The 9mm is useless!

[buzz_knox]

I believe that the 9 mm was carried by most police officers up until a situation developed where a shooter was all drugged up and didn't feel any pain. He was in an office building surrounded by officers and if I remember correctly the officers shot him 20 or more times and couldn't kill him and at the same time he took the lives of many of the officers in this incident.

I believe the switch from the 9mm came after the 1986 Miami shootout and the FBI tests that resulted from that situation. The tests found that a 10mm was the optimum caliber (there is some debate as to whether that was due to the .45 not being an option, Congress having been recently convinced to fund the retirement of the .45 for the military so no one wanted to suggest that might have been the wrong move). The .40 was developed to provide a ballistic equivalent of the required 10mm specs in a smaller weapon.

Many agencies switched to the .40 and a few to the .45, because 1) ballistic concerns, 2) to follow the FBI, 3) to use the existing federal contracts for Glocks and .40s in order to save money and time, or 4) some combination of the above. Many agencies stayed with the 9mm and have been reporting excellent results, either with original ammunition or some of the newer versions. Some agencies have actually gone back to the 9mm from the .40 and .45, although that was due to weapon performance issues rather than caliber.

With modern ammunition (i.e. current generation JHP), the 9mm performs comparably to the others with some advantage to the .40 and .45. Whether that advantage outweighs the 9mm benefits (capacity, ease of use, accuracy, etc) is up to the end user.

Surprisingly enough, without such ammunition, the 9mm still performs fairly well even by comparison to the FMJ .40 and .45. That's largely because much of the vaunted success of the later two calibers (particularly the .45) are often more sea story than true story. So, the issue of the 9mm advantages/disadvantages versus those of the other calibers still applies. It's a decision to be made by the end user based on their needs.

[Creature]

A 9mm will punch holes and make you bleed. A 45 will stop you by inducing shock.

You should spend some time in a hospital emergency room with a trauma unit that deals with a lot of gunshot wounds. Unless you are comparing the 9mm FMJ to the 45 JHP, your statement is very misinformed. The idea that the 9mm JHP is inferior to 45ACP in causing physiological trauma is a myth.

so they tried to go to .45, but most officers couldn't handle the round

That is another myth.

[Mike Irwin]

"Why was the 9 mm a great choice for WW II but useless for us in 2008?

Body armor."


Uhm...

The .45 isn't particularly known for being able to punch through body armor, either.

[Mike U.]

There is a recent thread* here that showed the terminal performance of the 9mm, .45ACP and .40 S&W using the same type of ammo. That being Winchester's Ranger "T" series JHP's.
The results of firing into ballistic gel were so close to each other that pointing out the difference between the calibers was correctly considered "splitting hairs".

When it comes to handgun calibers, shot placement will always be THE deciding factor of a given ammo's effectiveness.



* http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/...d.php?t=316364

[vitesse9]

Don't believe me:

DSCN0154.jpg

We dug these 115 gr. fmj slugs out of the back of a railroad tie. They came out of a Glock 19. They basically went all the way through.

The 9mm is going to kill an attacker as dead as a .40 or a .45. And no, a .45 isn't going to stop a perp cold any better than a 9mm.

P.S. we shot the same railroad tie with three deer slugs, and it split in half. I'd leave the 9mm, the .40 and the .45 at home and take the shotgun. End of stopping power debate.

[darkgael]

Double Naught wrote: (a great post + 1 on all these points)
Quote:
"Why does everyone complain about the 9mm?
Not everyone does.

Quote:
I have never read any reports, or heard any complaints from soldiers in WW II.
Really? Just how many German and British ordnance assessment reports have you read?

Quote:
The mp-40 and the sten seemed to work great. I have never heard anyone say that the mp-40 or sten were useless.
That doesn't mean the 9mm round doesn't have issues. You happened to pick two very good guns to pick as your 9mm representatives, SMGs at that. However, comparison between the a pistol cartridge and a SMG are not one in the same.

Quote:
If I was in WW II and I had the chance to pick my weapon, I would pick an mp-40 or sten.
You aren't and most soldiers didn't.

Quote:
Great for up to 100 yards(the official designfor WW II was that it was good for 200 yards)
"official designator WW II" ... what the heck is that? The Axis and Allies didn't agree on such matters and didn't even use the same system of measurement (English v. metric).

Quote:
Why was the 9 mm a great choice for WW II but useless for us in 2008?
Now you have confused the notion of complaints with usefulness. Just because something is complained about does not mean it is useless.

Sorry to quote the whole thing (though it bears repeating). There's a lot of confused thinking on the internet - not meaning to hurt any one's feelings - and this post addressed some of it very nicely. My initial reaction to the subject of the OP was that it was so outrageous that the OP must be trolling. Evidently that is not the case, though the statement as written is too extreme to be true.
Pete

PS There was a "wouldn't it be nice" comment about developing the .30 Carbine in a semi-auto. I did not see that anyone addressed that. AMT produced the AutoMag III, a semi-auto pistol chambered for the .30 Carbine round, about 1989.
__________________

[44 AMP]

Since the OP was about the MP 40 ans Sten thread moved to NFA forum.

