The Wonder Nine Years

[sawinredneck]

I've no idea where the aforementioned comment came from, it was a regular comment on numerous gun mag covers, a term thrown around regularly, then, and now! I can go on, but I'll share links instead,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Nine
https://www.google.com/amp/www.thefi...ndernines/amp/
http://www.notpurfect.com/main/wonder.html
Then in slow motion with lots of purdy pictures!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_WozTyusri0

[JBinMN]

I have enjoyed the discussion/discourse. I hope it continues.

BTW, I did not own one(semi -auto 9mm), but stuck to revolvers up until about 5-6 years +/- ago.

It was the exchange between folks that payed more attention to this "genre"/era./etc./whatever... that has had me subscribed to the topic.

Information & knowledge is "King"...
I do not care about the adjective(s) that might be applied.
History is good, lest it is forgotten. Please keep sharing the History..

[sawinredneck]

It really was an awesome time, S&W's "gun of the month club", who can crank out the latest and greatest terminal ballistics, what cartridge will be out this week at the gun show? It was incredibly hard to even keep up! As I've even shown, so much happened, so quickly, a lot of its been forgotten!
I forget who coined the term "wonder nines", but at the time, they really were just that! Wonderful mechanical marvels that exceeded everything prior to them! As the video I linked to suggests, the Browning High Power was really the only thing to compare with them, but so many were used to revolvers and "cocked and locked" single action semiautos were considered "Stone Age" and archaic for that time. DA/SA, DAO or stricker fired or go home was the mantra at the time.
With polymers, new trigger actions out, all at once, I doubt I'll ever see that much gun development again in my lifetime.

[tazman]

It really was an awesome time, S&W's "gun of the month club", who can crank out the latest and greatest terminal ballistics, what cartridge will be out this week at the gun show? It was incredibly hard to even keep up! As I've even shown, so much happened, so quickly, a lot of its been forgotten!
I forget who coined the term "wonder nines", but at the time, they really were just that! Wonderful mechanical marvels that exceeded everything prior to them! As the video I linked to suggests, the Browning High Power was really the only thing to compare with them, but so many were used to revolvers and "cocked and locked" single action semiautos were considered "Stone Age" and archaic for that time. DA/SA, DAO or stricker fired or go home was the mantra at the time.
With polymers, new trigger actions out, all at once, I doubt I'll ever see that much gun development again in my lifetime.

I have to agree with that last part. It seems as if the development process has slowed. Not a lot of really new designs. Just small refinements of current designs in possibly new combinations of current technology. Unless there is a big shift in propellant and cartridge design in the near future, I doubt I will ever see such development again.

[35remington]

I remember when the Glock came out. With its appearance and the "dtzzt" sound it made when it was dry fired, coupled with a plainly visible spring, my dad said "reminds me of the BB gun I had when I was a kid."

I guess we got over it. Only real downside is they melt easier and are worse as blunt trauma tools. Each brand has its Koolaid drinkers, some more than others.

Make no mistake about it, 25-30 years from now pistols and how we shoot them will change, and the savants of that future time will poke fun at how we do things now. New generations always try to feel dismissive and disparaging of the past.

We tend to forget we got along just fine before things changed. And things always change.

[tazman]

I was just considering how much difference a cartridge made to shooting. Before that time it was all loose black powder and either balls or boolits. Front feeders or breech loaders, it was still a measure of black and a ball/minie ball.
Brass cartridges opened up a whole new world. Then came smokeless powders. Then came different actions for using the cartridge, but all based on the cartridge.
I wonder what the next major step will be to revolutionize things? Caseless ammunition where the case is part of the powder charge? Some different type of propellant altogether? Perhaps a completely different type of projectile? Perhaps a small hypersonic dart of some sort? Or simply an energy burst of some sort? Who knows?
The field is wide open. Maybe the new designs start appearing next week.

[9.3X62AL]

In spite of Glock's acceptance and popularity and the transition away from hammer-driven firing pins and toward striker-fired systems, there are still several makers of the Colt/Browning/1911-series pistols doing a land-office business selling the items. People like the 1911, and even those have come some distance in terms of utility and reliability since my first example in the late 1970s. It was a Colt Series 70 Government Model, and as long as you used 230 grain RN bullets (cast or jacketed) lacking a cavity and fed them through Colt magazines, it was dead-nuts reliable. And in 1979, that was the state of the art. Today, any autopistol trying to sell itself in absence of perfected ability to feed hollow-point ammo ought to just stay home. It IS a very different world from what it was 40 years ago as a handgunner.

If the 9mm has or had a problem, it was not a European problem--it was a North American issue. USA ammomakers have always under-loaded the 9mm Luger rounds out of a concern that Euro-intensity loadings would find their way into wheezy old milsurps chambered to weaker nominal 9mm military surplus pistols like the Steyrs, Glisentis, and other similar arms. Our NATO 9mm load is right healthy--a 123-125 grain bullet running in the 1250 FPS ballpark from the M-9's 4.9" barrel. Swap out a decent soft point or hollow point bullet, and you have a decisive service arm for felon disincentivizing. My P-226 is now filled with such loads (Speer Gold Dot 124s) should the need arise to cart it around. These give 1220-1235 FPS from its 4.4" barrel.

