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He was one of the youngest second lieutenants in the U.S. military at the time...it was the very late 1950s and he was in an African country torn by Mau-Mau terrorist activities. He was in a military jeep of that country and his driver was a young British Rook. He had been assigned to go in and to train that country’s firearms training officers, in the use of the arms the U.S. was secretly giving them. And he and the driver were on their way to one of the outlying areas that was set up to fire some fairly heavy ordinance...the training officers were waiting for him to arrive...but several miles before they reached the encampment, all hell broke loose.

The ambush was badly thought out from the beginning. The terrorists firing down on the road from a high roadside hill killed his driver with the first volley. He steered the jeep from the passenger side, right into the base of the hill and jumped out. Being in close to the hill they couldn’t see him now. Instead of running from the scene, he ran partly up the hill standing behind a scrub tree looking up at the crest....waiting. He had been carrying a Polish VIS Nazi Grade 3(Radom) 9mm hidden well in a home made leg holster. Three terrorists came running over the hill holding their bolt action Mauser rifles up at a loose port arms as trained. Trying not to trip as they came down the hill quickly, after the young officer they thought was unarmed and running away in fear. Surprise...the little pistol spoke a number of times and the world had three less killers.

Effective...yes. At close range and with the right ammo. Back in the Fifties the only ammo for the 9mm was pointed round nose military stuff. That youngster was lucky that day...but he still had to pour almost two clips into three terrorists to finish the fight. Today’s 9mm ammo is much-much better. And the handguns that are chambered for it are also much-much better. After that, the young officer had a few small native boys carefully grind off the noses of the 9mm ammo giving the 9 a little more striking power and velocity.

But as successful as he was that day...we must remember it took too much ammo...the answer that could be stated was that it was badly designed ammo. But lets also remember the massacre in Miami less than a decade ago, with many FBI agents in a planned auto stop, against two bank robbers who were ready to fight it out. The first bank robber was shot at point blank range with a 9mm Winchester Silver Tip round, right thru the side of his chest and thru his lungs...a killing shot but no stopping power...for the robber went on to kill and wound a number of agents.

And there are many more horror stories about the 9mm in enforcement work. But that is not the thrust of this article, I like the 9mm... it’s just that when you place any caliber handgun into the hands of thousands and thousands of police, encounters come along that are way beyond personal protection, and minimal stopping power should not be used. Enforcement needs heavier ordinance/calibers for police work. The world of criminals has become terribly violent and they are armed to the teeth. You will find very few SWAT teams, military and police, that depend on the 9mm...they know it’s limitations.

As a personal protection round it is very good. Because it is called upon to defend differently. At across the room ranges, usually one adversary, usually someone who breaks into a residence or tries to hijack a car from a motorist, or a street or small store hold up...etc. The criminal..  usually not heavily armed and not ready for a heavy fire fight. A nine is very good in those circumstances.

I have been hit wearing soft armor with both a nine and a forty-five...believe me the forty-five did extremely more secondary impact damage than the nine. So what gun do I have for personal protection...not duty use in that case... it is a heavy loaded forty-five...but for personal protection, especially in the hot south west where a big gun is hard to conceal....it is a Kahr 9..the all steel version. I carry Cor-Bon hot ammo in it. As a matter of fact I carry hot Cor-Bon 165 grain loads in my 45 ACP also. Good stuff.

I once shot a deer with the 9mm Cor Bon load...about a 100 lb doe at just over 30 paces, she ran another 30 paces and folded up. The bullet opened as it should and shredded most of the near lung and a good part of the second...causing massive hemorrhage. But again that’s a small passive soft bodied deer...not a tough hard minded 180 lb criminal. I’m sure if she had been closer to 10 feet the bullet would have caused more shock and exited the off side...as it would with an across the room deadly encounter.

Strange as it may seem the finest and most accurate 9mm I have owned was a Star mod.B, as large a format as a 45 ACP 1911...but extremely thinner and easier to carry. I wish I had it back...it functioned flawlessly and always hit what I aimed at when I did my part. Once back east in a southern rural area I shot a big old and ugly vulture. He was 100 yards out in a field..I saw feathers fly...he began to run and flap those big wings trying to get off the ground...they are very slow to gain the air. I hit him again as he was just airborne. He flew up and circled at about 150 feet and then folded up and came down with a heavy crash. I have shot them with 45 ACPs and 45 Colt (long) chambered single actions, with even normal factory ammo...they don’t go anywhere but to the ground. I’ve hit vultures under 30 to 40 feet with nines and they don’t go anywhere. There is a lesson in all this...I think it is at very close range the 9 will do the job. Personal protection.

