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Thoughts on 147gr JHP 9mm for carry rounds?

Rockrivr1

Rockrivr1

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With today's world of ammo shortages you take what you can get. Felt a little short on carry 9mm ammo so I came across and picked up a couple boxes of Speer Gold Dot 147gr Personal Protection JHP ammo. I've never used the 147gr 9mm ammo before as I've typically stayed in the 115 and 124 gr JHP rounds in my carry guns. I'm going to the range and run some through my Sig 365 to see how they function, but overall what are you thoughts with loading 147gr 9mm ammo for your carry gun?

Thanks
 
My only real experience with 9mm 147 gr rounds was through the Beretta Cx4 Storm I used to own. They shot very well from that carbine and seemed to be very accurate. IIRC I tried some through a Glock 19 and they seemed to be okay in that gun also.

But I could not justify a PCC so I sold it and stayed with more traditional weight 9mm bullets.
 
For me the felt recoil is less with the heavy bullet. I have them in my wife's carry, sig365 and nightstand VP9. Personally if i carry a 9mm i carry 124GS bonded or 115/135gr Flexlock depending on what I can get but I'd feel confident if I needed to carry 147. Slightly bigger hole at a slightly lower velocity, same amount of deadness if your shot placement it good.
 
It suprises me that any gun guy would feel short on carry rounds. I mean I ran several mags through my carry guns then load em up for carry. If I chose to shoot/train with it I put in FMJ rounds. If I got a 100 spare carry rounds I’m good. Am I in the minority here? I have several thousand FMJ 9 and about a 100 HP
 
I ran a case of 147 Blazer ball flat nose when it was dirt cheap last year. While not JHP as you mentioned, I didn't really notice a whole lot of difference from 115 or 124 other than my carbines didn't like feeding the flat nose. Seemed accurate enough in my P365, Shield, and P80 Compact.

But for specifically Speer Gold Dot 147 JHP, Lucky Gunner's extensive ballistics test show that they A) fall very predictably within the 12-18" FBI penetration standards, with an average of 16.1" (nearly perfect group), but B) don't seem to expand as much as 115 or 124 grain, averaging .42" instead of the .54 - .55" of the lighter, faster rounds.

www.luckygunner.com

Handgun Self-Defense Ammunition - Ballistic Testing Data

Lucky Gunner tests more than 110 different 9mm, 45 ACP, 40 S&W and 380 ACP handgun self-defense ammunition loads in ballistic gel with analysis and video.
www.luckygunner.com
 
I’ve shot some Remington golden saber 147gr JHP out of a Ruger LCR. Surprisingly no failures (no FTF, stuck cases, or crimp jump).
 
SHOCKNAWE said:
It suprises me that any gun guy would feel short on carry rounds. I mean I ran several mags through my carry guns then load em up for carry. If I chose to shoot/train with it I put in FMJ rounds. If I got a 100 spare carry rounds I’m good. Am I in the minority here? I have several thousand FMJ 9 and about a 100 HP
Click to expand...
Same here
 
SHOCKNAWE said:
It suprises me that any gun guy would feel short on carry rounds. I mean I ran several mags through my carry guns then load em up for carry. If I chose to shoot/train with it I put in FMJ rounds. If I got a 100 spare carry rounds I’m good. Am I in the minority here? I have several thousand FMJ 9 and about a 100 HP
Click to expand...

This is me personally. I only had 50 rnds of 9mm carry on hand so to me that was short. Opportunity came up to buy more so I grabbed some. Though not my usual weight. Hence the question.
 
Like the other guy says - make sure it goes bang all the time until its empty, if so that is 99% as good as it gets.
 
I focus on 124s and the CD 135+P load almost exclusively but the heaver gdhp load should be decent, too, albeit slower.
 
SHOCKNAWE said:
It suprises me that any gun guy would feel short on carry rounds. I mean I ran several mags through my carry guns then load em up for carry. If I chose to shoot/train with it I put in FMJ rounds. If I got a 100 spare carry rounds I’m good. Am I in the minority here? I have several thousand FMJ 9 and about a 100 HP
Click to expand...

I probably have like 800rds of different kinds of JHP I can run in 9, but not all are in one type, although probably a good third of this is GDHP 124 +P, but also Underwood, Critical Duty 135+P, and a few hundred Fed 9PBLE 115 +P+, aka "the pibble" which is a great standby cheapo round. (or at least it was. )
 
Every time I go to the range I have my first 2 shots be out of my carry gun with the carry ammo that I have in it. I also run a low cap mag of them through if I make any mods, even down to grip. So while i don't need thousands of HP i do move through a box every few months.
 
