"9mm doesn't perform against heavy winter clothing..."
So sayeth the head firearms guy at my department.
Quick back-story:
We are currently issuing the Glock model 22's, and have been having nothing but trouble with them(that's a story for another time.)
We are going to be getting rid of the G22's soon, and we might just end up going with the M&P. However, there is the possibility that Glock will be able to do a straight across swap and replace our .40's with 9mm or .45 Gen 4 guns. I personally could see some advantages to the 9mm. Softer shooter and smaller gun for our smaller officers, cheaper ammo, high capacity, holsters and mag pouches shouldn't need to be replaced.
I've discussed this with my head rangemaster, and he has made it clear that he doesn't like the idea of a 9mm. He said that our department tested 9mm years ago and they didn't perform well against heavy winter clothing, which is a concern being in Colorado.
I told him that it was my understanding that newer HP ammo has improved to the point that 9mm will do just fine now, and he mentioned that he spoke with some firearms rep a while back who told him that the newest 9mm ammo is ok, but you have to get +p+ in order for it to work well. My boss doesn't like that idea, and says that will put us back up into the pressure range of .40 cal. and the ammo is more expensive.
We currently issue Speer gold dot for duty ammo, if that matters.
My question for anyone inclined to help me is this:
How well does high quality(gold dot?) 9mm ammo perform against someone in heavy winter clothing, and what load would you recommend (thoughts on the +p+ issue?)
And more importantly, can you point me towards any testing or documentation that I can present to my boss to back this up? (if I just tell him "9mm is fine, the internet told me so", I might not get very far.)
Thanks for the help,
-burke