Since its been said Bullet Technology improved for 9mm have other calibers improved say for .40, .45ACP etc. I figure it has been have not seen much on it.

Yes they have advanced as well....but it always seems to be left out of discussions.

.40/10mm/.45 all received the same performance upgrades 9mm did.

all the premium bullets are good now

They have all undergone the same advancements, but the limits of the technology are still the same. Bullets can only expand so large while still sufficiently penetrating.Modern 45 bullets expand larger than past 45 bullets, but they can only expand so large. The biggest change is more reliable expansion. Bullets now are much more likely to expand, and now we have bullets that can expand after barriers such as car doors and windshields. 9mm maybe got the largest boost because with modern technology they can expand much larger than past 9mm offerings while also expanding more reliably. Some calibers, like 32 or 380 are still behind. No expanding 32 bullets consistently meet the FBI standard, if they even expand at all. And few 380s can expand and penetrate, most options either don't expand or expand little and penetrate, while others expand to the size of 9mm or even 40 cal bullets, but because of the expansion lack sufficient penetration

A heavier bullet at similar velocity is capable of expanding to a larger diameter while maintaining the same penetration. More momentum to spare means you can afford to lose more through medium resistance.

@OP: Yes.

In truth, the relative differences between the different calibers on exposed targets are probably about the same. It's barrier blindness where 9mm has made up the most ground.

Given that 70% of the available points in the FBI test basically revolve around barrier blindness, one can see where the conclusions come from.

This.  The options for quality bullets in all calibers that can excel at the job is huge right now (fotteging covid mania crap).

Yes.

9mm gets the attention because it needed help the most and it was able to be done well.  

.40 and .45 could do a better job than the old nine by nature of mass and energy.  Improvements made them better and less chance of expansion failures.

Good comment on the .32 acp and the .380.    That is a harder nut to crack as the margins to work are much tighter.  I still think with them you are better off with a bullet that will always feed and give you the most penetration to reach vitals.  A great reliable expander that cannot reach the vitals is not the way to go.   The cartridges just may not have the energy to do the penetration and expansion method.   Add in the .32 is very old with very old guns in circulation.  If powder tech can fix a .32 size bullet setup to expand and meet minimum penetration it will likely have to be done in a new modern chambering that doesn’t fit in legacy .32 ACP guns.

.380 I see may get there,....maybe.

Here is a little history on how bullets are the way they are today.

Before hollow points became mainstream, 9mm did what any other larger caliber FMJ did in the human body. It went through and through both sides in most cases. In a human body, it was equal to larger calibers like the .45 ACP FMJ. It did the same thing. Through and through.

When hollow points became mainstream, 9mm had a difficult time both expanding while penetrating enough. It would expand with no problem but it would penetrate shallow after that expansion. Much like .380 does today. It could not keep up with bigger calibers like the .45 or .357 Magnum in both expanding and penetrating sufficiently after expanding.

The FBI ran tests on many calibers after a 9mm HP had failed to penetrate enough for them after expanding in a high profile shootout and later determined after testing that a bullet needed to penetrate within 12 to 18 inches after expansion in gel to be effective. They adopted the 10mm because it was able to do that with no problem. They did not adopt the .45 because while it could easily penetrate enough after expanding, it was terrible against certain hard barriers. The .357 Magnum was able to expand and penetrate enough through those hard barriers that gave the .45 trouble but it was a low capacity revolver.

So 10mm it was. It was adopted but it gave them some problems however. It was able to both expand and penetrate sufficiently even though hard barriers but the handguns were larger, harder to conceal, and had more recoil affecting qualification scores. So what they did to to fix one of the problems was create lighter 10mm loads with less recoil. This fixed the qualification problems but they still had the bigger gun problem.

Smith and Wesson came to their rescue. They invented the .40 S&W. It was basically a downloaded 10mm in a smaller case that allowed them to get back the handgun size that they wanted and had with the 9mm.

Later on, advances in bullet tech allowed the 9mm to expand slower rather than violently like previous. This allowed it to reach the 12 to 18 inch window in gel. As more time went on, they were able to get most 9mm bullets to consistently do what .40 S&W was designed to do. The end result was that it equaled the .40 S&W. It passed the same tests that the .40 passed.

