I remember Jeff Cooper called them "Crunchentickers". He wasn't much of a fan. I fired most of them and my favorite is still the Beretta 92. I should get one someday. I had a Ruger P89 with a lanyard that went around my neck or shoulder and with two 30 rd mags I could lay down some accurate fire. Fun guns and a high cap 9mm is handy to have around.
Best, Thomas.
Cooper had a soft spot for the CZ-75, probably because it could be "cocked & locked" like a 1911.
I've owned several Wonder Nines and still have my Beretta 92F, wish I still had my 92SB........
I had an early fascination with a friends S&W 669 a small 9mm auto w 3 1/2" bbl IIRC. It wouldn't beat out a high power in usefulness but it was fun. I broke down with the Clintons 10 rd mag ban and bought a P89. I believe the trigger pull was more than the guns massive weight. Happiest day with it was when I sold it. I have a CZ and a Blackhawk in the 9mm dept now and am OK with them both.
[The Montana Gianni] Front sight and squeeze
You are correct about the trials with the H&K USP, I had the timeline wrong, I was thinking of when they thought about issuing USP's to spec ops because you could use the safety to lock the slide on subsonic rounds with a suppressor and manually cycle for the next round. I don't think that ever came to be, but I sure understand the concept!Originally Posted by Petrol & Powder
I remember the Jericho and the .41AE round ! It used a rebated rim that allowed it to interchange with a breach face cut for a 9mm. Not sure that was the best idea and apparently consumers agreed ! The 40 S&W killed the 41AE very quickly.
As for the H&K USP pistol, it came too late to be included in the Army's pistol tests in 1984 and again in 1988. The USP development started in 1989 and it didn't enter production until 1993. H&K did enter a pistol in the trials, but it was the P7M13 not the USP.
And other than the Mk23 "SOCOM" pistol by H&K which was adopted in 1996 for use by some special operators, I don't think the military wants a pistol that has a fire group that can be reconfigured. They can barely train people to use 1 fire control system on the Beretta
And yes, you are very correct on the training aspect! I still remember the guy that swore to me he could hit a quarter at 35yds with the Berretta, I didn't have the money to buy one just to prove him wrong unfortunately.
The 9mm shortcomings weren't the reason they developed the .40, the Fedral "9BP" rounds were rather effective at the time honestly, it was the idea of the 145grn loads that failed.
The .40 came from the FBI's adaptation of the 10mm, there were many officers that complained of the harsh recoil and large grip. The FBI hit up ammo manufacturers to come up with a "reduced load" so they could get everyone to qualify with it. Thus nuturing the round! S&W said "Hey, less powder, lets just make it the same OAL as the 9mm with the larger diameter then we can put it in existing frames we have!" Thus the .40 S&W was born.
Now I call horse pucky on this! A buddy of mine and his 135lb wife were at a sporting goods store, I forget the name, and she was looking at a 10mm in the case and wanted to handle it. The two young male clerks chuckled "Lady, you don't want that gun, you won't be able to handle the recoil! That thing kicks like a mule!" I doubt either had ever shot one. My buddy pipes up, "Well that's funny, I've got a friend with a Delta Elite and she can out shoot him with his own gun!"
Now, as much as it pains me, it was me and my Delta Elite he was referring to, and yes, she can out shoot me with that gun!
Great thread with some fantastic history! Thank you! For me I guess I missed the “Wonder Nine” years. As a young and dumb 17 year old I joined the U.S. Army and had the wonderful folks at Ft. Bragg teach me how to shoot a 1911 so after that I wasn’t sure why you needed another gun - who knew? After I left the service I purchased a 1911 and later bought a model 13 S&W (sadly, I let the Smith get away from me). I figured if you were going to carry a .35 caliber hand gun it might as well be something that was going to get the job done.
