Forums / Gun Discussion / Should everyone own a 9mm

Yeah you should have at least 2 an a .40 an .45. I like the 40 an the 9 mm all the new stuff is great but alot of law enf are movein up to the 40 or 45 especially now with the body armour may not poke a hole in it but it leaves a person on his ass lookin for his next breath.

I got a Glock 19 for this purpose, but now with ammo going up in price I'm not sure it matters as much. My son carries a 10mm Glock. I had shot a military .45 years ago and remembered quite a kick, then my daughter told me she had fired one, "It kicked my butt, Dad," she said. Don't know what kind. So I was a little wary, but a guy at the range let me fire his 1911 (S&W) and I have to say I don't think the kick is any worse than the Glock 19. The gun is a lot heavier and that's probably part of it, but anyway, I'm now lusting after a .45 like that. Course, you gotta change targets more often because it tears 'em up so bad. :-)

everyone should have a 9mm glock,s&w,beretta,ect. if ammo gets impossible to find you should be able to find in hard times. plus the it is a u.n/nato round so if they ever turn on us we can use there ammo!

I cant own one yet but i get to carry my dads 9mm and i love it

I have shot both, but with the advances in ammo and the cost of 9mm, practice fmg $20 for 100 rnds, thats a lot of range time for nothing, plus it's good enough for the GOV so I'm happy with my 9mm, I've always belived in bullet placement , you might not get a second shot, center mass their going down!!

I buy a 1000 round bundle each year for about 200 bucks. I shoot a AR-15 9mm and Walther P99 9mm at the range all summer. I have control with my rounds. I can put the bullet where I want it.
I have a 45 colt too for hunting but still have my 9mm's for home defense.

its a great round for target shooting cuz its cheap, and load it up with 115 +p+ hp for self defense.

I got 3 9MM's. Issued Glock 19-C duty weapon, my Glock 19-C, and a Taurus Pt-111 Stainless, The duty weapon in also a Glock 19-C. They are very accurate weapons. As for stopping power, we are trained 3 center mass and one to the face. With Remington hollow point plus P ammo. 15x3 round Glock Mags. and 10x3 round for the PT- 111.

L R Hutch.

true about the 3 center mass and one to the face, but i think one hollow point round would do the deed, correct me if i am wrong though.

everyone should own a 9mm. its an all purpose gun, great for target shooting, and as everyone has said with prices the way they are your best value. But saying that ....the .45 is in my opinion the best home defensive hand gun and very fun to shoot.

as for 40 and 45 leaving a body armor clad person on their butt looking for their next breath, I advise you to watch the videos of Richard Davis of Second Chance Body armor Co shooting himself point blank with a 44 mag. Not exactly on his ass. And mcliberty, the line about the one well placed shot is nice and all, but we're talking about handguns here. That would indicate a close-range fight, which you have obviously never taken part in. It doesn't work that way.

Bottom line, a accurately placed shot to the center mass (spine) with any caliber will stop the threat, however since most shots aren't accurately placed, a 9mm is not a bad round, but a .40 tops a 9mm, a .45 tops a .40, a .357 magnum tops a .45 (most of the time) and a .44 magnum tops a .357 magnum.

I've seen people shot with 1 9mm round die quickly and others with 8-9 rounds that never die. You'll get as many opinions on the 9mm round as there are people on this site, but it has been around a long time and done a lot of damage.

well i mean you shoot a dude with a 9mm on the leg 10 times he wont die on the spot, but you give him a 124 grain +p+ jhp n the stomach and he will die in 3 seconds.

i carry a glock 19, it doesnt dissapoint, an accurately placed 9mm hollow point will lethally stop someone.

