9mm rounds just don't have near the kinetic energy at impact that other choices do, like .40 S&W's and .45 ACP's.
Personally, I like a bigger, slower moving bullet when the idea is stopping a human assaliant at relatively close range - and any violent encounter with a handgun is most likely going to be at very close range (10 yards or less statistically, IIRC). That's why the vast majority of my handguns are .45 ACP's. I even have a revolver chambered for it (an S&W 625)!!!
I have a couple of 9mm's, a few .38's, and even some .45 Long Colts, but I still love .45 ACP's the best by far. I've had a couple of .40 S&W chambered pistols, and tehy were great guns with it being a great cartridge... It's just that for one reason or another I didn't end up keeping any of them.
Not that many years ago, right around the time the military was looking to replace the Colt 1911 .45 ACP, there was kind of a *movement* toward high capacity automatics - i.e. ones that held a lot of bullets. Colt 1911's held seven rounds whereas a number of 9mm pistols held 13, 14, 15, and some even 19 rounds (Steyr) onboard. The theory seem to be if you had more bullets you had more chances, and so lots of attention centered around 9mm's, and some even labled some of the many 9mm pistols introduced then as "Wondernines". The military picked it (primarily to be aligned with NATO countries' penchant for 9mm handguns) and so suddenly everyone thought the 9mm was a great cartridge. Didn't matter that it didn't hit wiht much more authority than a .38 Special... We'll just throw more bullets at 'em.
At the time IPSC shooting was dominated by .45 ACP guns, but then some folks started loading up .38 Supers (a fairly obscure automatic pistol cartridge) real hot to get them to make "major power factor", and since the cartridge was smaller in diameter more could be held in the pistol in this action shooting contests, and quickly the .38 Super dominated IPSC events. This led to more belief to the "more bullets are better" conception. Didn't matter that .38 Supers loaded like they were in IPSC were cartridges pretty much on the edge and not really acceptable as a home defense cartridge or plinking round. But slowly the .40 S&W came along and finally displaced the .38 Super in action shooting, and that's where we are today.
Now it is important to remember, if you are using the pistol for defense purposes, that in most handgun exchanges very few rounds are fired, and you are probably just fine with a single stack magazine and 7 or 8 rounds... Of course, it might help to have more, but personally my belief is that if the fight is going to take more than 8 rounds something is really wrong with my marksmanship!!! :dribble: If I've done my homework it really shouldn't take more than two.
Certainly this is the long way around to try and explain why other cartridges (and configurations of pistols) might be better than all the high capacity 9mm pistols around, but basically it boils down to the fact that statistically the 9mm does not have much *knock down* power, and does poorly in *one-shot stop* comparisons with other cartridges.
Still, it's an easy cartridge to shoot, ammunition is cheap, and I wouldn't want to get hit with one. Only problem is... Well, I would much rather get hit with a 9mm that with a .45 ACP!
More important than anything is to get a pistol you can consistently hit your target with. Doesn't matter what bullet you have... even a .460 Nitro Express... if you don't hit the target.
Dallara
