What Joe said

by Catoosa, Sunday, May 27, 2012, 17:56 (4358 days ago) @ stonewalrus

Whatever 115 or 124 grain JHP your gun likes. I don't care for the heavier bullets in the 9mm. Most of mine like the plain ol' white box Winchester 115 grain JHP. Regardless of the FBI "tests" and the opinions of many, there's not a thing wrong with Winchester Silvertips for personal self-defense. Given your lifestyle, you are not likely to have to shoot through a car to get a bank robber on the other side.

As was pointed out in the linked article, there is not a great deal of difference in the terminal performance of most defense loads in the 9mm. It is much more inportant to try as many different loads as you can and use the one that is MOST RELIABLE in your particular gun, and easiest to control and make good hits with quickly.

Remember Rule 2: "Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap - life is expensive." The strong point of the 9mm is its ability to deliver multiple hits quickly.

I have numerous different kinds of 9mm ammo. We'll try a bunch of it and see what your new S&W likes. I'll show you a trick that will give you a good idea if a gun "likes" the feed characteristics of a particular round or not. It's not definitive, but I've found it works pretty well.