9mm for small game?

[Capn Jack]

Bring back the Marlin Camp 9.
I miss it and I wasn't even aware of it's exhistance.

 

[Blowgunner]

Late to the convo. I notice the me tion of meat waste a couple times. With ball ammo, there is hardly any. I did a lot of small game hunting with .45acp. Still plenty of meat for the pot. Just puts a nice clean hole.
For 9mm I'd load my own, and tune it down to about 750-800fps. Good bunny gun!

 

[Felten]

Hi Capn Jack. I have a Camp 9 for sale if you're interested ( $600 ). It has the buffer fix done and is in excellent condition. PM me if interested.

 

[DeanMk]

...so you wanna hunt with 9 mil, eh?.....



...or if you prefer a Manlicher stock...



...endorsed by none other than Kaiser Wilhelm himself, who had a bad arm and couldn't shoot a regular long gun...





Dean

 

[DeanMk]

For those interested in using 9x19 for hunting, even for larger game like blacktail deer, here's an interesting factoid...

It is pretty much universally agreed that the "King" of the deer rifles during the 19th century was the 1873 Winchester lever action, chambered for .44 WCF.
The round generally approached a 50% gain in velocity, compared to the Colt six shooter the round was also commonly chambered for, when fired from the Winchester rifle.
I just ran across an article concerning velocity increases due to increase in barrel length, specifically concerning the 9mm Luger round.
It was discovered that the 9x19 is actually fairly sensitive to barrel length, as tested in the article.
I did some simple extrapolations, to see how those changes related to an even longer barreled gun, like the Luger carbine's I posted above.
What I figured out was there was an approx. 55.72 fps per inch of barrel length increase in velocity, between the shortest barreled gun to the longest barreled gun used in the article.
When I stretched that out to a 12" barrel (approx. length of barrels shown above), I found that a Hornady Custom round firing a 147gr. XTP bullet would generate about 1400 MV from the Lugers.
This yields approximately <640 ft./lbs. ME.....almost exactly the same energy as was produced by the .44 WCF round, when fired from the '73 Winchester rifle.
...now think about how many deer were dropped with the Winchester rifle/ammo combo....puts the 9mm in a surprisingly good light.

....food for thought anyway.



Dean

 

[Felten]

For those interested in using 9x19 for hunting, even for larger game like blacktail deer, here's an interesting factoid...

It is pretty much universally agreed that the "King" of the deer rifles during the 19th century was the 1873 Winchester lever action, chambered for .44 WCF.
The round generally approached a 50% gain in velocity, compared to the Colt six shooter the round was also commonly chambered for, when fired from the Winchester rifle.
I just ran across an article concerning velocity increases due to increase in barrel length, specifically concerning the 9mm Luger round.
It was discovered that the 9x19 is actually fairly sensitive to barrel length, as tested in the article.
I did some simple extrapolations, to see how those changes related to an even longer barreled gun, like the Luger carbine's I posted above.
What I figured out was there was an approx. 55.72 fps per inch of barrel length increase in velocity, between the shortest barreled gun to the longest barreled gun used in the article.
When I stretched that out to a 12" barrel (approx. length of barrels shown above), I found that a Hornady Custom round firing a 147gr. XTP bullet would generate about 1400 MV from the Lugers.
This yields approximately <640 ft./lbs. ME.....almost exactly the same energy as was produced by the .44 WCF round, when fired from the '73 Winchester rifle.
...now think about how many deer were dropped with the Winchester rifle/ammo combo....puts the 9mm in a surprisingly good light.

....food for thought anyway.



Dean

Very interesting information. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Blowgunner]

For those interested in using 9x19 for hunting, even for larger game like blacktail deer, here's an interesting factoid...

It is pretty much universally agreed that the "King" of the deer rifles during the 19th century was the 1873 Winchester lever action, chambered for .44 WCF.
The round generally approached a 50% gain in velocity, compared to the Colt six shooter the round was also commonly chambered for, when fired from the Winchester rifle.
I just ran across an article concerning velocity increases due to increase in barrel length, specifically concerning the 9mm Luger round.
It was discovered that the 9x19 is actually fairly sensitive to barrel length, as tested in the article.
I did some simple extrapolations, to see how those changes related to an even longer barreled gun, like the Luger carbine's I posted above.
What I figured out was there was an approx. 55.72 fps per inch of barrel length increase in velocity, between the shortest barreled gun to the longest barreled gun used in the article.
When I stretched that out to a 12" barrel (approx. length of barrels shown above), I found that a Hornady Custom round firing a 147gr. XTP bullet would generate about 1400 MV from the Lugers.
This yields approximately <640 ft./lbs. ME.....almost exactly the same energy as was produced by the .44 WCF round, when fired from the '73 Winchester rifle.
...now think about how many deer were dropped with the Winchester rifle/ammo combo....puts the 9mm in a surprisingly good light.

....food for thought anyway.



