"9mm doesn't perform against heavy winter clothing..."

[tpd223]

As did my dad, and he qualified expert every time. Based on his combat experience in the mountains of Korea, he would rather have shouldered the extra weight of the Garand and have had observably better results on those routine 300 yard shots. He was issued a M2 for a while, and even at closer ranges he preferred to shoot it in bursts rather than peck away in semiauto.

My dad was a Camp Perry shooter, and a sniper at one point. He liked the M1 a lot, and really liked the "black tip" AP ammo for it as he could reach through stuff to get at bad guys. In Korea he carried a carbine as basically a BUG because when there was a human wave coming in he thought the M1/2 carbine bested the M1 Garand when the bad guys got closer than 100 yards, or at night, etc.

He really like a Browning air cooled MG, or a quad .50, but I'm getting way off track on this thread.

[packinaglock]

Some people sing the Hornady Critical Defense praises, but I've never understood that after looking at side by side testing.

Same here.

[Nemecsek]

The 9mm penetrates clothing, and other things at least as good, likely better, than most other handgun calibers, especially the 45. It has good sectional density and velocity. The issue is that if the HP plugs up with heavy clothing, all you get is the FMJ, as previously mentioned. The same thing will happen with the other "better" calibers but a 40 or 45 FMJ is better than a 9mm fmj. With the latest HP ammo of the last few years, this issue has been largly resolved.

Anyway, handgun hits to the body, heavy clothing or not, should be considered only good to distract the target long enough to allow you to get a propert CNS hit (head shot)...regardless of caliber.

[RBid]

There isn't any need to explore different suppliers. Portland (OR) PD and NYPD each carry Speer Gold Dot +P 124gr, and has great success with them. It is worth noting that heavy jackets and layers are very common in these areas.

[tpd223]

I just remembered a conversation with our coroner from several years ago, when we had problems with our brand new G22s and I was trying to get my department back into 9mms.

In talking to Doc about the level of BS present in the cop world ref wound ballistics and how some folks wanted to stick with the .40 because of "stopping power", regardless of whether the guns worked or not. Doc tells me he'd rather have a 9mm because in his observation they are easier to get good hits with (he was also a shooter) and he thought that JHPs in 9mm consistently expanded more reliably than the .40s. Doc being a regional coroner who was involved in basically every OIS investigation in the entire area gave him the opportunity to see a rather large number of OIS's involving different calibers and brands of ammo. He also saw quite a few street shootings/murders as well.

I know testing might show a different outcome, and this is one guy with one set of data points, but I found it both interesting and useful none the less.

As I noted, we get a real winter here and folks can be wearing some serious clothing, yet our 124gr +P Gold Dot and Ranger-T ammo has never failed to expand in any of our OIS's.

[tpd223]

There isn't any need to explore different suppliers. Portland (OR) PD and NYPD each carry Speer Gold Dot +P 124gr, and has great success with them. It is worth noting that heavy jackets and layers are very common in these areas.

Chicago also went to this load for folks carrying 9mms. I hear it gets cold there sometimes ;-)

[DocGKR]

As usual, tpd223 is right on!

The 124 gr +P Gold Dot, HST's in 147 (P9HST2) and 124 +P (P9HST3), as well as Ranger Talon 147 (RA9T) and 124 +P (RA9124TP) all are robust expanding and work fine against heavy clothing.

[HackerF15E]

There is always a little truth somewhere in the myths. The 110gr military ball load up until the 1970s(redesigned for IDF standards), utilized a reduced o'give resulting in a ballistic coefficient of only .15. I guess the idea behind this was to make a more blunted nose and improve terminal effects. This put the load in the realm of handgun ammunition velocity degeneration at range. At the higher altitudes in Korea, during the subzero temperatures, and at extended ranges......the M1 Carbine's performance was greatly reduced. At 300-400 yards, the 110gr load was cruising under 800fps. I didn't want to damage my chronograph, but at 300 meters I was shooting 1/4" plywood and I would find the projectiles laying on the surface of the burm behind the plywood. No keyholes in the plywood, but greatly reduced velocity.

Even at closer ranges though, the bullet profile didn't allow for a rapid upset. So just like all other handgun cartridges, it just poked holes.... .30 caliber holes. Probably why the carbine and its cartridge didn't last long in the US military, and the millions of carbines in the service were sold off to the civilian and LE markets. Not to mention they ended up in the hands of the Israelis and Vietnamese.

In addition to that, there is a lot of discussion about the impact of temperature on the H110/W296 powder. I've heard that extreme cold impacts the rate which that powder burns, and that could have seriously slowed down the muzzle velocity (thus significantly reducing the power and lethality).

Either way, the "bounced off heavy/frozen winter coats" is bunk.

[DocGKR]

.30 carbine ball acts a lot like awe inspiring .38 special lead round nose...

Put a modern expanding bullet in a .30 carbine and terminal performance improves dramatically.

[Doc Safari]

Since this thread his kind of gone the route of "myth busted" I'd like to know more about why the G22's were so bad they were rejected in favor of 9mm's.