User Panel
Posted: 12/9/2001 7:10:50 PM EDT
I hear all the time the 9 mm Luger is only a plinker, I disagree and feel adequately protected when carrying mine. I think todays ammunition makes the 9mm Luger a good choice for a concealed carry weapon also. Older people or people with arthritis that can't take the recoil of 45 auto, surely could defend themselves well with a 9MM Luger.
Let's hear your thoughts on the 9MM Luger before I buy one for a family member. Thanks |
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9mm is only good for carry if you have hi-caps for your weapon. If you have a smaller pistol that can only take 7 to 10 rounds, it might as well be a larger caliber, say .40S&W. That is just how I think of it.
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I agree with Highcaliber.
That's why I bought a Beretta 92FS. Cheap Hi-cap mags. My feelings on the 9mm are that I would like to have more, but it's cheap to shoot, lots of hi-cap gun/mags out there. I don't have to feel so guilty when blowing through boxes of ammo for practice. Still standard for Military, and many LEO's. Can't be all that bad. I probably would have gone with the 96 in .40SW or a 1911 clone if there were no Hi-cap mags around. Where you put the round is more important than how big it is, IMHO. |
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If I can't take someone down with ten rounds, I probably shouldn't be carrying anyway. I carry a 10 round 9MM Beretta Cougar, with a spare mag. |
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Where you put the round is also more important than how many you have in each mag. Just carry more mags.
9mm with high cap(15 rnd) with 1 reload = 30 rounds 9mm 10 rnder with 2 reloads = 30 rounds. |
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9MM, good enough for some of the military in this world, good enough for me. However, I lean towards the .40 S&W as far as a self defense round, but will not hesitate to use the 9MM
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I carry both a Glock 22 in .40 and a Beretta 92 in 9mm. I feel equally protected with either. I carry 2 15rnd mags for each but my feeling is if I can't solve my problem with the first 1 or 2 shots, I'm in bigger trouble than a handgun will solve any way. My $.02.
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I carry a .40 S&W Sig P229 at work and off duty... but here are some of my opinions on the 9mm from my point of view as a firearms instructor:
-the 9mm round has killed more people than the plague. The caliber if just fine. Choose a proper (preferably"core bonded") round for defence purposes (Gold Dot etc.) and you can't go wrong. -I'd rather be able to hit what I'm aiming at with a six shot .25 auto, then spray away 30+ rounds of any caliber and not hit a thing. Get what fits, and get what your family member can shoot. MSH441 |
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I'd feel fine carrying a 9mm, you can find them in all sizes, shapes and action styles. Most people can learn to shoot one fairly accurately. Training ammo is cheap and plentiful and carry ammo is available with all the latest bells and whistles improvements.
YMMV |
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Well my choice has been an 8 shot, 9mm Astra A70.
It's compact, & with 8 rds of Fed +p+ it should do the job. In a recent combat match I only shot 4 pts. behind my Browning Practical. |
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The new crop of quality defense loads makes debating which caliber is best pointless IMO. Choose what you can handle and shoot acurately..
Rick |
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Don't matter the caliber...just the shot placement..but for the record i carry a .45 on duty..
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I stopped carrying my Kahr P9 and now carry my Kimber Pro Carry in .45. I didn't makes this decision because I have no confidence in the 9mm. I decided to switch because I think a big stainless gun with a half inch hole in the end would be more of a deterrent to a scumbag than that little P9.
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Borrow it before you buy it, and take it to a bowling pin shoot. See how you feel after that.
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I agree. I carry a G30. I can have 10+1 of .45 ACP. I seem to shoot it more accurately than any of the other handguns I own (9mm and .40) but if you shoot better with 9mm or .40 then by all means carry that one. My fav feature of my G30.... it takes the hi-caps from my G21 so I can carry a G21 13 rounder with a +2 base and have just as many rounds of .45 as others have in 9mm. Sure the mag sticks out the bottom a little but I practice with it that way at the range so I know how it handles. I'm no Expert Marksman but I can make nice 5"-7" groups at 25 yards which will more than do the job. |
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IF I thought I'd be attacked by a bowling pin, I would consider the 45. But the last time I shot pins with a nine, they all went down, & off the table.
