What’s the best 9mm ammo? Well, that depends on what you’re using it for, your firearm, and your personal preference.
I busted the guns out of the safe and tested as many of the top choices as possible to find the best 9mm ammo for just about every situation.
My top pick is Fiocchi Range Dynamics because it works well for training, plinking, and competition. Of course, better self-defense options are available, which we’ll get into later.
Our Top 3 9mm Ammo Picks
| Best 9mm Ammo Overall | Fiocchi Range Dynamics 115 grain FMJ |
|---|---|
| Best 9mm Self-Defense Ammo | Hornady Critical Duty 135 grain JHP |
| Best 9mm Training Ammo | Federal American Eagle 147 grain FMJ |
How to Choose the Perfect 9mm Ammo
A lot goes into choosing the right 9mm ammo, and it will come down to what type of shooting you’re doing. We’re going to take a look at the most common types of shooting you’re likely to do with a 9mm and discuss how to choose the right ammo for your purposes.
Self-Defense
An effective bullet is the most crucial consideration when choosing self-defense ammo, whether for carrying or protecting the hearth and home. This is why jacketed hollow point bullets are the best choice, especially when polymer-tipped to increase the capacity for expansion.
Dependability is another crucial consideration. For the bullet to be effective, the round must go off and cycle. Choosing rounds with high-quality primers and brass (especially nickel-plated brass) will ensure the fewest failures to fire and malfunctions.
Training
I’ve chosen to separate training from the competition and target shooting section below for a very specific reason: self-defense training. If you’re choosing to train specifically to deal with a life-threatening scenario, there are some additional considerations.
Namely, the weight and velocity of your bullet of choice; I think it’s vital to practice and train with something that matches your carry ammo regarding recoil.
In a high-stress situation, with adrenaline and other hormones degrading fine muscle control and tripling heart rate, you (and I, and Delta Force, and everybody else) will default to their lowest level of training. That means your worst day at the range is probably the best you can expect when wielding a handgun to defend yourself.
You can train with the same ammo you’re using for self-defense – but at $1.80+/round, that gets expensive quickly. It’s best to run through at least a magazine or so of the exact same ammo you would utilize for self-defense, but in general, I recommend sticking to a full metal jacket of the same bullet weight (usually 147 grain) and similar velocity to what you’ll be carrying.
Competition/Target Shooting
For competition and general target shooting/having fun at the range, we can be a little less stringent in our choices. Typically, a 115 grain 9mm FMJ will be all you need, and you can get something on the slower side if you’re just plinking or go with a higher-velocity round if you need to be able to knock over steel plates reliably.
For this, I also like cheap ammo. Nobody likes paying an arm and a leg just to be able to shoot a little bit, but I especially like to prioritize cost when it comes to choosing 9mm ammo for the range.
Suppressed Shooting
For suppressed shooting, choose subsonic 9mm rounds. That’s it; that’s all there is to it.
Well, mostly, anyway. Really, it’s a careful balance of choosing subsonic ammo that still has enough energy to do what you need it to do. If you’re just having fun at the range, then whatever, it doesn’t really matter. But if you’ve got a suppressor on your home defense carbine, then a bit more thought is required.
Generally, I tend to just reach for a heavy, slow-moving bullet (under the speed of sound 1,125 fps), but you can absolutely use supersonic 9mm ammo with a suppressor. You just won’t be as whisper quiet as you will with subsonic. You can do your own math and decide if the extra damage to your ears is worth it if you have to, heaven forbid, fire that home-defense gun inside.
Heavy subsonics are still effective at stopping a human attacker (or an animal like a coyote or rapid dog), so I wouldn’t discount them completely, especially when you think about the rapid-fire, low-recoil capability of a carbine.
I don’t know about you, but as much as I enjoy my hearing, I’m not putting ear-pro on when I hear someone kick in my door at 3 am. For me, subsonics are the move, but that’s a decision you’ll have to make for yourself.
Carbine Shooting
If you’re like me and love a good 9mm carbine, then it’s important to know that you can get a lot more out of it by choosing the right ammo, whether you’re using it for target shooting, competition, or defense.
The main advantage of a carbine is you have a much more ergonomic platform to shoot from, so recoil isn’t really a concern.
In self-defense terms, this means you can go with the hottest-loaded +P+ stuff on the market from a manufacturer like Underwood or Buffalo Bore, and you’ll barely notice the recoil when you have your pistol caliber carbine shouldered.
For competitors, using a carbine means you can go with some harder-hitting, higher-velocity ammo in the 124+ grain range to make absolutely sure that those steel dinner plates fall over and that stinking Texas Star is empty quickly (my 3-Gun people know what I’m talking about).
This also helps carbine competitors that have to reach out to longer distances. If your match director is a bit of a sadist like my local ones are, and you have to hit an apple-sized target at 100 yards+, you’ll be happy for the increased velocity and substantially decreased bullet drop.
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