AverageJoe wrote:I absolutely never use FMJ for defensive carry. IMO this would be irresponsible. Over penetration. Over penetration. Over penetration.
What Joe said.
FMJ has notoriously poor stopping ability in 9mm. I once had a 15 or 20 minute conversation with a guy who had been shot right in the heart with a 9mm FMJ. He would have
eventually died. But he was laying there quite calmly, talking in normal tones to me, while we were prepping him for surgery. The bullet had punched all the way through and exited his back, and the holes in his pericardium had sealed up, and he was bleeding into the pericardial sac causing a tamponade - which would have eventually killed him, but just not right away.
What if there had been an innocent 3rd party standing behind him? He was in the middle of trying to rob a liquor store, and the clerk shot him. What if someone had walked in the door right at that moment? That bullet may well have seriously injured that 3rd person.
The JHP is far more likely to stay in the target person's body. Unless they fail to open up, they will cause a larger permanent wound channel. If they
do fail to open up, they are at least no worse than an FMJ. JHPs are often a hotter load, being propelled to slightly higher velocities than an FMJ of similar weight.
Inside the home, a FMJ is far more likely to penetrate walls, possibly hurting or killing whomever is on the other side. Do you have kids?
FMJs should
only be carried as self-defense ammo if there are no alternatives, OR, if your gun is unreliable enough that it will only feed FMJ with some degree of reliability. But if you gun is that bad, you don't have an ammo problem, you've got a gun problem.