9mm Major vs. .45 ACP

They cost about the same and recoil similarly (felt recoil). 9mm major is mostly for competition and like Armourall said needs to be reloaded and not usually commercially available. 45ACP is readily available and if you are just shooting for fun I'd go with 45ACP. 9mm major is also much high pressure than any 45ACP will ever be, so theoretically 9mm will wear out your barrel much faster than 45ACP.

I'm not technically savvy enough to speak to their differing ballistic performance, but 9mm major will definitely shoot more straight at longer distances than 45ACP.
 
45 acp 200g shooting major = very long brass life (like years and years)

9mm major = very short brass life = pick up range brass and shoot it once/ maybe twice
 
I assume people are now talking about IPSC competition. 9mm never used to make major - Does it now??
 
I built a toy to shoot 9 major for steel challenge. Very similar performance and PF to the poster above. Only shot two matches but my impression was that 9 major really allows a comp / brake to work efficiently. It is however not very pleasant to shoot.

I have shot my standard IPSC load through the same gun 147 gr atop 3.4gr of titegroup and this load has more muzzle climb and felt recoil than my 9 major load.

YMMV - my build is a polymer 80 lower with KKM barrel / comp using a BBC slide with lightening cuts and is a very light pistol comparative to a checkmate.

A lot of my brass is unusable after shooting 9 major probably due to less case support.
 
You need to shoot 9 major in a gun designed and built for 9 major and it is primarily a handloading proposition. You do not want to shoot it in your typical 9mm plastic fantastic. That would be a recipe for many unpleasant things.
9 major brass lasts a lot longer than one or two reloads.
 
cement head said:
1350 with a 124 ? wow .
Click to expand...

In IPSC, you can't shoot 115 gr at Major PF. I've never tried 121 grain - stick with what I've got setup. Also, I've reloaded my brass many times. Lot's of fun shooting the major, but I still enjoy the Production load of 124 gr over 4.2 grains of Titegroup - this is obviously Minor PF (at least 125 PF required)
 
almost nobody shoots 45 in open. I would say nobody but maybe there is somebody. Most ipsc matches are lost brass match it would slow things down too much if people were picking up their brass during a match. 9mm brass is very cheap compared to 45 acp or anything else so it is the most popular round for ipsc open. You can not shoot major 9mm in any other ipsc division.
 
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