I have been researching on CC calibers and have found that a lot os influential people in the gun world are giving up their larger caliber handguns for carry and switching to 9mm.

Why do you think that is I know the fbi is switching back to 9mm but the can't be the only reason.

Whats your thoughts and have you made the switch?

9mm is my favorite round for CC.

It's powerful enough to get the job done.
It's light enough to make rapid follow-up shots effective.
It's compact enough to permit carrying an adequate number of rounds.

3 perps, 3 rounds to stop each, 50% hit rate.
3x3x2 = 18 rounds

It's easy to carry 18 rounds of 9mm.

After18 years, I recently switched from carrying a full sized 1911 to Glock 9mm's.

I only own 9mm pistols (1 .38 revolver) it's easier to keep stock of 1 ammo.

I seldom carry 9mm for concealed (or open) carry.

I have a .45acp pistol that's just as small as a 9mm; so why carry a lesser cartridge?  There’s no law here that demands undetectable concealment (or any concealment for that matter) so I don’t see any need for smaller guns.

My carry rotation includes:
XDs in .45 for concealed carry (~45%)
Sig Carry Nightmare 1911 .45acp for open and concealed carry (~25%)
S&W 1076 10mm for open and concealed carry  (~25%)
Taurus Model 85 in .38 Special (~2%)
Glock G20SF for open carry while hiking and backpacking (~2%)
Sig P239 in 9mm for occasional open and concealed carry (~1%)

It's amusing that the FBI, after losing agents in the Miami Shootout, are considering the 9mm again after pretty much blaming it for the deaths.  I know it wasn't the fault of the 9mm as much as the "energy dump theory" that had agencies shooting very light bullets fast.

I switched to 9mm from .45 a few years ago.

Cheaper to train with, at the time it was easier to find where I live, and I had just bought a G19 which I preferred over my XD45 compact. A contemporary self defense loading for 9mm is nothing like the ones of the 1980's, and is arguably as good as modern self defense offerings in .40 and even .45 (arguably).

I switched from 45 to 9mm:

-cheaper training
-allowed me to up my round count carried
-allowed me to carry a smaller gun (1911 to HK P2000SK)
-faster follow up shots
-standardized  caliber with wife
-similar lethality as per the recently released FBI white paper

1st post pretty much nails it!!

They lost men because they didn't have rifles.  Rifles beat handguns.

I made (or am in the process of making) the switch to all 9mm for carry. Duty gun at the PD job will be a G19 (when we go out to qualify), backup and off duty is a Shield 9mm.

9mm today is nowhere near what 9mm 10+ years ago was, it is a LOT better. I'm comfortable with it. It allows good ammo capacity, lower recoil, quicker follow up shot times, cheaper practice ammo, all at pretty much comparable performance to .40 and .45. It is a smaller round, size-wise, which allows it to be chambered in smaller guns without obnoxious recoil or absurdly low mag capacities.

Bottom line, as long as you are comfortable with a particular gun, carry it. 9mm makes a lot of sense nowadays, but that doesn't mean that .40 and .45 won't work, too. Find a gun and cartridge you like and carry on.

Bub75

9mm is where I'm at 99% of the time.  The other 1% it's 10mm.

I'd love to have something smaller to carry for that 99% of the time, but to get a smaller gun I'd have to drop to 380ACP which just doesn't cut it for me.

Of course cost is the reason.  No shame in admitting the truth.

I am in the proscess of standardizing my family on the Glock 19.  That said I will keep a .40 or two around because after the last two ammo crises it was teh first centerfire handgun round to reappear on the store shelves in my area.  9mm did not start staying on the shelf in my area until two or thee months ago.

And here we go!

Handguns suck. There is more than a little data to back up the modest difference in performance between 9mm, .40 and .45 ACP. The reduce cost of ammo and components allow me to shoot more, the guns hold more ammo, recoil is modest, etc.

I really don't care what other people carry, more power to you.

This and I primarily CC .40 because its what my agency carries and what all the agencies were carrying when I started CC.  

