I heard they're hotter than standard. Close to +P or hotter? Not even close to +P?

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_It was love at first shot_

NATO is considered +p.

A number of years ago I ran some of the Federal NATO 124 grain ammo over my chrono and it was faster thanthe +p 115 stuff I had.

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Lynnie, Professional Pest

That's interesting. Do you remember what FPS it was?

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_It was love at first shot_

I don't recall the numbers. That was a number of years ago, seems like a lifetime ago.

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Lynnie, Professional Pest

Tis ok. Hopefully I'll find a chart somewhere.

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_It was love at first shot_

It's between standard and +P. A lot closer to +P. 124 gr. about 1180 out of 4" barrel.

If I remember correctly, the US Army 9mm ammo had to be dumbed down a bit at first, do to the ammo causing failures with the Berreta

According to the US Military ammo chart in Barnes Cartridges of the World , 9mm NATO M-882

bullet- 124gr FMJ copper jacket

vel. 1251fps +/-25fps at 16 meters

pressure , 27,000psi max.avg.

I know a gentleman who worked on the development of the U.S. 9x19mm NATO round. It was specifically designed to function in both subguns and pistols. It was not the ammo that caused the problem with the slides breaking on the Beretta M9's, it was the metalurgy of the slides themselves that was the problem.

That makes it interesting. Standard is 35k psi.

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_It was love at first shot_

This comes up a lot. From what I have been able to sift out of the static and garbage on the the internet, the 1251fps figure is from test barrels, not from M-9's. The problems with the Beretta, as already stated above, were due to metalurgy. American 9mm "Luger" (Stoeger trademarked the "Luger" name back in the early 20's to capitalize on interest in the Luger pistol, that's why it's known as 9mm Luger here in the U.S. and 9mm Parabellum elsewhere), ammunition was originally marketed for wartime bring-backs and fairly rare imports, and was loaded a little less than most European military ammo. My current stock of Winchester Q4318 9mm NATO (124gr FMJ), states on the box: "...average pressure is 10% higher than industry standard pressure for the 9mm Luger." From a longer-barreled pistol such as the M-9, BHP, or Glock 17, the velocity should be around 1180fps. Good European ammo should get about the same. American non-NATO would get 1150fps or a little less. A good +P load will get close to 1250fps. Any decent pistol should be able to handle 9mm NATO without excessive wear. If the gun is older, then perhaps re-springing might be a good idea (it often is anyway). As if all that wasn't confusing enough, early on in the cartridge's history, a second weight of 115gr also became a standard. 9mm NATO standards call for either weight, and concentrate on dimensions and pressures, this is why you see both bullets in boxes labelled 9mm NATO.

Standard pressure 9mm: 35,000psi
9mm NATO: 36,500psi
SAMMI 9mm +P: 38,500 psi.

Bill

A good many years ago, I read the exact STANAG ammo spec for 9mm. At that time, they specified an allowable range of bullet weight and a energy requirement and the max pressure. In other words, the ammo could have various bullet weights & velocities so long as it delivered acceptable energy, pressure & accuracy results.

Bean counters being what they are, I expect now bullet weight & velocity ranges are more restrictive now.

I've seen slightly different maximum pressures cited. However, the really important pressure is not the maximum allowed under the specification, but what mean maximum pressure the ammo company loads to. Just because a pressure is allowable doesn't mean the ammo makers achieve it.

I fired some NATO surplus over a chrono out of my 4" 5906 and the velocity was 1117fps. another session it recorded 1113 out of my 3913 (3.5" bbl). I don't know if the bullet was 115gr or 124gr.

According to the NATO EPVAT document I read (which refers to STANAG 4090), the max service pressure is 36,550 psi as the Sarg stated, they go on to say since the CIP standard is only 34,083psi ... "The 9x19mm NATO round can be regarded as overpressure ammunition"
Notice they used CIP and not SAMMI. in either case I can see where it could be called +P.

The 27,000 figure must be a typo. Probably more like 37,000.

Okay, I have found some old material that you may find interesting. I looked in W. H. B. Smith's "The Book of Pistols and Revolvers" (Orig pub 1946, Supplemental Material by Kent Bellah 1960). On page 340, it gives the usual data for the time regarding the 9mm Luger: 115gr, 1150fps, penetration of 7/8" soft pine boards - 10, barrel length - 4" (plus dimensions, etc.). This information was from the Western Cartidge Co. Actual velocity from real world guns would probably not have been much lower, because of functioning. I looked in two other books of the same period and found the same data, but in the fine print found that it was all supplied by the same company!

Now it gets a little more interesting. On page 339, a table has been added (don't know in which edition it first appeared), showing some data by the H. P. White Company on tests of various 9mm loads. Four of them are relevant to our discussion of 9mm load levels. They list name, weight, velocity measured 20' from the muzzle, and penetration of yellow pine in 2" planks at 25' (I assume with no spacing, unlike the usual 7/8" boards quoted above). The pistol was a Walther P-38 with a 4 7/8" barrel.

(a) Remington Commercial 124gr 1193fps 5"
(b) Western War Contract 115gr 1231fps 4 15/16"
(c) German Govt. 1918 123gr 1207fps 5 19/64"
(d) German Govt. 1941 (Pist) 124gr 1242fps 6 3/4"

The other loads were submachine gun ammo, and the one Glisenti load (weak version of the Parabellum). Load (d) had the greatest penetration of any of the loads tested, and I wonder what the construction of the bullet was (the German subgun ammo had weights of between 91 (tracer) to 99 grains, perhaps this could be the sintered iron projectiles I've heard of). I would guess that the Western War Contract was probably for an Allied nation, seeing that it's a lot faster than Western's own specs listed earlier. The Remington Commercial seems to be pretty much identical with current M882 ammo, and seems hotter than the usual commercial loads of the day. In the 1960 edition Supplement, Mr. Bellah states that Winchester loaded special ammo in the 50's for Army tests, that fired a 115gr bullet at over 100fps higher than the U.S. commercial loads. As you probably know, the Army tested Colt Commander and S&W 9mm automatics, for possible adoption in the 50's. The project was discontinued in 1956, since we had a bunch of 1911A-1's (which probably surprised no one).

I just thought that all this shows that the usual world standard for 9mm Parabellum ammunition is about the same as 9mm NATO, and that SHOULD mean that any decent 9mm pistol is suited for that ammunition. Discussion, anyone?