Was the 9mm uncommon before the Wundernines?

Status
Not open for further replies.
MatthewVanitas

MatthewVanitas

Member
Joined
Dec 28, 2002
Messages
3,476
Location
Baltimore
Greetings. Recently I was pondering how the meteoric rise of the .40 S&W is lost on me, as I didn't get "into" guns until 1998 or so.

Then it struck me: for five years now I've taken it for granted that 9mm, .40 S&W, and .45 ACP are the "staple cartridges" of America, with .38 and .357 in addition.

But one might think that things were somewhat different before every guy with machine-tools was building a double-stack 9mm. Before the Glock 17 and the adoption of the M9, did many folks own 9mm pistols? Did practically every gunshop in the land stock 9mm ammo? Or was it considered an underpowered Euro-cartridge?

Were many 9mm firearms common in the US prior to, say 1975? I can think of the BHP, Lugers, and the S&W 39. Would appreciate the knowledge of those who lived through that time period, who can shed light on the rise and fall of cartridges.
 
The 9mm was and is the most popular cartridge chambered for pistols in the world.

Capacity has little to do with it.
 
1975... As I remember it...

In 9mm:

Lugers, P-38s, Colt Series 70s, Hi Powers & BDAs, Stars, and S&Ws.

In .45:

Colt Series 70s and S&W revolvers.
 
Hey The "generic" 9MM has been around for many years. The original wondernine for me was the Polish Radom. This pistol started production around 1935 and had a decocker, hammer retractor, grip safety, Commander style ring hammer and single stack 9MM magazine release a la 1911. There were mostly 25, 32, 380 and 7.62 automatics before the 9MM became a euro standard. The ultimate wondernine would be the WWI Luger with shoulder stock, hi-cap drum magazine and 8" barrel. Wondernine is subjective. I remember my first S&W 9MM. It was a POJ. The BHP was a also ran when compared to the success of the Walther P-38 or P1. There have been many wondernines like the Campo-Gyro too. They seem to be able to shoot just about anything in the 9MM family. The S&Ws, Colts and even Rugers have been slow to develop wondernines. Berretta even held back on their develpment of 9MM pistols until after WWII.
 
Although, as has been pointed out, the 9 is/was the world's most popular military round during the 1900's, they weren't very popular in the U.S. before the wondernine explosion. It was certainly around, but the military had .45's, and sport shooters generally favored revolvers (ah, the good old days), except for target shooters, who used highly tuned .45's.
 
As I remember, it seems that the big surge to 9mm followed the switch from revolvers to pistols that took place in law enforcement. Prior to that almost everyone that I can think of had a S&W 19 or other model as their defensive weapon. There were certainly other brands being used but the .357 was the big thing in handguns. Best, Mike
 
The first centerfire handgun I ever fired was a 9mm, in the early 1970s, out of a war bring back Luger. I don't remember the 9mm being considered a serious personal defense cartridge, although I was a kid at the time. I read every gun magazine I knew about (at least a half dozen a month, every month throughout most of my childhood). In fact I had talked my parents into allowing me to subscribe to all of them. I even got a gun related newspaper that was a weekly. Anyway, I remember my uncle briefly owned a BHP, a lot of people I knew had war trophys, but I don't remember reading a whole lot about the 9mm like you do today. Back then, as was mentioned, it was either the 1911, or more likely a revolver. I believe those were the glory days of the .357 revovler.
 
I don't recall many 9mm's in the early '70's. Everybody shot .38/.357's or .45ACP's. A lot of people thought the 9mm was underpowered and was just an oddity. There weren't as many good bullets and powders as now.
 
I don't believe people thought the 9mm was underpowered; they just did not give it much thought!! The .45 ruled the roost in the semi-autos and .38/.357 in the revolvers in America. It was S&W that pretty much pushed the 9mm on the American market with some nice pistols and they at the time considered the 9mm a 'potent' round. With improved ballistics since then how could it now be 'non-potent'?

