I remember that by the mid80s, when I first started reading gun magazines, the 9mm Silvertips, Federal, and Remington basic offerings were already on the market. I was just curious as to when the first factory (other than specialty makers like Super Vel) 9mm JHPs became available?

I can tell you the Super Vel stuff came out in the early to mid '70s and they were after several other of the Big Guys had already provided several offerings in JPH and JSP for the 9MM. The early Super Vel stuff was really junk and I don't think they ever recovered. Corbon also had some early quality problems but nothing like the Super Vel people did.

MAK

Can't tell you when the first was, but when I bought my first revolver in 1970, Remington JHP were readily available, as were Hornady and Speer hollowpoints for 9mm and .357, for sure.

At the time, I chose the JSP for handgun hunting.

The "modern" 9mm has been around for over 100 years, and I think you'd have to go back to European ammo made before WW II to find the first commercial hollowpoints.

I found this reference to early German DWM production:

"In addition to the full metal jacket ball cartridges, 9mm Parabellum has been produced with a wide variety of hollow point and soft point loads. DWM produced hollow-point truncated bullet loads before World War I for use by its colonial troops in Africa. Commercial and police hollow point and soft point loads have been in regular production by many countries...."

Like KKG I remember the old Super Vel ammo that was manufactured in Shelbyville, IN. It got a lot of positive press in the gun magazines and then faded away. I bought one box of their 90 grain 9mm loads that propelled a stubby little hollow point at some previously unheard of velocity, and it did not feed well in a Model 39. It was very pricey ammo for the day.

I bought my first 9mm in 1970. IIRC the only JHP ammo I could find at the time was Super-Vel and a Remington 115 JHP that was the same shape as the 115 FMJ except for a tiny hollow cavity and some shallow groves around the cavity.

I tried some primitive "expansion tests" and found that the Super-Vel blew up and the Remington just closed up the hollow point and looked like a FMJ when recovered.

I was issued Winchester 100 grain jacketed soft point in 1973. About a year later the load was changed to Winchester 100 grain hollow point. I bought Super Vel 90 grain hollow point and Super Vel 112 grain jacketed soft point rounds at the same time.

I quickly found out the 90 grain SV would not perform to expectations after shooting apple tree marauding porcupines. I envisioned meaty chunks flying through the air but found it necessary to get head shots to reliably knock them out of the trees.

I checked my 1968 Shooter's Bible and found only FMJ listed for 9mm from Remington, Winchester, and Norma. Federal only listed loaded handgun ammo for the 38 and 45 auto. Interestingly, I found a 115 grain flat point Winchester listed in my 1953 Shooter's Bible but not in the 1968 edition.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: akviper,

Thanks. I'd been wondering about this ever since I read a book called "Night Dogs" about police officers in Portland back in the mid 1970s.

What's the book about, Gator? Is it any good? Who wrote it?

quote:

Originally posted by flop-shank:
What's the book about, Gator? Is it any good? Who wrote it?

It's a semi-autobiographical novel of working Portland's North Precinct circa 1975. It's rather bleak and is a follow up to a book called "Sympathy For the Devil". Both books feature a character named "Hanson", who's apparently a stand in for the author who served in Vietnam (I believe with Special Forces) and later was a cop in Portland during the time period portrayed in the book. The author's name is Kent Anderson, and he seemed reasonably knowledgeable about firearms.

I believe Winchester offered a softpoint or HP in the early 70's, and Super Vel offered a 90gr. HP either just before or just after, and also had a 112 SP. Speer offered a 125 SP bullet to handloaders, bu it didn't expand at all..the jacket was too thick. The Super Vel whacked groundhogs very well from my S&W 39, and fed well after the ramps was polished...typical fix for most autos back then; they didn't come like they do now, as they were not designed for HP's. Whether it was the bullet design, the 1300-1400fps of the 90 JHP Super Vel, or a combination, it was a lethal item on woodchucks, and similar game. Super Vel brought handgun ammunition to the front line of competition, for the other makers soon followed.

Lee Juras was the guy who owned/designed the
Super Vel line. He dropped bullet weight to achieve the claimed velocities. I recall the .45 ACP Super Vel was a 190 gr. JHP.

In the late 70s/early 80s I had a Browning
High Power and fired JHPs from Remington, Winchester, and Federal - I settled on the Rem. because of feed or stove piping with the other stuff CCI/Speer offered a 125 gr. JSP bullet at that time but I don'[t know if they
offered loaded ammo with that bullet, I had a box of 100 of them for 20+ years and traded them at a gun show for some loaded .45 ACP Gold DOts a couple of years ago, the guy was excited
about the find of unobtanium out of production stuff.

Randall

My first month out of the academy and with the proceeds of my first 'real' paycheck in hand, I went to the local Smith Distributor and bought a Smith M-39($129 with my police discount). This was at the flagship store of a chain in the Washington D.C. area. The chain did not have any 9mn ammo more exotic that FMJ. I went to a police supply and found Super Vel 112 gr. JSP.

This was 1970. In the next year I went to every gunstore from Richmond to Philly looking for JHPs for my 9 and a Remington Rand GI 1911 that I had. A store outside Baltimore always promised that they would have Remington JHPs "next week". They never did. A couple of years later, I got a police supply store in NYC to ship me a box of Super-Vel JHPs. They shot good shotgun patterns but not bullet groups from my Smith and a WWII HP.

The 112 JSPs shot OK but I could not afford to practice with them.

Finally in the late 70s, stores started carrying JHPs in the area.

Don't know how it was in California or Texas, but that's the way it was in the Mid-Atlantic area.

By the way, my department forbid the off-duty carry of autos in their jurisdiction. Too dangerous...........

The JHP's available in the early 70's where pretty primitive. By the time the 80's rolled around the manufacturers where finally beginning to produce a more effective product.

Norma introduced SPs and JHPs in 1967.

Good shooting.