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So the 9mm trumps both my preferred handgun calibers in the ammo capacity department. 357 magnum can only hold seven rounds.Īnd don’t even get me started on modern 9mm handgun designs with wider frames that allow for double-stack magazines. 357 magnum and the 9mm, as I see no point in comparing revolvers to semi-autos.īut if pushed to it, comparing single stack semi-autos, a single stack 1911 in 9mm can hold up to ten rounds, while both the long-defunct LAR Grizzly and the recently-revived Coonan 1911-style pistols chambered for the. I wouldn’t bother comparing ammocapacities between shooting platforms for the.
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9MM Ammo CapacityĬase in point, a full-size Glock 17 can hold 17 rounds of 9mm in the mag, while a Glock 21 (which is about the same size as a Glock 17) can only hold 13 rounds of. But it offers one thing neither of my preferred calibers offer: superb ammo capacity. 357 magnum bullet fired from a 4-inch-barrel revolver, so as far as ballistics, it will never come close to my two preferred handgun calibers. 45 acp does, and it will never outrun a speeding. The 9mm will not create as big a hole as the. Why do I have to choose one over the other when I can have both? 9mm debate, because I don’t see the point. In fact, I like it a lot (just not nearly as much as I like the other two). Just because I said I prefer the two handgun calibers I mentioned above doesn’t mean I think the 9mm is no good. Why the 9×19 Parabellum is a great option So as much as I hate to say it, my two favorite handgun calibers have the same Achilles’ heel: the handguns they’re chambered for can’t carry as many rounds as I’d like. Not saying that wheelguns are worse than semi-autos, if anything I feel safer knowing that I can store and access mine in a pinch, like in my car or nightstand. Typical small frame revolvers can only hold five rounds, medium frame revolvers can only hold six to seven, and large frame revolvers can only hold up to eight. Its only downside: lackluster ammo capacity. A lighter bullet with a smaller cross sectional circumference propelled to velocities a couple hundred feet per second faster than the speed of sound, this handgun caliber is unrivaled when it comes to penetration, so much so that it will overpenetrate soft tissue targets - but that can easily be mitigated by using soft jacketed hollow point (SJHP) or jacketed soft point (JSP) bullets. 357 magnum on the other hand is the complete opposite of the. JHP - its only downsides: terrible solid target penetration (slow and fat bullets have a hard time penetrating even entry-level body armors) and lackluster ammo capacity in handguns chambered for it (the typical 1911 magazine can only fit seven to eight of these big fat cartridges). 45 ACP might be the slowest and heaviest of the “big three” semi-auto handgun calibers, but it makes the biggest holes in soft tissue targets when comparing FMJ vs. For me, as far as handgun calibers, these two being on the higher end of the ballistics performance spectrum, no other calibers come close. 357 magnum - which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone because like I said, I love 1911s and magnum revolvers.
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460 Rowland), I have a soft spot for both the. Likewise for handgun calibers, not counting rounds I consider obscure but slowly gaining popularity (e.g.
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4 Which 9MM ammo do we pick for self defense?.2 Why the 9×19 Parabellum is a great option.
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