retired SWAT, another a gun smith, and one of the ladies and I watched this shin-dig .
NObody liked the Glock, and everybody hated the .40.

SWAT fellow just making shooting downrange 50 yards, not feet, yards with 1911s and Model 19s and "you folks come to shoot or breath our air?'

H&Ks got one Dept partial , and all 10 guns that came out that morning would not run...all in the wunnerful over hyped .40 of course.

The old timers with some seniority and pull said screw it, especially after the Sigs rusted...
These guys and gals went back to 1911s, BHPs, Model 19/66 and some carried .41 and .44s

Give me a pallet of .40 and two each of Sig, Glock and HK, and I will swap for older used Model 19, model 36, Ithaca 37 Riot and Model 94 in 30-30 with only a case of ammo for each.

Actually we did do this...





BHPs and 1911s are proven, have a history and nobody in the work and all I am familar with would carry a Glock, HK, or Sig, and especially in a .40

We used BHPs, 1911s Model 10/64, Model 19/66, J frames, and vehicle guns, such as I used, were Model 29 with full house .44 magnum loads.