147 grain 9mm smack down
- Thread starter Super-Dave
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iMagUdspEllr
New member
It seems like there is a lot of knowledgeable people in this topic right now. As far as looking at ballistic gelatin tests, what are we looking for to make a particular load a go or no-go?
I think the 12"-14" penetration requirement makes sense. But, I wasn't understanding what characteristics the .357 Magnum 125gr JHP with 500 ft-lbs of energy had that made it a "go" despite not meeting the penetration depth requirement.
As far as lethality goes, you need the round to actually penetrate to/through the vital area that you have done your utmost to launch the bullet at, right?
I think the 12"-14" penetration requirement makes sense. But, I wasn't understanding what characteristics the .357 Magnum 125gr JHP with 500 ft-lbs of energy had that made it a "go" despite not meeting the penetration depth requirement.
As far as lethality goes, you need the round to actually penetrate to/through the vital area that you have done your utmost to launch the bullet at, right?
What some are saying is that a controlled laboratory test does not always relate to real world performance. The three failed rounds, in succession, used by the FBI (and chosen due to their performance in gel) are proof of that.
Penetration is needed. Something like Glasers do a good job transferring energy and not over-penetrating, however, they have trouble penetrating deep enough for a "stop."
If penetration was the only desired quality of a good round, everyone would recommend FMJ's since they are the best penetrators. However, there are a variety of qualities we look at in determining a good "duty" load; penetration is simply one of many. One undesirable effect of rounds that penetrate really well is that they tend to overpenetrate. As Clint Smith has quipped, "Every round you fire has a lawyer attached to it." If you load up with FMJs, and justifiably shoot an attacker, but one of your rounds goes through and through, and hits a bystander...you're liable for that.
Having said that, most modern JHP ammo, in popular defensive calibers, penetrates sufficiently to hit vital areas from a variety of angles, while at the same time reduces, or even eliminates overpenetration. They also confer other advantages, such as a larger wound.
What I look for in a round is one that is a proven round. One that does sufficiently on a gel test, but also has a proven street record. There are many rounds from various manufacturers that meet this requirement. I personally carry Speer Gold Dots in 124gr +P in my 9mm, and the same Gold Dots in 135gr +P in my .38Spl. Both are proven rounds, that sufficiently pass gel tests (though I don't think either completely passed the FBI tests). Something about the FBI tests. They set the bar VERY high. And they test a variety of situations that the typical civilian will rarely encounter.
Penetration is needed. Something like Glasers do a good job transferring energy and not over-penetrating, however, they have trouble penetrating deep enough for a "stop."
If penetration was the only desired quality of a good round, everyone would recommend FMJ's since they are the best penetrators. However, there are a variety of qualities we look at in determining a good "duty" load; penetration is simply one of many. One undesirable effect of rounds that penetrate really well is that they tend to overpenetrate. As Clint Smith has quipped, "Every round you fire has a lawyer attached to it." If you load up with FMJs, and justifiably shoot an attacker, but one of your rounds goes through and through, and hits a bystander...you're liable for that.
Having said that, most modern JHP ammo, in popular defensive calibers, penetrates sufficiently to hit vital areas from a variety of angles, while at the same time reduces, or even eliminates overpenetration. They also confer other advantages, such as a larger wound.
What I look for in a round is one that is a proven round. One that does sufficiently on a gel test, but also has a proven street record. There are many rounds from various manufacturers that meet this requirement. I personally carry Speer Gold Dots in 124gr +P in my 9mm, and the same Gold Dots in 135gr +P in my .38Spl. Both are proven rounds, that sufficiently pass gel tests (though I don't think either completely passed the FBI tests). Something about the FBI tests. They set the bar VERY high. And they test a variety of situations that the typical civilian will rarely encounter.
iMagUdspEllr
New member
@Gaerek: Thanks for replying! So then what characteristics make a pass? I assumed the 12"-14" was a pass (doesn't underpenetrate, doesn't overpenetrate). What do we look for to say that a particular round is good to go?
What makes you count on those Speer Gold Dot loads despite not passing the FBI's tests?
I just ask because I don't want to waste time asking, "Hey is this round good? What about this one?"
What makes you count on those Speer Gold Dot loads despite not passing the FBI's tests?
