broken picture links repaired . . .


Chronograph Data for 9mm Luger LE Loads  (part 1)

As we all know, the muzzle velocities that ammunition manufacturers advertise for their ammunition and the muzzle velocities that we actually obtain from our CCW or duty weapons are rarely the same. Most often the velocities from our carry weapons will be lower than that advertised by the manufacturers.

It’s not that the manufacturers are trying to deceive us. It’s just that they tend to use “test barrels” to obtain their velocity readings. These test barrels usually have minimum spec SAAMI chambers and tend to be slightly longer the barrels typically found in carry weapons. These factors combine to give higher velocities than those from a typical carry weapon.

For this test session I examined fifteen different 9mm Luger “LE” loads from three different manufacturers, in three different pressure ranges (standard, +P, +P+) in four different bullet weights. The SAAMI specification for the maximum average pressure for a standard 9mm Luger load is 35,000 PSI. The 9mm Luger +P (pronounced plus-P, indicating higher pressure) load is specified at 38,500 PSI. To my knowledge, there is no SAAMI spec for +P+ loads.


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Four of the different bullet designs that were examined in this session:

Federal HST
Federal Hydra-Shok
Winchester Ranger-T
Speer Gold Dot


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All of the loads examined for this session come loaded in nickel-plated brass cases as exemplified by the Winchester Ranger-T round shown below. (Note the alien pod-like appearance of the round. One can’t help but wonder if the engineers at Winchester were subconsciously influenced by a certain science fiction movie.)


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In the Speer Gold Dot design, you can clearly see the petals of the copper jacket that extend over the mouth of the hollow point and down into the cavity of the hollow point. The Gold Dot design also leaves some of the lead core exposed at the mouth of the hollow point. The Gold Dot also utilizes a bonded jacket/lead core construction.


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The petals of the copper jacket in the Winchester Ranger-T bullet also extend down into the mouth of the hollow point, but have a tear-drop shape to them. As previously noted, the rim of the hollow-point on the Ranger-T is a series of semi-circular ridges.


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The Federal HST bullet has the most unique design of the bullets examined in this session. Note how the lead core at the mouth of the hollow point has water-drop shaped cut-outs. Also note the very long skives in the copper jacket that extend almost to the case mouth and the very deeply notched shape of the skives.


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The signature center “post” of Federal’s older design Hydra-Shok bullet can be seen below.


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Chronographing was conducted using an Oehler 35-P chronograph with “proof screen” technology. All velocities listed are muzzle velocities as calculated from the instrumental velocities using Oehler’s Ballistic Explorer software program. All strings of fire consisted of 10 rounds each.


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I chose a 9mm SIG Sauer P229 with its traditionally rifled barrel as the test vehicle as a representation of a pistol that might be carried on duty or as a CCW piece. The barrel on the 9mm P229 is 3.8” long. The factory barrel used for testing had 200 rounds through it prior to the beginning of this test session.


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Atmospheric conditions were recorded on a Kestrel 4000 Pocket Weather Tracker.


Temperature: 72 degrees F
Humidity: 26.8%
Barometric pressure: 30.03 inHg
Elevation: 950 feet above sea level


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The data.

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You may have noticed the “SB” nomenclature for one of the Speer 124 grain loads. It stands for “short barrel.” Speer states they have:

“created an entire category of specialized ammunition designed specifically for back-up guns. . . . We redesigned select Gold Dot bullets to make the cavity larger for reliable expansion at the reduced velocities common to short barrel handguns. . . if a semi-auto is your gun of choice, our offerings are ideal for expansion in barrels as short as three inches.”

The barrel of a Kahr MK9 measures 3.0” in length, so I chronographed the “short barrel” Speer load through an MK9 for comparison to the SIG P229. (I also chronographed the three other Speer loads for further comparison.) The factory barrel in the MK9 had 820 rounds through it prior to this test session. It is interesting to note that the 147 grain load showed the lowest percentage of velocity loss through the MK9.


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Comparison data.

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Besides using the actual muzzle velocities in external ballistic calculations, one of the many other interesting things that the actual muzzle velocities can be used for is calculating the comparative recoil energies of particular handgun/ammunition combinations.


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to be continued . . .

Good to see you posting in handgun ammunition Molon. Great stuff BTW Thanks. I seem to remember something similar (with fewer calibers) from a while back. I'm glad you tested more. I have a PM9 so this really saves me some trouble.

Part 1 as posted above is actually the same material I had posted before, but that thread had gone to archive, so I reposted it so that it is acessable from my "links" thread and so that the original info is viewable when I post part 2.

Good post as usual

Have you ever done a similar test for 40??