So now pretty much everyone uses 9mm. There is no need to use any other caliber really for self defense or police applications when the 9mm equals the .40 with less recoil.

What we are left with pretty much is 9mm for self defense and police applications and 10mm for woods carry in a semi auto. Those that carry the .40 or .45 are holdouts just the same as those that carry revolvers for self defense are holdouts. Most holdouts do not really know much about ballistics. The holdout calibers and platforms remain today and do not die off because there is a market for them.

But the FBI never issued the full power 10mm ammo to its agents. The “qualification problems” never existed in reality. Very few other agencies that adopted the 10mm ever issued full power ammo.

Add the fact that most people won't pay the extra to shoot improved/premium-bullet modern 9mm ammunition because performance is expensive.

The default was ho-hum bulk 9mm Ball at pre-crazy prices -- perhaps even more so now with rounds at $1 a shot and up.

This holdout prefers a .38 Super.  Yet I know many self proclaimed ballistics "experts" who declare that 9x19 is ballistically superior.

Go figure.

There’s full power which is how Underwood and Buffalo Bore loads their ammo now and then there’s what was considered full power at the time which was standard and how most manufacturers load their ammo which we consider watered down today.

The FBI started issuing 10mm at standard which was full powered at the time and changed to a watered down load which has the same power as .40 S&W.

And yes. Agents had a harder time qualifying. Not sure why you say they didn’t. The FBI mentions it. Now with the switch to 9mm, they even mention that scores improve from .40.

Those aren’t holdouts. Those are wildcatters. Well not really but close enough since the .38 Super isn’t popular here. Those that say that 9mm is superior don’t know what they are talking about.

It is superior on paper. Yes.  More energy, weight, velocity, ect. But both penetrate within the 12 to 18 inch window in gel so in the street on a human chest they would be similar because they would do the same thing in regards to expanding to a certain threshold and penetrating to a certain threshold.

Which makes them all 20, 50, and 100 times better, respectively.

Yes. The other major calibers benefitted from modern technology that brought the 9mm into the good-enough realm. (The other calibers were already expanding AND penetrating enough) So today, if we are comparing the best loads (HST and maybe the Gold Dot which is 90's tech) there is not much practical difference between 9, 40, 45, 10.

Where the difference becomes most evident is in the loads OTHER than the best like HST. Your local gun store may only have Golden Sabre, older Hydra Shok, or God forbid Silvertip or FMJ and I would much prefer to carry 40SW loaded with the typical sub-par econo-ammo than a 9mm loaded with the same.

Yes. Less so with revolver cartridges and borderline performers like 38 and 380 though.

Sorta.  Its energy that makes it go, and it's gunpowder that makes the energy.   Since 45/9/40 all have comparable gunpowder charges (ish), bullet technology improvement was most profound on ice-pic 9mm FMJ.

Using the current FBI loading; the Hornady Critical Duty 135g +P 9mm, all the other calibers of the round perform just as good through all barriers while offering larger holes. I think that round is proof that every caliber saw the same improvements.

It's a pretty impressive round...not the largest expanding round, but performs amazing through all tested barriers across all calibers.

https://www.luckygunner.com/labs/self-defense-ammo-ballistic-tests/

.22 magnum FMJs and cannonballs also go through and through a human body.


A 1993 test of 20 9mm hollowpoints found that all 9 of the 147 gr loadings penetrated over 12 inches in bare gel, as did one of the 124 gr loadings. Furthermore the success rates quoted in the original FBI tests made no mention of how many bullets expanded.

These early loads did not have the same consistency of expansion as modern bullets when fired through heavy clothing, but .40 and .45 were comparably unreliable in this respect.


After a shit 9mm HP failed to expand. Of the aforementioned 9mm JHPs tested, the 115 gr Silvertip had the second lowest penetration. Any of the other 18 loadings - even the ones that didn't make it to the 12" mark - would have likely sufficed in that same situation.

It is far more likely that the 9mm's lower score came from insufficient penetration after going through barriers - that is, the same problem you allege against the .45 was in fact the supposed problem with 9mm.


Well, the FBI test had 8 sections then:

-Bare gel
-Light clothing
-Heavy clothing
-Drywall
-Plywood
-Car door
-Auto glass
-2nd auto glass test at longer range w/ reduced angle

Each test involves an equal number of bullets fired.

