Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Perd Hapley on September 14, 2021, 02:26:01 PM
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The 9mm is the most popular pistol cartridge in the U.S., despite early competition from the .45 Auto and the .38 Special. The .40, 10mm, and .357 Sig have failed to replace the 9mm, as well. What cartridge, if any, will finally replace the 9mm Luger as the most common pistol chambering in the Western world? (That is, until laser/phaser/disintregator pistols become the standard sidearm.)
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If you look at the total number of handguns sold in the USA to date, I wonder if the .22LR is the most popular pistol cartridge. If you are talking about realistic defense calibers, I bet the 9 mm will be the top of the heap for quite a while for something with a brass case and gunpowder propellant.
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Gonna be hard for anything to supplant 9mm's combination of function, form factor, and cost.
Brad
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Gonna be hard for anything to supplant 9mm's combination of function, form factor, and cost.
Brad
Not to mention the inertia that comes with such a well established standard.
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Very speculative, but maybe the 5.7X28 as people become even more infatuated with how many rounds they can shoot without hitting anything. And that would still take decades if it came to pass. The only other way (besides a new "better" round) is if the gunphobic people discover that the 9mm is approved by NATO and is thus a caliber designed for war so it becomes outlawed.
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Very speculative, but maybe the 5.7X28 as people become even more infatuated with how many rounds they can shoot without hitting anything. And that would still take decades if it came to pass. The only other way (besides a new "better" round) is if the gunphobic people discover that the 9mm is approved by NATO and is thus a caliber designed for war so it becomes outlawed.
Several countries have had laws along those lines for some time now. If it's a caliber used by the military it's forbidden for civilian use.
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I bet the 9 mm will be the top of the heap for quite a while for something with a brass case and gunpowder propellant.
Bingo. For 9mm to be supplanted it would need to offer significant advantages without too many tradeoffs. If you wanted to do it the real trick would be producing something with ammunition at a price point similar to or lower than 9mm while maintaining similar or superior ballistics, reliability, and capacity. You might be able to do it with a caseless cartridge for instance.
But as MillCreek said, I highly doubt it would be something using traditional brass case/gunpowder technology.
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Nothing beats the .45AARP and that's that. Get off my lawn.
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Nothing beats the .45AARP and that's that. Get off my lawn.
I don't know about that. The .40AMAC is making quite a bit of headway in that area.
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If I had the resources, I'd come out with .355 American which would be physically and ballistically identical to 9MM only not with the stupid metric denotation.
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It won't be replaced anytime soon. Look at any ammo places email and it is almost all 9MM. The ammo makers are cranking it out as fast as they can and selling every round.
I think it would take a big change in our military to give anouther round a chance and that will be years down the road.
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A friend of mine just opened an "outdoors" store about an hour and a half away. I'm thinking my Christmas present to myself is gonna be something in .22LR, with a threaded barrel.
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9mm didn't become top dog until truly reliable automatic pistols became available. That also coincided with military using it as a service weapon and much of law enforcement also adopting it, until premium projectile design evolved enough to provide nearly identical effectiveness between 9mm, .40S&W and .45acp. At which point it became a choice of capacity for the same effectiveness rate per bullet, making 9mm the clear winner.
For 9mm to get knocked off its pedestal, all that is required is for a projectile to be equally effective while offering greater capacity. I would not be surprised to learn if ballistics labs and projectile companies are hard at work with various solutions ranging from the 5.7 to a .32 variant, maximizing penetration and expansion so that a new generation of law enforcement and military contracts can be won, which will also trickle into the private sector sales. My money is on the next big winner being a OTM style hollowpoint projectile that just "coincidentally" happens to be traumatic to tissue, much like how M118LR or Mk262 can be used by military without violating the Hague Convention but projectiles like hydrashoks cannot.
What is needed is an advance in metallurgy though. To get peak terminal performance out of a 4-5" barrel and an OTM projectile, it's going to take double the velocity of typical handgun cartridges today. That's a lot more pressure to contain since you can't use a longer barrel to gain velocity.
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Thicker cases, thicker case heads, more robust chamber areas and stronger actions.
And... do bullets REALLY need to be made out of lead? Does the average handgun need the foot pounds of energy at 100 yards? I gotta see if JR has any nylon rounds left over.
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A phased plasma pistol in the 40 watt range.
In all seriousness, I agree that with the brass case, gunpowder, jacketed lead bullet technology little is ever likely to supplant the 9mm in terms of popularity, so long as magazine capacity remains essentially unrestricted. .40S&W became a lot more popular during the AWB because of the 10 round mag limit. If you only get 10 max, might as well be the most powerful 10 rounds you can handle. But with 16+ round mags available again the extra capacity is more attractive. Especially since 9mm, .40 and .45ACP perform so similarly nowadays anyway.