One of the great nines that didn’t make it was Colt’s Double Action model 2000. It didn’t make it because it was too ugly, unconventional, and expensive. Too bad, it was a flawless handgun. At least the one I tested.

Every one at the various ranges and such always talk about the new crop of super nines...longer cartridge cases and higher velocities. New? Not hardly...the 9mm Mauser exceeded today’s 38 Super in velocity...the 9mm Bergmann-Bayard was held back only by the guns it was chambered in..but still in some cases exceeded the 9mm Parabellum. The 9mm Mars is almost ninety years old, it’s velocities were in today’s light weight 357 magnum ammo velocity range.

Even the Italians had a nifty 9, but it was a little less than today’s 9 Para, called the 9mm Glisenti chambered in a neat and small auto called the Beretta M1923. The ammo we tested gave just under 1100 fps from a five inch barrel. It started life in the 1910/11 era before the First World War in the uglier than sin Glisenti auto pistol...and lasted right into the Second World War. Military forces of the El Duce’ (Mussolini) went with the .380, and the 9mm Glisentis were turned over to the police forces. I was in Italy in 1960 and some of the policia still carried the little guns...though the .380 was coming on strong. The .380 was a step down. Fiocchi made 9X18 ammo they called the 9mm Police....don’t know if it still out there. Flat tipped at around 1100 fps...it was better than the .380 by far...but a might too stiff for the blow back designed .380s.

After the war Europe went to the .380 in droves...in Germany it was called the 9mm Kurtz...or short. The French, Spanish, and others followed suit. And we all know who made the .380 famous in the US...don’t we Mr. Bond? I once had a 9mm Astra M-400 it would fire all kinds of different 9mm ammo, the gun was a wonder at it. My problem was wondering if I would ever hit anything with it...the sights were infinitesimal. But it did allow me to test a lot of the old and different 9mm ammo types.

The one gun I have handled but didn’t own is the funny looking goose called the 1912 Steyr. It had the feel of a 1911 but thinner...the strangest aspect of it was that it loaded down from the top into a fixed clip in the grip...they say they had a stripper clip for it, like on a Mauser military rifle but I never saw one. The Steyr round was milder than today’s 9mm but much better than a .380 anything. In 1970 I fired it on paper with then 50 to 90 year old ammo of all kinds...the gun gave surprising groups of 2 ½ to 4 inches at 20 yards with the those rounds.

When in DEA I had a tangent sighted 9mm FN HiPower. That’s the one with the neat military slide and long adjustable sights. I kept it and a BushMaster 30 Carbine ( a cut down rifle by H&R) with a 10 inch barrel in the truck of my Fed car. The HiPower would handle the circa 1950s hot European 9mm ammo with steel jackets that would penetrate all the way thru car bodies from any direction....The Bush Master would inflict havoc on engines....I once stopped a doper plane from taking off by putting a clip full of military ammo into it’s engine compartment.

Now I’m going to get myself in trouble. I don’t like the Beretta and Taurus 9s like the military and some police units are so hot about, along with a few others...Not that they are not fine handguns, they are...it’s just they are too large for the round, for me. If I am going to carry a handgun that large, it is going to be chambered with a bigger and heavier caliber.

One of the strongest if not the strongest of the 9mms on the market is the Ruger autoloader. With the laser sight in the guide rod it is the finest of 9s for police work, if you have to carry a 9. In 1990 we took a stock Ruger without the laser in those days, and put a heavier recoil spring in it and handloaded the rounds a whole 33% faster in velocity than hot commercial 9 ammo....thousands of rounds later...narry a problem. If I had to carry a big 9, and I don’t, that would be it hands down.

Every one thinks the Beretta service pistol is a new 1990s innovation but it is not, the Ruger 9 was brought out in 1989 or so. The first Beretta as we know it today became Italy’s service weapon in 1951. And the torture tests done on the Beretta vrs. the Ruger in the 1990s, the Beretta lost badly. I said it before and I’ll say it again...these are my opinions you may feel differently. Guns are like shoes...they have to fit you comfortably so you can be good with them...personal choice is important. These are my personal choices and reasons for them. Ever wonder how Taurus can copy the Beretta so closely except for the location of the thumb lever, and get away with it? Because the Beretta patents ran out a long time ago. Folks who should know and have tested them, tell me the Taurus is actually better, meaning stronger than the Beretta. I know if I had to carry one it would be the stainless Taurus model, it makes sense in the south west.