Robin Proctor said:
Every time I go to the range I have my first 2 shots be out of my carry gun with the carry ammo that I have in it. I also run a low cap mag of them through if I make any mods, even down to grip. So while i don't need thousands of HP i do move through a box every few months.
Click to expand...

Yup, I swap my carry rounds every time I do a pistol day. Once a month at most? I’ve noticed that the 147’s are more of a push than a snap, which is what 124’s feel like out of my 365. I’ve got 150 HST 124’s for the Glock and 100 Gold Dot 147’s for the Sig. Both run flawlessly out of either platform and it’s basically splitting hairs on the recoil front. I’ll take a but more controllability and less FPS with modern self defense ammo any day of the week.
 
You guys are nuts I shoot at least 4 boxes of carry ammo through a gun to make sure it runs right in it. Then I make sure I have at least 10 boxes/500rds of whatever works for that gun on stand by. I try to use ammo that comes in regular 50rd boxes. I have a rule once a round is chambered in a gun, it either gets shot or thrown in with my range ammo can or thrown out. I never re-use a round once it's been loaded/unloaded from a magazine. I also shoot whatever is in the gun any time I go to the range. 50 or 100rds of carry ammo is not enough to last a year. Rotate your carry ammo out folks, it gets exposed to sweat and dust and weather and everything else you might encounter on a daily basis. Not worth dying over the cost of a box of ammo.

147's shoot fine in my p365, but I do run 124 HST's or 135gr Hornday Critical Duty usually.
 
That's what I use in my P365 as my EDC ammo, and I really like it. That, and 147 HST, but I know that some 365s can be a little finicky with the HSTs, although I've never had an issue with them.


Frank
 
You should be practicing with your EDC at least weekly so you should have enough ammo for many different scenarios. I like to keep stocked up to allow for the 2x worst scenarios.
1. Government/Antifa/Joey Boi is coming to take everything I own.
I want to have at least enough ammo to shoot 10 times per minute for 30 days. This way, if they are waiting for me to run out of ammo they will eventually get bored and go away.
2. Apocalypse.
I want to have enough ammo to open my own ammunition store and sell to the wasteland savages. I will accomplish this by having enough components to reload for years.
 
Many smaller guns actually prefer the heavier slower bullet because it stops the gun from cycling so fast that it causes misfeeds. The lower recoil is nice too. Nothing wrong with carrying them as long as your gun cycles them reliably.
 
SHOCKNAWE said:
It suprises me that any gun guy would feel short on carry rounds. I mean I ran several mags through my carry guns then load em up for carry. If I chose to shoot/train with it I put in FMJ rounds. If I got a 100 spare carry rounds I’m good. Am I in the minority here? I have several thousand FMJ 9 and about a 100 HP
Click to expand...
I make sure my carry ammo cycles properly but for the range it’s removed for FMJ. I’m pretty sure it’s 147 but not sure.
 
My EDC is 115 JHP, but I’ve used 124 and 147ball for the range and have not really notice any difference in my P229. At selfdefence range the POI barely shifts at all. As far as quantity of carry ammo, at the range I always shoot off all the ammo in the gun and my two carry mags (31 rounds being in Mass) first, then switch to FMJ for the rest of the session. Then reload everything with my carry ammo when I’m done. I do agree with Moojg2 that once a round is in a mag the only way it is removed is by shooting it. So I can easily go through close to a case of carry ammo in a year (1 range session every two weeks pre-Covid, so about 800 rounds per year). So I usually try to have two cases on hand, one to cover a normal year’s shooting and one for contingency.
 
The Remington 147 grain HTP ran fine in my P938 until I got lazy and slagged off on cleaning for a few trips to the range. Once the gun was dirty, I had 8 fail to function while shooting a box of 50 rounds.
 
124 HST's and Gold dots are my go defensive rounds and have been consistently reliable in every pistol that I have carried.
I usually keep at least 2k on hand and pick up a case or two a year as they go on sale usually at a 50% discount to replace test rounds and cycling rounds out of carry magazines. I got two extra cases in February.
Incidentally, I also stay stocked up on barrer-blind duty 5.56 for home defense and in the event of Mad Max.
 

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