What would you replace M9 with? The Army is looking at .357, .40, and .45ACP

I wouldn't change the pistol at all. We already own this one and we are throwing people out of the military because we are low on funds.

Assume that I have already written a paragraph citing calibers, scary sounding brand names and such... You will save me the trouble of writing it and, more importantly, you will not have to read it.

Stopping power is really not the issue here. Regardless of whether you miss with a .22, a 40, a 45, a 46, or a phased plasma rifle in a 40 watt range, stopping power only counts if the round actually encounters the target. Unless you are Johhny Rico deployed to Klendathu, your chances of actually engaging with a side arm are about as remote as me giving a damn about ANYTHING remotely connected with a Kardashian. IF, you are actually engaging with a sidearm, you are not terribly likely to encounter a foe who is going to get philosophical about the size of the entrance wound they experience. Rather, they are likely to perceive that they have been shot and change their priorities accordingly.

But for those whose hearts and minds are not penetrated by secondary firearms, they are more likely to be changed by volume of fire. Hence, if you are going to miss (and miss you will given range, adrenaline, dust and the fact that you are not Johnny Rico on Klendathu) you are better served to miss often and loudly. With that in mind, I would rather miss 30 times with a 9 mm in the hopes that the enemy will decide to seek out someone with a different MOS and use the saved ammunition weight for more water.


Note: Edited to add a "t". See if you can find the change, it's fun!

Something for the more game savvy crowd, maybe?

* Why do you carry a .45? Because they don't make a .46! Old joke, but appropriate..

I don't know if spending the money is such a good idea. A pistol is a secondary weapon, if the funds are going to replace small arms let's focus on rifles.

O.K. First, there is nothing wrong with the Beretta M9. It is one of the most reliable weapons out there. The reason most people in the Military do not like it is due to poor maintenance and poor ammo performance.

Maintenance- At least in the Army, it is extremely poor. I'm not talking about the operator maintenance. Springs and such need to be replaced after firing a certain amount of rounds (in the thousands), if you do not, slides won't cycle effectively, etc. leading to failure to feed or failures to extract...which are the most common problems I have seen at Military ranges. The open top of the Beretta slide is purposely designed to not have these problems, assuming they are maintained properly. If you ask the average Army "Armorer" about replacing springs and such, you are going to get the Deer in the Headlight Look. I could not even get them to switch the magazine release on my M9 (which I just googled and did myself in about 15 seconds). My personally owned Beretta has never failed to feed or extract. My personally owned Glock 17 has, and I love Glock's.

Ammo performance- Mil Issue Ammo is Full Metal Jacket for M9s (and would be for any other caliber we adopt) to due Law of War/ Geneva Convention agreements (to reduce pain and suffering). Generally a 124 gain 9mm is a good round, and our ammo is loaded hot (higher pressures to increase bullet speed). But, it is FMJ which makes a nice clean hole and does not do a lot on damage going in, which means unless you hit your target in the spine, brain, or heart they are going to keep coming at you (at least until they bleed out, which could take some time). If we used Hollow Point ammunition, we would have much better results with stopping our target because more of the energy of the bullet would be transferred to the body.

That being said, the ballistics on the .357 Sig are the best of all of those calibers, so in an unconstrained environment, I would switch to that, because I would get the best of both worlds (increased ballistics and still have a high ammo capacity).

The stopping power of pistols (ANY pistol short of the most powerful revolvers) is really only a matters of degrees. The difference between .45 and 9mm is not as great as people make it out to be. .45 DOES make a bigger hole though.

However, if you take a look a the big picture, pistols aren't really that important. They are issued only to a small portion of the population, and even then, as a last ditch self-defense weapon. No one is going into combat with only a pistol as their primary weapon system. And if you are, you are in a world of hurt to begin with. A pistol is meant to allow you to fight your way to something bigger.

That being said, if the military was going to switch, there are a lot of good off-the-shelf options. Priorities I would look for are:

1) High magazine capacity. This allows you to stay in the fight longer.
2) Reliability and ease of maintenance.
3) Ease of operation and shootablitiy.
4) Terminal ballistics. Here I would go with a .40. It bridges the gap between the capacity of a 9mm and with the improved terminal ballistics of a .45.

I vote for the M93R, but in 5.7mm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUhL-Pg_Y5M

.45 all the way. Go big or go home. IMHO It also has the best stopping power.

Replacing the M9 makes no sense. Aside from an accessory rail (which most people won't use anyway), no handgun has a meaningful advantage over the M9.

Most of the military, especially the Army, does not take pistol training seriously. Most guys who hate the M9 have no idea what the hell they're doing with it. Changing the issued pistol will not solve this problem. The M9 is one of the easiest pistols to shoot, and I own or have owned most of the major designs at some point. Issue a Glock, and scores will drop. Issue a M&P, and scores will drop. Issue anything in .40 or .45, and scores will drop.

And everyone will hate it.