Dean

Same can be said for the .38spl/.357. Out of a carbine are completely different animal.
Pistol caliber carbine are very versatile.
That new PC9 takedown looks better every day.

 

[Argonaut]

The biggest issue is range. Closer is better, The California professional hunter credited with killing the most mountain lions of any other person commonly used a 9mm Luger. Off course, he mostly shot over dogs at a cornered cat at very close ranges. 50 feet would be a long shot. There is a reason these calibers are illegal for hunting deer or larger size game here in the west. Within archery distances they would probably work fine with proper shot placement but how many hunters do you know that shoot too far and without accuracy enough for a clean kill. I could just see some young wannabe ninja doing a magazine dump at a deer 100 yards away. That needs to be illegal.

 

[Blowgunner]

The biggest issue is range. Closer is better, The California professional hunter credited with killing the most mountain lions of any other person commonly used a 9mm Luger. Off course, he mostly shot over dogs at a cornered cat at very close ranges. 50 feet would be a long shot. There is a reason these calibers are illegal for hunting deer or larger size game here in the west. Within archery distances they would probably work fine with proper shot placement but how many hunters do you know that shoot too far and without accuracy enough for a clean kill. I could just see some young wannabe ninja doing a magazine dump at a deer 100 yards away. That needs to be illegal.

Not illegal in Oregon, and shouldn't be.
Just need to know your limits, and range.
No different than archery, or anything else for that matter.

 

[Argonaut]

Not illegal in Oregon, and shouldn't be.
Just need to know your limits, and range.
No different than archery, or anything else for that matter.

I believe archery should be illegal as well. Too many people don't take the time to become skillful enough to make humane kills. I have killed 2 deer with festered arrows in them after the bow hunt. I have friends and a cousin that do a good job with the weapon but they are the exception. Maby a mandatory skill test to get an archery big game licence.......would be ok for guns too. I want it to go bang....dead. Unlike some humans that I would prefer suffer a bit.

 

[Blowgunner]

Maby a mandatory skill test to get an archery big game licence.......would be ok for guns too.

I can get behind that. From reckless rifle hunters, to archers throwing hail mary shots. Stupid people need to stay out of the woods.

 

[Alexx1401]

Same can be said for the .38spl/.357. Out of a carbine are completely different animal.
Pistol caliber carbine are very versatile.
That new PC9 takedown looks better every day.

Yes they do. It's been a while since I bought a new to me gun that keeps growing on me with each outing. The new Ruger is all that. With good ammo you get .357 performance, which in 17 round mags is quite impressive for in the home use. I have long had some carbines like this, the latest is just so damn much fun on top of it all. The trigger is the main selling point here. Wife has been under the weather but I suspect she will also like it a lot. She is a south paw but since I was able to adapt an AR brass catcher to it she will not have the distraction of the brass ejecting in front of her face.
My 10mm also quite impressive for home use the same reason, the extra barrel and what it does for ammo. The ammo I use in that rifle is giving the same power a lot of the .44 mag ammo does in a 4inch but far, far easier to handle. So looking at 15 rounds of .44. Now if I can just get the trigger on that close to what the Ruger has I will really be a happy camper

 

[Felten]

Call me a softy, but as I get up there in age, it really bothers me to see animals suffer. It's unnecessary and crude in my opinion. When I was a boy, my folks made me take a hunters safety course and plenty of range time before I ever entered the woods looking to bring home a deer. It was the duty of a true sportsman to make sure the meat on my table was there as a result of responsible, humane and law abiding hunting practices, I was told. That's something I believe in and have carried with me these 43 years. My only hope is that similar thinking is important and practiced by this generation and generations yet to come.

 

[MrMillspecer]

Some nice gains to be had with a 16" barrel. I don't see any reason why you couldn't hunt small game with a 9mm. If your trying to save meat a .22lr might be a better choice with squirrel size game. Coyotes and down, why not ? Deer if you're surviving.

 

[Argonaut]

[email protected] 44-40 wasn't as popular here in the west as a hunting rifle as in close cover areas of the east. The Army didn't even consider it powerful enough for combat preferring 50-70 and 45-70 before adopting the 30-40 Kraig and on to the 06. The 30-30 was so popular that it is still one of the most used calibers. I know that cowboys (or gun salesmen) liked the interchangeability of ammo between the pistol and rifle available with the 44-40 but they were not really hunters and most uses they had were close range. Many hunters stayed with black powder muzzle loaders (Andy) long after the common advent of metallic because there guns were so much more powerful than the pistol combination calibers. It wasn't long ago there was no one making 44-40 ammo because there was no market. 45-70 and other more proprietary cartridges (45-90-110 and similar) were very popular hunting calibers for there power and range that is similar to many modern loading. Up close, a 44-40 is fine (and all self defense is close too) although Hollywood has given us a wrong impression about how many people commonly carried guns (everyone had a shotgun) in the west and how many actual shootouts there were. Guns were expensive.....and a big quality gun like a 1873 Colt was really expensive when there wasn't much cash around. That is why so many revolvers were modified to use metallic cartridges even into the 1890's. The civil war production of quality revolvers capeable of shooting black powder metallic cartridges flooded the post war market and encouraged enterprising smiths to develop modifications to upgrade to newer technology........just like today.