I just ask because I don't want to waste time asking, "Hey is this round good? What about this one?"
iMag,
12"-14" of penetration and reliable expansion are good indicators. In the case of the Gold Dot, it may be the most issued service round in the US. ATK (parent company of Speer & Federal) provides rounds to DHS agencies, NYPD, and a LOT of other departments. Gold Dots and Federal HSTs have performed very well in the real world. Winchester Ranger T and PDX1 rounds are also in heavy use, and very successful. Any of those is likely to perform the same way, test after test, event after event.
12"-14" of penetration and reliable expansion are good indicators. In the case of the Gold Dot, it may be the most issued service round in the US. ATK (parent company of Speer & Federal) provides rounds to DHS agencies, NYPD, and a LOT of other departments. Gold Dots and Federal HSTs have performed very well in the real world. Winchester Ranger T and PDX1 rounds are also in heavy use, and very successful. Any of those is likely to perform the same way, test after test, event after event.
iMagUdspEllr
New member
@RBid: Thanks for the info!
The SPEER 124 gr. +P Gold Dot DOES pass the FBI's Tests. The list of approved loads is here:http://www.ar15.com/ammo/project/Self_Defense_Ammo_FAQ/index.htm
Okay, I give! Y'all have us beat on Constitutional Carry, but we do have a bill in congress for open carry.
I'll have to admit, I've been to Arizona many times but I don't think I ever tried Mexican food there. The stuff we get here is pretty darn good!
Okay, I give! Y'all have us beat on Constitutional Carry, but we do have a bill in congress for open carry.
I'll have to admit, I've been to Arizona many times but I don't think I ever tried Mexican food there. The stuff we get here is pretty darn good!
RBid beat me to it. As far as the Gold Dots are concerned, it's one of, if not the most issued round. If it's good enough for LE, it's good enough for me. It's also on most gun expert's ammo recommendation list. I talk a lot about this guy, but Massad Ayoob recommends Gold Dots in his books.
I realize I never checked for myself whether they passed or not. Good to know, but their proven track record was enough for me.
Don't give up the fight!
I'll be honest, I've only been to Texas twice, and never had any Mexican. Did grub on BBQ. I'm a Carolina BBQ kind of guy, personally, but the stuff I had near Austin was pretty good. My brother and sister in law live in El Paso, and it's only 4 hours away, so I imagine I'll be visiting there more often anyway.
Jericho1911
New member
147 grain Excellent
147 grain excellent choice amongst leading reliable companies such as Federal, Winchester to name a few. Excellent choices. Preference through experience. Through the years I have come to really like and by preference The CCI Speer Gold Dot
124 grain +P for my carry load in my Sig P320 Compact, Glock 17 4th gen and Taurus PT 111 G2. Flawless. I have heard several law enforcement agencies carry it. I am liking the Federal HST a lot as well. I am not a Police Officer. Swat. Special Forces. Just a proud Navy Retiree that served and deeply believes in my 2nd amendment right. And likes my 9mms. Just wanted to give my opinion.
147 grain excellent choice amongst leading reliable companies such as Federal, Winchester to name a few. Excellent choices. Preference through experience. Through the years I have come to really like and by preference The CCI Speer Gold Dot
124 grain +P for my carry load in my Sig P320 Compact, Glock 17 4th gen and Taurus PT 111 G2. Flawless. I have heard several law enforcement agencies carry it. I am liking the Federal HST a lot as well. I am not a Police Officer. Swat. Special Forces. Just a proud Navy Retiree that served and deeply believes in my 2nd amendment right. And likes my 9mms. Just wanted to give my opinion.
Nope, just like +P, +P+ and the new super duper red tip knock em down elephant killer round.
As they say playing to the masses with advertising. Someone who is shot has no idea whether the round used was a hollow point, red tip zombie killer, green tip super duper elephant killer, or plain old hard ball.
This is not really that hard if you look at the history of handgun round development. The early JHP designs just did not work well. Then came the Super Vel loads. They worked because they were loaded much hotter than the standard loads. The speed got them to open up even with the poor designs. To get the speed lighter bullets were used as part of the formula so to speak. So it's not so much lighter bullets were "better". Speed was needed to get poorly designed bullets (based on lack of knowledge) to expand.
Also their was a belief that some still hold that speed created "hydrostatic shock" that caused such tissue disruption that it did damage way out of proportion to size. Such tissue disruption in everything but non-elastic tissue like the liver does not happen until you get a projectile somewhere above 2500-2700 f.p.s.. In other words rifle velocity. Handguns at least ones you can shoot and carry can't do it. Another idea relating to "hydrostatic shock" popular at the time of the terrible "Miami Massacre" of the F.B.I. agents was "energy dump".
