9mm +P ammo

[HadEmAll]

That's not even close to why the .40 was invented.

A brief outline:

The FBI, who had been perfectly happy with their Winchester 115 grain Silvertip standard pressure loads out of S&W semiautos, got into a famous and infamous gunfight with 2 bank robbers. Due to really bad tactics on the FBI's part, the bank robbers killed and wounded several agents before being put out of action. The FBI blamed ONE 115 grain JHP that has gone through one of the bank robber's arm before stopping an inch away from the heart. They had to put the blame on something or somebody. They blamed penetration.

They then adapted the subsonic 147 grain JHP load, which had been invented by OLIN ONLY to use in the silenced versions of military sub guns.

Unfortunately, a lot of law enforcement agencies, who were transitioning at the time from revolvers to semiautos, followed the FBI's illfated move to the 147 grain 9mm load. The 147s at the time were famous for lack of stopping power, overpenetration, and making formerly relibable pistols unreliable. Therefore the 9mm got even a worse rap than before.

Then the FBI made their standard issue pistol a S&W 10mm. Hardkicking, and due to more female agents in the field, hard to hold due to grip size.

NOW the .40 S&W came to be. A 10mm round with a reduced case and powder charge. Called the .40 short and weak by detractors, it has become the predominant law enforcement round.

I like the hell out of the .40. I've got 8 of them, from full-sized down to the PM40.

I don't have any use for standard pressure 9mm loads. I've had many of them over the years. But I like some of the pistols made in 9mm. So I buy good ones, that I know will stand up to limited +P+ service. If they ever wear out, I'll get another one.

I'm not the only one out there buying 9mm +P+. You do what you want, and I'll continue to do the same.

[wyntrout]

The K9's and the K40's have substantially beefier barrel shrouds and look sturdy enough for +P+, but the PM9 and others are much lighter in that area.

I use +P 9mm for defense and the .40 does seem to have at least that much kick, even with my ported P40, but certainly not uncontrollable. I'm glad that I finally added a .40 and look forward to carrying mine.

I weighed the P40 with 6+1... 24.2 ounces and my PM45 weighs 23.85 with 5+1 loaded. The .40 certainly has enough firepower!

Wynn


Barrels:
P380
PM9
K9
PM45

[ltxi]

I well know the history. I was speaking metaphorically. I use std pressure in featherweight arms because it's served me well and I'm good with that at double taps and dealing with multiple targets. Perhaps a personal failing, but extremely high pressure/sharp pressure curve ammunition just throws me off under those conditions.

[wyntrout]

Actually, looking at the pictures, the PM9 barrel shroud might be a hair thicker, just not as long as the K9's.

Wynn

[HadEmAll]

Well, there's no doubt that I'm the one doing the technically wro.......wro.........."non-Kahr sanctioned" thing by using +P+ in my PM9.

Feel free to accept that and move on. I am wro............"non-Kahr sanctioned".

But I'm personally willing and able to deal with both the benefits as I see it, and the penalties for doing so .

What +P+ is doing for me in the PM9 is bringing the 115 bullet up to the same velocity it gets out of a 4" barrel in standard pressure form.

The Winchester Ranger +P+ 115 grain load is merely emulating the performance of the Corbon 115 grain +P load. Actually, I'm not sure which came first, but the Winchester round gave great service to the Illinois State Police back in the day. They gave up it when they, along with hundreds of other Law enforcement departments transitioned to newer pistols and the .40. I don't know when the Corbon load came along, but I find the Corbon to be a shorter than normal round, and don't prefer it in this particular load.

As far as the +P+ versus +P, who's to say who's piezoelectric transducers are calibrated better or interpreted more accurately? I know how that instrumentation stuff goes. I did it for 35 years. I don't dismiss the difference, but also think the lines can be blurred. And I'm not advocating anybody else ignore or try to interpret things to their own point of view. I generally respect manufacturer's guidelines.

By the same token, there are "bullshot" guidelines that come down the pike sometimes. When Ford for example made 5W20 the recommended oil for the 2003 F150 I bought, I did a little research and found that was only because Ford was mandated by the gubmnt to increase the gas mileage of their product line by x amount. Using oil with less viscosity was their solution. I doubted they gave a corporate damn about how long the engines might last with the thinner oil. I dismissed their recommendations and have been using 5W30 for the last 121,000 miles. Time may have shown the 5W20 to be okay, but for me, it was not.

If a round with the factory springs doesn't eject a crazy distance, and the primer isn't flattened or extruded into the firing pin hole, then I think it's within the engineered capability of that pistol. I knew when I bought the PM9 I was not going to be putting thousands of rounds through it. Even punching paper with standard pressure FMJ.

Anyway.......................

The Winchester Ranger 115 grain +P+ round in my Beretta 90two's almost 5" barrel gets 1355 fps for 471 ft/lbs.

In the sigpro 2022's 4" barrel it gets 1320 fps for 420 ft/lbs.

In the PM9's 3/5" barrel, it's "down" to 1217fps/380 ft/lbs, still performing a little better than the standard pressure Ranger 115 JHP out of a 4" barrel.

In the Beretta PX4SC's 3" barrel, it's down to 1205/373.

It really isn't the rip-snorting round people are making it out to be. It ejects a little farther than the Blazer 115 grain FMJ I'm using for hole-punching in paper.

As far as recoil, my PM40 with 155 grain JHPs recoils a bunch more than my PM9 with the Ranger 115 grain +P+.

And the Ruger LCR with full-house .357 magnums put them both to shame. This one actually hurts.

Everybody has their own recoil threshold. Nobody can tell somebody else that they can't handle the recoil of X round and Y pistol just because the first somebody can't. They can state it as opinion, but it sure isn't a fact.

I might seek out some of the Speer 124 grain +P short barreled stuff just to see what I think of it. And I am just enough getting over how bad the 147 grain 9mm load used to suck to think about trying some of today's better ones in the PM9. But for now, Winchester Ranger 115 grain +P+ JHPs are what my PM9 is full of.