[RWBlue01]

Everything has good points and bad points. The 9 is fine for many things.

For handguns, I would want JHPs.
For full auto guns, ball will work.


But if you are trying to shoot someone at 1000 meters, 9 is not fine.
If you are trying to stop a bear, it is not optimal.
IF you are trying to shoot people in body armor, it is not going to work.

[David Hineline]

The ability to penetrat soft body armor is a limitation of US law not the cartridge capability.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyKMz3tYx-M

[Nnobby45]

Why was the 9 mm a great choice for WW II but useless for us in 2008?

Body armor.

Who said it was a great choice? We didn't even use the dang thing--that's undoubtedly why we won the war.

See, we had the .45 1911 and the Thompson. The Krauts only had the little ol' 9mm, see. Did you see the British winning the war with their 9mm jammamatic Stens before we arrived? I didn't think so.

And we adopted it during the Gulf War to please our rearward leaning NATO partners and because we needed Air Bases in Italy, which is why we adopted the Beretta instead of the Sig P226. We don't need no Air Bases in Switzerland. Any questions ?

Sorry about that, just had too much Red Bull.

[jughead2]

on the comment of 7.62 / 25 round. i have watched my son use a cz-52 out to 100 yds and that round is scary in the hands of someone that can use it.

[2transams]

I believe that the 9 mm was carried by most police officers up until a situation developed where a shooter was all drugged up and didn't feel any pain. He was in an office building surrounded by officers and if I remember correctly the officers shot him 20 or more times and couldn't kill him and at the same time he took the lives of many of the officers in this incident. I did a quick Google search on it but I couldn’t' find the specifics. Anyway, after this incident most LEOs decided that 9mm wasn't sufficient so they tried to go to .45, but most officers couldn't handle the round so many settled with 40 - a compromise which is standard issue for many LEOs.

A 9mm will punch holes and make you bleed. A 45 will stop you by inducing shock.

For the longest time I couldn’t' figure out why the military would carry insufficient firepower, i.e. 9mm and .223 instead of something larger like 30-06 and up. I finally figured it out: they can carry lots of ammo because it weighs less and the 'hits' injure instead of kill which makes soldiers care for their wounded instead of fight. This decreases their morale because they hear their comrades in agony from the wounds instead of seeking revenge from a dead comrade. Also the 'bean counters' decided that more ammo = more kills, no matter what the caliber. The only reason they stuck with .223 is because it was the minimum caliber that would still pierce armor.

Posts like that make the internet fun.

[Evil Monkey]

The 9mm, 40 cal, and 45 cal, and any other pistol caliber are all useless because weapons like this exist today.

[armoredman]

What the heck is that?

[Evil Monkey]

Israeli Micro Tavor 2 assault rifle with a suppressor. Very small rifle.

[armoredman]

Very nice.

[Brit]

[QUOTEA British Royal Marine was shot in the abdomen with 7.62mm NATO during the liberation of the Falklands, he carried on fighting shooting the Argentine dead with his M16. ][/QUOTE]

The above quote means nothing! The average Royal was not that big, they yomped (they marched) so far, so fast the other side (recruits with little training, and no real heart for the fight) were quite surprised, and did not want anything to do with them. He probably cleaned his rifle prior to going to the medic! Now that was a joke!

If you have ever played with those two sub guns. The MP40 and the Sten, both fairly cheap to make, the 9mm MP40 was like a swiss watch! how they accomplished that smooth action with stamped parts is amazing.

The 9mm, displaced the .38 Special, 6 shot, with a more powerful round, and a whole bunch more of them, great move.

The FBI blamed a 9mm WW Silver tip for a tactical error, Agents, brave men one and all, chasing known to be armed with rifles bad guys? with a mish match of personal weapons, only the ex-Cop took a 12 gage along for the ride.

The 9mm pistol rounds of today are among the most effective bullet designs in the world. Millions of dollars have made them that way. The 9mm works.

[imthegrumpyone]

I vote for the 9mm and .40s forever !!!!! carry both ( one at a time ) I grab the .40 first cause of it's small concealment.

[alizeefan]

My personal opinion is that the whole question is irrelevant. I don't know who originally said it but one of my favourite quotes is " amatuers talk calibre and gear, professionals talk tactics ".

[Coyote Hitman]

Sten gun @ 100yards

[Skans]

I'm still a big fan of 9mm. It is fairly cheap to shoot and practice with. Then, I put high-powered frangible rounds in for self defense. I'd agree that if what I was carrying in my Glock was Wolf steel jacketed 9mm, it might not be quite as effective as a .45. But, that's only what I practice with, not what I use for defense.

