What Matters for 9mm Ammo Terminal Performance The most important characteristics for terminal performance are bullet penetration and the size of the cavity it creates. Because of the FBI, shooting bullets into 10-percent ordnance gelatin has become the standard by which terminal performance is measured. Some believe the FBI tests are better at identifying bullets that are good at shooting through stuff as opposed to stopping bad guys. The ammunition is also fired through various intermediate barriers, such as heavy clothing, wall board, and auto glass to simulate potential on-duty scenarios for law enforcement. The FBI also developed a protocol for testing defensive handgun ammunition in which bullets are fired into 10-percent ordnance gelatin, which is meant to replicate soft tissue. The two main take-a-ways were that to be effective, a defensive bullet needed to penetrate at least 10 to 12 inches and that the larger the diameter of the recovered bullet, the better. In response, the FBI convened a Wound Ballistics Workshop at their headquarters in Quantico, Virginia, in 1987. They believed the bullet did not penetrate deeply enough.

The FBI mostly blamed the disaster on a single 9mm bullet that failed to make a bad guy stop doing bad guy stuff. In that year, two FBI agents were killed, and five others were wounded in a single shootout in Dade County, Florida. The development of defensive handgun ammunition has been driven by the FBI since 1986. The FBI Defensive Ammo Test Protocol Shooting bullets into 10-percent ballistics gelatin has become the standard for testing defensive bullets. Thanks to the FBI, there’s a protocol for doing just that, which as been used for about 35 years now and allows us to make educated guesses about what defensive ammo you should feed your 9mm. To learn these things, you have to shoot stuff and see what happens.

The velocity and energy figures on ammo boxes don’t tell us much about how a bullet will react on impact or how deep it will penetrate. The best we can do is say which loads are most likely to do the job. But as a former uniformed officer, I feel obliged to point out that there’s no telling exactly how an attacker might react to getting shot with any given projectile. Well, this article will answer the question of what’s the best 9mm ammo as definitively as it can be answered. If you own a 9mm handgun for personal protection, you probably want to know exactly, beyond any doubt, what ammunition will works best if you have to use it.

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