 

[Certaindeaf]

Some nice gains to be had with a 16" barrel. I don't see any reason why you couldn't hunt small game with a 9mm. If your trying to save meat a .22lr might be a better choice with squirrel size game. Coyotes and down, why not ? Deer if you're surviving.

View attachment 449010

This is why you wanna use Underwood 115's going an honest 1500+/550fpe from a standard pistol barrel. lol

 

[Felten]

Let us not forget there is also +P+ ammo for the 9mm cartridge. I read an article many years ago that talked about the German Special Forces using Hertenberger 147gr +P+ 9mm ammo in their H&K MP5's for building clearing / assaults. Forgive me if someone already mentioned the +P+ ammo on this thread.

 

[Argonaut]

Let us not forget there is also +P+ ammo for the 9mm cartridge. I read an article many years ago that talked about the German Special Forces using Hertenberger 147gr +P+ 9mm ammo in their H&K MP5's for building clearing / assaults. Forgive me if someone already mentioned the +P+ ammo on this thread.

Some of my earliest exposure to the 9mm Parabellum was shooting in competition against Germans using it in Browning High Powers. I was shooting a Gold Cup Colt 45acp. The 9mm's they were shooting were like standing close to a hot 357 mag going off, fire 2 feet out of the muzzle and difficult to get back on target. I always wondered why anyone would want such a cannon for sport......many European loading are much hotter than our standards. I avoided the caliber for decades after that experiance. Now, it feels as mild as a 38 wadcutter in my full size pistols.

 

[Yarome]

And anyways. Those here that care? Don't matter.
And those here that matter? Don't care.

No truer words, brother!

I notice the me tion of meat waste a couple times. With ball ammo, there is hardly any. I did a lot of small game hunting with .45acp. Still plenty of meat for the pot.

I don't think I wanna et outta yer pot.

You can certainly make clean holes through small game with large caliber ball ammo, but that's not what's being referred to when talking about "loosing" a lot of meat. Even with a through and through there is a tremedous amount of energy being released into those little bodies. The hydrostatic shock of a large projectile like that alone creates a great deal of bloodshot meat and ruptures internal organs... often including the stomach and intestinal tract (aka. the poop shoot)... not to mention all the little bones that have been fragmented and turned into explosive projectiles. Organs may still "appear" to be largely intact but have been perforated so bile and such is often released into the meat.

What you often end up with is a "rag" of biley bloodshot meat riddled with bits of tiny bone shards. You can selectively cut away only the "edible" portions (in civilized terms), but you won't end up with much.

If I was in survival mode... yeah.. I would use whatever I had to take whatever presented itself. I would toss every and all little bits in the pot, eat it, and I would live.

Then again, I've heard stories of guys eating bear s*** to survive (due to the large amount of undigested material), but that don't mean I wanna throw it in "my" pot on a casual hunting trip with the kids.

Small game sustenance hunting with a bullet? There is no substitue for a reliable .22 rifle (or similar class), a patient trigger finger and a well placed head shot with an FMJ (HP if you're desperate ).

I relate well with what Felten had to say earlier on in this thread about the duty of a true sportsman. Call me "old school" as well, but I was always taught (and taught my own who are now teaching theirs) that you only pull the trigger when you have absolute confidence in your shot. You only shoot what you intend to eat, shoot for maximum utilization of what you take and do it humanely (one shot, one kill) or.... not at all.

Over the years I've let a lot of fur pass by my scope, but in the sum total, honing hunting skills and knowledge is highly more productive than the "let lead fly and a prayer" approach. It's also a he**a lot more satisfying when you sit down to supper with a clear conscience.

Just sayin.....

 

[Blowgunner]

I don't think I wanna et outta yer pot.

You can certainly make clean holes through small game with large caliber ball ammo, but that's not what's being referred to when talking about "loosing" a lot of meat. Even with a through and through there is a tremedous amount of energy being released into those little bodies. The hydrostatic shock of a large projectile like that alone creates a great deal of bloodshot meat and ruptures internal organs... often including the stomach and intestinal tract (aka. the poop shoot)... not to mention all the little bones that have been fragmented and turned into explosive projectiles. Organs may still "appear" to be largely intact but have been perforated so bile and such is often released into the meat.

What you often end up with is a "rag" of biley bloodshot meat riddled with bits of tiny bone shards. You can selectively cut away only the "edible" portions (in civilized terms), but you won't end up with much.

Not true at all. Just like shooting a .22lr, head shots are the preferred shot. Zero waste, blood shot meat, nothing. I don't even own a .22 anymore. All of my small game hunting is done with centerfire cartridges loaded light.
Even neck/shoulder shots on squirrel leave a lot of good meat.
Sure, if I used factory or hot loads we'd have problems, but that's not what I was referring to.