OK. I need someone to educate me, please. The specified pressure for standard 9x19mm is 35000psi; for +p 38500psi; for NATO, the metric equivalent of 36500psi. M1152's pressure is 39700psi . Pretty hot. Exceeds NATO spec. Why go to a round that may or may not cause excess wear of or possibly damage pistols intended for NATO pressure specs?

Your guess is as good as mine. The new, M1152, ammo is definitely +P+. My guess is that the U.S. Army went this direction for the same reason we had +P+ ammo back in the 1990's, poor performance. The M1152 trades the round nose 124 grain bullet at what amounts to a +P velocity for a 115 grain flat point traveling at a screaming +P+ driven velocity.

Interesting that the USAF experimented with flat nose 124 grain bullets way back when the 9x19 NATO became the U.S. standard pistol caliber. I always thought the flat point was a better idea.

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See this thread for more info:
Winchester M1152 9 mm Ball Ammo

Good thread. With the military's current stock of M9/M11 pistols, I'd be interested in seeing durability reports with use of this ammunition in those and other pistols, considering its pressure level. With all due respect to users of NATO and +P, standard pressure loadings work just fine for me.

This is not a 45 vs. 9mm thread. God knows we have beaten that horse to death. But isn't it ironic that the Military (Include the Famous But Incompetent in that) goes to a smaller round then pushes it outside it's operational envelope. To do what? Make it perform like a larger, more powerful round?

I'd be careful using that new ammo in an M9 or the civilian version of the Beretta (92F).

We found the M9 to be a pretty fragile pistol and with the first pistols issued we were limited to 250 rounds per slide due to breakage problems. That was fixed with a slide retention device on the left rear of the frame. I never saw a slide actually break, but the navy Special Warfare units reported it and thus our restriction on rounds fired for the M9 for the first year of its use.

While overseas, we ended up breaking the oscillating locking block from time to time. It happened to me on a deployment and thankfully it was during a training exercise with the indigenous unit that I was assigned to. At one time, my team had 3 out of 12 M9s down due to broken lugs and my son, with the Army Rangers, had his M9 go down also. This was with the standard M882 ball ammo of the 90s to the present.

With the near 40K psi with the 1152 ammo, I don't think that I'd shoot it in my personal Beretta.

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Keep your powder dry.

M9 IS AN EASY FIX FOR THE +P+ . M9/BERETTA 92 STANDARD RECOIL SPRING IS 13LBS. CHANGE THE RECOIL SPRING TO A 14 OR 15LB. PROBLEM SOLVED.

THE ILLINOIS STATE POLICE WITH THEIR S&W 9MM ENCOUNTERED A PROBLEM WHEN THEY SWITCHED TO +P+9MM AMMO. A SIMPLE RECOIL SPRING CHANGE TO A (I BELIEVE?) 40CAL SPRING SOLVED THE ISSUE. JP

My guess is, unlike us its not so bad if parts ware out because they are always checked over by the armourer and they change parts as needed.

Personally I carry 124gr standard pressure Speer GDHP ammo in my Sig P320.

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SWCA #3437

A couple of points here. First, the standard NATO test barrel is 7.8 in long and of very specific dimensions.

Secondly, there are apparently 3 different ways in which to measure chamber pressures: SAAMI*, CIP and what ever NATO/DOD uses. [There are a couple threads on here that go very, very deep into the testing methods. Search is your friend.] SAAMI measures pressure through a drilled hole in the case. NATO (and possibly CIP, I've got the details somewhere and they're in at least one of the threads mentioned above) measure actual pressure differently and calculates the chamber pressure. So the comparisons aren't exactly apples to apples. BTW, per the STANAG document the corrected chamber pressure of the ammunition should not exceed 37,000 psi BUT no pressure should exceed 42,700 psi measured by "radial copper (crusher?)" 230 MPa/265 MPa by piezo-electric method.

Finally, the 39.7K pressure may be maximum by whatever method. That does not mean each and every round is loaded to that pressure.

Based upon the research done back in the 1980's one would have thought that simply changing bullet shape to the truncated cone/flatnose design developed and proven then would have improved terminal effect. I expect it's cheaper to jack up the powder charge. Governments can do all manner of strange things by contract. One would assume there is a hold harmless agreement between DOD and whoever is making the ammo. These were in place when +P+ ammo was produced.

Added edit: STANAG 4090 shows a round nose bullet in the ammunition specification drawing with a specified radius for the nose. There's a note that the radius is the maximum radius for a round nose bullet. Unclear if that means NATO requires a round nose bullet or if that's just the maximum if a round nose is used.

*SAAMI has 3 maximum pressures: Maximum Average Pressure (MAP,) which is the pressure ammunition is supposed to be loaded to and is 2 standard errors (SD/# rounds tested) below Maximum Probable Lot Mean (MPLM- mean isn't an average) pressure of 39,700 psi for +P. Maximum Probable Sample Mean (MPSM) of 41,500 psi which ammunition should never exceed. I expect the NATO 42,700 is their version of MPSM. There's no 9 mm+P copper crusher value available but standard 9 mm CUP is 2.1K lbs less than the psi rating.

Assuming we're talking about using the same pressure measurement methods, the M1152 seems to be using the SAAMI 9mm+P MLPM as their maximum.

That is quite the load...................

The Federal 9BPLE 115 +P+ is rated at 1300fps but......
out of a Glock19 4" it was clocked at 1236fps.

The 115 Gold Dot out of the same Glock was clocked at 1220fps.

Both the Federal and Speer +P JHP bullets are at the top of the list for
enough energy to penetrate and work for a SD option.

I really do not see why a full blown +P+ 115 is needed, with the high 39,700 PSI pressures
when there is lots of ammo that will do the job.

I will pass on this ammo, with the pistols that I own.

I agree, I will not be using this in any of my aluminum alloy receiver S&W 9mm pistols nor my Hi-Power clone. It might be ok in my TZ-75 Series 88 as it is a pretty close copy of the CZ-75 (pre-B series).

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