The best scoring .45s achieved 12+ penetration 95% of the time, similar to 10mm.

Most JHPs, upon encountering the car door simulation, deform into a nail head shape and do not hydraulically expand in gelatin afterwards, often resulting in increased penetration.

A study conducted by Duncan MacPherson & Lt. Ed Fincel found that 230 gr Ranger suffered less velocity loss and deflection after being fired into windshields than 180 gr Rem .40 S&W JHP, and penetrated about 4 inches deeper in gelatin. The .40 S&W penetrates about 15% more without the windshield, by the way. (Modern .45s tend to do better in auto glass than equivalent .40 S&W loadings.)

So do you want to tell me which "hard barrier test" .45 failed spectacularly?


If you're using an outdated scoring criteria that contains problems acknowledged back in 1993, and literally doesn't award points for the additional expansion of .45 despite still making the distinction between different levels of 9mm expansion, then yes, perhaps there's no reason to use any other caliber.


I'll bet that many of the people who carry 10mm do so because of some vague notions about 'energy' and 'power' without even knowing whether their particular loading would actually penetrate deeper, which is the actual more-or-less valid reason to use 10mm for woods carry.


Well I don't know about that, I've only been reading about this subject since I was 12. I don't get paid for my opinions so I guess to be fair they don't count.

Wow. You sure do make it difficult to respond to you being how you broke it up into a million parts. I’m no expert on the quote button and I’m not going to learn tonight. Anyway, yeah. If a 22 Magnum can go through and through than it can go through and through. That paragraph was in response to people who think that a FMJ from a slightly bigger caliber does so much better than one that’s slightly smaller.

Regarding your second paragraph, 9mm was very inconsistent. Expansion with shallow penetration like the Silvertips or no expansion at all. The 147’s were known for failures to expand.

Regarding your 3rd paragraph. Correct. Those 147’s would have behaved as ball rounds if they would have failed to expand like they were known for. Would probably have done the job in that instance but that isn’t what the FBI wanted.

Regarding your 4th paragraph. Correct if they performed as they were known to perform and failed to expand. According to the reports of the Miami incident, the round went through a hard barrier and then through an arm and then into the chest if I remember correctly. A ball round or an HP that acts as a ball round would have probably made it.

5th. I do not have the test results. You got me there. But it is a known fact that 230 gr has trouble through metal. It’s just too slow. You need speed for hard barriers like metal. Just Google “Handgun Intermediate Barrier (Frying Pan)” there are also a lot of sheet-metal videos on YouTube as well. The 185 gr is a lot better due to the higher velocity but at that time there weren’t many 185’s that expanded and penetrated as well as 230’s.

Last paragraph. Not all but most. Those that do will say things like that they carry a .45 due to additional stopping power. Full stop right there when they say that.

They have improved.



The biggest limitation is the loadings for the other calibers.

If you note, almost all the cartridges (9mm, .40, .45) are loaded to ~400 ftlbs. The result is you're going to have comparable expansion and penetration to one another.

If cartridges were loaded to 500 ft/lbs (example, .40 158gr @ 1250fps - which is within SAAMI pressure for .40) they could design the projectile to expand larger while still achieving 12"+ of penetration. If loaded to 600 ft/lbs, especially if sectional density also increases, expansion can further increase. 10mm 165gr @ 1300fps routinely hits 0.83" with 12"+ in gel testing for example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR14jBsZpWk

Energy is 'the capacity to do work.' The more energy the cartridge, the more work they are capable of. The problem is that the major manufacturers are not loading to higher energies, nor are they optimizing their projectiles for those energies.

So when you have a ~400ftlb 9mm vs a ~400ftlb .40 sw vs ~400lb .45, its not a surprise when they perform similarly.

Yes. It seems that while the 9mm has been brought up to near full potential, the other main calibers have been kept down (maybe this isnt the best term) to that same 9mm level, (around the 400ftlbs) probably due to the aformentioned FBI protocals. Once a load reaches the FBI requirements, there is less benefit for the manufacturers to keep tweeking it to maximize the load regardless of caliber, thus there is little benefit to move beyond the 9. I will still argue that other larger calibers have more "potential" to work toward improvement even if the improvement is only for barrier performance. If 147gr has more "potential" over the 115gr, it's hard to argue that 180, 200, or 230gr does not.

