Police Pistols: 9 mm vs. .40 S&W

[Music] [Music] double-action revolvers usually in caliber 38 special were the archetypical police sidearm for most of the 20th century but in the latter part of the 20th century starting in any mainstream way in the 1970s we saw a transition away from revolvers to Auto loaders for police use in the early years of this transition pistols like this Smith & Wesson Model 59 were very popular in caliber 9-millimeter Luger also known as nine by nineteen was almost universal but as the transition toward Auto loaders started so did the tails of the 9-millimeters lacked of effectiveness this lack of effectiveness usually being cited as the result of excessive penetration due to insufficient hollow-point expansion or insufficient penetration due to excessive hollow-point expansion the epitome of this coming in the FBI has been miss miami-dade shooting in 1986 now at that time most FBI agents carried revolvers only those with spot training were allowed to carry autoloaders one such agent armed with a nine-millimeter autoloading pistol shot one of the suspects the bullet traveling through his arm missing the humorous but severing the brachial artery entering the thoracic cavity perforating the lung and stopping just short of the suspects heart a wound that would have proven fatal without timely medical intervention but not an immediately incapacitating wound and that suspect went on to fight for several more minutes during which he inflicted several casualties well as the result of the tails of the 9mm there's ineffectiveness and especially the results of that day the FBI did several things two of those things were first citing a lack of firepower they abandoned revolvers and secondly citing a lack of effectiveness they have been in the nine-millimeter opting instead to arm their agents with ten millimeter Auto loaders well the ten millimeter is powerful but it comes with its own list of problems first and foremost being what many people consider to be excessive recoil well that excessive recoil led to some other things and the FBI trying several things and finally this culminating with the introduction of caliber 40 Smith & Wesson in 1990 the 40 Smith & Wesson is more powerful than a 9-millimeter but not so much that it's recoil is considered prohibitive and although 40 Smith & Wesson ammunition is bigger than 9-millimeter it does not require a gun with a bigger grip to handle a double stack magazine the larger ammunition does cost you some magazine capacity but again not so much that it was considered prohibitive well then 40 Smith & Wesson caught on became very popular and so today pistols like this Glock model 22 in caliber 40 Smith & Wesson are the ubiquitous police sidearm for the 21st century in the same way that the 38 revolver was for the 20th but we find ourselves again in a transitional period decades after abandoning the 9-millimeter the FBI is going back to issuing nine-millimeters why well accounts vary but as nearly as I can figure out the reasoning is but benign having less recoil in the forty can be fired more accurately especially under conditions where someone has to fire multiple shots quickly and any lack of effectiveness is no longer an issue dudas great strides in projectile technology this is a conclusion that has caused a lot of controversy and like it or not the FBI does set a precedent for law enforcement firearms and law enforcement training and there are many police officers that are concerned that they are going to be asked to turn in their 40s and instead carry knives which many people consider to be a step backward and many people are concerned that they will be under gunned thus recently I've been contacted by some police officials from different police agencies asking me to do a a presentation on the subject so what I've got today is two pistols make LACMA 17 and a Glock model 22 these two pistols in terms of size and weight are all but identical the only operational difference is being the model 17 is a nine-millimeter with a 17 shot magazine and the model 22 is is 40 Smith & Wesson with a 15 shot magazine so let's shoot these two pistols side-by-side and see how they compare for accuracy speed and power now let's do an accuracy test that a lot of people would consider mundane I'm gonna shoot from 25 yards just offhand slow fire and I'll shoot the target on your left with the 9-millimeter and the target on your right with the 40 so we see it 25 yards both seem to do okay now I'll go back to a hundred yards and do the same drill slow fire offhand and again I'll shoot the target on your left with a nine-millimeter in the target on your right with the 40 Smith & Wesson [Music] [Music] [Music] so how'd we do well the first thing I want to point out is there are no low hits on either of these targets some people may expect a great deal of drop and how much you get will depend on your ammo but in this case very little drop to be seen as far as the accuracy comparison I fired six shots at each of these targets and each of them has five hits on the nine-millimeter group may appear to be a little more centered but if you put a numerical score on this with a 9-millimeter I got a score of 39 with the 40 I got a score at 36 well slow fires one thing that the intended use of these firearms might require shooting it a little more rapid pace so I'll go back 10 yards and again I'll shoot the target on your left at the 9 and target on your right with 40 salad we do you see what the nine-millimeter the group is a little high that's just because that pistol pattern is a little higher for me but as far as the size of the group there isn't a significant difference if you want to put a numerical score on it I fired nine shots with each pistol for a