Making Peace With The 9 m/m – Part 3

[JimT]

I probably have posted some of this before but it's been awhile so ..

I have a bunch of bullets for the 9mm from Bear Creek Supply and from Berry's Plated Bullets. All are the “pointy” round-nose 9mm design.

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I know the 9mm is great at penetrating, especially with round-nose bullets. And since the SGB Tool works so well with the .22 Long Rifle, I got to wondering if I could “flat-nose” these 9mm bullets and how they would perform. So I made a tool that I could stick the bullets into and file off the nose.

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Before and After filing the nose

The Bear Creek Supply bullets were given the same treatment. They are a different length than the Berry's but a thin spacer inserted into the tool brought them to the place where about 3 gr. was removed from the nose

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These were loaded with 5.8 gr. of Unique and a standard Small Pistol primer.

Next I filled a 6 gallon bucket with sand and set it on about 4” of pine boards. I fired each load straight down into the sand. No bullets went much more than halfway into the sand. I wanted to see how the bullet performed in comparison to unmodified bullets, so I fired One that was not modified and One that was modified with each bullet.

This does not indicate how the bullets will perform shooting something that breaths and bleeds. But if you are ever attacked by a 6 gallon bucket of sand, it will work on that!

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Bear Creek UNMODIFIED round nose .. recovered weight 121.1 grains

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Bear Creek MODIFIED bullet ... recovered weight 121.9 grains

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Berry's Double Plated UNMODIFIED bullet ... recovered weight 123.9 grains

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Berry's Double Plated MODIFIED bullet ... recovered weight 122.2 grains

If a person wanted to modify these for hunting or self-defense further tests in a proper medium would be required. I did find it interesting that neither bullet lost weight, though I don't know that really indicates anything. To obtain really valid data the bullets should be shot in other media and a large number should be fired.

But this was fun!

[Bill in Oregon]

Pretty neat field research Jim.

[JimT]

That's sorta what happens when "gun guys" (those who like to experiment with 'em) get bored ....

[Oldncrusty]

Very interesting research. Thanks for turning on a light bulb.

[Ysabel Kid]

IIRC, I have some of these in my stock of reloading supplies:

https://freedommunitions.com/products/xc9mm-124fp-b0500

Look to be a similar profile. I will need to see how they perform and report back.