Responses in red.

Frankly, if you tell me you carry a handgun instead of a rifle, you're already at an immense disadvantage when it comes to stopping power. The only place 9mm really has it over other calibers with the same advanced projectile is it's size and weight. That's it. It's the smallest of the common [.357 sig isn't really common] pistol calibers that work reasonably well and has mild recoil. Stopping power in a handgun cartridge...........well if you want that, jump to the big boys like .500 S&W and .454 Casull with a light HP running up around 2K FPS. I've seen what those do to a deer and you aren't fighting with the holes those will put thru you plus the exit hole. However, really fast follow up shot aren't really going to happen.

The chart uses maximum rather than average expansion, concerns only a single type of hollowpoint, and may very well be quite outdated.

We already have a .45 loading on the market (possibly several) that regularly exceeds 0.85" maximum expansion and achieves 13-15 inches penetration.

Though it is probably correct to say that the FBI's scoring criteria has not necessarily been a fantastic influence.

Fortunately speed and mass make up for old tech

Clear gel

I suspect the "improved technology" stuff is mostly marketing.

I shot some 1980's era Winchester silvertips in jugs, and they penetrated and mushroomed perfectly, just like something from today would.

The real reason the FBI want back to 9mm is cost, and so FBI Barbie can qualify.

Ask Curtis Reeves (Florida Theater shooting) if he thought the .380 ACP was adequate....one shot kill from a Keltec .380 ACP and penetration wounding a second individual.

No disrespect but almost everything you just wrote is wrong.

There have been improvements indeed to 9mm hollow points since the 80’s. Many of them failed to expand entirely and those that did like the Silvertips that mushroomed perfectly in your tests failed to penetrate sufficiently.

We now have HPs that expand consistently for the most part while penetrating 13 to 15 inches in gel were previously they did not.

And the qualification for Barbie argument applies to everyone. Scores improve for everyone including expert shooters. It’s the reason why competition shooters who shoot better than you or I do everything in their power to mitigate perceived recoil and muzzle rise to enhance their scores by using heavy steel frames, compensators, tweaked recoil springs that will work with loads that are downloaded, ect.

It’s basic physics. The less a barrel rises, the quicker it can be placed back on target increasing speed and accuracy.

Because shooting water jugs proves anything about a bullets performance

Shooting into repeatable mediums with clothing barriers the old model silver tips rarely, if ever expand
Modern bullets on the other hand reliably expand and penetrate where older bullets fail
Remember in 86 the silver tip got 2 FBI agents killed and 5 (some seriously) injured.

Lets not get carried away.  That particular Silvertip performed exactly as it was designed.  It just turned out that in that particular shooting said performance wasn't sufficient.  What got 2 agents killed and 5 wounded was primarily poor tactics and failing to arm themselves appropriately for taking on known armed, violent felons.  

The Silvertip got scapegoated because no one wanted to blame dead and injured agents, policies, and poor planning/tactics/shooting for the disaster.



Qualification scores are a bad metric to judge actual shooting performance.  Unfortunately, bureaucrats in charge of agencies tend to view anything that gets more people to qualify as a positive thing.  The last time I qualified with my agency issued M&P40 I shot a 100%.  The first time I qualified with my newly agency issued Glock 45 I also shot a 100%.  There is no measurable change in my qualification score there.  I'm within time requirements and on target.  End of story.

Where the "improvement" comes is when "FBI Brett" or "FBI Barbie" shoots a Glock 23 they get a 69% and fail but when they shoot a Glock 19 they get a 72% and pass.  Bureaucrats see that as a win.  People that might have to count on the 72%ers to back them up do not.  

I started in law enforcement in 1996.  I have seen qualification courses get progressively easier and firearms training get significantly cut during that time.  The qualification course I fired in 1996 included 18 rounds at 25 yards, 6 of which were weak hand.  At the time the "old timers" (of which I suppose I am one now) were lamenting how easy the course was since they cut out the 50 yard shooting.  The qualification course we have now has 6 rounds at 25 yards and starts at the 3 yard line instead of the 7.  You can miss everything past 10 yards and still manage to squeak out a qualification.  

