I bought a VP9 back in February and have just ordered a 9mm S&W Shield (No thumb safety). It would really simplify things if I only needed to stock up on one defensive load for the both of them. Will pretty much any quality 9mm defensive loading work for this purpose, or are there some certain ones that I should be looking into?
Thus far I’ve been looking at the list recommended by Gary Roberts, and of his suggested loads the 147 grain Golden Saber seems to be one of the most available and affordable.
Gold Dot and HST shouldn’t be too far of in price from Golden Saber, not that Golden Saber is a bad round. At my first stop for defensive ammo, Golden Saber is about $24 for 50 rounds, or $12 for 25. HST and Gold Dot are about $25.
That said, I’d likely grab a 124gr, perhaps a 124gr +P, loading if I was trying to make the round work for both guns since I have seen in my reading Shield seeming to have issue with 147gr loads, though that is only going by what I have seen in my readings. Of course, testing function is going to be important regardless. Maybe spend a few dollars and test the rounds out to see what runs well and go from there. Find what round both guns run well with.
I carry 147+p hst in my shield and it works great.
124 grains seems to me like a decent compromise between the 115 and 147.
Speer Gold Dot, Winchester PDX1 or Hornady Critical Duty all three 124gr+P - these work well in my Shield and CZ75B
Switching over to Speer Lawman 124gr for a target/range round.
Notice which load/bullet weight in the table below looses the smallest percentage of its velocity when fired fired from the 3" barrel of the MK9, and therefore remains the closest to its optimal performance window.
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The gold Saber has been reported to have a lot more flash than the other loads. As molon said, 147gr, for short barrels. The +p 147gr performs worse than the plain 147gr and is not recommended.
There should not be any reason any of the quality ammo mentioned should not function correctly in either the HK or S&W. My preference would be to standardize on 147 grn HST or Gold Dot. FUNCTION TEST in each until you are satisfied with reliability.
HST 147gr. in both my service pistol and Shield work perfectly.
courtesy of Dr GK Roberts
courtesy of Dr. GK Roberts
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This. Any round on the list should be fine for both but function test to verify reliability in your specific firearms. Like bjxds, my reading has led me to prefer 147gr HST then 147gr Gold Dot, but I would be happy running anything on Dr. Robert’s list.
-john
Thanks molon.
I re-read some stuff, the +p doesn’t offer anything over the standard load. It’s not on “the list” so I thought it was a poor performer, but apparently either are good to go.
I believe shootingthebull has done testing on both out of a 3" barrel and they were almost identical. In performance.
I probably would have not considered the 147gr if not for this thread. Now I feel the need to buy some and try them out.
Ya I think the +p 147 is a total gimmick, not sure why Federal felt the need to muddy the waters with both offerings. From tests, seems velocity out of a 4" barrel is around 15fps difference, it would be interesting to see recoil differences & muzzle flash. I prefer non +p, I wish federal would just manufacture a metric shit ton of it and be done with it. It’s obviously a hot seller, I’ve been on that bandwagon since 2008, the stuff just plain works ideally.
Based on stb’s tests on YouTube, and confirmation by Doc Roberts over on lightfighter that it’s good ammo, I am planning on going with Winchester Defend for my various pistols shortly.
Price isn’t as good as others, but I have had issues with availability of the other defensive loads I currently have (124gr HST and 124gr +p Ranger-T).
Winchester defend is reliably available at my local Bass Pro, so if I buy a box or two each week, I should have a solid stash in no time.