9mm Versus .380 ACP For Self-Defense

“The .380 is simply not in the same performance class as the 9mm....”

The last half-dozen years have seen serious changes in the context within which ordinary American citizens obtain and use handguns for personal defense. On the negative side the federal Crime Bill of 1994 limited magazine capacity and put new restrictions on ammunition manufacturers’ freedom to develop high-performance handgun loads. On the positive side more and more concealed-carry laws are being enacted every year at the state level, with the total of states now allowing some form of legal civilian concealed handgun carry now standing at 41 and more are likely to join that list. The result has been significant alteration in the proportional market share and availability of various cartridges and handgun formats, with a great increase in the popularity of small, pocket-size autoloading pistols and an attendant incorporation of previous “duty level” cartridges into ever-smaller guns.

When it comes to personal-defense carry, most people buy little guns. The single largest category of handguns bought in the US during the last 10 years has been small, short-barrel, pocket-size defense models—autoloaders and revolvers alike. Overall, compact concealment-size handguns account for more than 70 percent of all current civilian handgun sales, and autoloaders account for approximately 75 percent of that number (according to the most current BATF statistics). In terms of caliber selection (not counting the sub-effective .22 and .25 chamberings), the two most popular choices within this dominant portion of the overall handgun pie are the .380 ACP and the 9mm.

In today’s market, compact and pocket-size guns available for the 9mm and the .380 have essentially the same range of available features and performance capabilities—in fact, identical pocket-size 9mm and .380 pistol versions are increasingly available from the same manufacturer. You can choose among single-action, double-action, or so-called DAO mechanisms, with the same type of sighting setups and safety-operating mechanisms, and choices of steel, aluminum, or molded-polymer frames for either cartridge. Which means the choice is really between the capabilities of the cartridges, not the guns.

The 9mm Wins Hands Down
So for a short-barreled, concealment-size pocket pistol, all features of the guns being equal, which cartridge choice is best for personal defense, .380 or 9mm? Some have argued that in the very short barrels (in the 3.0- to 3.25-inch range) typically found on small pistols, the apparent ballistic advantage of the longer case 9mm is canceled and the two loads’ performances are essentially the same. My own actual side-by-side testing doesn’t prove that out. In fact, there really isn’t very much of a contest at all. The 9mm wins hands down.

The 9mm Luger cartridge (also known as the 9mm Parabellum, 9mm NATO, and 9x19mm) is actually the oldest of today’s mainstream semiautomatic pistol rounds (it was introduced in 1902), but because of its comparatively recent surge to popularity in this country, most American shooters think of it as relatively “modern” in comparison to other popular autoloader cartridges like the .45 ACP (1905). The .380 ACP is nothing other than a short 9mm (its German name, in fact, 9mm Kurtz, literally translates as 9mm Short), and like the .22 Short in relation to the .22 Long Rifle, or even the .38 Special in relation to the .357 Magnum, the shorter cartridge has only a portion of the authority of the longer 9mm.

In Europe the .380 Auto/9mm Short has at various times been an official military cartridge, and it is much favored by police agencies in many nations as a primary duty round. In the US it has always been seen as a minor-power backup load. And, compared to the 9mm, that’s where it belongs.

SAAMI industry-standard catalog specifications for the two cartridges rate the .380 at approximately 950 fps velocity and 200 foot-pounds (ft-lbs) energy for JHP bullets in the 90- to 100-grain weight range while the 9mm (which is offered in a much wider range of bullet weights and styles) is specced at 1150 fps and 340 ft-lbs energy with a 115-grain JHP bullet and 990 fps and 320 ft-lbs energy with heavier 147-grain JHP subsonic loads. In raw energy terms alone, then, the 9mm has about a 65 percent advantage. (Standard four-inch ballistic test barrels are employed for the SAAMI ratings for both cartridges.) However, in view of the fact that actual cartridge effect in target is always more determined by bullet design and performance than by mathematical energy formulas, particularly when using guns with barrels shorter than SAAMI test fixtures, I (several years ago) fired a series of commercial 9mm and .380 loads from compact pistols into 10-percent ballistic gelatin blocks calibrated to FBI evaluation standards to gauge their impact effectiveness with the gel set at a personal-defense distance of 20 feet. I was interested in determining whether these two cartridges’ performance in actual guns corresponded to their “on paper” ratings. This was when down-sized 9mm pistols had just begun to enter the market in sizable numbers following the enactment of the 1994 Crime bill’s magazine limitations, and the pistols used were a 3.5-inch Star Firestar for the 9mm and a three-inch S&W Baby Sigma for the .380 ACP. When I reported the results, which were overwhelmingly in favor of the 9mm, I received response from fans of the .380 who argued that the half-inch longer barrel of the Firestar pistol gave the 9mm an unfair advantage in my comparison, and that if I’d used guns of the same barrel length the .380 would have ranked much better in comparison. I was confident of the basic “balance of power” my results indicated but also acknowledged that with short-barrel guns sometimes a very slight increase or decrease in absolute length can have a significant effect on bullet velocity, depending on particular powders and their burn rates. So when Taurus introduced its Millennium series of pocket-size compact autos a couple of years ago with identically configured 9mm and .380 versions, I resolved to redo the gel-performance review. Both the Taurus Millennium model PT111 9mm and the model PT138 .380 are identical in features, size, and 3.25-inch barrel length, with the only difference between them being the actual specifications of the cartridge firing chambers.

The results of my side-by-side review firings with today’s premium defense loads are listed in the chart on page 23 and closely correspond to the Firestar versus Baby Sigma results from four years ago. Overall, the 9mm provides a 40 percent greater wounding effectiveness (based on wound channel surface area) than does the .380. When equivalent bullet designs in the two cartridges are compared directly (for example, the Winchester SXTs and Remington Golden Sabers), the distinction is obvious. The .380 is simply not in the same performance class as the 9mm, even though the subjective experience of firing the two pistols is very much the same.

If your personal-defense handgun is going to be a small autoloader, and you are buying it because the chance exists that it may someday have to save your life, the choice between a .380 or a 9mm is still a no-brainer. Get a 9mm.

This article was originally published in Shooting Times magazine in June, 2000.

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