I have nothing against the 9mm.  I own more 9mm pistols than any other caliber.  I trust them for self-defense and I'm not sad to be carrying a Glock 45 on-duty despite the "downgrade" from .40 S&W to 9mm.  That said, all things being equal (penetration depth, barrier penetration, etc.) larger diameter bullets offer a slightly better chance of hitting something vital.  Expansion to a larger diameter can't possibly be a bad thing, and larger bullets can offer that performance.

I don't want any dipshit that can't pass a qualification with a .40 or .45 backing me up because they managed to just qualify with a 9mm.

Also, get off my lawn.

water jugs was what I could come up with back in the day

The 1986 Miami silvertip did what it was supposed to....but it passed thru Platts arm before going into his chest.

the 9mm got them blame that day, but do you really think speer gold dots or HST's would have changed the outcome ?

My point is, that a 9mm JHP from the 1980's is not that different from a recent one.

shot placement is paramount

The popular mindset that 1980's 9mm was no good, but today it's as good as 40 or 45ACP is mostly marketing

there is no magic 9mm bullet, or special talisman called HST.  You have to do your part.

You say that modern and old tech are similar, and yet you say that the silver tip did what it was supposed to, yet by todays standards it failed, therefore standards are different now and performance is judged differently. Any 9mm load that passes the FBI test would have provided fatal and ended the fight much faster, likely without 2 agents being killed. The shot placement was perfect, center mass, with the bullet traveling to the aortic arch. The placement was perfect, but the bullet failed.

Correct. It performed at designed. Not designed to expand and penetrate as far as newer hollow points do.

Qualifying and being proficient are two different as you say. No arguments there. Regardless, one that barely qualifies with a 9 but fails with a .40 would be a better backup for you no matter how you swing it. That person is more likely to hit with the 9 in his or her hand.

As far as your own scores of 100 percent, that’s great! Now go take those skills on a competition. The lower recoiling platform will give you better scores. That’s the whole reason for race guns.

Correct!

I absolutely agree that the Silvertip 9mm is less than ideal.  Modern 9mm JHP is significantly better.  At the same time I don't think one can blame all the failings of the "Miami Shootout" on one bullet that worked as advertised.  The agents should have been armed with long guns, should have used better tactics, etc. (Yes, that is easy to say I know).  My point is that while the event certainly triggered improved testing and therefore improvements in handgun ammunition if Platt had been engaged with a rifle we wouldn't likely be having this conversation.

As for the dude that can barely qualify with a 9mm as opposed to failing with a 40, he might be better backup with that 9mm (might).  But if things worked the way they were supposed to (they often don't) he wouldn't be around at all to be more of a danger to me than the "bad guys" because his poor shooting would have either gotten him remedial training until he was a decent shooter or fired.  On the other hand with the 9mm he "passes" and is then there to accidentally shoot the wrong person.

As for the competitions, I'll say this: I am generally one of the best shooters at qualifications and sometimes even "the best."  I don't say that to brag but rather to make this point.  When I shoot competitions (which isn't as often as I would like anymore) I am lucky to be in the top 3rd of shooters.  I'm quite a good shooter by law enforcement standards.  By competition standards I might be slightly above average.  That guy that shoots a 72% on the qualification course would get DQ'd on the first stage.

Other calibers absolutely do have more potential...but manufacturers have to be willing to design projectiles around them.

We see that most notably with .357 SIG. Despite having the highest energy of any of the auto cartridges, its performance ends up like 9mm with more penetration.

https://www.luckygunner.com/labs/357-sig-gel-test/

Thats because of projectile design - they basically just stuck a tougher 9mm projectile onto the case and called it a day.

If they wanted to, they could design a 147gr .357 SIG @ 1250fps, with the 147gr optimized for the higher velocity. Make the hollow point cavity deeper, and the jacket a bit tougher, and suddenly you have a round that expands to .75-.85" while still hitting 12"+ of penetration.

But without that projectile optimization for increased velocity, its really hard to realize those performance gains.