During this time also the 9mms (incl. of the 'short') were the preferred round worldwide. Remember that the BHP pretty much ruled the roost from the 1930s coming up and it was chambered in 9mm. The Maks (.380) were also popular esp. in the Communist regimes.
 
There were certainly Hipowers, P38s, Lugers and S&W 39s around in the '50s and '60s. I remember reading a gunsmithing book from the time that dismissed the accuracy potential of the 1911 in favor of the inherent accuracy of the Luger.

On the other hand, when Sig-Sauer and Browning decided to import the P220 model in the seventies, they chose to offer it in .38 Super and .45, rather than the European standard of 9mm for that gun.

For Europe, 9mm was and is a military caliber. Not only were the majority of service pistols chambered for it, but ALL Western submachineguns were 9mm, and subguns remained a frontline fighting tool well into the '60s and '70s.

Interestingly, in Europe the 9mm was only starting to be embraced for police use during the seventies. The terrorist incident at the Munich Olympics made it a priority to get the police away from .32ACP into 9mm. The P5, P225 and P7 pistols were a direct result of that need.

So I would say that 9mm had a global coming of age in the late seventies and early eighties as it graduated from European military caliber to a worldwide military and police caliber. Whether coming up from .32 or down from .45 it is a potent, size efficient cartridge that was already a standard in some circles.

Those of you that feel that Europe "forced" 9mm on our military are wise to remember history. No one else wanted .308 or .223 either, we got our way on those.
 
I think the 9mm was fairly uncommon prior to the advent of the wundernines and adoption by the police forces of the high cap autopistol. As noted, Lugers, P38s, war trophies, the occasional S&W 39 were sometimes seen but not to the extent you see nines today. The big US autopistol with shooters was and still pretty much is the Colt 45.
 
Remember that in 1980 only 3% of cops in this country carried autos! For autos you then had the 1911 in 45 or the BHP in 9mm or for a concealable gun one of the 380s. Also in 1975 very little had been done with hollow points for auto , the guns weren't designed for it either. And you even had atricles in magazines that stated that only the reloading expert should should ever even attempt to reload autos.Then you had the very strong prejudice against auto (' those autos ain't reliable' ) despite the excellent record in war of the 1911 and BHP. Times have changed.
 
"The BHP was a also ran when compared to the success of the Walther P-38 or P1."

Josey show me 80+ countries using either for 68 years and counting.

The BHP was the ONLY hi-capacity 9mm auto available in the US through the late 60's. SW's first 9mm only held 8 rounds.

The 9mm came into its own in America in the early 70's with interest in Police departments looking at semiautomatic pistols. And to be frank, many of them were reluctant to use the venerable 1911/45 auto. Look up a gun digest from the era and you just won't see that many 9mms, there are a few, but the choices were limited compared to the market now.

BHP, Mauser-made commercial Lugers, SW mod. 59, Colt Commander, Llamas. Occasionally surplus lugers and p-38's.

It was an interesting point in the Zodiac case that the kiler used a 9mm pistol, fired 11 times without reloading. SFPD knew immediately that there was likely only ONE available handgun in America in 69 that could do that, the BHP. The killer was later spotted with a "military type handgun" many think this was a BHP mistaken for a 1911.

Outside gun historians and arms experts I doubt anyone knew what a Radom was.
 
You're right Mike; I should have specified I was talking about the 1970's time period - when certainly most of the winners at Camp Perry were using 1911's. I still remember (and may even have) the articles about Charlie Askins' Pachmyer .45 (way before the 70's)- "of course, any gun this highly tuned is no good for general use" - wonder what they'd say now! They (whoever they are) ought to reprint some of those old articles showing things like the Colt Woodsman .22 Mr Askins converted to centerfire for target use, but was banned from using at Camp Perry. I think the bullseye games in general receive short shrift in the popular gun press, although many of the advances we have today were created there. Maybe you could write some articles about King cockeyed hammers and other good stuff.
 
1975?