People do weird, unexpected things when shot. I know of one anecdote where a police marksman shot a guy in the chest through a windshield with a .308 rifle, the guy got out of the car, shot one cop, and ran a couple blocks before collapsing. On the other hand, i'm sure it's not hard to find stories of guys shot in non lethal areas with small guns who collapse immediately from shock. When training and equipping yourself for a real fight, treat it like you would when being in a fistfight with a big guy. Hit first, and don't stop hitting until he can't hit back. Don't rely on the one punch knockout. Shoot 'em 'till they're no longer a threat.

two weeks ago,at my local range(i am the range officer)a guy shot himself with his glock 17.he had his hand over the end of the muzzle preparing to disassemble it.he failed to clear the chamber first,and as glock owners know they have to be in a fired condition to remove the slide.the hollow point bullet went thru the meaty part of his hand south of the pinky then hit him in the side of the abdomen below the ribs and exited his abdomen out his back.the bullet went clear thru both parts of his body without hitting any organs or arteries or veins.basically a tissue wound!the amazing part is that the hollow point failed to open!why?who knows!

of the unloaded gun. Those things are dangerous, huh?

this guy(a friend)is very well acquanted with guns.he said that he was in a hurry and that he had gotten too comfortable with his weapons!note to others:gun safety always matters!the shitty part was he was teaching his bro in law and sister how to handle a handgun because they were considering buying one for home defense!

with experience are the ones who get complacent. I guess the newbies still consciously think about the inherent risks associated with guns while the old hands just take it for granted.

i totally agree with you on this!after this happened(i had to give a statement to the police on behalf of the gunclub)and talking with the deputies,we all agreed that this could have been any one of us.the officers(who carry glocks!)said they had done this same thing a million times!i bet they check,check and double check their guns now!even just nowwhile working on a winchester Model 94 i keep checking the chamber.paranoia?maybe,but better safe than sorry!

knock down power, a naked perp/thug no problem well suited problem. You need a 357 magnum, 40, 45, or 50.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yr_cM8kvig

Sorry about the link, I couldn't figure out how to embed a video here.

is a myth. People have posted in here and written other stuff about energy transfer and one shot stopping rates and what not. They key with any cartridge at all is placement. That includes rifles and shotguns, but particularly with pistols. 9mm has been killing people for a lot longer than the 40, 10mm, 50 AE, or 500 Mag. People haven't gotten tougher. If you hit someone in the leg or arm with a 45, they will still be a threat much longer than someone hit in the heart, spine, or brain with a 22. I am not advocating 22s as defensive rounds, but I do say use the biggest round you are comfortable with. I like the 9mm because it is much cheaper to practice with and therefore, it is much cheaper to become truly proficient with. A 45 is bigger and gives a better chance of hitting something vital, but it is also nearly twice as expensive as 9mm for practice. Use what you are best with. If you put the bullet(s) in the right spot, any cartridge can have good "knockdown power".

"Amen".

im not a 9 iron man myself. Perfer magnums or powerful .45 LC. Again no dis respect intended.

I bought a Ruger blackhawk in 45 colt. Some of the Corbon loads are hotter than 44 mag and heavier. What do you think about taking a deer or bear with it.
I love the gun, plus it came with a 45 acp cylinder

.45 Lc yes it will work on a deer. I have done it myself at about 25 30 yards. 2 shots one in neck other in shoulder.didnt run to far and bled all the way. Mine is an original SAA

I would be interested in seeing stats for police departments as far as where their rounds hit. I'm willing to bet in the majority of the instances where rapid incapacitiation did not happen the suspects were not struck in the vitals. Look, a 100 pound deer struck through both lungs with a .30-06 can still run for quite a ways before collapsing. And for a police department to go to a bigger, less user-friendly round is ridiculous as the majority of cops out there don't practice regularly. I will say that given a hit in the same spot, a 45 is more effective than a 40, which is is more effective than a 9mm, which is more effective than a 22, and so on. I have come to the conclusion that decision makers for police and military units are much more prone to coming up with a technological answer for a training or performance problem. "Our officers aren't killing the suspects quickly enough? Let's give 'em bigger guns". When the answer should be "Let's send our officers over to Lou Chiodo in the CHP so we can go from a 20-something percent hit rate to nearly 90 percent, just like the CHP did". Imagine that; a training solution to a training deficiency. That would pretty much nulify the caliber conversation.

To start with my statement was knock down power not kill. If I want to kill I couls use a 22lr. 9mm lack knock down power not kill ability. I own several 9mm and love them. Even carry in my car for protection.

doesnt matter what bullet i guess, if u miss the vitals, u dont knock them down, and with 2-3 shots of a 9mm in the chest, you oughta hit something. and to be honest i dont know about guns as much as half the people here, but if im carrying my g19 loaded with +p+ hp's, im gonna be confident i will stop a perp/animal. and if the 9mm is good enough for the military and the nypd, its sure as hell good enough for me.

