Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Desperate to hang onto the 9 mil, the Army changes its tune on ammo.

U.S. Military Makes Monumental Shift To Hollowpoint Pistol Ammunition

12 comments:

Backwoods Engineer said...

I know, I know, "calibers starting with '4'", "I shoot a .45 because they don't make a .46"...

But:

1. Ask a trauma surgeon. He will tell you there is essentially no difference between pistol calibers for tissue damage. The issue isn't caliber, it's energy, and until you reach the levels of kinetic energy of rifle calibers, you just don't see that much difference in tissue damage.

2. Why would we have to put up with more recoil when we can have more rounds of 9mm in the magazine than .45 in a given space?

3. The engineering of bullets has greatly advanced since John Moses Browning, and makes caliber matter even less. Modern, polymer-enhanced, controlled-expansion hollow-point bullets make even .380ACP effective as a defense round (see: the Albuquerque shootout). These modern hollow-point bullets are much more effective than the "ball" FMJ, and the Army understands that.

Let the flames begin. I'm just going to go dry-fire practice some more with my 9mm.

Anonymous said...

Good news for civilians....if that milsurp ends up on the market

Dakota said...

I am not so sure that 9MM JHP ammo is going to help things in a military role. First of all the projectile has to penetrate the body and go in with enough energy to inflict enough damage to incapacitate or kill. Without deep penetration you might about as well throw rocks. Although JHP ammunition will transfer energy through expansion and if the bullet does not exit all energy stays in the body. If you take a look at how soldiers dress these days you will notice that the core is covered with magazines and all kinds of gear both front and back, even if they aren't wearing armor. Even assault rifle calibers will not usually penetrate a magazine pouch with loaded mags in it, what chance does a handgun caliber have? I carry JHP in my handgun in warm weather months and FMJ in cold weather just because I want to make sure if I have to defend myself my projectile will not get tangled up in heavy clothing and not do its job.

I wholeheartedly agree with abandoning the 40 caliber, it is a notorious pipsqueak compared to 9MM and 45 ACP. At least they got that right.

Anonymous said...

Well desperate is strong, finally seeing the light about proper ammunition for the men at the tip of the spear is closer I reckon. Fact is a decent 9mm hollow point has a lot to offer and if your stacked 17 or 18 deep in your mag plus 1 you have got some pretty potent firepower in that. I'm pretty comfortable with a full load of Hornady Critical defense. That said I was always told a handgun was what you used to fight your way to your rifle.

the Plinker said...

I'm with rumcrook on the Hornady, but I go with Critical Duty.

Anonymous said...

Any day now the press is going to get ahold of this and start ranting about "Dum-Dum bullets."

Anonymous said...

I guess the Laws Of Land Warfare are going to wholesale be ignored....Nice to see the USA going over to Nazi style thinking....Laws of Land Warfare,we dont need no stinking laws..ANYTHING GOES, whatever we say is "right" no matter how vile and wrong it is! After all, everything Hitler did was "legal" too.

Aside from the bullet performance issues, I see this casting aside of any remaining moral standing as being just another sign of how morally corrupt the US has become.

If you wouldnt want your servicemen/women maimed deliberately in combat by foreign fighters then why give them a reason to hold no sense of morality towards us.

I know, I know..they dont already...Lets crawl in the slime in the pig pen with them.

Sickening I gave so much of my adult life to military for all the honorable reasons oft touted about USA character...only to discover it was all a lie and conveniently disposable propaganda talking point.

Can't wait for the our own version of the Nuremberg War crime trial dates, we so enjoyed dishing out justice for the excesses of the Nazi's in WWII, Im sure there are those waiting to dish out justice for our countries well earn evils too, pardon me while I step out of the line of defendants..