I have an M&P 9 and a G26 that are getting more and more carry time though.  

Because I can comfortably carry 31 rounds of 147 gr bonded goodness on me, concealed, extremely easily.

If I'm really feeling froggy I'll go .45acp, .40 S&W is a solution still in search of a problem. Maybe one day it will find it.

Folks need to consider cost of training ammo.

Like a lot have said, 9mm.

With a single stack compact model like many that are out these days (I have a S&W Shield), you can get something quite small and slender, but still have a very capable round.

The only reason I would carry anything else is that I found a Walther (Interarms) PPK/s recently that is identical to a stainless one I sold over a decade ago and regretted doing so ever since.

More bullets, less recoil.

I carry a Glock26 9mm, beats a bat, or large stick. I've been shot by a .22, and cried like a sissy girl for a week, sure a 9 will do the same.

I've ditched 9mm purely for availability reasons.

After both panics (2009 and 2013) 9mm flew off the shelves and was/is slow coming back on. I got tired of not being able
to shoot when I'd like to. I wish I could afford to buy ammo online by the case, but I can't.

So, for me it's .45ACP (which I've always owned, anyway) and now .40S&W.  I have plenty of .45ACP stockpiled over the years
and .40 seems to be the one pistol cartridge always available during both Panics.

My main carry guns are 9mm, but I have a few spare guns in 40 for this reason.  During the last "panic" when 9mm and 45 were hard to find, 40 was still available.  My Glock 9's and 40's use the same holsters and everything, so all I have to do is swap guns and magazines.

Here's a good write up on this subject.

http://www.thebangswitch.com/the-fading-40/

I'm not arguing the tactics and causes, I'm only pointing out what the FBI concluded.  They believed (for real or not) that had that one 9mm round fired early in the engagement penetrated deeper, the fight would have ended prior to the agents deaths.  It’s a true statement on its face, but doesn’t contribute to the cause; it’s merely an interesting note.  

The belief common at the time was the ‘energy dump’ theory.  A light bullet will travel faster than a heavy bullet if you put the same charge behind them.  (I remember some company even came out with a bullet design that was hollow through the center)  Anyway, the idea was that a light bullet moving very fast would “dump” its energy into the bad guy’s body and incapacitate him faster.  That’s what happened when the agent fired his 9mm- the bullet dumped most of its energy into the arm of the bad guy and had little left when it hit his chest, where it stopped just shy of his heart.  

So the FBI went looking for a new round that could be used in both a handgun and sub-gun.  An interesting side-note you’ll discover when you read about the Miami shootout is that the FBI concluded that their weaker 10mm round was as effective as the 230gr .45acp round, at least too close to call.  But it was decided that BOTH the 9mm and .45acp had reached their pinnacle of development, in other words, both cartridges were already all they were ever going to be.  With our 20-20 hindsight we know that wasn’t completely true, but the FBI reasoned that the 10mm was on its way up, and thus had more room for improvement.  

It’s interesting that there are still people clinging to the past, especially in 9mm bullet performance.  Some still believe in light-&-fast (115gr) and that the 147gr is a substandard round.  Like I mentioned, there was still a little room for improvement in both the .45acp and the 9mm in terms of bullet design.  Tests show the 147gr 9mm to be more effective than the 115gr loadings.  I would not be uncomfortable armed with a 9mm handgun for citizen self-defense whatsoever if that 9mm bullet poking out of the case was a 147gr.  

I have to roll my eyes when people bring up the capacity argument though.  I’ve been searching for years trying to find a case where a citizen firing in self-defense lost the fight because their reload time was too slow, or they had no reload.  I would rather have nine rounds of .45 in the gun (with another 8 or 16 rounds available) than 18 rounds of 9mm, especially if those 9mm rounds were 115gr or 124gr.  So I have to wonder what people used to decide that a fistful of 9mm is somehow ‘better’ than  nine .45 or 10mm rounds, in other words, what event or incident led one to believe it was better.

