The Good the Bad and the Ugly / M and S series ammo

1. Brand - Federal Expanding Full Metal Jacket (EFMJ)
2. Caliber - 9mm, 124 gr +p
3. Application - Personal protection
4. Rating - Excellent
5. General thoughts -
I tested about 250 rounds of EFMJ using every 9mm I own. It fed flawlessly in all of them, including my M9. The rounds penetrated very well and expanded nicely. Results of my homemade ballistics experiment are posted on my web site, here: http://users.adelphia.net/~navy87guy/ballistics.html
The advantage seems to be that EFMJ rounds don't get "clogged" like JHP sometimes does when it encounters clothing. I was favorably impressed with the rounds and have it loaded for home defense and personal protection now.

Jim

 

Also i t is worth noting some brands type ammo may give some people trouble and others can run it fine in the same model gun.

w/ that discalimer i think this is a good idea, post away...

 

Great idea! Here's my info for my M9:

1. Brand: WWB 115 grain FMJ
2. Caliber: 9mm
3. Application: Target
4. Rating: Good/ Excellent
5. General thoughts, etc: Fairly clean stuff, have shot at least 500 rounds with no failures of any kind in my M9, price just went up by ~$0.40 at Wally World in my area.

1. Brand: CCI Blazer 115 grain FMJ
2. Caliber: 9mm
3. Application: Target
4. Rating: Excellent
5. General thoughts, etc: Cleanest stuff I've shot, have shot only 50 rounds because my Wally World almost never stocks them, no failures of any kind in my M9, now about as cheap or cheaper than WWB.


1. Brand: UMC Remington 115 grain JHP
2. Caliber: 9mm
3. Application: Personal Protection or Target
4. Rating: Excellent (accuracy); Good (reliability); Bad (cleanliness)
5. General thoughts, etc: Dirtiest stuff I've shot, have shot only 100 rounds because my Wally World almost never stocks them, only one failure to extract in my M9, cheapest hollowpoints on the market, AFAIK (~$14/ 100 pk at Wally World). funny thing is they shot more accurately than the FMJs listed above! 8O

 

M9

1. Brand: WWB 115 grain FMJ
2. Caliber: 9mm
3. Application: Target
4. Rating: Not much experience to compare. If I had to guess fair/good
5. General thoughts I put a full box of 100 rounds through without a problem. I fired my buddies Glock 17 and managed to jam it twice in the same magazine.

 

M9

Brand - Mine
Caliber - 9mm
Application - Competition
Rating - Excellent
Commnts - Montana Gold 115 grain bullet (any of their standard configurations) WW Small pistol primers, HP 38 powder loaded to give about 1100 fps. My wife and I have put over 150,000 rounds of this load through our pistols and it always works. This is our standard load.

 

M40

Brand - UMC 180gr FMJ value pack (yellow)
Caliber - 40 S&W
Application - Target
Rating - Good
Comments- 200 rounds fired, zero malfunctions. Very light loading with low recoil and fair accuracy.

Brand - WWB 165gr TMJ (Walmart 100 rnd value pack)
Caliber - 40 S&W
Application - Target
Rating - Excellent
Comments- 100 rounds fired, very good accuracy and little felt recoil.

Brand - Remington UMC 180gr "Leadless" (green box)
Caliber - 40 S&W
Application - Target
Rating - Excellent
Comments- 100 rounds fired, most accurate of the plinking ammo I've tried. Moderate recoil. This ammo is getting harder to find.

Brand - Speer 165gr Gold Dot
Caliber - 40 S&W
Application - Personal Defense
Rating - Good
Comments- 50 rounds fired, I had 1 round that failed to fire even though the firing pin made a solid strike. On the second try it did fire and there were no other malfunctions. Substantial felt recoil and less accurate that I expected but good enough for self defense.

Brand - Winchester 155gr Silvertips
Caliber - 40 S&W
Application - Personal Defense
Rating - Excellent
Comments- 50 rounds fired. Very hot loading, big bang and flash with substantial recoil. The best accuracy of all rounds tested. This will be my carry ammo.

Editorial: On my trip to the range today I took the M40, Glock 22, Glock 27 and Keltec .40 cal Sub 2000 rifle. I fired each one at 21ft, 33ft and 50ft. Of these weapons I shot the Glock 22 the best and the M40 second best.
I am not going to say the Glock 22 is more accurate but I attribute the difference to the fact that I've been shooting it for years and this was the M40's first time on the firing line. I believe that with more practice I can outshoot the G22 with the M40.

 

1. Brand: WWB 115 grain FMJ
2. Caliber: 9mm
3. Application: Target
4. Rating: Excellent
5. General thoughts: Shot 500-600 rounds so far. Only had one FTF an I think it was due to operator error. My M9 is my first pistol and I'm pretty pleased.

