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Gunfighter Moment – Frank Proctor 
Why 9mm?

Back in April I received my Wilson Combat 1911 chambered in 9mm. I did a YouTube video with the gun and got lots of comments on it.

One of the comments I got was “Why would you set up a Wilson Combat 1911 in 9mm?” I replied to it and thought to myself here’s my next article for Gunfighter Moment. So here we go, my thoughts on 9mm.

I like to shoot and I like to train and see improvement and chase that dream of being as good as I want to be! 9mm training ammo is considerably less expensive than .40 or .45 allowing me to train way more, I dig that! Now let’s talk about the tactical application of the cartridge. I carry a 9mm pistol everyday for concealed carry and I carried a 9mm as a secondary weapon in Afghanistan and Iraq, I don’t now and never have felt under gunned with a 9mm.

For concealed carry I use a Glock 19 or S&W M&P 9. In both cases I have a concealable, very shootable (capable of delivering multiple hits quickly on a practical sized target from the muzzle out to 50 yards) and controllable pistol with 15-17 rounds of potent ammunition. I feel good about those capabilities. When talking terminal performance a couple critical things come to mind: shot placement and ammunition selection.

A .45 hole in a lung will produce the same effect as a 9mm hole in a lung, that effect is not instant incapacitation. However, if you research there has been a whole lot of stuff instantly incapacitated by a well placed .22 long rifle cartridge including some pretty large game animals. Without going into that subject anymore let’s talk about ammunition selection.

Not all ammo is created equal, ball ammo can be very lethal with good shot placement, but I think it would be much wiser to select carry or duty ammo that will offer better terminal performance. I have some first hand knowledge on Hornady Critical Defense 135g 9mm ammo. I watched it run through the FBI protocol and was amazed at the performance. It outperformed .40 and .45 duty ammo from other manufacturers. The FBI protocol test and evaluates the ammunitions, expansion, weight retention and penetration, preferably without over penetration.

I went on YouTube and found this video for you guys to check out. This is not the test I was at – when we did it we also ran .40 and .45 duty ammo from other manufacturers through the protocol and the results were not as impressive. Some of the ammo over penetrated and never expanded, some didn’t retain much weight through the auto glass. As seen in this video the Hornady 9mm expanded and penetrated almost exactly the same through everything.

Other thoughts on 9mm, it is a much more comfortable cartridge for a broader range of shooters to handle. That is one of the reasons many LE agencies and the FBI are switching to 9mm. I think another plus of 9mm is that if the gun is not uncomfortable to shoot and not cost prohibitive to train with more shooters will go out and train and increase or maintain their proficiency. Another thing I’m a fan of is magazine capacity. Having 15 rounds of some pretty potent and easy to shoot ammo in a concealable gun gives me a nice warm fuzzy for most anything I might encounter.

Well those are some of my thoughts on 9mm, thanks for reading and I hope to see you at a range sometime!

-Frank Proctor