That’s an interesting read.  (I've never owned a .40S&W for most of the reasons cited in that piece)  However police shootouts are vastly different from citizen shootouts.  Like I mentioned, I’ve been searching for years trying to find a case where a citizen firing in self-defense lost the fight because their reload time was too slow, or they had no reload.  For the police, who are obligated to engage and remain engaged, capacity is a dear friend.  For citizen self-defense however, you may only ever get a few shots off before it’s time to reevaluate why you’re in this fight, or hand the fight off to the suckers with the badges.  

If I were reading a lot of (or any) stories of Joe Citizen losing his self-defense gunfight because his gun only had six rounds in it, or because he couldn’t change his magazine fast enough, I’d switch over to a mondo-capacity 9mm.  I still haven’t found that to be true though.

There's another article on the same subject on The Bang Switch but I couldn't find it. Personally I carry one 15 round magazine with one in the chamber and a backup 17 round magazine. Will I ever have to fire all those rounds in self defense? Probably not but I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

If I feel comfortable with the pistol I really don't care if it is 45,40 or 9.

I shoot my 45s the best but 9mm usually has about double the capacity.  

40 has been a great choice for me the last couple of years because ammo is easy to find and more ammo means more practice.

And that's what really matters! What works best for you?

I love my 9mm Shield, but I've been able to stockpile FAR more 180 gr HST for my G23.  So in ARF tradition, I keep/use both.  Hope someday Ill be able to up my 147 gr HST stock.

I carry 9mm not because I can carry a huge number of rounds but because I can carry a smaller gun.  My P2000SK only has 10+1 but it's much smaller than my old 1911. Yes I know that there are smaller 9mm subcompacts but I shoot the SK very well.

This. My CM9's have the same capacity as my old Detonics .45, but at less than half the weight. Put another way, I can carry both my CM9's loaded, or one CM9 and three spare magazines (25 rounds) for the same weight-cost as the 6+1 capacity I got with the detonics loaded with 185's.

In 9mm vs. 45acp, HST's or corbons make effectiveness a toss-up for me personally. So while I still have, love, and plan to keep my Detonics, other than slightly slower split times, I see no other downside to the CM9 instead.

9mm is my chosen carry round these days. I even traded the small .357s for small 9's. The way I figure it the 9 is easier to hit with due to the lessened recoil (especially on the small guns), has more capacity, and has excellent fight-stopping utility given the right ammo.



Also, 9mm  ammo is cheap and I like to shoot a lot with my carry guns.

9 mm is the way to go.  Good selection of defensive loads.  Compact and easy to conceal.  I carry a Shield in OWB when I can and a Kahr PM9 (front pocket).  I live in FL where the fewer clothes the better due to the heat in Summer.  If I lived in the north, I'd pack a 5 shot .357 or .44 Special wheel gun in the Fall, Winter and Spring.  I always carry a reload, BTW :)

I'm with raiderxd, whatever gun I have that goes bang and I can conceal.  I have always preferred shooting 9s for the fact that its cheaper and easier for me to shoot.  I can shoot .45 real accurately in the right gun, but I'm definitely slower.  None of that is a dealbreaker for carrying though.  But I've never been wrappedvl around the axle about the supposed lack of effectiveness of a 9mm.  Or a weaker caliber for that matter.  I've carried a .38 snub a lot more than anything else and I'm fine with that.  If I was going into high crime areas a lot, I would probably be more comfy with more power and capacity.

A 9mm has a few advantages over .40 or .45.  Lower recoil, cheaper to practice with, higher ammo capacity.

But, I like my .45 too.

Part of my though is whatever I carry, I need to practice with it. If I'm going to balk for a second at the cost for the price of a box of 40/45, I'm not going to shoot as much. 9mm does the job.

Caliber doesn't matter as much as shot placement.  If you can't make accurate shots every time with a .45, but you can with a 9mm, then carry the 9mm. I have carry guns in 9, .40, and .45, and feel comfortable carrying all of them.  To each their own.

9mm is a perfectly adequate lesser caliber offering greater capacity in a smaller gun with less recoil that most will shoot better.