 

1. Brand: WWB 115 grain FMJ
2. Caliber: 9mm
3. Application: Target
4. Rating: Excellent
5. General thoughts: I've put about 1800 rounds of this stuff through my M9, and about 200 through the S9 without even the slightest problem. I also like that it's cheap, and I almost always get 1 or 2 extra rounds in the 100 rd. ValPaks .

1. Brand: CCI Blazer Brass 115 grain FMJ
2. Caliber: 9mm
3. Application: Target
4. Rating: Excellent
5. General thoughts: Only shot about 50 rounds or so of the CCI. Some say it is cleaner, but that may be due to a "cooler" load. I loaded several magazines with alternating rounds of CCI and WWB. There was noticeably more kick with the WWB. Not severe, but the difference can be felt. Easy to distinguish when alternating brands in the same magazine. You guys oughtta try that sometime.

1. Brand: 147 grn federal HydraShocks
2. Caliber: 9mm
3. Application: defense
4. Rating: Excellent
5. General thoughts: Fired at least 100 rounds of the stuff to make sure it was reliable enough. Not a single issue. What looked like nice expansion shooting into a water jug. Readily available. Both the M9 and S9 are filled with 'em and sitting under the bed right now.

 

Interesting observation. Will keep that in mind next time I get a box of the CCI.

 

1. Brand: WWB 115 Grain JHP
2. Caliber: 9MM
3. Application: Personal Protection/Target
4. Rating: Good/Excellent
5. General thoughts, etc. My outdoor range doesn't allow fmj ammo, so I picked up a box just to try. First 50 rounds fired thru my M9, no failures at all.

 

RI,

Those WWB JHPs are supposed to be good, cheap self-protection ammo. They're based of of Winchester's SilverTip bullet design. I want to try out their 147 grain version, which has performed well in some tests.

 

Jim - where do you buy the Federal EFMJ? How much was it? I saw some on Ammoman.com but wondered if there was a better source.

Thanks

Jeff

 

The only problem ammo I ever had was Wolf. I couldn't even get through a half a mag with out some kind of failure. Wolf seems to work fine in my Ruger and XDs but not in my Steyrs.

 

I tend to range with. WWB range loads in .40 and PMC yellow box .40. No problems with either at the range. My carry loads are Magsafe swat load whitch i use for HOME defense , and Federal Hydrashoks for CCW. 2 seperate magazines, as those two loads throw a quite a different kick.

also have a box of Ranger SXT .40, but have not gotten into that yet.

 

Jeff -

I did buy mine from Ammoman. It was $175 for 500 rds delivered to my door (in about 3 days!). That works out to $0.35 per round. I looked for other sources, but that was the best price I could find. (Cheaper Than Dirt does carry them, but for $0.66 per round. Yikes!)

I figure that 500 rounds gave me plenty to test with for reliability and still have quite a supply on hand to keep for defense (with occasional "refresh" of the loads in the home defense magazines).

You can always try to find a buddy a split a case!

Jim

 

Shot some of the Danish M/41 surplus Nato ammo that I bought from ammunitionstore a couple of years ago and my M9 loved it. Made shooting steel drop targets easy. Does anybody have any experience with the Geco 124gr. in the M9?

 

Brand- Independence (cheap stuff from range w/ star on box)
caliber- .40 180gr
Application- range/target
Rating- Excellent
Comments- clean, light load. 50 rounds no problems.




Brand- CCI Blazer Brass
Caliber- .40
Application- range/target
Rating- So So
Comments Last week I had my 4th FTE w/ M40 in approximately 6,000-7,000 rounds. Three have been at matches w/ CCI-BB. When new I put THOUSANDS of these rounds downrange error free, now I will not use it. After last weeks FTE I was thinking about it and realized it has all been since I replaced my extractor (lost the spring into the void so bought a replacement assembly). Apperently there is some variotions in extractors even in the same gun, I used to talk up the CCI BB round, now I gotta say it is like the remingtom UMC green box; some like it and some don't.

 

1. Brand: WWB 115 grain FMJ
2. Caliber: 9mm
3. Application: Target
4. Rating: Excellent
5. General thoughts: About 1500 rounds to date without a negative experience. Excellent value ammo for the purpose. In a pinch, I would trust it with my life.

1. Brand: 147 grn federal HydraShoks
2. Caliber: 9mm
3. Application: defense
4. Rating: Excellent
5. General thoughts: These are the most reliable ammo ever produced in my opinion. Have shot lthosuands of rounds (probably 2,000 or so) in several weapons/calibers with not a single failure.

 

Brand: PMC 165 grain FMJ
Claiber: 40 S&W
Application: target
rating: EXCELLENT!!

General thoughts: an extremly light loading. not the cleanest but after 200 rounds there where no malfunctions. Accuracy was very good. Bullet is a FMJ truncated (flat front).

Brand: Speer Gold Dot 165 grain
Caliber: 40 S&W
Application: Defense
Rating: Excellent
General Thoughts: very hot round. fed and functioned perfect. Nickle plated cases, feed smoothly. Accuracy was excellent with all rounds running right at POA=POI. This is my trusted duty load in this caliber.