Defensive Rounds

[Half Dog]

I will be carrying a 9mm by default, my other pistol is a stainless steel 1911. What would be a recommended round to carry for a 9mm? Also, do you practice with the round you carry?

Thanks in advance for your input.

[Walkingwolf]

Wow, you will get about a couple hundred suggestions.

As far as cast bullets, unless you use a HP mold, I would think the heavier the better. Lee has a 150 grain 357 SWC if your gun would feed it.

For the most part yes, at least in the semi autos. I am not a big fan of pushing semi auto loads to the limit, so generally they are the same as target rounds. I am more concerned with putting a round specifically placed then 'stopping power'.

I do tend to push 38 spl loads depending on the gun I am using.

[LakeviewBulldog]

I would think practicing with the weapon in question would be more important than practicing with the actual round. Test it enough to feel confident that it will function and replace your defensive loads once every year or so. Good personal defense ammo is way too expensive for the vast majority to use to get the practice that is needed with a carry pistol. Just my thoughts.

[square butte]

Winchester RA9T or Federal HST 147 grain ( Read the write ups and watch the ballistic tests on youtube ) - Good place to start, unless you want to use cast. Plenty of debate out there between 124 and 147 grain

[Mytmousemalibu]

I pack the Underwood/Lehigh Defense xtreme defense, +P+ 90gr copper solid. Its a non expanding, fluid transfer design, nothing to clog up or fail to open and is very barrier blind.

My next choice which is in my opinion the top notch expanding hollow point, the Federal HST.

Other pretty good bullets: Winchester Ranger T-series, Winchester Defend, Speer Gold Dot and I still like the old Federal 9BPLE

[rintinglen]

there are plenty of good choices of hollow point defense ammo. I tend towards 115-124 grain ammo, since that is more likely to hit to point of aim. But I roll my eyes when some gun shop commando says, " I only practice with what I carry." Unless you are rich, or someone else is buying, a dollar a pop means that most of us are limited to at most a box of 20 or maybe two a month. It is impossible to develop and achieve decent marksmanship skills at that rate.

But for the same money, and some work in the garage, you can easily turn out 3 to 5 times that amount of ammunition. I recommend in the 9mm a 115-124 grain JHP ( I currently use Hornady Critical Defense--but there are plenty of good choices.) For practice, I load LEE 120 grain TC boolits over Power Pistol with enough oomph to hit pretty close to the same point of aim They cost me about 8 cents a round. In my view, building up the habits of good gun handling and marksmanship skill are far more important than buying the "Magic Bullet." Skill will get you hits, training and practice will get you skill.

[RoadBike]

My 9mm pistols all appear to perform the best with 124gr ammunition, cast, plated, or jacketed. My preference for a defensive round is the Federal 124gr Hydrashok.

[Half Dog]

Is there a prefered type of cast boolit?

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Remington 124 gr. Golden Saber, Gold Dot, Federal Hydra Shok, PMC Starfire -- all good! :D

[Tackleberry41]

Preferred for cast, your gonna get a pile of answers to. I shoot what I have in 9mm. I have a lee 124gr TL, decent enough for plinking. A 147gr lyman, good bullet. Works in my 9mm and 357 sig. And you can often use a 357 mold. I have a NOE 158gr w hollow point pins, which come out to about 145gr. They load and work in my 9mms and 357sig.

Store bought self defense ammo, thats really up to you, its hard to test it to see whats better. Better as in for killing things. Not like most of us have pig or cow sides of beef to shoot up to test expansion. I load the XTP alot, so buy the Hornady XTP ammo for carry. Is another brand gonna be better or worse? Doubt any bad guys are gonna be saying 'well glad it was winchester, I would be dead otherwise'. Reliability is the thing you want.

[NavyVet1959]

The best 9mm is probably a 9x23 loaded to its full potential.

[Lagamor]

I have Hornady's Critical Duty. It has a reputation of blowing through people. Don't know if that is true, but a lot of cops carry it.
Got a 124 grain hollow point MP Mold. I load it to mimic the Critical Duty's. Probably overkill, but I like it. Shoot them by the thousands.

[tazman]

I have been carrying the Hornady Custom with the 124 grain XTP. It feeds and shoots well in my Beretta.
For practice, I cast the NOE 358-135-fn. It gives me the same impact point as the Hornady round at all my defensive distances and feeds flawlessly.
My second favorite boolit is the NOE 358-155-TC(ELCO) cast as a hollow point(147grains). It also feeds and shoots flawlessly and would serve as an excellent self defense load if you want a heavy boolit.

[Petrol & Powder]

The Federal 115gr 9BPLE +P+ has a long history of being a good SD round. The Winchester 115 gr Controlled Expansion +P+ jacketed hollowpoint probably has the best track record in actual shootings. The Winchester rounds are difficult to find but sometimes they appear at gun shows.
If the gun is up to handling those +P+ rounds I don't think you could do much better in 9mm.