Thanks for the information––as already said––great, no, great doesn't say enough––professional––you do such professional, engineer-caliber (pun unintended) work. I'm always impressed by your thoroughness.

Thank you again.

Outstanding, as usual. Interesting to note +P outperforming +P+ in the same weight and from the same manufacturer. Also interesting to note only a 50fps difference between 124 HST and 124 +P HST.



124 HST is what I load in the BHP because it is 100% reliable with that ammunition. Everything else gets 147 HST.

Not a lot for a rifle, but 50fps in a pistol is a good amount.

Interesting that 147gr HST +p is just barely faster than the standard pressure stuff.

Sure, but I think that people who buy +P are thinking that they're getting more than 50fps extra.



 

Thanks Molon. I appreciate your effort.



I thought I'd seen this one before. Consider this a tag for part 2.

Good info.  One of my reloading manuals (Lyman I think) has a table where they fired identical loads through 16 different service revolvers.  Even with identical barrel length, there was several hundred FPS difference between guns.

Love your write ups!

Thanks again

I wonder if some of them had excessive cylinder/barrel gap.

I'm guilty of this.

I don't see how 50 fps could make really any difference in terminal performance. I could be wrong, but intuitively that doesn't seem like it should be true. I have 147grain +p HST loads in my G19 but I also have the standard pressure load too. Looks like I could with either one and be fine....14 fps difference (in this particular load) is nothing.

Thanks for the data Molon!

Thanks for the great writeup!

What I think you get is a little more penetration.  This appears to be backed up by published gel results.  Thanks to Molon for a great write up.

I'm really surprised at the lack of difference between normal, +p and +p+ velocities...

Thanks Molon.

- AG

thanks

i carry a sig 226 w/ 147 gr. ranger t's and for some reason i thought the FPS would be faster

Thanks for the great writeup Molon I learned a few things.

I chronographed a number of +P loads from Cor-Bon and was pleasantly surprised to find the velocities all as advertised.

Fantastic job.

Great information, thanks a lot. Would love to see a gel test with that. Whatever happened to that Swiss woman who was was doing all those tests? Was it Tanya? It's been a while.

Interesting that the Federal HST 147gr. Standard and +P load only have a 15 fps difference in velocity.

I have read something awhile back which gave me pause because it refuted the common notion that I long believed:

Former belief:  use +P ammo in short-barrelled guns to get the highest velocities possible.

What I read was: the shorter the barrel the less difference its going to make.  The bullet is in the barrel for less time leaving most of the extra powder unburnt.  Very little extra velocity for the added recoil, blast and flash.

I though that was interesting.  Better to go with a bullet design- like HST - which does not require super high velocity to work its magic.

As the poster above mentioned in most cases there really isn't a big difference between standard and +P.  

4073

Wierd.  Some recent posts to this thread, including one of mine, seem to have vanished into cyberspace.

I use the 147gr Gold Dots in my PM9, it is good to see they still do better then 900fps from such a barrel.

Hey Molon.
Finally chrono'd that M39/b ammo you asked me about.
Details HERE:


Quoted in case my thread gets archived:

Sweet!  Just as I suspected, when fired from an actual pistol, M/39B has a significantly lower velocity than the claimed velocity of 1329 fps.  This leaves us to conclude that the claimed velocity is derived from either an extended test barrel (such as the 7.85" 9mm NATO EPVAT barrel) or from the sub-machine gun itself.

Since the bullet used in M/39B is such an odd weight, 109 grains, it's not possible for us to do an "apples to apples" comparison to modern 9mm Luger loads.  Modern loads of less weight and more weight have the following velocities.  Fired from a SIG Sauer P229 (with a 3.8" barrel) Hornady's 90 grain XTP load has a velocity of 1280 fps.  From the same SIG P229, Federal's 115 grain JHP 9BPLE load has a velocity of 1279 fps.

Cool.  This thread has been added to the reference links.

This is a phenomenal post... Thank you very much... I hated statistics in college, but now I think that I just needed something more interesting to derive.

Any thoughts on the rather anemic showing of the Range 147 T load? Winchester shows 990 FPS at the muzzle vs the 889 FPS you are showing.... thats a pretty significant difference....

Nothing "anemic" about it.  Federal claims that the 147 grain +P HST load does 1050 fps, yet only chronographed at 976 fps for a 74 fps difference.  As I explained in my first post, that's the nature of the beast between minimum spec test barrels and actual CCW pistols.  Add in the fact that it's not uncommon for manufacturer's internal specifications for ammunition to have tolerances along the lines of "plus or minus 50 fps" for example and you can easily obtain results as those shown with the Winchester load.  Also, that particular 10-shot string had the highest standard deviation of any of the strings tested, which means it probably had a few shots on the "low end" that brought the overall average down.  Had I done a full 30-shot string, the average velocity would probably have been a little higher.  

