FNX-9 ammo preferences
i have a relative who recently purchased a new FN Herstal FNX-9mm.
he would like some input from other owners of this type gun,as to what ammunition they found to work best for them.
he is interested in both a target/practice round and a self defense round.
please give details as to which AMMO has performed best in your FNX-9.
EXAMPLE:Manufacturer-Federal
Brand name-Champion
Description-115grain FMJ RN
thanks to all for any info in this matter.
he would like some input from other owners of this type gun,as to what ammunition they found to work best for them.
he is interested in both a target/practice round and a self defense round.
please give details as to which AMMO has performed best in your FNX-9.
EXAMPLE:Manufacturer-Federal
Brand name-Champion
Description-115grain FMJ RN
thanks to all for any info in this matter.
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Not trying to be be wise, but I think the FNX will function fine with just about any factory ammo on the market. I prefer Speer Lawman for plinking/practice and Speer Golt Dot for defense/carry loads. 0 -
What CS8161 said.
Any modern design 9mm gun like an FN ought to run ANY 9mm ammo just fine, and if it doesn't do so there is probably something wrong with it.
As to which round for practice, that's easy, the cheap 115 grain Winchester white box ammo at Walmart. Why? Its readily available, brass cased, and did I mention cheap? I wouldn't hunt with it, and it wouldn't be my first choice for defense, but its reliable and certainly good enough for practice. I've shot plenty of the Speer lawman, and that works fine too, by the way.
Which round for defense? Any 124 or 115 grain 9mm+P ammo labelled "personal protection" from a major manufacturer: Federal, Speer, Winchester, Remington, CorBon, etc will work fine.
The only things you'd need to do are to make sure it runs 100% in the gun in question and is readily available.
In my opinion, even though mathematically speaking one of these brands has to be "the best" I think in practice they all launch similar weight identical caliber modern construction expanding bullets at similar velocities, and therefore the terminal performance will be more similar than different. Even if one of them *IS* better, its probably not THAT much better, and from a practical standpoint its virtually impossible to know which one is the best one!
So I say, pick one, and forget about it.
Where you put the bullet is about 50x more important than what brand stamp is on the case head, and if you want to spend your time worrying about something, spend it making sure you can put that bullet where it needs to go when the chips are down (instead of about miniscule differences in terminal ballistics between premium brand "A" and premium brand "B").0 -
I just purchased a FNX9 on Wednesday. I picked up 250 rds of 115 Remington UMC. It DID NOT FUNCTION thru my FNX9!!! Jammed every other one. I am shooting in Wisconsin and the weather was really cold. I am unsure if that had anything to do with it.
I then bought a box of 124gr FMJ American Eagle (Federal) cycled just fine not ONE hiccup.
I was so disappointed in Remington's ammo. I currently have 200 rds for sale. haha! This happened literally this afternoon.
I Reload myself and wanted to get 250 rounds to just break in the barrel (shoot 5 clean, shoot 5 clean) so on and so forth. Looks like I will need to purchase more ammo.0 -
quote:Originally posted by uni82
I just purchased a FNX9 on Wednesday. I picked up 250 rds of 115 Remington UMC. It DID NOT FUNCTION thru my FNX9!!! Jammed every other one. I am shooting in Wisconsin and the weather was really cold. I am unsure if that had anything to do with it.
I then bought a box of 124gr FMJ American Eagle (Federal) cycled just fine not ONE hiccup.
I was so disappointed in Remington's ammo. I currently have 200 rds for sale. haha! This happened literally this afternoon.
I Reload myself and wanted to get 250 rounds to just break in the barrel (shoot 5 clean, shoot 5 clean) so on and so forth. Looks like I will need to purchase more ammo.
Some of the economy bulk pack ammo, like the Remington you had problems with, seems to be underloaded. I don't know if the manufacturers do this for legal or economic reasons?
You might try it in another 9mm pistol for S & G before you dump it. Being that the FN is brand new and not broken in, might have had an impact.
Manually load one round of the Rem in the chamber and touch it off. See if it is hot enough to lock the slide back with a empty mag in the pistol.0 -
I unfortunately do not have another 9mm. I was paying very close attention to the slide (when my friend fired off a couple of rounds). Some rounds wouldn't even budge the slide while other rounds would cycle it about halfway and the case would get wedged on the slide during the ejection.
I think out of a box of 50 rounds. I had 5-6 that cycled correctly. One of my friends have a 9mm I would like to see how that ammo feeds.
The weather was pretty cold It was about 24 degrees with a blistering cold wind. I couldn't even get the barrel warm. My hands were freezing and the barrel didn't have a warm touch. After I fired the 124 gr, I will be reloading. I have about 1500 pieces of brass, 2 lbs of brass and 2000 primers.
All I need are bullet tips and the 9mm equipment (dies and hornady LNL shell plate).
Thanks for the help!0 -
quote:Originally posted by uni82
I unfortunately do not have another 9mm. I was paying very close attention to the slide (when my friend fired off a couple of rounds). Some rounds wouldn't even budge the slide while other rounds would cycle it about halfway and the case would get wedged on the slide during the ejection.
I think out of a box of 50 rounds. I had 5-6 that cycled correctly. One of my friends have a 9mm I would like to see how that ammo feeds.
The weather was pretty cold It was about 24 degrees with a blistering cold wind. I couldn't even get the barrel warm. My hands were freezing and the barrel didn't have a warm touch. After I fired the 124 gr, I will be reloading. I have about 1500 pieces of brass, 2 lbs of brass and 2000 primers.