Then sometime during the early 90’s a couple of folks I shot with showed up with these plastic 9mm things. I rapidly discovered that a Glock trigger was a “mush-bang” kinda deal so when the opportunity to buy a Glock 19 presented itself I bought it just to learn Glock trigger. I never really considered it a gun to carry - I mean it was just a .35 caliber moving at the speed of pond water and oh yeah, I had a 1911. Well, after burning lots of ammo I sorted out Glock trigger and then made, to me at least, the game changing discovery - Federal 9mm+p+ ammo. So now I had a .35 caliber that was traveling along at the low end of .357 magnum velocities - I said to myself, “self, we can work with this” and for the first time I considered the 9mm a viable option as a selfdefense gun. Now fair warning, I don’t think you’d want to run a steady diet of +p+ through your Glock but it does shoot them and shoot them well.
With all that said, whether you love em, hate em or just don’t care, one thing can be said about a Glock, “mush-bang” trigger and all, it simply goes bang - every time. So maybe I didn’t really miss the “Wonder Nine” years... I was just a bit late to the party.
"Truth is treason in the empire of lies" Ron Paul
I was a deputy sheriff/SWAT member & rangemaster right at the time my shop converted to self-loaders in 1987. The growth process under way with autopistols was fast & ferocious, and on balance the shooters' and officers' worlds were made a bit better and safer with these technological innovations. That's not to say that there weren't fits & starts & glitches along the way. The upgrades I see between 1977 when I entered the LE game and now 40 years on......MUCH better autopistol ammunition, assisted by pistols that can reliably feed that improved hollow-point ammunition. There are still no Magic Bullets, despite ammomakers' ad copy claims--but ammo is considerably better. The 40 S&W caliber is itself something of an innovation, though lately it seems to have lost its luster in some quarters--a thing I truly do not understand. If a deputy can't shoot or refuses to improve his/her marksmanship, a new assignment or career field is in order for THAT INDIVIDUAL. Don't hamstring the guys and gals that CAN shoot REAL GUNS like the 357 Magnum, 357 SIG, 40 S&W, 10mm, and 45 ACP with that sissy-la-la FBI-pimped 147 grain 9mm sub-sonic/sub-effective/sub-lethal paper puncher/suppressor-friendly crowd-pleaser round. A good 9mm round? Our M9 NATO service load, just swap out the FMJ bullet for a nice 125 grain JHP @ 1250 FPS from the Beretta 92-series' 4.9" barrel. I'll carry a 9mm filled with THAT round--and do.
Yeah, I'm opinionated. I trained shooters at work for 22 years. I investigated shootings and homicides for most of my 28 years in the craft--to include gunshot deaths to 2 of our deputies. I was a GSW victim on duty in 1981. I don't pretend to be omniscient, but I know BS when I see and hear it--and 90% of the ad copy and gunrag gunwriter scribbling for our componentry in this hobby field is outhouse outwash. There are no Magic Bullets, and more badly-placed bullets or outright misses (magic or not) are not an improvement. What still needs to improve is citizen and officer marksmanship--that hasn't changed since we started arming ourselves. Cast A LOT--shoot A LOT--GET BETTER. Stay alive. A "Mozambique" with 3 x 32 ACP FMJs is far better than scalp skims or clean misses with a 45.
I don't paint bullets. I like Black Rifle Coffee. Sacred cows are always fair game. California is to the United States what Syria is to Russia and North Korea is to China/South Korea/Japan--a Hermit Kingdom detached from the real world and led by delusional maniacs, an economic and social basket case sustained by "foreign" aid so as to not lose military bases.
Lots of good info here. I readily recall this era, and the flood of 'wondernines' that entered the market. I would like to comment on the military retiring the M1911 pistol, though. The military retired the 1911 for two primary reasons - 1) many of the guns on hand were simply worn out. There had been no new guns purchased since WWII, 2) There was a senator (whose name escapes me) who was bound and determined to force the military to adopt the 9mm cartridge for whatever reason(s). He introduced language into defense appropriations to forbid the use of any money to purchase .45 ACP ammo repeatedly. IIRC, he also forbade the purchase of additional repair parts (for the last years of usage of the 1911, both repair parts and ammo were coming from Israel) . So, faced with worn-out guns and no new ammo or repair parts, the military bit the proverbial bullet and solicited a 9mm pistol. The result was the Beretta M9 and the Sig M11.