No pistol in existence will knock a man down. There are some smart people here, and I could find that physics law that says for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, or whatever if I looked around. This applies to shooting. Any bullet capable of physically knocking a man down would have recoil powerful enough to do the same to the shooter, minus gun weight and recoil dampening and whatnot. Knockdown power refers to the speed of incapacitation caused by a given round, not by the ability to physically move someone.

isrealies shoot until,target goes down,reload. thats knockdown power.

that's shooting until the bad guy is incapacitated, allowing them to fall down. That's gravity at work.

BUT YOU HAVE TO AGREE THE WHERE KNOCKED DOWN . HA!HA!

I still agree with Runawaygun762 (use the biggest caliber you are comfortable with).
I know I can shoot a Glock19 "out of the box" better than other calibers I have. But don't own one. Go figure. I switched to a .40 S&W in 1990. So I
am totally comfortable w/that. A lot of it (I believe) is the platform that the round is launched from. Then you have the mass/weight/energy, argument.
+ we add the newer ammunition component. This could go on forever. It's great.

i think a 45 magnum would give you a good head start towards the ground

A 22lr in the cerebral cortex will drop you much faster than a 12 gauge in the gut. No, I am not saying we should trade our 870s for 10/22s, but I am illuminating the point. With handguns, the key is where the round goes. A 308 narrowly missing the liver will still damage the liver. The vast majority of defensive rounds will not damage the liver unless it hits it directly.

You got it right, bullet placement is everything as "we" were trained,9MM rocks "THAT"S IT " !!!!

.45 ACP .45 LC are the best

well i dunno about that, see 45 acp leaves bigger holes, 40 cal is a mix between a 9mm and 45 acp, 357 sig and mag are deep hole punchers, so all in all, bullets have different styles, i love the 45 acp for self defense, but id rather have 15 shots of the 9mm than 8 of the 45.

This is knock down power from a pistol.

http://www.nothingtoxic.com/media/1234318416/Armed_Suspect_Taken_Down_Wi...

Most of us agreed this video is a HOAX.

I think?

I do not believe the 9mm is a better or more effective round than the 40 or 45. If I could find a 16 inch naval gun that was easily concealed, easily controlled in rapid strings of fire with inexpensive practice ammo, I would carry one of those. The amount of recoil generated by a 9mm is less than that of a 40, 45ACP, 45 LC (don't feel left out, Snake), 10mm, and so on up the scale in a given platform. You can train to control recoil and stack rounds right on top of each other at 8 yds while running with a 45 with the proper training, equipment, and practice. However, since I am not an "operator" and I have to buy my own ammo, the 9mm is the best choice for me. I may move up to a 45 some day, but only after I've found a reliable, comfortable weapon that I feel confident will serve me as well as the Glock 19/26. I doubt it'll ever happen, though.

very good point man, my glock 19 carries 15, when im out or just waiting in my bedroom, and since the 40 and 45 carries only about 7-13, its a very very very slim chance i would have to unload 15 bullets on a perp, so with that being said, bullet for bullet, the 40 and 45 are more powerful than the 9mm, but it doesnt mean the 9mm lacks stopping power, in my opinion, stopping power is hitting somebody in their vitals thatll cause shock or immediate blood loss for them to go down, its easier to achieve that with the fatter 45 or the faster 357 sig, but a 9mm will still do the job...ask the military, border patrol, and secret service. a 9mm may be small compared to a 45, but then again, a pitbull is small compared to most dogs...

since I've been lookin into reloading myself, Im sticking with the 9. But for all of you guys who will buy your ammo. I gotta suggest you go with the .40 or .45. You just can't find 9mm ammo anywhere cheap anymore. The demand is so strong most of your big dealers are out of stock.Sure you can go to the range and buy some , but they're at least 10.00 more a box.But I did notice that you can get the.40 and .45 anywhere and at a reasonable price.So thats why im allredy buying my reloading equipment.Ilove you all, but soon I will look down on you like peasants.