You all are on your own..Im not throwing away my morals and condoning this idiocy because they seem inconvenient to those who are too thirsty for what they think is a "win"...Everyone already cheerleads the drone warfare despite the fact it murders thousands of innocents that are all excused as "collateral damage"....but would you be so accepting if a country engaged in drone warfare with the same callous heart, on OUR people in our land? people will say, "it will never happen we would nuke em." Yeah well, killing innocents and wiping aside criticism of the acts using the "collater damage happen mentality reflects what savage creatures we have become because WE are doing to them, and so far it snot come back to us ...yet..but give it time, the world is learning from our brazen cowardice about how to best fight us, they are just biding their time. They dont even have to build these weapons, they are smart enough to figure out how to urn our technology against us, and have already dones so (recent Iran and Chinese revelations about our drone tech and reverse engineering), and we seem to think the Russians would dare try to do it.

Sun Tzu is my hero, anyone who fails to understand his writings deserves whats coming to them. Enough of my rant...Frangible / Hollow points in military service is inviting serious devastating retaliation. Smarter foreign policy would make their use unneeded, but the "leaders " are too set on their own One World Order agenda to care, and the sheeple go following along blind to the end game. Id say more but i dont speak "sheeple"....

Sign me, Neal Jensen

Anonymous said...

I agree with Backwoods Engineer....however, I have a very good trauma surgeon friend that carries a .45 b/c in his experience, most all patients shot by 9mm/.40 survive. He's only had 2 live after .45.

I'm not saying he's right....but his words did resonate with me. For the record, I carry a 9mm and a .40 for EDC. Sold off all my .45s....expensive to feed, low capacity, harder to conceal bulk.

Anonymous said...

I see a danger for the loyalist gun controlling bastards here - even though I am a .45 kinda guy. I'll explain. First, I like the angle that a 9mm hp CAN expand, a .45 never shrinks. I just don't buy the never ending 9 vs 45 argument. I think things are boiling down to subjective personal preference. Example - some don't mind more recoil - some shoot better with it, some shoot better without it. Sure, a claim is made about which is "better" but in the end it is a subjective point - differing among the individual! The Founders taught us how to handle these kinds of debate - CHOICE!

But beyond that, if the 9mm wins out here, then the key to it winning comes down to the same reason the 5.56 wins out over 7.62..... Shipping! Lolz. Really it's about this - when carrying ammo, do you want more shots or less shots? A soldier can only carry so much weight. What's the argument being made here? 17 shots in one magazine....right? Higher CAPACITY magazine is putting the 9mm in the lead....

Oh what will the loyalist gun grabbers do when the MILITARY makes a MAJOR decision about sidearms based almost solely on MAGAZINE CAPACITY, indeed HIGHER capacity? How can grabbers continue to make the argument that civilians should be relegated to lower capacity mags when the military is arguing the direct opposite? Especially when "useful in military context" is what the courts "decided" is what's "protected"?

On that note, this .45 guy hopes the 9mm wins out. Sometimes, "losing" a smaller and inconsequential battle is strategically beneficial (think about it as a tactical retreat that serves to win the war). Here, an outright "concession" that HIGHER CAPACITY MAGAZINES are a Much Better choice stands to be GREAT AMMO in the overall war against the gun grabbing loyalists appetitie for our second amendment rights.

Anonymous said...

It's ironic that the announcement was made in a state which prohibits the possession of hollowpoint ammunition outside the home.

Happy D said...

"9mm outperforms both .40 S&W and .45 ACP when using premium hollowpoints".
I can remember some version of this statement from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and now the 2010s.
If I wanted to dig through my collection of old books and magazines I could find almost identical statements from those decades before the end of the day. I know I could find that exact quote after 1993.

It was not true then. I don't think it will prove true now.

Every one I know who has to routinely kill drugged up threats or large animals uses 10mm or .45 if they don't carry a magnum.

Anonymous said...

Back about the time Dutchman6 was born the U S Navy was in love with the .36 cap and ball pistol while the U S Army was equally in love with the .44 cap and ball. There's not really much "New" in the news, is there?

"You could look it up!" -- James Thurber