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A 9mm is more than enough for protection. True, other calibers are better but you can't go wrong with a 9mm and you DON'T need hi-cap mags to do it. If a person needs more than 2-3 shots in a self protection situation use a rifle. The spray and pray method just doesn't work very well. I guarantee once the shooting starts, all parties are looking to get the hell out of the area, if they have any since at all. In my local gun shop, we sell more .38 Special 5-shot revolvers than anything else.
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NO handgun in any calibur is a 100% one shot fight stopper. I agree with Bandito and would add that proper mindset and training are as important if not more so than the choice of weapon and calibur. just my .02 ps: I personaly prefer a 1911 in .45acp |
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I don't know anybody that wants to be shot by one.
My 9mm is my most reliable handgun. If I'm in a gunfight I sure would like to know mines gona work. Not to mention , it's one of the lightest guns I own so when its albows and heels it's not weighen me down. |
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.475 Linebaugh would probably be a sure bet.hetype of recoil that bugs me.) |
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I think reliability and # of shots in a gun are more important in a gunfight than calibre.
I would be more comfortable with my feed-ramped 13 shot HP-35 than my seven shot 1911. |
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Many men have been shot repeatedly with the .25, and still killed or maimed the shooter. Since the 12 ga slug has failed to stop men, the 475 Linebaugh has no chance of being 100%. Placement means little, unless it's to the brain, or at least to the head. When men are hit solidly in the head, with a .38 or better, they are almost never still combat-effective, regardless of whether or not the bullets actually enter the cranium. None of the shots that hit Matix and Platt in the head actually penetrated their cranial vaults, but they still sufficed. The .40 Super, 45 Super, .45 SMC, and 460 Rowland have it all over standard loads in the .45. The 10mm RBCD is 77 grs, 2450 fps, 1050 ft-lbs, too. Such velocities take you up into the rifle softpoint arena, where the temporary cavity DOES actually damage tissue that the bullet never touches. Having a 9mm for practice is a great idea. A 9mm pocket gun is pretty good, too, but a 357 Sig is better. In a belt gun,though, why would you settle for having half as much power as is available? Yes, the standard bullets in the big bore loads do recoil too much, but over a decade ago, MagSafe showed us that 2000+ fps can be had, if we just use bullets that are light enough. Lightweight bullets offer real power, with no more recoil than the standard loads. The larger, stronger cases offer more potential to get lw bullets up to rifle type velocities. Cirillo recommends the RBCD and he is the only man who has been in enough PISTOL fights to have a truly valid opinion of what works. 3-4 don't mean any more than a similar number of straight heads or tails in as many coin tosses. In other words, mere luck could well be the only reason the guy survived those 3-4 fights.
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wow, i'd like to see that. 12GA slug to the head or CNS is a one shot stop or you're dealing with an alien. |
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I'd like to see that too. A 12GA slug should leave a an entrance hole of about 1 1/2 to 3 ins according to many gel tests I've seen or read. Not to mention the exit hole, I think this would cause some serious pain enough for a guy to stop whatever he was doing at the time. If a guy is wearing a vest, it would still knock the wind out of him. Not to mention throw him of balance. If I remember correctly, I read a article on one of the gun mags saying that a 2 3/4 in. tactical load shell will generate a 1500lbs per sq. in. force at around 10 yds. |
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Nobody said a THING about head shots here. The 9mm jhp will suffice just fine to the head. to the CHEST, however, the 12 ga has quite a few documented failures, both with slugs and buck, and I mean centered hits and inside 10m. It wowed the shooters, too, enough that the attacker could have killed them rather easily, had he been so-inclined.
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The truth of the matter is that if you pull your weapon and have to fire it and the perp is still coming for you, it doesn't matter what is in the gun anymore than what is on your feet 'cause you should be runnin!
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If you put two rounds in someones chest and one in his head he is not going to know the difference. Ammo gotta go with corbon.
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Center of mass shots untill the target is destroyed or neutralized. It is an easy concept to grasp...isn't it?
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Very easy to grasp! While I like the idea of one shot stoppage, I do belive that nearly all of us here are upset about the 1994 ten round mag law. I don't doubt that some of us might in the future come across multiple targets, but I must ask you in a one-attaker situation, what are those 15rd mags good for? Two of 9mm is better than one of .45. Pull that trigger! Lets use the mags that we unfortunatley now pay $100 to get for what they were intended.