I own 9mm's and love shooting them. I also love .45acp.... but my carry gun and nightstand gun are both .40S&W. I don't think the recoil is bad at all and think its a good combination of mag cap and stopping power. 9mm will definately do the job with some well placed shots and good JHP's but I personally prefer .40 for two legged threats. (I'm also a fan of .357 sig, those rounds are pretty nasty)

Most civilian fire fights are within 7 to 10 yards. The spray & pray method is more or less left to luck. The calmer front sight to target alignment will work better on average. I was trained to double tap, one to center mass and one to the head. Repeat if the threat is still standing. These shots are to be made from a practiced position of making your body a smaller target and a comfortable pistol shooting stance. So, when Snoop Puppy Busta Rhymes is holding his pistol sideways and jerking the trigger like all the others in the hood, you follow your training and practice of stance and an aimed shot will make him have a bad day. Quality of shots are always better than quantity of shots. The caliber should be what ever you can shoot your best with (without going to rim fire) and putting more holes in the 5X or your live target. Almost only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades. The caliber debate from .32 to .50 could bounce around many times and if researched there will be examples found of people that's been shot center mass by every caliber mentioned and have lived. Does that make a caliber useless because it did so? Short of taking an RPG or an MX missile to the bread basket, you won't find knocking people out of their shoes type of knock down from any small arms caliber. The 9MM is a very workable round when applied correctly. These are just my experiences and opinions on the subject.

I carried a 9mm for about 2 years and had reacently puchased a XD9 as a new carry piece......Then I had to use it. I've used guns most my life and even was an instructor in advance tactics for uncle sam, so I can hit what I aim for. I had a person attack my wife and I in my home, and I shot him twice with a 9mm JHP +p+ rounds. The intruder was stopped, but after all the excitement had died down, i noticed two holes in the wall behind him......and into the next room .......and into the room behind that. No one was hurt, but with my daughter and grandson living with me, i put the nines away. Over penetration is a waste of energy and dangerous to innocent bystanders.

If im not mistaken, Is'nt there a bullet made for home defense that will not go through a wall after initial impact?

ronin, +P+ ammo is for engaging targets that may be in a vehicle or behind some kind of cover outside of a home. They are designed for more penetration. The +P+ is higher pressure = a higher velocity. The bullets went through the perp too fast to expand. Believe it or not a slower HP bullet will expand the best on a human. Try some ballistics jell with 9MM +P+ HP ammo vs 9MM standard velocity 147 grn. hydro shock, saber, or any other standard velocity 147 grn. HP ammo. You will see a difference in penetration and expansion of the two. Lots of folks buy into to the +P and +P+ = knock down power. It doesn't work that way. I personally have seen human bodies shot with .357 Magnum HP caliber rounds and standard .38 Special HP rounds. The .38 Special HP caliber rounds made a bigger wound channel than the .357 Magnum did. The .357 Magnum HP rounds were just starting to expand when they were exiting the body, where the .38 Special HP rounds began expanding about half way into the body. If I could make a suggestion for a home defense weapon if your worried about over penetration, a pump/semi-auto shotgun loaded with #8 or #9 shot would cut down on the over penetration into other rooms of the house, while making a nice size hole in the human body at 15 yards or less. You could use a heavy bullet, like the 147 grn, in a standard 9MM load in your 9MM pistol to stop some of the over penetration but, your going to have penetration through walls with any center fire handgun/rifle regardless of caliber because walls are made of sheet rock or paneling. Those two things can be penetrated with a BB gun. In reality +P and +P+ ammo is really not designed or intended for home defense. It's more for duty services for police, armed security guards, and ect.

By all means yes, if you are more accurate and comfortable with your .45ACP carry it. That could mean the difference in life and death to someone. When I was on duty I carried my rounds stacked HP then FMJ in my magazines. I carried them staggered like that because it was unknown what kind of situation I would be involved in with a fire fight. A fire fight out in the open requires a different bullet than say a fire fight from car to car. I tried to prepare for both.