total possible at 90 and with the nine-millimeter I got 82 with the 40 I got 85 but the real question is with the forties greater recoil did I shoot the 9 shot group slower and if it was slower was it enough to matter you be the judge where recoil really becomes a factor is shooting at multiple targets now at 7 yards I've got three of these miniature silhouettes set up and I'll shoot 12 shots 1 2 3 3 2 1 1 2 3 3 2 1 a 9-millimeter and then we'll repeat that with the 40 and see how they compare let's take a closer look so how'd we do well we've got four shots on each target for a total possible of 40 points and we got 40 39 and 40 so not too bad with the 9-millimeter now let's try that with the 40 Smith & Wesson now with a 9-millimeter we had scores of 40 39 and 40 with the caliber 40 Smith & Wesson we have scores of 40 38 and 40 a difference in score not enough to talk about a difference in speed you be the judge now it's time to try some expanding bullet ammunition we'll start with our 9-millimeter and our favorite target soda jugs and the ammunition I'm going to use is this federal 115 grain jacketed hollow-point [Applause] not bad at all let's see how the 40 compares now for our 40 we'll also use the federal but this is a 180 grain jacketed hollow point which one was better you be the judge now let's try a different kind of animation again we'll start with our 9 millimeter but this time we'll use hornady critical duty ammunition now this is a 135 grain ballistic tip : [Music] now let's see how that compares to 40 and the critical duty ammunition for 40 Smith & Wesson is a 175 grain ballistic tip not bad more effective than the 9 you'll be the judge well the soda jugs are interesting but now let's try cinder blocks and these are the heavy duty cinder blocks and I'll shoot the target on your left with a 9 millimeter in the target on your right with a 40 Smith & Wesson and in this case the ammunition for both will be Winchester white box Full Metal Jacket and initial for the 9 I'll use 115 grain and for the 40 it's 165 grain and we'll shoot from 15 yards [Applause] so we can shoot cinder blocks of soda jugs and everything else and those things tell us what they tell us but remember the fbi's reason for abandoning the nine-millimeter in the first place was the events in in there in 1986 miami-dade shootout so let's see if we can simulate that what I've got here is something that has become affectionately known as the meat target and in this case we need a lateral shot meat target so what I've got is pork ribs to simulate ribs these two bags of oranges to simulate lungs and the other side more pork ribs now what you can't see is between these two bag of oranges lungs we've got sections of beef heart and there's a couple of them in there which together form about the same thickness as a human heart and we'll just call the plastic bags pericardium but our meat target isn't complete he doesn't have skin let's see what we can do we've got this leather jacket which for today is not gonna be a leather jacket it's gonna be skin now a meat target has skin but he's still not complete remember the shot in question passed through an arm so what we got to simulate an arm is this ham now this does not have a bone in it but that's okay because the shot in question didn't go through a bone now this ham might look too big to simulate an arm let me show you something this ham looks like it's too big around to simulate an arm but that's just an optical illusion I measured this it is in fact smaller than my arm so now our meat target has the ham arm a rolls of duct tape around here to keep it from falling down the sleeve but he's still not complete he's naked let's put some clothes on so now he's got this nice long sleeve t-shirt but it is a cold day let's put on one more layer so now the meat target's wearing a flannel shirt over a t-shirt now you may have heard of the FBI's standard of the four layers of denim and that might sound excessive and it probably is but remember in this case for the bullet to go through the arm into the thoracic cavity and hit the heart it's going to have to go through flannel shirt t-shirt exit the arm going through flannel shirt t-shirt and enter the thoracic cavity by going through flannel shirt t-shirt so there are in fact six layers of clothing to go through before the bullet can get through the lung and hit the heart so we'll start with our nine-millimeter and the ammunition will use is the federal 115 grain jacketed hollow-point and we'll shoot from seven yards so with our federal hundred and fifteen grain jacketed hollow-point sapphire three shots recovered all three bullets in the hollow-point expansion was very good and I'll show you a close-up of that in just a minute but let's look at the results of our autopsy our ham arm is annihilated but as far as the penetration goes of the three shots one is still stuck in our lung another one shot over the heart and went into the adjacent lung but without significant damage the one bullet that actually hit the heart you can see is just stuck in our plastic pericardium it didn't penetrate at all so although it did hit the heart it would not have done any more damage than the famous miami-dade bullet did now let's take a close up look at the hollow-point expansion so with this federal hundred and fifteen grand jacketed hollow-point 9-millimeter ammunition the expansion is very good its penetration questionable now we've got our meet target put back together and we'll shoot it with the forty will use the federal 180 grain jacketed hollow-point so we've got our meet target disassembled let's see how the federal 180 grain 40 Smith & Wesson rounds did well in terms of the standard being did it penetrate the heart I fired three shots