I used to have a Walther PP. The Fiocchi .32ACP 60gr. JHP are actually kinda nasty and the type of load the gun was really designed to shoot, not the wimpy stateside .32 loads. Out of a PP they have similiar energy to a standard pressure 9mm out of a Rohrbaugh. I didn't feel too undergunned with 8+1 of those in the gun.
I'm not saying it was designed to shoot JHP of course, my point is that the euro loads in that caliber are much hotter.
Exactly, PsychoSword!
And this is what gets me so torqued about folks here in the US saying that .32 (and .380) dont work. It's because there's few large guns with proper loads available. I would love to have a PP (NOT the PPK) in .32 with Fiocchi loads. Has anyone ever chronoe'd this gun/load combo? I guess a Bersa .32 would be the equivalent of this, maybe.
We Americans can get so stuck on bigger is better. Witness U.S. motorsports. There's too much horsepower to actually put to the ground in a lot of racing classes, but that's another rant for another forum.
I've read that the Tokyo PD issues Walther PP with .32 and in the past, euro PD's issued this setup to the street cops. The .380 was for the station chief and detectives, and if you needed 9MM, then the antiterror/special ops folks would be on scene because you obviously had a serious problem to deal with.
It appears to me that the euros knew something when it comes to this subject. But then again, the Europeans did'nt have to deal with fanatical Moros in the Phillipines at the turn of the last century. And I would imagine that's where our want of bigger bullets comes from.