When it comes to SD ammunition, I am NOT a follower of fads or new trends. I like long track records, lots of history and well proven rounds backed by years of actual results.

[Jcduff936]

I have limited experience with 9mm so take this with a grain of salt. Not to be a "gun shop commando", but I do practice with what I carry. I primarily carry a 40 S&W Springfield XD and it's identical to my wife's. We both carry and shoot the same guns and ammo so that we are always protected even if we are left with the others handgun. We have carried both the White box Winchester JHP and the cheap Remington JHP. These are typically almost the same price as FMJ and we don't have to worry about forgetting to switch between practice and defense ammo. We no longer carry or buy the "self defense" rounds because, while they kill gelatin bad guys great, actual performance on wildlife has proven to me that these premium bullets either lose the jacket more often with limited penetration or fail to expand . Again, this is on living tissue, with bones, tendons, etc that you don't find in ballistic gelatin. We hunt a lot but we also raise and butcher hogs.

If you reload, the Sierras that I've tried have been soft, maybe too soft for bones. The Speers have been a little harder but still expand pretty easy without losing the jacket at normal speed. The Noslers expand very easy but stay together at incredible velocity (45@800 to 2100 fps, excellent expansion and weight retention). I love Hornady but my experience with the XTP is that they typically require more velocity ( as in 3-400 fps over what they advertise) in order to expand. That's with the non-magnum and magnum XTP. They both hold together at very high velocity also. Rainier plated flatpoints expanded at the same velocity if I remember correctly. They are also much cheaper and just as accurate.

I carry the same gun and load in the woods or around town and obviously use it more in the woods. That requires deep penetration that some of the premium bullets couldn't offer. I don't carry hardcast because I don't want that kind of incredible penetration. Bad guys typically don't lineup 5 deep.

I did try the REM UMC JHP in 9mm a few years ago. They were very cheap for 100 rounds and they expanded Everytime without losing weight or penetration.

Try em and see what you think. If they shoot accurately enough for you, stick with that. Shot placement is critical anyway and you won't have it without lots of practice. Start cheap (buy American) and work your way up if you want. It's your money and your life it's protecting.

[Mytmousemalibu]

The Federal 115gr 9BPLE +P+ has a long history of being a good SD round. The Winchester 115 gr Controlled Expansion +P+ jacketed hollowpoint probably has the best track record in actual shootings. The Winchester rounds are difficult to find but sometimes they appear at gun shows.
If the gun is up to handling those +P+ rounds I don't think you could do much better in 9mm.

When it comes to SD ammunition, I am NOT a follower of fads or new trends. I like long track records, lots of history and well proven rounds backed by years of actual results.

The ole 9BPLE has been around the block, its been around for a few days. Not a trailblazing new design and the Federal Hi-Shok bullet tends to shed some jacket at the +P+ velocities of the 9BPLE but despite that it has a long track history of very effectively turning bad guys into worm food. Used by law enforcement for a long time. Its usually pretty cheap too. I found it for $19 a box and that's a 50rd box so it's cheap enough to practice with. Really I found the round is mild to shoot too but I still like the round, I keep several guns loaded with it at all times.

[Char-Gar]

Remington 124 gr. Golden Saber, Gold Dot, Federal Hydra Shok, PMC Starfire -- all good! :D

Yep, that is about right. With the 9mm carry the best you can afford and practice with the cheapest available that is reliable in your gun.

[Moonie]

I like the 147gr HST or GoldDot's. They have less recoil than the fast 115's so they are easier to shoot in the smaller 9mm guns. I also have an Accurate Molds 147Y slick sided powder coat mold that has a similar profile to those self defense loads and I load them to the same velocity for practice.

[warboar_21]

I was using Remington 124gr+p golden Saber because they were about the only thing I could get plenty of. They cycled and shot well from my Sig P290. Then I bought my CZ 85 and then found a store near work that carried all kinds of SD ammo. They had 50 round boxes of the Federal HST in 124, 147, and 147+p for a little more than what I was paying for the 20 round boxes of the Golden Sabers. I tried out all three weights and settled on the standard pressure 147gr. They cycle and shoot perfectly from both my Sig P290 and the CZ 85. I stopped back by the shop to pick up some more and there was a guy buying several boxes of the Winchester Ranger T SXT 127gr +p+. The guy at the store says they can get it once in awhile but not often so I check back in with him once in awhile. I would like to try it out and see if it's as good as I have read about.

[Mytmousemalibu]

The Golden Sabre Bonded is not a bad choice. The non-bonded suffers from pretty bad jacket/core separation but if you can get it cheap for practice, who cares. But i would definitely spring for the Bonded version for duty.