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Yea, I remember those years, 9mm guns were coming out as fast as popcorn from a pot with no lid on it.
I tried to keep up on development just for the sake of knowledge, but, not being a fan of the 9mm I soon gave it up.
Never cared much for spray & pray type of shooting, always seemed like a learned bad habit.
Political correctness is a national suicide pact.
I am a sovereign individual, accountable
only to God and my own conscience.
just because you have more than 6 rnds in your gun, doesnt mean you have to spray and pray. heck just because your car will do 100, doesnt mean you have to drive it there.
Lot's of good comments.
I'm sure 9mm HP ammo would have followed a similar course of development without the Wonder Nines but I'm not sure it would have occurred as rapidly. The 115-125 grain +P+ HP rounds are not .357 mag equals, but they get pretty close. Even in the +P territory some of the cartridges perform very well. I completely agree with Al on the 147gr subsonic load, it was a total failure. That round was created for use in suppressors and that's where it should have stayed.
Someone mentioned the improved feeding of hollowpoint cartridges and that's a good point. As time went on the ammo makers tweaked bullet profiles so that the cartridge would feed in most guns. On the other side of the equation, gun makers learned how to make pistols that would feed most hollowpoints. It's almost taken for granted now but in the early 80's there were a lot of growing pains when it came to pistols functioning with a variety of HPs. Interestingly, skilled shooters/gunsmiths with 1911 and Hi-Power pistols knew how to make those guns function flawlessly with hollowpoints before the 1980's but it took the rest of the world a little time to catch up.
I've always found it intriguing that there's a common assumption that high capacity automatically equals poor marksmanship. There are plenty of examples that reinforce that perception: Hollywood shows every actor with a pistol shooting hundreds of rounds and never connecting, We've all seen people (including ourselves) empty a magazine rapidly just for fun. There are reports of shootings in which police and criminals expend many rounds in a confrontation. The assumption that high magazine capacity encourages poor marksmanship goes back over a century. The ordinance department insisted on a magazine cutoff on the 1903 Springfield out of fears the soldiers would waste ammunition. (you know - spray and pray with that new high capacity rifle)
There is this strange assumption that when you build a pistol with a high capacity magazine; the gun or the operator suddenly become inaccurate simply by virtue of that double column magazine.
Very true.
The only problem is, many aren't taught that fact. They are taught to keep shooting until the threat is stopped(no longer moving) or they run out of ammo. Lots of bullets as quickly as possible and some of them are bound to hit something(including innocent bystanders).
The people who don't practice enough to be competent with their weapon of choice or requirement are at fault here. Departments who have lax qualifying standards are also at fault. Some people seem to think the gun will aim itself.
Current 9mm ammunition, properly placed, is very effective. Improperly placed bullets of any caliber or power are fairly useless unless the noise scares the bad guys off.
If I ever get shot by a police officer, I want it to be because he intended to kill me rather than by accident.
Shooting until the threat is stopped isn't a bad practice nor does it mean that those shots will miss their target. Shooting a lot doesn't absolutely mean shooting poorly.
That trick would require a time machine, as the military adopted the M9 in 1986, and the USP hit the market in 1994.
The modular trigger system backfired on HK somewhat; the idea was that the pistol could be configured to satisfy whatever a particular agency wanted. The reality was that the modular system cost so much (or possibly the HK Kool Aid cache raised the cost so much) that no government agency seeking the low bidder would touch it. Those agencies would simply pick a gun with the fire control system they wanted. If you see a cop packing a USP, odds are he paid for it himself. Then there's the fact that while they were the first to put a flashlight attachment point on a pistol, they were/are steadfastly muleheaded in refusing to change to the Picatinny system the entire industry adapted.
WWJMBD?
In the Land of Oz, we cast with wheel weight and 2% Tin, Man.
I didn't say that it did. I said it occurs a lot when people don't train or aren't trained properly.
I watched a police/security video where several officers had a suspect cornered in a parking lot. He was doped up and had a knife. He lunged at the officers and they fired. All very justified and proper.
They fired over 35 rounds between them at a range of about 20-25 feet. Only 6-7 rounds hit the suspect. You could see the bullets bouncing all over the parking lot and hitting the cars. Many coming nowhere near the perp.