and now this heart has three bullet holes in it one of which went through pretty close to the center bullets went through the adjacent lung now I lost one bullet but the other two are actually lodged in the ribs on the opposite side and I'll show you a close-up of them in just a minute so what we see here is sufficient penetration and the bullets being stopped on the opposite side would seem to be optimum now we lost one bullet but since the other two are stuck in the ribs we have to presume that the bullet passed through with almost no energy left and would have been pretty much no danger to anyone and for our 40 Smith & Wesson federal 180 grain jacketed hollow-point bullets the expansion is quite good now we're back to the nine-millimeter and let's try our other type of ammunition hornady critical duty an issue as where the federal was 115 grain hollow-point this is a hundred and thirty-five grain ballistic tip now the concept is being a ballistic tip it won't be encumbered so much by the clothing and with the heavier bullet it should retain more energy and give us more penetration let's see if it really does that so they're 9-millimeter critical duty ammunition we see once again the arm is pulverized where the bullets hit the ribs broke them of the three shots I fired to actually hit the heart one just nicking the edge and the other one getting a hundred percent penetration through our heart all three bullets were lodged in the lung tissue on the opposite side one achieving complete penetration in being hung up in the edge none actually hitting the ribs at all so they didn't seem to penetrate a hundred percent but as far as the standard of going through the heart absolutely now we'll try our 40 Smith & Wesson critical duty ammunition which is a hundred and seventy-five grain ballistic tip so they're 40 caliber 175 and ballistic tips how did we do well pulverized our on no surprise there penetrated the ribs where I hit the ribs broke them interesting thing I fired three shots two of which are stuck in the heart there were between the two halves of heart the expansion of these two ballistic tips was very good far better than the nine-millimeter ballistic tips but as far as penetration to the bullets were in heart the third is lost in the opposite side lung and none made it through the ribs on the opposite side and here's the two 40 caliber critical duty rounds I recovered I didn't show a close-up of the nine millimeters because the expansion was almost none so what is the takeaway from today's presentation well first I'd say we are on the line fire range so please bear with gunfire but mainly we were looking at two things accuracy and power and the concept that the 9-millimeter can be fired more accurately by virtue of it as less recoil I can see nothing in today's presentation to support that hypothesis now it does occur I have seen this over the years a few times where people can shoot guns with very light recoil more accurately than they can guns with very heavy recoil but that usually manifests itself with inexperienced shooters and in cases where the handguns they're firing of a great disparity in recoil 22 long-rifle versus 44 Magnum 38 special versus 454 casull in the case of the nine versus the 40 the disparity in recoil is not that much and especially when these firearms are wielded by highly trained professionals like FBI agents or police officers I don't see that phenomenon manifesting itself in any meaningful way and in those few cases where it does I would suggest that perhaps remedial training for those individuals could be a better solution than completely re-equipping an entire agency as far as the power of these two rounds you can argue the relevance of shooting cinder blocks or soda jugs but it'd be hard to argue that shooting those things is fun and on the cinder block demonstration we saw that the cinder block was reduced to rubble by the 40 with roughly half as many rounds as it took to get the same result that the nine-millimeter obviously the 40 is more powerful in cases like that as far as the soda jugs if there was a difference it wasn't very much but the real meaningful demonstration was the meat target and as we can see the 40 made bigger holes did more damage and penetrated more by the standard of did the bullet reach the heart the federal hundred and fifteen grain 9-millimeter rounds failed to do so in any meaningful way the critical duty rounds were absolutely more effective in terms of penetration but their expansion and their damage to the tissues just wasn't all that impressive again not nearly as much as the 40 so the idea that there's been great strides forward in bullet technology allowing the nine to be more effective today than it once was yes that seems to be true if you buy the right kind of ammunition but as far as the nine-millimeter being of equal power to the forty and will it have equal stopping power by today's presentation I would have to say no it does not so if you spent all this time watching me shoot all this stuff thank you for your attention and thanks for watching the nine versus 40 video [Music]

Channel: Paul Harrell

Views: 903,501

Rating: 4.9566627 out of 5

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Id: LTTDgZZZFa0

Length: 22min 35sec (1355 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 03 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Jaqqaknees]

Cinder blocks and soda jugs tell us what they tell us but pork ribs and oranges also tell us what they tell us. And they tell us MURDER MOMMY SAYS MURDER

[u/Longjumping_Queefer]

Looks like the Trans Canada Highway guy got job at studio G and a new obsession

[u/OyarsaRPM]

I honestly enjoyed this guys youtube channel but this just really left me dumbfounded.