I honestly think most of the calibers are being underloaded to save powder, like the airline executive who saved the company $60k a year by reducing pickle slices. Likewise, if manufacturers can cut 1gr of powder out of a .40 or .357 or 10mm etc, then they will save 1lb of powder every 7k rounds. After tens of millions of rounds those savings are likely to add up.

This comment hits ominously close to home for me...

In my first (so far) OIS, I fired four rounds at a suspect with only a side profile of the body afforded to me as the suspect was raising a gun to my partner. Two of the four rounds found their mark entering the thoracic cavity after first penetrating the humerus. One round stopped short of the heart similar to the ill-fated 1986 Miami shootout, the other round went on to do sever damage to the GI system. Suspect survived. Ammunition was and still is the Speer Gold Dot 124gr +P. Distance was about 12 yards. Paul Harrell also did a 9mm vs. .40 comparison video with modern premium ammo (Critical Duty, I believe) with a target set up to mimic parameters of the 1986 Miami shootout and got the same performance out of the 9mm. In about 6 other OIS's at my agency, I've seen the 9mm Gold Dot perform wonderfully, so I believe in it's efficacy...but threats were typically not at an oblique angle, either. Just more than "odd" to me that in the Miami shoot, Paul Harrell's experiment, and my own personal experience that the results were eerily similar with different ammo types...

I think its simply a matter of expansion, energy and sectional density.

You can make a more reliably expanding bullet, but if you have the same energy and sectional density, and the bullet expands to the same diameter, you're going to end up with comparable penetration.

Launch a 80's style cup n core 124gr @ 1200fps, and Gold Dot 124gr @ 1200fps, and so long as they both expand to .55-.60", you're likely to see similar results.

If you want the bullet to penetrate more, you have to do one of the following:

-Reduce expansion: A 124gr @ 1200fps that has expansion limited to .45-.50" will penetrate more deeply then one that expands to .55-60". This is basically what the XTP/FTX from Hornady is designed to do.

-Increase sectional density: A 147gr @ 1100fps that expands to .65" will penetrate more deeply then a 124gr @ 1200fps, despite then energy levels (395 vs 397 ftlbs) being the same. Thats due to the higher momentum of the 147 losing energy more slowly, allowing it to penetrate more deeply.

-Increase energy while controlling expansion: A 124gr @ 1300fps that limited to .55-.60" expansion will penetrate more deeply then a 124gr -.55-.60" @ 1200fps (465 ftlbs vs 397flbs.) We see this route clearly in many .357 sig loads, which expand comparable to 124gr 9mm but penetrate 18-20".

Nobody should be under the illusion that the performance of 115 gr Silvertip was anything but garbage. Varmint grade penetration out of a service caliber bullet is totally unacceptable. As has been previously mentioned, even compared to other underpenetrating 115 gr bullets of them time, Silvertip did poorly. Funnily enough this is one loading where the .45 variant indeed had a disproportionate advantage even without considering barrier blindness, though it was still not very good.

Penetration is dependent on more than just expansion, energy and sectional density; factors such as momentum, velocity, and cutting efficiency all play a role. Trying to estimate penetration and expansion without actually shooting and measuring the bullet is often a futile effort. As an example - 147 gr HST has been recorded to expand similarly (if not slightly larger, leading to also similar sectional density) than 124 gr +P Gold Dot while also penetrating deeper, despite having lower energy. Why? A glance might point to the sharper cutting edges and similar momentum with a lower velocity as possible sources.

To understand why a bullet with slightly larger frontal area and similar momentum & sectional density but lower velocity might penetrate more, consider that the inertial forces resisting bullet penetration are likely to increase exponentially with velocity (and also, likely faster than the same percentage increase in frontal area), thus, the lighter and faster bullet is losing momentum at a greater rate.

Likewise 124 gr +P Gold Dot penetrates substantially more than 80s era 115 gr Silvertip. Any bullet can have the odd fluke or failure but I have not heard in general terms that the gel testing of the two rounds does not reflect the general penetration differences between them. (I believe Dr. Roberts might have said something to the effect of - the 124 gr +P Gold Dot is one of the most proven loadings in law enforcement history.)

