Winchester 9mm 115 grain HP Silvertips: Any Good for Personal Defense?

K

KowHunter

New member
How do the Winchester 9mm 115 grain silvertips stand up to some of the competitions personal defensive ammo.. such as Corbon 115 grain, the CCI Gold Dot, or the Federal Hydrashocks? My dealer for some reason only carries the Winchester Silvertips.. so that is what I Bought.. so im just curious how good these bullets are.. and if they will do the job for me or not. Primarily the gun they will be used in will be used for home defense and also be kept in my truck when im on the job.
 
9mm silvertips may have a bad rep with some, but I believe they are at least adequate. i tend to stay away from the +p stuff myself.

My current load for my sig 226 is the Federal 9BP load, which is the 115gr. JHP in standard pressure. Very accurate and very reliable.



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"By His stripes we are healed..."

PeterGunn
 
The most famous example of the Silvertip 115 grain in action is the shot that hit one of the perps in the first moments of the FBI shootout in Miami. It hit in the arm, went through and entered the chest, penetrated several inches (I forget exact number) and stopped in the middle of his chest. It was recovered in a perfect, fully expanded condition. That is excellent performance from a 9mm in my opinion. The problem was that it stopped about an inch short of either his heart or some major artery, I can't remember, and so did not incapacitate the badguy, who went on to injure and kill some of the FBI agents with his Mini-14.

When you look at charts that compare the velocity of various 115 loads, you see that the Winchester Silvertip is the fastest of the standard pressure loads.

I have found that my accuracy suffers when shooting +p 9mm compared with standard pressure, so I am loaded with Winchester Silvertips right now, and plan to stick with them for a while.

JP

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Nehemiah 4:18 " ... and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked."
 
Hey Kowhunter,
Are these for your P95? If so, thre is NO problem with the Ruger digesting them. The only experence that I have with the round is with the 90gr .380 silvertip. In shots against the evil water-filled milk jug, they performed quite well. Good expansion,and weight retention. A well placed shot, and I think the bad guy would be toast :)

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Just as there is no such thing as too much fun,
there is no such thing as owning just one gun!!!
 
In another thread I recommended the Win. Silvertip for the 9mm pistol based on price, availablity, terminal performance, and over penetration concerns. There may be better loads for the 9X19 but this is a good all-arounder. It should feed well in most modern pistols,also. If it does in yours, I see no problem with this cartridge for self defense.
 
Highly recommend almost any other brand (of course, I prefer my own).

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"All my ammo is factory ammo"
 
Yeah ill be using these in my Ruger P95. I would have prefered to get the CCI-SPEER Gold Dot HP 115 grain +P stuff.. but hell.. i cant find it ANYWHERE. The only other thing my dealer had was this Winchester stuff.. so for now Ill just have to stick with it.
 
Cor-Bon, anyone?

I carry the 115-gr. and 125-gr. variants in +P, and have found them to be VERY accurate out of my Sig P239.
 
I believe in the Miami Shootout the 9mm Silvertip entered at the left armpit, traversed the chest cavity through both lungs, clipping the Aorta on its way through. The only problem was that the perp lived for several seconds after that hit and through agressive determination continued to shoot and kill agents. He was a dead man prior to getting out of his vehicle but didn't know it yet.
A hit in the central nervous system or brain stem might have done it.
Neil Casper
 
The Silvertip is indeed a good round, but the Federal's 9BP is the best in standard pressure, now if we could only get the 9BPLE (+P+) that certain agencies use......

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Mike H
 
The Miami shootout was first gen silvertips. The ones now are 3rd gen. I use them myself. More important is do they shoot to point of aim in your gun? If you know you will hit what you aim at and "believe" it will have a effect it is a good load for you. IMO
 
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