It was not until the mid-1980's that people started looking at the 9mm pistol. It was 1984 that the military officially adopted the Berretta 9mm pistol and that made a big splash in the news for the shooting public.
It was the 1985 Miami shootout that got the law enforcement to look at auto's, even then it was not until the late 1980's that many switched over to auto's.
I think what pushed many PD's from the .38 Special & .357 Magnum revolver over to the hicap 9mm auto was that the 'gangbangers were all going over to the high capacity 9mm semi-auto pistols. The police were feeling undergunned with their traditional 6 shot service revolvers while the crooks had like 15rds to their 9mm pistols.

Anyway, back about 1985 I would say that .357 Magnum revolvers and .45 auto pistols were the most popular. The 9mm was just getting noticed and it was really the high capacity that got people interested in them.
 
When I first got into shooting in the 1980's, 9mm used to be expensive compared to .38spl and .45ACP. It cost me more to shoot 9mm ball than it did .45ACP ball.

The introduction of wondernines and exploding popularity of such guns lowered 9mm ammo to what it costs today. We can thank TV and movies for this in legitimizing this caliber in the USA.
 
Tommy,

The 1985 Miami shootout was not a turning point for autos - the FBI was already issuing them. The Miami thing was the first downturn in 9mm popularity for LEOs. It was not followed by a flurry of auto selection, it was followed by period of discontent and adoption of NEW non-9mm guns.

Police departments had been converting in mass to 9mms since the early eighties. While the M9 wasn't official until 1984, the Beretta was the front runner in tests since 1977 or so - the shooting public and cops were aware of the gun. Ruger was said to have gotten in on the 9mm feeding frenzy late with the 1985 P85 and Steyr gave up on their GB wondernine in '85, feeling the craze was over. And big departments like NJHP had adopted their 9mms (P7M8s) as early as 1982.

The period you're talking about was when 10mm made it's big showing and .45 a comeback. A year or so later, .40.

Many departments allowed cops to transition at their discretion - that's why wheel guns remained common. Today's PDs are less flexible.


In 1975, you would only see a few autos, but they were there. "Blues Brothers" correctly shows IHP with 1911s and even the oddball P9S was seeing some issue, as well as the proven 39.
 
"Outside gun historians and arms experts I doubt anyone knew what a Radom was."

Don't kid yourself, Dr. Rob.

Radoms, while never available in the numbers that the P-38 or Luger were, were offered by numerous sources in the 1950s and early 1960s, and were fairly popular, to boot.

There were several articles/significant mentions of the Radom in American Rifleman in the 1950s and 1960s, and similar references in other firearms magazines, as well.

I've got a Radom. Great gun, but it's just not extracting the way it should.
 
Bob,

Yep, by the 1970s, the tide had certainly turned in competitive circles toward the .45.

Prior to that, though, the distribution was a lot more equitable.

There was an old photo hanging on the wall of one of the admin buidings at Camp Perry when I was going there for American Rifleman that showed a line of shooters just post WW II. A GOOD mixture of firearms -- 1911s and various types of revolvers.

As for writing articles, this website is the only gun writing I do anymore.
 
CWL,

I remember that, too!

I bought my Radom 9mm in 1982, just before I started college.

I used to balk at the price of even generic 9mm ammo! I'd hoard my brass for reloading, and be very upset when I couldn't find all of the cases!

I recently unearthed a box of American Eagle 9mm FMJ that I would have bought sometime probably before 1985...

$14.95! :eek:

Now, 20 years later, you can get a box of 9mm for what, $7 on sale?

I stopped reloading 9mm a LONG time ago.
 
When I bought my first centerfire in 1994, 9mm UMC at Walmart was around $10. Now ten years later it's $5.86.

At this rate it will be free by 2010.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

J
  • Locked
9mm Vs. .40 S&W?
2 3
Replies
70
Views
7K
Robert
Robert
R
  • Locked
9mm gets no respect...why?
2 3 4 5
Replies
103
Views
6K
Mike U.
M
H
  • Locked
Building a collection ...
Replies
15
Views
859
shiftyer1
S
M
  • Locked
I question some handgun cartridges
Replies
9
Views
744
McCall911
M
1
  • Locked
Ammo concern?
2
Replies
35
Views
2K
13Bravo
1
Back
Top