It was felt that a round that opened quickly and expended it's energy in around eight inches or so did the most damage. The 115gr. Silvertip that was the "non-survivable" wound that stop short of the bad guys heart was blamed for the "failure". Truth is the Silvertip performed just as it was designed to based on the flawed ideas of bullet performance of the time. And the Silvertip is actually a decent performer. Except it needs a bit more penetration to get though enough vital tissue at some angles of entry.
So the F.B.I. went overboard and said they needed a deep penetrating bullet.
In comes the 147gr. bullet that penetrates alright. Just doesn't expand well. Again the science wasn't there. So you got bullets that went through and through bad guys. And sometimes killed innocents. Now in a Military situation going through two or three of the enemy is not a bad thing. And the truth is each round makes two holes with such penetration. So three bullets equal six holes. More holes, more blood coming out. Useful also to go through things like helmets. Bad for LEO's defending their lives and killing innocent civilians. It's why New York finally went to JHP's. Lawsuits for killed or wounded civilians. And they used for the most part WWB 115gr. FMJ. bullets.
So fast expansion (light and fast) or deep penetration (heavy and/or badly designed lighter bullets. So they did something smart and called together experts from all types of fields to figure out what was best. Doctors that treated combat wounds. Different subject matter experts and they came to this conclusion.
a. Handgun bullets only damage (again except for non-elastic tissue) the area the area the bullet actually comes into contact with. And most tissue will bounce back to the size of the frontal area of the bullet. And then the hole will get smaller as the body tries to save it's self by reducing blood loss. So you to want good expansion. The myth of "hydrostatic shock", stopping power, and other such bull still won't die. Even though the best minds on the subject with the most extensive experience say so. Some folks just know better. That's why so many "super atomic bullets" that destroy more tissue and blah, blah, blah can be sold to uninformed folks. So yeah you need penetration.
b. You need to reach vital tissue to achieve the greatest damage to the most important structures in the body. You need as big a hole as you can get, deep enough to reach vitals no matter what the angle of penetration. But not so deep it will go through whom you shoot and kill or injure others.
c. And it need to accomplish this while opening and penetrating even the most difficult garments to get this type of performance through.
No small feat. But finally a real science based understanding of what a bullet must do to stop someone. They must either have the brain or spine destroyed so signals from the brain to the body to do life supporting activities are interrupted.
Or the most common form of stopping an individual. Reducing the blood flow to the brain by dropping hydraulic pressure in the circulatory system to the point that blood can't reach the brain and other vital support functions. In other word "bleed out". Which even with good hits can sometimes take awhile.
And then of course the things you can't control. Is the person shot enraged, mentally disturbed, on drugs/alcohol, wanting to die for say religious reasons but take out as many infidels as they can before they die? Or are they like "crap I've been shot, I don't want to die, please stop shooting me and take me to the hospital. A "psychological stop". This you can't control the only thing you can hope for is that your bullet does the above listed things, get to cover, and keep shooting till the bad guy stops.
Myth and urban legend are a powerful thing. But once the problem of what was required for a pistol bullet was clearly defined. The ammo makers knew what they needed to do as far as design work to get the best effects out of a handgun round. And they have gotten pretty good at it. And they have tweaked almost all the bullet weights where it is possible to get such performance. The newer 147gr. bullets work as well as any of the other weight good 9mm loads now. Both in tests and being proven on the streets by agencies that use them.
Some people are still going to quote 20-30 year old data that is not accurate. Believe myths about the power of handguns. Or watch to much t.v. and movies and believe a handgun round can pick you up and through you back 10 feet. Which would deny the Law of Physics. Or they simply want a bullet to do for them what really can only be done through time spent training and practicing. No matter what your super atomic bullet claims it can do. Or you think your pet caliber can do. The only thing that really works is to get a bullet that expands and goes deep enough to reach vitals. Is of course reliable in your gun. That you can shoot well because no matter how powerful a gun is if you can't make fast, accurate hits with it all else means nothing. But hell let's face it. It's a lot easier for some folks to deny science and common sense and believe their per caliber/bullet is going to save them. It's expensive and time consuming to train and practice. And fairly tales have always been fun. Problem is they are not real.
Also their was a belief that some still hold that speed created "hydrostatic shock" that caused such tissue disruption that it did damage way out of proportion to size. Such tissue disruption in everything but non-elastic tissue like the liver does not happen until you get a projectile somewhere above 2500-2700 f.p.s.. In other words rifle velocity. Handguns at least ones you can shoot and carry can't do it. Another idea relating to "hydrostatic shock" popular at the time of the terrible "Miami Massacre" of the F.B.I. agents was "energy dump".