As mentioned, maybe if a smaller diameter round could be boosted to perform as well terminally while giving even higher mag capacity the might do it. But more likely will be something that isn’t brass cased gunpowder propelled ammo. In other words, unlikely we’ll see anything that supplants 9mm for many, many, many years.
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Steel case, thicker case head, tapered, with a largeish diameter, but lightweight projectile - .30 or .32 has potential. Penetration might drop off after 20 or so yards, but I bet I can put something together that'll run 1500fps in close. Stick a steel button penetrator in the tip, and configure things to force expansion...
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Thicker cases, thicker case heads, more robust chamber areas and stronger actions.
And... do bullets REALLY need to be made out of lead? Does the average handgun need the foot pounds of energy at 100 yards? I gotta see if JR has any nylon rounds left over.
BURN THE HERETIC!!!
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Steel case, thicker case head, tapered, with a largeish diameter, but lightweight projectile - .30 or .32 has potential. Penetration might drop off after 20 or so yards, but I bet I can put something together that'll run 1500fps in close. Stick a steel button penetrator in the tip, and configure things to force expansion...
Basically 7.62x25
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Rimless .32 Super Magnum.
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I keep wondering if/when engineers are going to be able to come up with something effective, but smaller. Smaller bore diameter and/or smaller cases (or caseless) so that the other engineers can make even smaller handguns for the CCW market. I keep imagining the Baby Browning .25, but with a round that is effective.
Also wonder if/when polymer technology will come into play with ammunition. Maybe a bullet using polymers blended with some metal powder for weight, or polymer cases to reduce ammo weight.
Last thought, and I know I've mentioned it before, I'm wondering when we might see something along the lines of a coldless Taser. A weapon capable of accurately directing energy at a target. At powers similar to a corded Taser, but with better range and less prone to failures due to poor barb penetration, broken cords, etc. If effective, the inventor of such a device will get rich from the law enforcement market.
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BRNO has their absurdly expensive 7.5FK pistol - it basically delivers .30 Carbine rifle (ok, carbine) performance in a pistol. With expanding bullets I expect it would be quite effective, and modern technology could probably produce an AP round that would zip right through soft body armor lacking steel or ceramic inserts.
I understand muzzle blast is impressive.
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BRNO has their absurdly expensive 7.5FK pistol - it basically delivers .30 Carbine rifle (ok, carbine) performance in a pistol. With expanding bullets I expect it would be quite effective, and modern technology could probably produce an AP round that would zip right through soft body armor lacking steel or ceramic inserts.
I understand muzzle blast is impressive.
I think that round will be better when other people besides FK BRNO can make the ammo. At least other people making different bullets. Not sure it will supplant 9mm. It is a specialty round so far.
At some point in the future something will come around that will attract the attention of military and police. If they switch to a different calibers, a lot of people will start using that caliber. I don't see anything on the horizon right now. 9mm is a case of being good enough while having good capacity. It may not be the best, but it fits the compact handgun needs for a lot of people.
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Very speculative, but maybe the 5.7X28 as people become even more infatuated with how many rounds they can shoot without hitting anything. And that would still take decades if it came to pass. The only other way (besides a new "better" round) is if the gunphobic people discover that the 9mm is approved by NATO and is thus a caliber designed for war so it becomes outlawed.
I understand that's why the.38 Super was developed. My recollection is that Mexico bans military cartridges, so .45AARP and 9mm PARA BELLUM ("For War") are outlawed.
Another "choke point" by forces who wish to remain in charge by maintaining superior firepower. :mad:
It's already occurred in CA, where .50 BMG is banned, which is why Barrett came up with a new chambering a wee bit smaller than 0.510 inches (BMG bullet diameter).
Look for similar efforts here in the U.S. in re 5.56 NATO, 7.62 NATO, and some others I can't think of offhand.
On point: Something in the .32 high velocity range.
Terry, 230RN
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"I understand that's why the.38 Super was developed. My recollection is that Mexico bans military cartridges, so .45AARP and 9mm PARA BELLUM ("For War") are outlawed."
No, not really.
The .38 ACP was developed in the late 1800s for an early Browning pistol design. It was introduced to market with the Colt 1900.
The uploaded round we now know as the .38 Super was introduced in the late 1920s in response to police calls for a more powerful handgun cartridge that could better penetrate the metal in car bodies.
The .38 ACP/.38 Super became popular in Mexico because of the laws there, but those laws weren't the driving force behind development of those rounds.