Confused about my bullet choice? Can anyone help me?

9

9mmPDX

New member
I was at the gun store this weekend and decided to buy some 9mm hollow points for my guns. It was very busy (almost 30 ppl in the store) so customer service was almost nil. Anyway, the guy sold me 2 boxes of Speer Gold Dot 9mm LUGER +P 124gr. GDHP Short Barrel Hollow Point bullets. After I got home, I read the box and it said these bullets maximize optimal expansion for 2" barrels. I didn't know 9mm come in 2" barrels. Must be for revolvers?

Can I use these bullets effectively on any of my semi-auto guns? Or do I need to buy other hollow point bullets?

My 3 guns...

1) 9mm BHP (4" barrel)
2) Springfield EMP (3" barrel)
3) Glock 19 (4" barrel)

Thanks!
 
You're fine, don't worry. Yes, there are plenty of ~2" 9mm guns out there.

Kahr PM9, KelTec P11/PF9, Rohrbaugh etc.

They use a faster burning powder with lower muzzle flash. Last thing you need in a SD scenerio is blinding light at night.
 
Should be fine

9x19 NATO is a pretty well established round and the industry standards are long established.

The only reservation I might have is the Browning High Power you mention. If it is a vintage model, I would hesitate to shoot "+P" loads through it. It will not blow up or disintegrate in your hands, but it will accelerate wear. The Springfield and the Glock are both hearty guns and easy to maintain.
 
What you may have is a misprinted or generically printed box intended for revolver cartridges. Since autoloader barrels are measured from the breechface to the muzzle, a 2" barrel would be pretty short indeed (for reference, the Rohrbaugh R9 has a 2.9" barrel). The published performance data for the Speer Short Barreled 9mm 124gr +P is obtained from a 3.5" barrel.

The revolver cartridges are optimized for a 2" barrel, which, of course, is measured from the forcing cone to the muzzle. This is why I think the issue is a printing/packaging mix-up.

You will be able to use that ammo in any of your pistols, although you will likely get noticeably more velocity from the 4" barreled Glock and BHP. Because the bullets are designed to open reliably at lower speeds, they may open up a bit quick out of the longer barrels.

This is two apparent packaging goofs I've seen reported on this board in the last couple of days. I guess that's what happens when you are churning stuff out at maximum capacity.
 
Yeah, package goof aside those are very, very good 9mm bullets...one of the very best. Load 'em in confidence.

Gold Dot slugs are different than anything else. The copper jacket is a heavy electroplate over the lead, which means the jacket is strongly bonded to the lead core. You hardly ever get jacket separation with a Gold Dot unless you drive it WAY past where it's happy. Cor-Bon managed it once with some experimental ammo, driving the 60gr Gold Dot meant for 32ACP out of 32H&RMagnum cases at damned near double what it was meant to do :). But short of silliness like that, Gold Dots hang together when "over-driven", so if you don't shoot them out of short barrels, they'll still be OK.

124gr is now the preferred bullet weight in 9mm. It's a nice compromise between the 115s that were flying apart and the 147s not going fast enough.

Your round is what I'd carry first choice in 9mm.
 
Thanks for all the replies. Good to know the bullet shouldn't blow up in my gun. :) I guess for SD, there's not too much difference in the Gold Dot 23611 (Short Barrel) and the Gold Dot 23617 (Longer Barrel).

Here's the info from the speer-ammo.com link.

Gold Dot Short Barrel Personal Protection - 9mm Luger +P

Part Number Cartridge
Bullet Wt. Bullet Type Box Count Bullet Coefficient
23611 9mm Luger +P 124 GDHP-SB 20 0.134

Velocity(in feet per second) Energy (in foot pounds)
Muzzle 50 yards 100 yards Muzzle 50 yards 100 yards
1150 1039 963 364 297 255

Trajectory if sighted at 25 yards Test Barrel Length in inches Usage
25 yards
50 yards
75 yards
100 yards
0.0 -0.9 -3.9 -9.0 3.5 1




Gold Dot Personal Protection - 9mm Luger +P

Part Number Cartridge
Bullet Wt. Bullet Type Box Count Bullet Coefficient
23617 9mm Luger +P 124 GDHP 20 0.134

Velocity(in feet per second) Energy (in foot pounds)
Muzzle 50 yards 100 yards Muzzle 50 yards 100 yards
1220 1085 996 410 324 273

Trajectory if sighted at 25 yards Test Barrel Length in inches Usage
25 yards
50 yards
75 yards
100 yards
0.0 -0.8 -3.3 -8.0 4 1
 
The short-barrel variant should have a slightly larger or deeper JHP cavity, to expand better at slightly lower speeds. It should work just fine.
 
Well there you go, since it will open up at lower speeds, then it can be your go-to round for 100 yard SD shooting!:p
 
KelTec P11/PF9
Click to expand...
<brief hijack> Both of these guns have 3.1" barrels.

Speer Gold Dot is as good as anything else out there. +1 on not shooting a +p round from that Browning HP.

I use Speer Gold Dot Short Barrel ammo in my .38 spcl., and Corbon DPX in everything else. Either will serve you well.
 
Yeah, the DPX is the other top projectile across most calibers. That and the Gold Dot generally rock no matter what else is going on.
 
Here are the three guns.

What SD ammo would you guys recomm. for the BHP? From what the orignl owner told me, the gun is from around 1993. Another gunshop recomm. Winchester 9mm LUGER 147gr. SXT. I really have no idea about bullets except that one is hollow pt. and the other is FMJ. I assume more gr. means more powder, therefore more bang and velocity.

I have only shot FMJ at the range.

BHP
PICT0013.jpg

EMP
PICT0018.jpg

G19
PICT0014.jpg
 
147gr is the bullet weight. Since 147gr is on the heavy end of 9mm bullets, you will actually have relatively low velocity compared to the lighter bullets. However, energy is a function of mass and velocity, so that doesn't necessarily mean lower power. There is an argument to be made for and against the various weights in 9mm. The winchester SXTs, while a little bit older, are good performers in any weight.

Since your BHP was made in 1993, I wouldn't hesitate to use +P in it for SD if it were mine.
 
The BHP has a long enough barrel to maybe make the better 147s including Winchester's SXT in that weight work pretty well.

I'd still run Gold Dot 124+P in any 9mm unless there was a specific compatibility problem (jamming) and I've heard no such reports.

I don't know what caliber the EMP is. If it's 45ACP and the gun has a barrel that short, you can make a case for running one of the lighter weight 45ACP slugs to ensure enough velocity for expansion. Cor-Bon's DPX or even the Pow'R'Ball have merit, as does the Gold Dot 185gr.

General rule of thumb: short barrels are compatible with lighter bullets, longer with heavier.

There are some glaring exceptions, such as the 158gr 38+P all-lead hollowpoints out of 38 snubbies, but there's a reason in that case: the plain lead bullets let you get more energy than jacketed, and plain lead happens to work well in that particular caliber/gun/velocity combination.
 
Thanks to all the replies. I am learning more everyday. Since I bought 2 boxes of speer gold dots, I will use them in the shorter barrel 9mm EMP gun and the 9mm BHP. Glocks are known to take anything so I'll use my 1 box of Winchester 147gr. in that one. Hopefully I will be able to shoot a couple of rounds with these hollow points in the summer to know how they feel vs FMJs. Watermelons good for HPs?
 
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