Thanks a lot Molon...
Appreciate it , class act

Thanks for that.

My daily CCW when off duty is a 9mm with 147grn SXTs.  Backup load is 124grn HST.

Some data I recorded today with an Oelher 35P, which if I have it programed as I believe I did, should be representative of velocity in feet per second.  All rounds fired from the same Glock 19.

Speer LE Gold Dot 147gr:

936, 947, 976, 953, 962, 948, 971, 968, 984, 957

Average velocity (M): 960 fps

Extreme spread (E): 48 fps

Standard deveation (S): 14 fps

Federal XM9HA 147gr JHP (HST projectile, but not a "Tactical HST" load):

1004, 993, 1011, 996, 1006, 1008, 993, 1016, 998, 1006

Average velocity (M): 1003 fps

Extreme spread (E): 23 fps

Standard deveation (S): 8 fps

My handload consisting of 147gr XTP over 6.6gr 3N38:

1062, 1062, 1066, 1080, 1068, 1079 ,1061, 1060, 1063

Average velocity (M): 1067 fps

Extreme spread (E): 18 fps

Standard deveation (S): 7 fps

*ETA, 8-28-10, Kahr PM9:

Speer LE Gold Dot 147gr:

890, 891, 892, 870, 879, 889, 870, 892, 868, 889

Average velocity (M): 883 fps

Extreme spread (E): 24 fps

Standard deveation (S): 10 fps

Thanks for the info!

The only question I have is between the 124gr or 147gr Fed HST +P loads. Is there a consensus from L. E. community as to which gets the job done better or is this a moot point and just go with the more accurate load for my individual pistols.

Edited : Thanks again for the the great work Molon.

You enter into an entirely different ballgame with revolvers. B/C gap plays a part, as do chamber and throat dimensions, the forcing cone, and the bore dimensions. I have about a dozen .357 revolvers, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a wide variance if I chrono'ed a given load through every one of the 4" guns.



 

For what it's worth, I've got chronograph data for Hornady Critical Defense 115 JHP, although it's not as extensive as yours.  This was done at about 80 degrees on a sunny day.  This is the average of three five-shot groups:

S&W M&P 4.25" - 1,099 fps

Kahr CW9 3.8" - 1,015 fps

In my Glock 19 I am getting 1027fps average over the chrony for the 147gr HST +P's. That is what I now load in that pistol.

My wife's Kahr CW9 has a shorter barrel than the G19. I use 124gr +P HST's for that one. I previously got ~1132fps average from a KelTec PF-9 (3" barrel), so I'm guessing the extra 0.5" that the Kahr has would only increase it more.

not enough to matter Notice the 357 sig has the same bullet going 138fps faster and only penetrates .1-.3" more.  50fps will not make a real-world difference... fwiw, the 357 was 1grain heavier too, that may have added to the increased penetration.

Also notice the 147grain load penetrated about .7" more than the .357sig.  These are all hst loads, and the 147grainers typically expand larger than the lighter rounds.  So with the 147grain standard velicity, you get a bigger, deeper hole than a comparable .357 sig round.



great review molon, as always.

Actually I don't think any of the .9mm/.357 bullets are HST.  The .357 is a Gold Dot and the 147gr. 9mm is a Winchester Ranger.  I'm not sure what the 124gr. 9mm is but it's not a HST.  My guess would be a Gold Dot or Ranger.  If it were a 9mm 124gr. HST it would be on the recommended ammo list for reaching 12"+ of penetration.

That image has been around far longer then there has been a HST .357SIG load.

How new of those Gold Dots?

Their base looks nothing like the pulled ones I bought

Would having used a pistol with polygonal rifling increased the velocity slightly?

Also, what is defined to be a "short barrel"? I had thought it was anything under 4", such as the Sig 229 and HK p30, however they seem to be putting out decent numbers from a shorter barrel than a full size.

The Ranger-T 147 grain, standard pressure load is  at the TOP of the  performance  spectrum in gelatin testing.
 As far as I know, no handgun round in any caliber outperforms  it.

I've got some new Gold Dots that came in about 2-3 weeks ago and the base looks just like the ones you've got posted. Since they have been out of stock I assume they are new.

147 grain HST??

So could one reasonably assume that the Ranger-T 147 offering would be closer to factory velocity in a 5 inch gun?

Great writeup, thanks Molon!