Slower HP have less reliable expansion, which is why nearly every gun "expert" agrees 147 gr 9mm JHP are best suited for subguns, as they don't get the velocity needed to upset and expand from a handgun length barrel. There is no such thing as going "too fast" to expand for a pistol round. The 9mm round is a very deep penetrating round and it is a very good possibility that a +P+ round has enough velocity to expand and continue penetrating through a body. There is also a fairly common occurence of the cavity of HP bullets being plugged with fabric, keeping the fluid pressure from building and causing reliable expansion. For defensive use, the frangible 9mm round is a wonderful round for terminal ballistics, but both brands I have used left a lot to be desired as far as accuracy went. I do agree with using a long gun as a home defense gun, but don't discount the idea of a .223 rifle. The 55 gr Hornady V-max and the 55 gr Extreme Shock frangible both showed insane terminal ballistics and very little penetration.

i have a glock 19 with over 50,000 rounds though it and its still going strong but i carry glock 27 that i really like

I'm fresh out of ballistics gel, is there a suitable test media, besides sides of beef and vagrants, to test on?

I agree with just about everything you have said. BTW that formula you are looking for is Newton's Third Law of Motion. F=MA or Force = mass times acceleration. Or stated as you did, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The problem in just one part of your argument, which is mostly all correct otherwise, is the acceleration part. The round is accelerating while you are standing still. I have seen men knocked down from the impact of a single round, at very close range. I have also seen a man die almost instantly from a single round to the thigh. A thigh shot on a human is not a bad idea. All you have to do is place the round on the upper inside part of the thigh and you'll cut the femoral artery. Someone hit like this will bleed out in 10 to 20 seconds. They will also be instantly incapacitated. You won't take a step and you're likely to only get just one more breath if you are shot in the femoral artery with a 9mm, and as you say 9mms are cheap and available. There is also the idea of why use a hydrogen bomb when a hand grenade will do? A 9mm can easy make you just as dead with one round as any other caliber round. But I also agree with you because I spent many years of my career working with the Israel Air Wing Service and their most very deadly Air Wing Commandos. These guys have a mindset that they got lots of bullets and emptying a mag into one guy to make sure he's dead is better than taking a chance that he's not. The Filipinos have a different idea. They follow the old sniper motto of one shot one kill. Placement of the round is everything, but a good thigh shot will make a person just as dead as a whole mag emptied into center mass. For two years in the Philipines I used a 9mm Beretta Cx4 carbine chambered with the IMI Israeli 9mm x 21mm magnum parabellum. It's a very powerful and deadly weapon for up close and personal "hugging" style combat where you have to do most of your fighting at ranges of less than 50 meters.

doesn't everyone? my 64 year old mother owns one, my 10 year old can't wait until I die to get mine! Sick, huh?
9mm is very useful round; target, self defense, bringing to gun fights, picking locks, etc.
You can even use it to pistol whip someone who desperately needs it and save a few rounds at the same time.

I also believe in bullet placement, with ammo being very scarce and hard to get lately, be accurate and be safe.

Yeh, I got one somewhere in that safe.

I purchased a Glock 26 for CC , and not a .40 , because I already own a S&W 5906 and wanted to simplify ammo requirements .

It is a bad thing to use terms of absolutes when discussing what will happen when people are shot. It is nice to be able to say someone will always go down and stay down when hit with half a dozen 7.62 rounds, but the SLAP rounds used by TF Ranger in Somalia would put Sammies down only to have them get up and run off on several occasions. Trying to determine what caliber or bullet type to use based strictly on the mechanical merits is not intelligent. It is nice to say you will be immediately incapacitated if hit in the femoral artery, but if a heart shot or hit in the liver will not guarantee an immediate incapacitation, trying to say it will happen with an artery is flawed logic. You want a good target to shoot at? Shoot at the center mass (not center of mass) of whatever the bad guy exposes. Multiple hits in the brain will yield the best results, followed by a single hit to the brain, followed by multiple hits to the upper spine, followed by a single hit to the upper spine followed by multiple hits to the high chest followed by everything else. Hit 'em in the best spot you can, as many times as you can, with the biggest bullet you can. The original question of whether everyone should own a 9mm, the answer is yes. Everyone should own two of every gun, ideally. That was dumb. Sorry, I couldn't stay consistently intelligent. 9mm is a very good round when loaded with modern defensive rounds. It is not as good, hit for hit as the .40, .45, 10mm, .45 LC (SNAKE) or .357 mag. But it is still widely available, sort of, and gives lots of chances to miss the heart and brain in a given platform.