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FWIW, I had a Texas Ranger who is an expert in gunshot/blood spatter/crime scene analysis tell me that the load I use (Speer Gold Dot 124gr +P) is *the* way to go if you're going to carry 9mm. I was happy to tell him that's what I carried.

cohiba550 wrote:Thanks a lot guys, all great info.
I'm looking at getting some of the MG FMJ's versus the plated type from Berry, Precision, etc. There's not much price difference so might as well go with the FMJ.
Now I'm onto the powder.........as with bullets there's a lot of options......LOL

The Montana Golds are good stuff. I use them for my FMJ reloads. They're a quality product, finish and consistency are very good. When I first got mine, I grabbed 3 of them out of the box and set them on a piece of paper for a photo opp. They really are quite nice:



As for powders, I actually am still working out what I want for a plinking load. I got sidetracked on .38spl and .380 development, and never finished my 9mm development to completion. I've got a relatively hot load worked up using Blue Dot, but that powder doesn't meter well at all for me. It's also a pretty slow-burning powder and only really appropriate for high-pressure handgun loads, so I can't use it for any other calibers that I have. I've switched 9mm development over to Power Pistol, as it's a little faster-burning and more suited for 9mm, though still a high-pressure caliber powder. I've also got a workup using W231 and Berry's bullets in the pipeline, I just haven't gotten around to working in a handgun load test session, as the past several months have been devoted to developing .223 loads for my AR. All of that is about finished, so I will be getting back to the handgun workups here in the next few weeks. When that happens, I'll be posting the progress on those here, as well as on my blog.

I reload 124 grain bullets, in FMJ, plated, and JHP. I carry Speer Gold Dot 124gr +P rounds, so I like for my practice rounds to match up on bullet weight. This is really a personal preference, though. Plinking ammo certainly isn't going to be anywhere near the +P pressures and performance of the carry round, but it simplifies my bullet inventory and load recipes to keep only 124 grain bullets in my stock. The cost difference isn't enough to go with 115 grain bullets for the sake of money savings when I'm ordering 1000 bullets or more at a time.

As gfmun mentioned, 124 grain loads seem to be a little less snappy than 115 grain loads, so there's also that advantage as well.