It was felt that a round that opened quickly and expended it's energy in around eight inches or so did the most damage. The 115gr. Silvertip that was the "non-survivable" wound that stop short of the bad guys heart was blamed for the "failure". Truth is the Silvertip performed just as it was designed to based on the flawed ideas of bullet performance of the time. And the Silvertip is actually a decent performer. Except it needs a bit more penetration to get though enough vital tissue at some angles of entry.
So the F.B.I. went overboard and said they needed a deep penetrating bullet.
In comes the 147gr. bullet that penetrates alright. Just doesn't expand well. Again the science wasn't there. So you got bullets that went through and through bad guys. And sometimes killed innocents. Now in a Military situation going through two or three of the enemy is not a bad thing. And the truth is each round makes two holes with such penetration. So three bullets equal six holes. More holes, more blood coming out. Useful also to go through things like helmets. Bad for LEO's defending their lives and killing innocent civilians. It's why New York finally went to JHP's. Lawsuits for killed or wounded civilians. And they used for the most part WWB 115gr. FMJ. bullets.
So fast expansion (light and fast) or deep penetration (heavy and/or badly designed lighter bullets. So they did something smart and called together experts from all types of fields to figure out what was best. Doctors that treated combat wounds. Different subject matter experts and they came to this conclusion.
a. Handgun bullets only damage (again except for non-elastic tissue) the area the area the bullet actually comes into contact with. And most tissue will bounce back to the size of the frontal area of the bullet. And then the hole will get smaller as the body tries to save it's self by reducing blood loss. So you to want good expansion. The myth of "hydrostatic shock", stopping power, and other such bull still won't die. Even though the best minds on the subject with the most extensive experience say so. Some folks just know better. That's why so many "super atomic bullets" that destroy more tissue and blah, blah, blah can be sold to uninformed folks. So yeah you need penetration.
b. You need to reach vital tissue to achieve the greatest damage to the most important structures in the body. You need as big a hole as you can get, deep enough to reach vitals no matter what the angle of penetration. But not so deep it will go through whom you shoot and kill or injure others.
c. And it need to accomplish this while opening and penetrating even the most difficult garments to get this type of performance through.
No small feat. But finally a real science based understanding of what a bullet must do to stop someone. They must either have the brain or spine destroyed so signals from the brain to the body to do life supporting activities are interrupted.
Or the most common form of stopping an individual. Reducing the blood flow to the brain by dropping hydraulic pressure in the circulatory system to the point that blood can't reach the brain and other vital support functions. In other word "bleed out". Which even with good hits can sometimes take awhile.
And then of course the things you can't control. Is the person shot enraged, mentally disturbed, on drugs/alcohol, wanting to die for say religious reasons but take out as many infidels as they can before they die? Or are they like "crap I've been shot, I don't want to die, please stop shooting me and take me to the hospital. A "psychological stop". This you can't control the only thing you can hope for is that your bullet does the above listed things, get to cover, and keep shooting till the bad guy stops.
Myth and urban legend are a powerful thing. But once the problem of what was required for a pistol bullet was clearly defined. The ammo makers knew what they needed to do as far as design work to get the best effects out of a handgun round. And they have gotten pretty good at it. And they have tweaked almost all the bullet weights where it is possible to get such performance. The newer 147gr. bullets work as well as any of the other weight good 9mm loads now. Both in tests and being proven on the streets by agencies that use them.
Some people are still going to quote 20-30 year old data that is not accurate. Believe myths about the power of handguns. Or watch to much t.v. and movies and believe a handgun round can pick you up and through you back 10 feet. Which would deny the Law of Physics. Or they simply want a bullet to do for them what really can only be done through time spent training and practicing. No matter what your super atomic bullet claims it can do. Or you think your pet caliber can do. The only thing that really works is to get a bullet that expands and goes deep enough to reach vitals. Is of course reliable in your gun. That you can shoot well because no matter how powerful a gun is if you can't make fast, accurate hits with it all else means nothing. But hell let's face it. It's a lot easier for some folks to deny science and common sense and believe their per caliber/bullet is going to save them. It's expensive and time consuming to train and practice. And fairly tales have always been fun. Problem is they are not real.
carguychris
New member
Sadly, NO handgun round is truly effective against zombie threads.
