We’re not sure if you’ve noticed, but those clickbait posts asking, Which is better, 9mm or .45? are no more. They’re a thing of the past. That’s because 1) 9mm long ago won the battle for the title of most-carried personal defense caliber, and 2) the improvements in 9mm personal defense ammunition over the last decade or so have all but eliminated any shortcomings the smaller round may have had in terms of effectiveness.
Just as we’re living in a golden age of handguns with a dizzying array of reliable, affordable, and effective pistols to choose from now, this is also a golden age of personal defense ammunition. Pick your favorite brand. Whether it’s from Hornady, SIG SAUER, Federal, Speer, Remington, Winchester, or any of a dozen others, there are plenty of excellent options to choose from in JHP ammo.
All you have to do then is ensure that the ammo you’ve chosen works with your personal defense handgun(s). You do that, don’t you? Because it would be kind-a crazy to stake your life on a gun/ammo combination that you haven’t determined runs well together.
Sure, we know, personal defense ammo isn’t cheap. It starts at about 35 cents a round these days and goes up fast from there. That makes running at least a couple of hundred rounds through your EDC gun to ensure reliability an investment. But it’s an investment you’d be well advised to make.
As good and reliable as today’s guns and ammo are, they don’t always play well together. We’ve fed some excellent guns JHP ammo from some of the very best manufacturers and found that, for whatever reason, the two didn’t work well together. Then, running the same pistol with a different brand of equally good ammunition yielded perfect reliability.
That’s not a negative reflection on either the gun or the gun food. That’s just a fact of life.
And that’s why you really need to test the ammo you’ve chosen as your personal defense round in your everyday carry gun. Be sure it cycles reliably, first time, every time. So with that said, what’s your pick? What JHP ammo have you settled on as your personal defense round of choice?
I’m willing to bet that standard 9mm ammo has taken out more people than all the self defense rounds ever fired in self defense.
Was about to post how we may have surpassed military fmj related 9mm kills then I remembered stolen handguns and their users. Yeah you are very likely correct by well more than half of total numbers.
Hmmmmm…….not sure how to determine my favorite self-defense ammo….whichever has an attractive price-point, I guess. Never had to and hope never have to put any of them to the test in a defensive situation.
I can say I’ve mixed multiple brands in the same magazine and never had a failure of any ki s in either my Glocks or my S&W 9.
All good.
My friend, Garish, fills one gallon plastic water bottles with Jello chocolate pudding. He tests his defensive ammo by shooting the bottles. If the bullet comes out the other side, no good. If it stays in the bottle, good.
Garish is crazy, but, he has his standards. Besides, he says, “that pudding is good for nothing else, anyway. You can’t eat it.”
All of my guns are have 4-inch barrels, so standard pressure 147grn Federal HST.
I don’t often carry a handgun chambered in 9mm Luger. If I do, I will probably load it with Hornady Critical Duty 135 grain jacketed hollowpoints (complete with polymer ball in the cavity to ensure that clothing will not clog the cavity and therefore ensure expansion). My second choice would be Hornady Critical Defense 115 grain hollowpoints.
Whatever you are thinking of carrying, ensure that your hollowpoints have enough velocity out of your particular gun to expand reliably. Several years ago a person tested several different 9mm hollowpoint offerings in handguns with barrels less than 4-inches long and a LOT of them (MOST of them I believe) did not have enough velocity to expand reliably.
I imagine a starting point for a test that most people can do themselves (to test their particular combination of handgun and 9mm ammunition for reliable expansion) is to line up three water jugs (each with one gallon volume) and shoot into them. If their bullet expands and stops in the second or third jug, they are probably good to go. If the bullet zips through all three, their bullet probably failed to expand.