[sawinredneck]

Without quoting the above posts, I'll try to respond to them in a round about way.
It took me a while to warm up to Glocks, a long while! I got the idea, but it wasn't until I'd heard some stress tests, from people I trusted, that I was sold. I was told of dropping them from buildings and helicopters, being driven over by cars and trucks, it went on, until I finally heard of one failing that convinced me. Yes, I had to hear of one failing to be sold!
A little old lady bought one and of all places, kept it in her oven. She preheated the oven to back an apple pie and forgot to get her gun out. It still fired, but you had to manually rack the slide because the frame was so warped, that was believable enough to sell me.
Tieing what was to what will be next, that's difficult. How many years did it take to go to cased ammunition? Besides Kieth's work, there wasn't a lot of huge leaps for many years, and even then it was slow. In the "wonder nine years", the gun rags couldn't even keep up! Seriously, what came out in a magazine was already an obsolete gun/cartridge the next month. When I said we'd go to the gun show to see what was out, I wasn't kidding! I also wasn't kidding about having to wait for the next months gun rag to even know what we were looking at, there was so much rapid advancement no one could possibly even have tried! I tried for a while, but just the amount of guns was overwhelming never mind the ammo!
I tried to love the S&W autos of the time, but they all felt and handled like a brick or 2x4 to me! I had a 9mm, 3" barrel, 13rds, I forget the model now, it got stolen. I kid you not, I spent the next year examining people's foreheads looking for the tell tell front sight indention from firing that hunk of carp! Never found the culprit.
Caseless ammo, read magazines in the library from the '60's talking about it, supposedly the army tested it in the late '80's early '90's but hat functionality and ignition problems with all designs. Honestly with battery and super capacitor technology becoming what it is, I think we will see mag/LEV guns before caseless ever becomes reality.

[sawinredneck]

I'll also add, I've come full circle myself, my two carry guns are a 1911 in 10mm and a Ruger LCR DAO in .357mag.

[Petrol & Powder]

Just rambling here, firearms development does seem to come in batches. A new technology such as percussion cap, metallic cartridge, smokeless powder comes along and a rush of development follows to take advantage of it. The same trait occurs in other areas such as ships, cars, electronics, etc.
The Wonder Nine era was different. There wasn't any one new technology that spurred that rush of development. All of the technology existed. We had double column magazines, DA/SA actions, alloy frames and even polymer frames (the H&K VP70 proceeded the Glock). What occurred was an incredible rush of development that utilized existing technology. It was an interesting time in which we saw this massive outpouring of options in what had been a stagnant handgun market. It was a different type of leap forward than the previous leaps in firearms development. There was some resistance to the changes, there is always resistance to change. Some of the change wasn't great but not all of it was bad. The Wonder Nine era helped us break out of a rut.

One of the interesting points to that rush of development was that it was concentrated around a specific cartridge, the 9mm Luger. There were a lot of factors driving that: The physical size of the 9mm cartridge lent itself to the high capacity trend. The 9mm Luger was widely accepted in the rest of the world and was the NATO pistol cartridge. The 9mm could be capable of excellent performance if loaded to its full potential.

Al brings up a very good point concerning the 9mm Luger. In its European form, the 9mm Luger was commonly loaded to its full potential. The U.S. caught up in that regard, at least with hollowpoint loads, but we came a little late to that game.
Our NATO 9mm load (124ish grain running at 1200fps+) is right were it needs to be in that league.
The Winchester 115 gr +P+ controlled expansion HP isn't in 357 mag territory buts it's getting close !

[sawinredneck]

Very well put P&P.

[tazman]

Those years also came at a time when international trade and political situations were peaking(think NATO, China, and USSR). Foreign countries were co-operating as never before. Compatibility was seen as very necessary.
Foreign designs were studied and incorporated into existing US technology. People were using manufacturing techniques and materials that hadn't been applied to firearms before.
Lots of events had an effect on how and why certain things were produced. Military/police contracts and testing had a lot to do with design parameters.
I wonder what we would have seen developed if John Browning had lived during that period?

[sawinredneck]

Well, without the advancements that he'd already made, we wouldn't have had the ideas to build on. Kind of a catch 22.

[Petrol & Powder]

John Browning was undoubtedly a genius and his designs were the basis for much that followed.

But every new technology builds on top of old technology.

Interestingly, some of the Wonder Nines departed from traditional Browning designs: Beretta used the Walther locking block design to lock the barrel to the slide. H&K was all over the place with the roller locked P9S and the gas retarded action used in the P7. Even the traditional Browning tilting barrel design was simplified by SIG.