Our test samples of 9mm produced 378 ft.-lbs. And the 9mm doesn’t come at any power penalty - in fact, it offers a power advantage. In fact, six of the 9mm choices were cheaper than the Winchester rounds, the lowest-priced 38 Special. The TulAmmo 115-grain FMJs were the low-price winner, coming in at 38 cents a round. The available 9mm ammunition cost $0.89 each on average, for a 28-cents-per-shot difference (24%). The 38 Special rounds available today at CTD cost $1.17 each on average, with a low of 87 cents per shot for the Winchester Super-X Lead Semi Wadcutter X38WCPSV (see table). Of the in-stock ammunition, we compared the bullet-weight ranges and prices for everything CTD sold in 9mm Luger and 38 Special and still found a difference. Both cartridges have a variety of bullet styles available from a variety of manufacturers, so there’s no significant advantage either way. Meanwhile, CTD offered 334 9mm loads, with just 12 being in stock.
CTD (as of late January) offered 283 loads of 38 Special, with seven being in stock. At Cheaper Than Dirt!, which industry sources tell us is the second-largest ammunition retailer in the country behind Wal-Mart, both 38 Special and 9mm appear in the “Most Popular” header of the company’s website,. Wal-Mart is the nation’s largest retail ammunition supplier, but because the firm doesn’t list prices online and because the transactions must be face to face in local markets where prices may vary, we instead looked to Cheaper Than Dirt! for comparative information of actual ammo for sale at the end of January. We can’t forecast when prices might return to pre-December 2012 levels, if they ever will. The price per round for the 9mm bundle was 25 cents, a whopping 38% less than the 40-cents-per-round cost in the 38 Special bundle.īut as we began shooting, the ammo market went nuts, and now, practically every retailer is periodically out of most brands, calibers, and bullet weights, and our old pricing comparisons are out the window. For example, one of the better deals we bought before the current troubles started were Brownells 500-round ammo bundles (both included MTM ammo boxes): Winchester USA White Box 9mm Luger 115-gr. On a price-per-round basis, we found more 9mm ammo at a lower price than similar bullet weights of 38 Special. When we began researching this test, it seemed that economics put the 9mm squarely ahead of the 38. But we also looked at the cost of consumables to see if, over time, one cartridge had an edge. Certainly, the best gun would win and earn our favor. In this two-way test, we evaluated four handguns, three revolvers chambered for 38 Special and two revolvers chambered for 9mm Luger. On the 38 Special’s side is the fact that dozens of revolvers from Smith & Wesson, Ruger, Rossi, Charter, Taurus, and many others are chambered for the round, compared to a paltry few 9mms, some of which must use half-moon or moon clips to function. To be fair, the 38 Special is also chambered for long guns, primarily lever guns. Also, many carbines are chambered for 9mm, which makes it a handy choice for a long gun/handgun duo, even if the handgun is a revolver. In the same power range as the 38 Special is the 9mm Luger (aka 9mm Parabellum or 9x19mm), which has the added benefit of being loaded more widely, often at less cost per round, than the 38 Special. As part of our new Bargain Hunter series, we wanted to challenge the conventional notion that a wheelgun chambered in 38 Special should be the de facto winner of any boot-gun showdown simply because it has always won those battles in the past. The 38 Special revolver has long been a standard as a back-up and concealed-carry handgun.