Bored and have some time to kill so ill chirp in all be it late: Its been explained to me the military prefers 9mmX19 due to its speed and tendency to penetrate thus working better with some barriers and creating entrance AND exit wounds (thus two holes to bleed istead of one) and arguably if a soldier is wounded it will tie up atleast another if not two more soldiers to tend to the casualty. From a law enforcement standpoint, I remember when the switch to semi-autos began in full swing in my neck of the woods (1985). At that time, thier were no .40 cal or .357 Sig, just .45 or 9mm. The wonder nines with thier 15 round mags seemed to be in demand to combat the street thugs rumored to be carrying uzis, tec-9s, and other high cap weapons. The problem was most cops want a compact pistol for 8 hours of carry, and wanted bigger bullets. So, small barrel pistols like Smiths 6906 and 147 grain bullets became the preffered piece. Small, light, easy to carry and great for both uniform and plain cloathes carry, this set up became almost standard in my area. Heres were it went south for the 9mm. The 147 grain is a proven poor manstopper in statistics kept. If you choose to rely on statistics you will note the more effective 9mm loads are lighter 115 grain usually driven to +P+ velocitys. While this mimics the original 9mm Luger load, most 9mm rounds manufactured in the U.S. are behind thier Europeon counterparts. At any rate, the 147 grain loads were subsonic, and when coupled with shorter barrels, the velocity and performance dropped to less than acceptable for many agencys.
NOTE: the opinions expressed were not MY doing, only whats been spread around the campfire and f.w.i.w. I use 147 grain bullets in my R-9.