One of the large but good feeling and excellent pointing pistols for me is the CZ-75 format/design. European-American Arms brought out a clone for a few years back called ‘The Witness’...that also was a nice gun with a good feel. I never got to test the Witness but have the CZ-75, and I’m impressed with them. I have to admit the Taurus AFS PT-92 I tested was a smooth pistol...and of course recoil was nothing with the best of the hot loads. It was coated with some kind of electrolysis finish and that may have helped smooth it out. I have had guns refinished with electrolysis nickel or some such...and it does give a fine smoothing out job...better than some gunsmiths can do.

I once had a Luger 1917 Artillery Model...what a fine piece of work that was. It’s sights were adjustable not only for long range but as the back sights went up in their mortise, they moved to the right slightly to make up for the rifling twist for long range shooting. We tested that gun with 1927 ammo and a shoulder stock, all the way out to 500 yards...it’s accuracy was remarkable. The other gun in the photo is my 30 Luger civilian model made with a shoulder stock...for small game hunting in Germany in the 1920s. Some idiot took the forearm off of it...otherwise it’s like new. It too is a long range beauty.

At one time in the lives of the Kelly family we lived in the wilderness and had problems with wild and feral dogs. The old full jacketed 9mm ammo would zip right thru the dogs...doing little initial damage...it was not worthy of an animal to shoot them with full metal jackets. So I went back to a lessen learned years ago. I carefully cut the noses off so there was a good sized flat tip. That worked much better but still left a lot to be desired. I switched to a 140 grain soft .358 bullet sized to .355...and loaded to 1000 fps...dogs dropped a lot faster.

I had a early model all steel S&W 39...it was single action. It later came out in double action and with an alloy frame. I was asked to test it because I was the Commissioner of the state’s drug control agency. S&W didn’t know I didn’t allow any caliber that generated less 500 foot lbs of muzzle energy. But I played with it for awhile, then gave it back without an order. But if I had gone with a 9mm auto the steel model would have been it, not the alloy.

I had a bad experience with a Colt Commander in 38 Super with an alloy frame. The steel slide for some reason ate the alloy rails of the frame alive in a few thousand rounds that was in 1968. Speaking of alloy frames in Africa I pulled a snub nose Air Force alloy framed 38 special from a shipment of 38 S&W and Colt four inch revolvers that was meant for a military/police type unit. Great to carry but with full 158 grain ammo it recoiled fiercely. They tell me that gun today is a collectors item worth a good deal of money. The collectors can have it...but it brings up another point. This whole new generation of super light alloy framed handguns, except for the 22RFs are a pain to fire. Certainly extensive practice is out of the question with full loads. I fired a 41 Magnum alloy/light weight Taurus revolver with full loads...no thanks...

For a small revolver I’ll take the S&W all steel mod. 60 type frame with adjustable sights in .357 magnum. Still a bear to shoot but manageable with long strings...well maybe not too long strings of fire. 9mm in revolvers make a lot of sense to me. First of all the 9 is a short round at 1.1 inches overall loaded. The 357 is 1.6+ inches over all. That means the 9 is ½ inch shorter....that gives almost a full inch of expansion ratio before the bullet from a 9 revolver even enters the barrel because of the cylinder length...meaning a 3 inch 9mm revolver is really four inches of barrel length as far as the bullet is concerned...now put that same 9mm round into a three inch barreled auto loader like my Kahr, the round goes into the chamber which is part of the barrel, meaning I really have about 2 inches of barrel in the autoloader.

I had the 101 Ruger with the little springs in the ejector star for the 9mm. What a neat little gun. I think S&W put one out on their small frame revolver also with half moon clips to hold the rounds...that makes for very fast reloading....if you like revolvers for personal protection don’t shy away from a good deal in 9mm, they have much going for them...

I know S&W’s M940 was chambered in them for awhile...though I liked my 3 inch barreled Ruger 101 better...Astra had put out a 9mm Police revolver back in the 1980s. In Europe Manurhin and Fabric National both put out 9mm revolvers that also had 357 mag cylinders...as did Ruger with it’s single action Blackhawks for awhile. The Ruger single action of course didn’t need moon clips or springs...the ejector rod took care of spent rounds....

As I mentioned above the 9mm isn’t really a hunting cartridge for large game unless the animal is fairly close. But with the right reloads it can be a very successful small game round. I know many that successfully hunt javelina here in the southwest with it. Coyotes within 50 yards, fox, feral and wild dogs, all these are hard animals but the 9 will do them within range. Just like it will bad guys within range...the low recoil and compactness of the guns make it a fine personal protection and small game round.....if you have a chance to try one...do it, I think you will like it. If you find the handgun that fits you.