All I need are bullet tips and the 9mm equipment (dies and hornady LNL shell plate).
Thanks for the help!
I've shot my share, and personally, I've never had an issue with Remington UMC 9mm luger ammo. Its cheap, but I've never had a dud or any memorable failures to cycle.
Temperature may have been a factor here in that it could have affected how you were holding the gun. If the gun was cold and your hands were cold, you may not have been squeezing quite as hard as you might have under other circumstances.
Less than a rock-steady firm grip can cause many guns to malfunction, especially with lighter practice loads.
Also, super-cold temps can cause some gun lubes to congeal, again potentially reducing reliability.
If you still have the ammo, I'd suggest stripping the gun cleaning it thoroughly with a sparing amount of good lube, then retrying indoors or under more "favorable" weather conditions.
Incidentally, in my opinion, there is no reason whatsoever to strip and clean a handgun at five round intervals to "break in the barrel". Its debatable how useful that practice is for match caliber rifles, though some people do like to do it. For handguns? IMO, complete waste of time AND you have the potential to do actual harm with that much cleaning.
With the exception of a few plastic pocket pistols, most of the bigger "service" guns run 100% out of the box nowadays with minimal break-in necessary (ie a few magazines only). I can't speak to FN's gun in particular here, but I don't see why they would be the exception.
quote:Some of the economy bulk pack ammo, like the Remington you had problems with, seems to be underloaded. I don't know if the manufacturers do this for legal or economic reasons?
Both.
Lower power loads = less powder = less money = less liability.
Plus (arguably) 'practice' loads are "supposed" to be low recoil.0 -
quote:Originally posted by uni82
I unfortunately do not have another 9mm. I was paying very close attention to the slide (when my friend fired off a couple of rounds). Some rounds wouldn't even budge the slide while other rounds would cycle it about halfway and the case would get wedged on the slide during the ejection.
I think out of a box of 50 rounds. I had 5-6 that cycled correctly. One of my friends have a 9mm I would like to see how that ammo feeds.
The weather was pretty cold It was about 24 degrees with a blistering cold wind. I couldn't even get the barrel warm. My hands were freezing and the barrel didn't have a warm touch. After I fired the 124 gr, I will be reloading. I have about 1500 pieces of brass, 2 lbs of brass and 2000 primers.
All I need are bullet tips and the 9mm equipment (dies and hornady LNL shell plate).
Thanks for the help!
The "tips" are called "bullets" the complete loaded round is called a "cartridge". Don't go into the gun shop and ask for "bullet tips", just tell them you need 9mm bullets for reloading.[;)]0 -
It does not really work that way. The truth is indivdual firearms work best with specific ammo, but all S&W model 10s don't do best with the same round.
There is really no way around trying a bunch of different rounds and learning what works best in that specific pistol. Likely it will work well with several.0 -
quote:Originally posted by He Dog
It does not really work that way. The truth is indivdual firearms work best with specific ammo, but all S&W model 10s don't do best with the same round.
There is really no way around trying a bunch of different rounds and learning what works best in that specific pistol. Likely it will work well with several.
Agreeing, one of the nice features of revolvers like a Smith model 10 is that they should at least function with ANY cartridge in their respective caliber. Some rounds may be more accurate than others, or yield better velocity from a particular gun, but weak rounds, strong ones, round nose, flat nose, wadcutter, hollow point, etc. . .so long as the round is in spec and the primer is OK for the gun, they should go off.
With autos in general, and 9mms in particular, its a bit more complicated. In this day and age, any 9mm "service" type gun, like an FN "should" be at least 99.9% reliable with any 9mm luger ammo that's in NATO spec. IIRC, that's a 115 grain "ball" jacketed bullet at about 1200 fps. That's really all they're "supposed" to work with.
Despite that, most of the new design guns load perfectly inline with controlled feeding, and will still function reliably with a variety of bullet weights and shapes: truncated cone bullets, hollowpoints in 115 and 124 grain, and even long 147 grainers. Effectively every single "service" type 9mm gun on the market is rated for 9mm+P ammo too; All current manufacture Smith, Sig, Beretta, Glock, HK, Ruger, Taurus, CZ, Walther etc will take this ammo. Don't know about the current generation of "pocket" 9mms, but it wouldn't surprise me if most of these worked just fine with all available ammo.
In my experience, you only really run into reliability issues with underpowered rounds. Some guns will run virtually any 9mm ammo out there (Rugers, in particular were designed for this), but some will "choke" with low-pressure ammo.
The only time I ever personally had problems with reliability with 9mm ammo was when I ran some "olympic" match ammo I got cheap at the gun store. . .it was just too weak to cycle my P99, and I'd get occasional jams. Never had any glitch with any other form of ammo in that gun, and I've pretty much tried them all.
In the specific case of this particular FN gun, it "should" run any name branded ammo from any major manufacturer right off the shelf. The only caveat is, that some guns don't like some types of hollowpoints or non-ball ammo, and before relying on such a type for defense, I'd at least run a box through the gun to make sure it was reliable.0 -
I have the FNP model in 9mm and have put reloads, winchester, fiocchi, federal, and rem ammo through it. has handled all without a hiccup. ANd accurate with all as well. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by CS8161
Not trying to be be wise, but I think the FNX will function fine with just about any factory ammo on the market. I prefer Speer Lawman for plinking/practice and Speer Golt Dot for defense/carry loads.
+1
I have a FNP-40 and it shoots everything good.0
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