Pistols9

The 9mm cartridge continues to retain its immense popularity, and those with little experience with firearms take to it quite well. Those with more experience know there are better self-defense rounds, but not many will argue that you can get ammunition for a 9mm at a cost far lower than most, if not all other, centerfire handgun cartridges. The handguns that shoot it are a different story altogether. The more-costly versions can easily run well into four figures, but most decent 9mm autoloaders sell for under a grand. But we know many folks can't justify spending even half that on a decent firearm. So how low can you go?

To find out, we chose two full-size 9mm pistols that might appeal to the buyer looking for a bargain. The first handgun we chose was the Hi-Point C9 with a suggested retail price of $140, but commonly selling for around a C-note or even less. We found one listed at $92. Can you expect such a handgun to work, much less work well? Our second pistol was the High-Capacity Bersa Thunder 9, just recently available. It lists for $442, or less if you shop around. While not inexpensive, the Bersa has several desirable features that many higher-priced handguns don't have, most notably its 17+1-shot capacity.

We tested these guns with Black Hills 147-grain JHP, Winchester 147-grain SXT JHP, and with Winchester 115-grain JHP ball. We shot for slow-fire accuracy at 15 yards from a solid rest, and for simulated self-defense fire with fast, controlled pairs from seven yards, using two hands. We also tried several other types of ammunition including Cor-Bon 125-grain JHP and Ultramax 115-grain lead-bullet loads for function or potential problems, but didn't report them formally. Here's what we found.

In the sport of Practical Shooting, the competitor who lands the best hits on target in the least amount of time wins. To this end competitors have found ways to wring out the most performance possible from their equipment, and many of the modifications first seen at practical matches have found their way into the design of modern production pistols. Features such as high-visibility sights, oversized control levers, and lightweight action parts are some of the innovations that were developed by competitors hungry for the winners circle.

The Sigarms P229R-9 is a tight shooter, and we liked it a lot. Browning's Pro-9 is consistent and light. Magnum Research's Baby Eagle needed work on its sights and trigger.

With the zillions of 9mm pistols available today, why would anyone want an old P38? Fact is, they're pretty good guns.

One of the oldest and most concealable ways to carry a handgun is to use a bellyband, a close-fitting elastic band that hugs the body and includes one or more holster pockets. This type of concealment could be called "deep carry," since the pistol is located in a place where it's not expected. But to work as a deep-carry gun in a bellyband, the gun needs to be flat and light weight.

We recently tested three pistols we believe are suitable for this type of concealed carry: the Kahr TP9, $676; Kel-Tec's P11, $368; and the Smith & Wesson 908S, $603. In this specialized test, we compared the guns on reliability and other factors in our normal tests, but we particularly examined their lack of edges, assessed their speed of deployment from deep cover, and looked at their operation when only one hand was available. Here's what we found:

Kahr's product was by "fahr" a better carry gun than Rohrbaugh's R9s, in our estimation.

Glock's new $640 Model 37 excels with a brand-new round. Smith & Wesson's titanium $812 4040PD opens new doors, but the $550 FN P9 comes up short.

Taurus's new Model 24/7, $594, is a pretty good polymer pistol, but the pricey $830 Sigarms P226 shoots better. In comparison, the $450 FN 49 RSS is appealing on price, but it's average fare.

But we would advise you to leave the Mak P-64 9x18 alone. Though it looked new, we found substantial workmanship and function problems in our sample.

In this test we had a chance to shoot two 9mm pistols that take aim at Glock's throne as the most popular polymer pistol. They are the Taurus PT 111 Millennium Pro and the Smith & Wesson SW99 Compact. Actually, we would classify both of these pistols as subcompact due to their overall dimensions, despite the suffix that follows the SW99's name. However, both of these pistols do offer 10+1 capacity and, like the Glock, striker-fired operation. The Millennium Pro is made in Brazil and imported by Taurus. The SW99 is a design that was developed by Walther of Germany and is now a product of a joint operation with Smith & Wesson.

Each pistol tries to one-up the Glock design, and each other, by offering additional safety systems unique to the current slate of available polymer handguns. It didn't take long to find out if either Taurus or Smith & Wesson had come up with a better mousetrap.

We determine the strengths and weaknesses of Kahr's $600 P9, Springfield's latest XD, $490, and the $640 Glock Model 26.

The 9mm continues to be one of the country's favorite guns, if recent manufacturing data are to be believed. According to the BATF's Annual Firearms Manufacturing and Export Report for 2001, 626,836 pistols were produced (the latest year for which figures are available). Of that sum, 213,378 were in calibers above .380 to 9mm. That's almost 30,000 more for the next-largest caliber segment, guns above 9mm to .50 caliber.