It was one of the worst demonstrations of poor fire control I have ever seen or heard of.
I don't mind stopping a threat. What I mind is shooting lots of apparently poorly aimed shots that don't hit the intended target.
Many are good shots. Many don't practice enough. I would think that someone who may have to depend on his firearm for his safety and the safety of his partner or family, would try his best to be competent and not depend on magazine capacity.
I have shot on ranges where people are practicing with guns they carry for service or protection. Many are excellent shots. Some are not and need more practice.
I would submit that the Glock is the Darwinian champion of the Wondernine period. I regard it as the ONLY semi auto that can make an argument for having improved on the 1911 concept in terms of simplicity and serviceability. Everything else (before the Glock or since) with the possible exception of the HK P7 proceeded from the question of "but what if we give it to an idiot?", and the result was lots of extra contraptions and parts that made the gun harder to shoot well or service in the futile search for a gun a moron can't shoot himself with (morons are notoriously industrious in their ability to out-stupid smart engineers)
The Sig lockup (and other transitional designs it built on) is certainly significant. In eliminating the 1911's barrel bushing, link, and extra locking points, one gets to the same initial point of having a functional pistol while making the gun cheaper. Whether or not it made the gun better is an argument for the accountants. When you loosen up a 1911, you can install new bushings and links. When you loosen up a Wondernine, you usually buy new guns.
Bringing up that time machine again, I'd really like to go back and see just how "worn out" those 1911's were. I'd wager that twenty bucks of parts would have gotten them to where they'd be chugging along quite happily to this day, and the "need" for M9's was purely political. Hopefully the CMP starts selling them soon and we can find out.
WWJMBD?
In the Land of Oz, we cast with wheel weight and 2% Tin, Man.
I'm a H&K trained USP armorer and I'll be the first to tell you that the USP fire control system is:
1. An incredible example of excellent German engineering.
AND
2. Incredibly unnecessary
The system is rather complex and probably a tad over-engineered (I did mention it was German, right ?)
There is some advantage to the system in the fact that a pistol can be converted from a right hand to a left hand configuration very quickly and with little expense. I agree that the ability to go from one mode of operation to another probably isn't as important.
The USP sear spring was weak and prone to breakage. The original firing pins had a design flaw and would break; H&K made an improved firing pin to address that problem.
The proprietary rail for the flashlight was annoying as well.
While this is a shooting forum, and the emphasis is on that aspect as it pertains to Law Enforcement, the truth of the matter is most Law Enforcement Officers never fire their handguns on the job, except in mandatory qualifications, if their department has them. Some small departments, working on very limited budgets, and just enough personnel to cover an 8 hour shift 7 times a week, don't have the money or resources to require regular firearm training. It's a shame, but a fact of life. If the citizenry won't provide the funds, then the department can't really be blamed, especially on what some of them pay. I've talked to small town officers who survived on food stamps, and only stayed "on the job" because they believed in what they were doing.
I've been to far more Law Enforcement funerals due to traffic accidents than firearms deaths. When I was a Patrol Sergeant, I much more desired Deputy Sheriffs who could multi-task while driving, and could write good reports, while having a good relationship with the community. This became even more of a desire as I worked my way up through the ranks to upper management over the years. That's not to say that marksmanship isn't important, because it is. But so is safe driving.
My stint teaching in our Pursuit Driving School probably save my life at least three times when I blew tires at over 100 mph on three different occasions. I worked in an 8,026 square mile county (Al worked in a 20,000+ square mile county adjacent to mine), so there were many times when a hot call might be 20 or 30 miles distant, and lives were at stake. When someone is depending on you to help them, or possibly save their life, and you're many miles from their location, high speed is all you've got. When I started in 1971, we had cars that could bury a 140 MPH speedometer, but on nylon tires that were only rated for sustained speeds at 80 mph. With that combination, "things" are bound to happen, and do at the most inopportune time. I once drove Code 3 for over 60 miles (110-120 mph+) to back a Deputy in another county who was being shot at by a suspect with a rifle. (It's amazing how fast the gas gauge goes down at those speeds) (That was the Trona Deputy, Al)
Another correction is the 9mm/.41 AE combination. All that is required to convert from one caliber to the other is a barrel and magazine. I have a Witness 9mm/.41 AE combo pistol in my collection. I've since sold all my .41 AE ammunition and brass, so it only gets shot with the 9x19 barrel installed.
