Why did 9mm Luger become the most common and widespread pistol cartridge and not, say, .45 ACP, 7.63 Mauser, or 9mm Largo?
inb4 caliber debate
>>29261899
When people pulled their head out of their ass.
>>29261899
One military adopted it and made everyone else in their alliance adopt it too.
Big production runs mean lots of surplus means cheap ammo.
People tend to prefer cheap ammo.
Thus, lots of people now use 9mm.
>>29261899
do everything cartridge with great +p self defense loadings
>>29261899
Germans adopted it and used it in their most numerous secondary firearm. This made it largely produced and thus attractive to other firearm designers as well- especially those in neighboring countries like FN.
Perhaps if one of the other three had the distinction of being used so widely by one of the largest military forces, they could have caught some headway.
>>29261947
But to be fair, .45 ACP was used by all branches of the US armed forces from the intro of the 1911 until the 80s.
Duh, because it's da shit.
Good balance between magazine capacity and muzzle energy.
It seems like I always find more 40s and 45s in the dirt at the range than 9mm.
>>29262297
That could just mean that reloaders prefer 9mm
I never see 9mm or .223 brass on the ground at my range, but everyone here shoots it. Plenty of .40 and .30-30 though.
I came across 9mm shell today hiking around, I've never owned 9mm or shot one. Putting it next to a 10mm round makes me never want to own one or shoot one.
>>29261899
Because there are more women and limp wristed faggots than real men. Real men use real calibers.
>>29263193
>>29263193
Missing out.
I fuckin love this thing. Glad it got to be my first handgat.
>looking at FN-P .45 next
Germans standardized on 9mm because they considered the .30 caliber mauser cartridge to be not good enough.
The brits were in a tight spot and built sten guns so they could use captured german ammunition and magazines.
After the war there were huge stockpiles of 9x19 from british and nazi german production and since the performance difference of sidearms is negligible everyone just rolled with it. .45 ACP was huge in the US but nonexistant in europe, so why would they use it? 9x19 was also more powerful than the existing .32 ACP police cartridges so there was nothing lost switching to the cheaper caliber.
10mm is great but in a military context pistols just need to go bang and poke holes. .32 ACP is honestly good enough for most defensive shootings, but we have options so we use them.
9mm Largo is totally inconsequential. The other cartridges never became as important as 9x19 because of pure chance.