Nowadays i think the extent of this subject is heading towards a couple things...
-having a primary long arm and sidearm that both use the same mag/cartridge
-having the belt holstered ability to defeat body armor
Both ideally with the best accuracy available, and without a huge investment needed to upgrade equipment.
Which is why im pretty convinced the 5.56x24 Rowell, an optimized .22TCM, is gonna (or should) be the next big hotness as long as enough mfgs jump on deck. There is where we need the improvement still.

ETA
a dubious chance though, maybe. Not even the .357 sig is getting the love it deserves. But yes, that one at least has modern bullet tech and decent factory ammo availibility like the rest

Agree that they should get remedial. No argument there. It’s your job. With that said, the point is that 9mm is easier to control than .40. Not everyone is as good as you are. Hell even good soldiers aren’t as good as you are that can make the scores that you score. That doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be soldiers or that every soldier should shoot 100 percent.

My wife cannot shoot a revolver accurately. I cannot shoot a revolver accurately. Does that mean that we should become proficient with revolvers? No. The Glock suffices. Especially when what actually stops a person is hits to vitals. The Glock 9mm does that. No need for a .357 Magnum because some can shoot 100 percent with it.

Under that logic, all law enforcement should be armed with rifles at all times. We should be armed with rifles at all times. We aren’t though because it’s a compromise. And since we compromise for various reasons, we do not pick a bullet that has penetration issues like the Silvertip has.

I’m going to say something here that may rub some the wrong way. I carry ball rounds. Why? Because there are instances were even good hollow points do not penetrate enough given certain circumstances. I sacrifice a potential miss of a vital that would otherwise be a graze with a hollow point if shot in the same place. I choose to compromise the benefits of expansion for penetration. The same thing that kills bear and moose is what kills us. Penetration to vitals. I cannot pick perfect conditions.

Did you guys see that shooting in Atlantic City a few years back? Guy is running from the police. He gets out of the car and starts firing at them. He’s lit up with multiple .40 cal hollow points to the chest area and  doesn’t go down. Big dude. Over 300 pounds wearing a heavy jacket. It wasn’t until he got hit in the leg and fell down that he got shot in the head and the fight ended.

Reports from police say that they thought he was wearing a vest. He wasn’t. For whatever reason, those HPs didn’t reach his heart or spinal column. It could have been that since he was being shot from 20 plus yards away, the bullets didn’t behave the way that are supposed to behave like tested at 10 ft along with the extra mass that an average person doesn’t have. Whatever the reason was, those rounds didn’t cut the mustard.

Same goes in Miami. A ball round would have reached that dude’s heart rather than go through an arm, expand partially in the arm and then enter the chest partially expanded.

Pistol bullets all suck when encountering bone, and even if you have the best expanding/ penetrating load. Part of it is luck in the amount of bone encountered, the type of bone encountered, and the angle at which bone is encountered. Friend of mine was involved in an OIS, very similar to yours, he fired 5 rounds of 230gr +p federal HST. 2 bullets connected, one hit the suspects right shoulder and as I am told demolished it. Supposedly the head of the humorous was hit directly, and shattered, with the bullet also crushing a large portion of the scapula, but stopped in the bone. I am told it was quite graphic, but not a fatal or even incapacitating wound. The second bullet bisected the perpetrators neck and expanded quite well  while passing through the neck, making a mess of the internal structures. Needless to say, the perp didn't make it.
But aside from the lucky neck shot, its partially luck where and what the bullet encounters. That why you shoot and keep shooting until the threat stops and use the best ammunition possible

No.  Just 9mm.  Everything else is 20years behind.

Just kidding.  
Like all things in life, somethings fly under the radar while others get all the attention.  
9mm seems to be the attention getter.

I don't believe LEOs should carry long guns at all times (access, yes, carry no).  I wasn't suggesting that.  However, in 1986 Miami the agents knew exactly what kind of bad guys they were going after.  They should have all had long guns as primary weapons.  A handgun is for those times when you don't know you are going to need a gun.  When you do know, bring a rifle.



I don't carry FMJ loaded in my carry guns but I generally have a spare magazine loaded with ball just for those circumstances where I might need more penetration.  I know the chances of actually getting to change ammunition are extremely small, but what is the downside of having it available?

Good point and especially poignant remark at the end. 357 Magnum should have been added to that list to show how absurdly low some of these modern cartridges are loaded to.