Hope this helps.
Fred
After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. - William S. Burroughs.
Fair enough!
And since we're telling anecdotal stories; I know of an event in which a mentally ill subject with a garden implement attacked a female police officer. Another officer shot that deranged subject 4 times, ending the attack. When asked why he fired 4 rounds, he replied, "because he hit the ground before I could get the 5th round off"!
That was no time to fire a single round and pause while you evaluate the effectiveness of that shot. That was an appropriate rapid expenditure of lead. Now, unlike your example where there were a lot of errant shots, he put all 4 rounds in the bad guy. Had he been armed with a 6 shot revolver I suspect the outcome would have been the same.
Really good stuff in this thread…
That’s a fact! I couldn’t agree more - there are no magic bullets and ammo today does appear to be considerably better then it once was. As the saying goes you can’t miss fast enough to survive a gun fight. Just to make sure I wasn’t misunderstood, at the time (1990s), what was going through my mind was the fact that the 125gr lead HP semi-wadcutter from the .357 mag was a proven winner. Now, I had read Herbert McBride’s great book (A Rifleman Went to War) and remember him stating that the only one hit stop he ever saw with a 9mm was when a fellow soldier clubbed an enemy soldier to death with a Luger. So, I had it in my mind that what made the .35 caliber effective was velocity. When I discovered the +p+ ammo and because it was in the low end of .357 magnum velocity that’s when I considered a 9mm as a possible selfdefense round. Not saying it was the most brilliant thought process, it was just what I was thinking.There are still no Magic Bullets, despite ammomakers' ad copy claims--but ammo is considerably better.
^^^What 9x3 said! ^^^A "Mozambique" with 3 x 32 ACP FMJs is far better than scalp skims or clean misses with a 45.
During my time at Ft. Bragg I was the unit armorer and had a rack of 1911’s and 1) they were not worn out and functioned great and 2) I never had a challenge getting spare parts (though sometimes getting parts for the M60’s could be a challenge but thats another story) or ammo. Now, maybe the 82nd Airborne Division had priority or something over other units, I can’t speak to what it was like for other outfits but our 1911’s were, in fact, most serviceable.The military retired the 1911 for two primary reasons - 1) many of the guns on hand were simply worn out. There had been no new guns purchased since WWII, 2) There was a senator (whose name escapes me) who was bound and determined to force the military to adopt the 9mm cartridge for whatever reason(s). He introduced language into defense appropriations to forbid the use of any money to purchase .45 ACP ammo repeatedly. IIRC, he also forbade the purchase of additional repair parts (for the last years of usage of the 1911, both repair parts and ammo were coming from Israel) . So, faced with worn-out guns and no new ammo or repair parts, the military bit the proverbial bullet and solicited a 9mm pistol.
During my time on the Sheriff’s department I was amazed that they would take a young man or woman right out of college, require them to only shoot a yearly “qualifier” and send them out to “Protect & Serve”. 90% of the law enforcement officers I came in contact with had no range time under their belt and desperately needed it. I recall a Deputy who didn’t have the hand strength to top off the magazine of the 4506s we were issued let alone shoot the thing. (I really disliked those guns - I thought they were best served as boat anchors). Now the other 10% took gunslinging seriously and would most certainly teach you some lessons. I often get criticized for saying that the most dangerous group of people with guns are cops - I sure hope that’s changed but sadly, budgets seem to take priority.
And lastly, in my mind at least, the three F’s of shooting in a defensive situation appear to still be as important today as they ever were regardless of the number of rounds necessary.Another officer shot that deranged subject 4 times, ending the attack. When asked why he fired 4 rounds, he replied, "because he hit the ground before I could get the 5th round off"!
"Truth is treason in the empire of lies" Ron Paul
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