I do however love the .45 and the 9mm. Although, .357 Sig is the best of both worlds. |
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I don't see why you have to compromise rounds for power I have a Para-Ordance P-12 its a compact pistol that holds 13 .45's I really like it, it feeds all the crappy homemade reloads I can build and is very accurate for such a small pistol. Has anyone ever checked out the size of a expanded golden saber or hydroshok .45 a little under a 1" diameter pretty cool.
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The fly in the ointment of factory .45's, with the POSSIBLe exception of the hot loaded 165 gr, is that they aren't going fast enough to RELIABLY expand in flesh, after having their nose cavities "plugged" with clothing debris. It takes TIME to get hits, so why believe that you will be ABLE to miss the guy 8x, and still have 1-2 more seconds, with which to fire yet another 5-9 rds? 6-7 misses and 1-2 poor hits is not the thing to PLAN upon, much less base gear and tactics-upon. Who says that you are going to HIT that attempt at the head, mmm? ever TRY getting hits on a MOVING 4" circle, even at 2m or so, in poor light? By all means go for the head (at the 4x as likely sub 10 ft ranges of realistic defense) after 2 at the chest, but don't WAIT to see what the chest hits do, and don't just take ONE try at the head, either.
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Strange, most of the rounds I have tested expanded perfectly fine. The ones that were pulled from human bodies in the ER, and then turned into me in the Sherrifs Office Property and Evidence room, where I worked for 3 years, had no problem expanding at all. Most were very consistent with the results I got from my own test's. |
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heres a point no one has brought forward, A .45acp is noted for not over penetrating the target, which in turn dumps its energy in the intended target, also 9mm. 38. etc NEED to expand just to measure up to the demensions of what a 45 starts out as hence a larger wound channel immediately
Dont get me wrong, a 9mm with the proper configeration of velocity + bullet + proper placement = stopping power |
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The 9mm loaded with modern HPs at a +P or +P+ velocity is every bit as good in an antipersonnel role as a .357, .40, .45, etc. Although I don't carry my 9mm regularly (I carry a Glock 32), I have every bit as much confidence in my 9mm to do the job any other auto pistol can. Bottom line is that a good hit with a 9mm is going to work just as well as a good hit with a .45, and a bad hit with a 9mm is going to work just as bad as a bad hit with a .45.
9mm is good for plinking indeed, just not ONLY good for plinking. As for the 12 guage effectiveness, slugs are pretty devastating inside 50 yards so I don't know, but I have heard many times that 00 buckshot has had numberous "failures to stop" in the past (one being from someone with first hand knowledge). I'll stick to my .223 SP thanks. |
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First off I would say that ANY gun, is better than none, if you're in a bad situation.
Also, a friend of my family's, was shot square in the back with a 12 ga from about 20' away a few years ago, (1994), and he's still here to talk about it. It happened at a trap club as everyone was walking towards the clubhouse, said it felt like someone had hit him with a baseball bat. He almost went to his knees, but didn't. He was air-lifted to an emergency room in a nearby city, and was only treated for the exterior of the wound, since there was little they could do about all of the 7oz shot still inside him, even today. Several specialist later, they say he'll be fine, but it sure blows the shit out of that lead poisoning crap we hear about all the time. He was hit about 2" from the spine, right below the shoulder blade. All of the doctors agreed that if he wasn't a 340lb man, he would have been a gonner. No real point here, just an amazing story. And, I carry a 9mm, without any worries. Jett3, cut back on the coffee, take a few deep breaths before you start typing, and get a little more experience before claiming expert status on us rookies, ok? |
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9mm works just fine for me, they come cheap overhere and us Eurotrash has historically grown into 9mm.
Besides, after having shot myself in the leg I'm pretty much convinced about what it can & can't do. C-2-6 |
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Get a copy of Ayoob's Stressfire II. He talks about a fellow who is shot through the body left to right with a winchester 12ga slug, and never even lost consciousness. When the detective came to the ER to identify (presumably) the corpse, the 'corpse' sat up with the doctor's fingers still in his chest and said,"Hey! You the motherfucker shot me!" ANYTHING handheld isn't a sure thing. QS |
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In a defensive role the 9mm is more than enough to deter an attacker. Draw down on a bad guy and see if he charges because he thinks your 9mm is just a plinker.
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