Ammo Selection in Subcompact Pistols

[Longinvs]

If this has been covered already point me in the direction of the thread and I'll delete mine, but I looked around and didn't see a thread discussing this.
In a pistol with a barrel around 3 inches, in 9mm specifically, are there considerations that need to be made in ammo selection. Less barrel means less velocity, so is there a bullet that would perform better out of a small gun or will 147gr HSTs, 124gr Gold Dots etc. still perform well out of a shorter barrel? Would a +P be beneficial?

 

[perlslacker]

There are some amateur ballistics testers who have aimed to answer that question and released the data.

Lucky Gunner Labs is one. They do use Clear Ballistics gel rather than the FBI spec gel, and they only do denim-covered tests (no barrier tests), but it's something to go on. Their 9mm test gun is a M&P9c.

ShootingTheBull410 set out to answer your question too. He does bare gel and denim-covered testing, and eschews barrier testing like LuckyGunner does. His methods also seem to be inconsistent; some tests are with Clear Ballistics gel, and some are with the FBI spec gel. I seem to recall that he tests his organic gel at the proper temperature, and regulates it with a BB like you're supposed to, but I may be misremembering.

I'm sure that a terminal ballistics professional like DocGKR could find methodological issues with both of these, but publicly-available ballistics data on performance out of subcompact pistols is hard to come by and these two are the best I've found so far.

 

[Matt Landfair]

@DocGKR

 

[MojoNixon]

Based on the 2 sources already mentioned for “testing” and lacking any other knowledge about 3” barrel testing 147 HST looks good. It is what I have been carrying my LC9 since before I ran across those two “testers”. I would venture a guess that their results are neither totally valid nor totally invalid. I know that doesn’t really answer the question and is only an opinion. Hopefully Doc Roberts chimes in with some valuable information.

 

[ggammell]

I roll with 147 HST. The point of aim point of impact is a lot better than lighter loads. That’s out of a Kahr PM9.

 

[shoobe01]

From PistolForum a couple years back:

DocGKR 06-10-2015, 11:52 PM
Most 9 mm testing is done with a 4" barrel--dropping 0.5-1" simply does not make too much difference.

I also saw some solid (many-shots, several guns) tests back in the 80s/90s doing chrono and accuracy tests on some guns. One I especially found interesting was the S&W 69xx and 59xx (I believe this was at the start of 3rd Gen) overlapped each other. Little or no statistical difference in MV or (from a Ransom Rest) accuracy between the barrel lengths. More difference in individual guns, than chopping off a bit of barrel.

They shoot different in the hand due to slide mass, which becomes slide velocity, and sometimes due to grip size, but the interior ballistics are, apparently, a wash.


I too would love to see some solid data/test on things like Gold Dot for short barrels. IS it different or just a label on the box? How different? Etc.