I have recently been doing a ton of reading on the 9x18. By the way I pick up my P-64 today. One post in a forum really caught my attention. The post was discussing the power of the 9x18 for self defense. One person said NO because his friend' s 9x18 would not penetrate the two pieces of 3/4" plywood that their target was stapled to. That would be 1 1/2". I went out today and placed a piece of solid 2x6 against a dead tree and shot 5 times from about 13 yards. Every round penetrated the board and made it into the tree. I was shooting Silver Bear 94gr hollow points. I do not think any person would want to be on the receiving end of those rounds!!!!!!!!!
I don’t remember the source but I think I read you should never shoot plywood with anything because of the possibility of it coming back at you or someone else. I think it has something to do with the surface being more slippery than regular wood. If this is true it would explain the results. Of course on the other hand it may not be true because I have not heard of police officers wearing plywood for protection.
One thing I do know is the 380 is very popular for self defense today. It is 9x17mm which is a little shorter and less powerful than the Makarov 9x18mm. Then if you want a little more punch you can go for the 9x19mm Luger. I like all three, but carry that little 380 most of the time. I feel very safe.
As I have stated many times, the human body is intolerant of being struck with projectiles traveling at around 1,000 feet a second, regardless of size,
An interesting and non ending subject. In my humble opinion the P64 is the wonderfully safe and extremely accurate regardless of the cost. Of course the double action trigger pull is extreme but it is acceptable for a carry weapon to be used at 21 feet or less. And I can put 90% of shots into a brick size target at 15 years. Finally with the "right " JHP ammo it is better than the 38 Special or 380 acp. I am a believer in the little P64.
The heavy hammer spring that you feel in the double action was for use with the hard primer Soviet Sub Machine gun 9x18 ammo that's all. The hammer spring can be taken down with Wolfe Springs to about 17 lbs that makes a very acceptable D/A trigger and a real hairy S/A. JHP ammo does not really mean a thing and in a real live gun fight of about 10 feet it will go right through as well. Been there done that a few times.
We have won a few wars with round bullets and are not doing to badly with 9 mm JHP in the present ones. Enjoy the P 64 and don't get hung up on all those ammo myths. The chance of you using it in a gun fight is so remote you should not be concerned with that. In the unlikely event you have too, what ever you hit the bad guy with is going to make him have a bad day and expensive legal problems for you for a long time.
Walking away is a much better option in my opinion.
I have heard of guys worrying about the 9x18 penetrating a couple of coats in winter time. I hung tow olc heavy coats up and shot them with silver bear..standard stuff, and all rounds blew out the back side of the coats. Yeah, I think its good enough to penetrate anything reasonable. I'd like to see a pic of 9x18 shot in some ballistic jell!!!
I'm so tired of this kind of stupid thinking that 9x18 is not a good defense round. Seriously! Why then all those decades of fearing the Ruskies if they had such flimsy, puny weapons and cartridges?
There's a hell of a lot of dead people in Eastern Europe and around the world that will disagree with those who test ammo by shooting at two sheets of plywood. Just sayin'!
I read that statement on the other board too. I have one thing to say about this, half the people you run into, (whether it's in person or on a forum) are below average!
Last edited by cichlid on March 14th, 2010, 9:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
This makes me wonder which half you are placing yourself in. Just saying, since you have chosen to be so judgmental and all. I have found the subscribers and operators of this board to be way above average in firearms knowledge. That is the reason I come here to get knowledge from them.
boomer wrote:This makes me wonder which half you are placing yourself in. Just saying, since you have chosen to be so judgmental and all. I have found the subscribers and operators of this board to be way above average in firearms knowledge. That is the reason I come here to get knowledge from them.
I guess my ability to convey humor on a board rather than in person is limited. My intent was not to demean anyone on this board, but to point out the absurdity of the original statement, that was made on another forum, that the starter of this post referenced.
The comment I made was supposed to be from a humor standpoint, which I utterly failed at getting across.
When it comes to gun safety, I choose to be judgmental and react to any inkling a person might have that this or that caliber is "week"!
22LR has probably killed more people (outside war theater) that some other, much larger calibers. Recently on one gun board, a guy who built AR-15 chambered in 7.62x39 was inquiring the following: "Can 7.62X39 "kill" at ranges >150 yards?"
In my opinion whenever a person starts thinking that a certain chamber is not very powerful, that is a safety concern!
One post in a forum really caught my attention. The post was discussing the power of the 9x18 for self defense. One person said NO because his friend' s 9x18 would not penetrate the two pieces of 3/4" plywood that their target was stapled to. That would be 1 1/2". I went out today and placed a piece of solid 2x6 against a dead tree and shot 5 times from about 13 yards. Every round penetrated the board and made it into the tree. I was shooting Silver Bear 94gr hollow points. I do not think any person would want to be on the receiving end of those rounds!!!!!!!!! 