Like others have said, there is no reason to discredit the 9mm now that you can buy the high velocity ammo that does substantial damage. I like it because it holds more rounds. 20 rounds vs. 8 rounds....I'll take the 20 rounds. What are you going to do if you are confronted with multiple attackers? How often do "gangs" of one break into a house or attack people in the streets?

[guntotin_fool]

OKay, Some basics.


Getting shot with anything hurts, and will lead to death in about half the cases unless immediate medical attention is given.

9mm as used in WW2 subguns, was and is clearly different from 9mm loaded into a handgun. The extra few hundred feet of velocity added because of the 8-10 inch barrel, and the added power of a hotter load, equalled a better combo of power vs size than most 9mm SAAMI loads today.

Americans learned to fight differently than europeans, and were fairly confident that at the right time, a proper fighting pistol was a good tool to have. European Armies only carried pistols for two reasons, one was a mark of rank, and second, it was the tool to shoot deserters and prisoners.

Americans took that proper fighting pistol to war, and along the way, decided that a weapon that fired the same useful cartridge could be used to break up resistance inside a house or trench quite easily.

Heinz Guderain was not looking at trench warfare when he decided that the new war in europe would not be allowed to resort to the trenches. He was the innovator of the lightning war, or Blitzkrieg, where speed and shock were to be the tools of overcoming the other armies of europe. He wanted supply lines to be simple, with only a very few forms of ammuntion to be shipped. For the most part, he wanted only 9mm and 8mm ammo produced for the troops (obviously here, we are skipping 20mm and up tank, AA and arty stuff) He also decided that equipping large number of troops with a weapon that was made from stampings, that cost something like 21 dollars to produce, and afforded a squad with (almost) the same firepower of a GPMG, was superior to a weapon that took skilled machinists, heavy tooling, and was slow to fire and reload, at least in the warfare that he was envisioning.

For much of europe in the period from sept 1939 thru about 1944, the real image of a boogeyman was a german Para holding a MP40. Soldiers falling from the sky, blazing away with machine guns gave most of europe the runs.


Now the americans show up late for the party, but operating under the guidelines that we will win this war using our rules, and that is saving our troops as best we can, and making decisions based on saving the most lives we can of our side, while costing the enemy the most casualties as possible.

We taught our soldiers to be marksmen, we demanded that we have rifles capable of putting the bullet where it was meant to go, and we brought weapons that ended fights when we hit you with it.



Now moving forward to today, Even with fancy ammo, in much of the country, during much of the year getting ammo to expand and do its job is difficult when the people are bundled up in heavy clothing.

So one reverts to the old proven technology, 9mm and 38 sized bullets tend not to deliver that important "fights over" message to drugged up people the way a .45 does. IF the bullet does expand, 60% expansion on a nine is somewhere around .56 cal. so compared to an unexpanded .45, one can see that even with ball, you don't loose much to an expanded 9, and if the 45 only expands 30%, you're out to .58 cal.

Some see this as reason enough to choose a 9.

I hear some argue that they can carry 19 rounds or so of 9 mm, and thus in a gun fight, they can simply poke enough holes in the target to get lucky and hit something vital.

I hear Civil trial lawyers having wet dreams over that kind of attitude. as 19 rounds leaving your gun each and every one have a lawyers business card attached to them saying "Sue me for wrongful death and injury" as the misses carry on down the street and hit that kid doing homework in the livingroom two blocks away.

I want very few shots, all accurately placed, all stopping within the body of the felon who has threatened to kill me. I want no flyers or strays rumbling down the street killing or maiming innocents.





Now, if this argument is simply about subguns, then today our FBI has the best option, which is the MP-10, but for some reason. They forget to teach the Second Amendment at the FBI school in Quantico, because if they did, the FBI would do everything in its power to get that weapon out to law abiding Citizens as the near perfect home defense and civil defense weapon.

[TacticalDefense1911]

There have been many circumstances where a 9mm has failed to stop a perpetrator from doing more damage to others or himself.

The same can be said about the .40, 10mm and 45 ACP

The difficulty with the 9mm is that ammo selection is far more important than it is with a 40 or 45. There just dont seem to be too many "bad" 40 & 45 loads while there are numerous bad 9mm loads for self defense. With the right load selection a 9mm is a fine self defense caliber.

[razorburn]

If anything, I believe the 1911 is useless. Despite anything you can espouse about the stopping power of .45 or its magical feel, the thing is that its a low capacity, finicky, unreliable weapon. If gunnies were able to pick arms for the modern army, we'd still be using the 1911 and m14 and our troops would be as underwhelming as any 3rd world countries.

[heyduke]

The 9mm, 40 cal, and 45 cal, and any other pistol caliber are all useless because weapons like this exist today.

Please tell me your joking.