Why Is 9 mm So Popular With USPSA Competitors?

I recently saw a movie, Margin Call, where one of the characters stated he had been doing the same thing for 34 years. He was explaining to his team that some things seem to come and go, but rarely change. I want to discuss this concept in USPSA competition.

When I began shooting many years ago, the basis of our sport was the concepts espoused by Jeff Cooper and other proponents of the “Combat Handgun” ethos. Even today, many of those concepts remain in our rules—minimum caliber as 9 mm Luger, major versus minor scoring and the punitive penalties for both safety violations and violations of various procedures. All safety violations result in disqualification. As far as penalties are concerned, the two best examples are Rules 8.1, the prohibition of a Range Officer to tell a competitor they failed to load their firearm when allowed to, and Rules 9.4.2 /9.4.3, that all no-shoot hits are penalized no matter the number (i.e., the competitor is held responsible for every shot fired).

Nils Jonasson won the Production title at the 2023 USPSA Handgun Nationals with the Turkish-made Canik SFX Rival-S pistol chambered in 9 mm Luger. Canik was the brand of choice for 7 percent of shooters at the match. (Photo by Karri Wilson, Kari McClain)

Over the years with the expansion of the number of USPSA divisions, with the increase in the use of optic sights and the increasing demand for high round count stages, we seem to have forgotten the basic concepts of the sport. DVC equals “Accuracy, Power and Speed” has now become GFDS, or “Go Fast, Don’t Suck!” Why do you have to actually aim, if you can fire lots of extra shots in the general direction?

Over the last year I have run chronograph for a number of USPSA matches, and I have seen two trends. First, it is rare to see anything but 9 mm Luger used in any division other than Limited, Open and rarely in Single Stack. In fact, I have worked a couple of all-division matches where we did not see one .45 turned in to chronograph to be tested. In one case it was shot as minor by a competitor who was using his bullseye loads. Of course, at the USPSA Handgun Nationals we did see some of our Single Stack shooters using .45s but I would guess the majority of the Single Stack competitors were using either 9 mm or .40 shooting both major and minor. I will not even discuss the unlikelihood of seeing a Revolver division competitor shooting a .45 unless they are a pretty hard-core traditionalist.

So, let us explore why this is happening. I think it is due to three main causes.

1. The first is the increase of divisions that are scored minor only. Of the divisions in USPSA, four of the eight divisions are all scored minor only. Three of the four are optical divisions—Carry Optics, Pistol-Caliber Carbine and Limited Optics, Production is irons only. We went from a single division, Production, to the four listed above. While both Single Stack and Revolver allow both major and minor scoring, the change in allowed capacities strongly encourages many competitors to shoot minor. (Who is going to give up the extra two rounds shooting minor allows?)
2. The second is the realization that shooting an optical sight is both easier to learn and, in many cases, faster and more accurate at distance. Only us older types who are transitioning from irons to optics have a bit of learning curve to overcome. The advent of slide-mounted optics over the last 10 to 15 years has really changed the landscape, both in competition and in the real world. Many new competitors in our sport have never used iron sights, nor do they care to learn. In fact, if you look around in the real world, more and more law enforcement departments are transitioning to optics on duty firearms. This I believe is the result of more departments trying to improve real world accuracy and reduce the time it takes to develop new officers’ skills with their firearms. Even with a “dot” the ability to hit what you shoot at is a perishable skill and requires practice.
3. The last and most simple explanation is that for many of our competitors, commercially loaded 9 mm ammunition is both easy to obtain and relatively cost-effective. This has become even more of an issue with the ongoing primer shortage. When you are paying up to 10 cents a primer, not counting the cost of bullets, cases and powder, unless you are already set up to reload, it is cheaper to buy your pre-loaded ammunition from a reputable source. At major matches we see a lot of factory or commercially-loaded ammo, especially in 9 mm minor.

So, what does this mean for the future of our sport? I do not see a strong move to make changes to force the use of major power factor ammunition. In fact, except in USPSA Open division, the use of full power major ammo is slowly decreasing. One of the jokes floating around is if it was not for Limited major, the .40 S&W would be an obsolete cartridge. Ten to 15 years ago, you could get pretty good money for once-fired .40 S&W cases. Now, unless you know a hardcore Limited shooter, you can’t give them away except as scrap brass.

The advent of the increase of the use of optical sights has made doing stage designs tougher in that you might desire to make the shots harder, tighter or longer. This, while it makes logical sense, actually makes the use of minor rounds an advantage. If all the shots are tight partials, i.e. lots of A-zone and nothing else, the dot guys are in heaven. To force them to aim, you need wide-open shots where their desire to Go Fast, Don’t Suck will tempt them into shooting too fast and overrun their sight speed. Of course, all they will do then is shoot multiple times to make sure they get good hits. Every shot takes time and, despite the jokes, even pistol-caliber carbines have a practical limit on capacity. Two good A hits with my .45 ACP because I can shoot accurately with iron sights, versus “spray and pray” four to five rounds in the general direction, will in the end even out. Besides, I am not shooting against them anyway. It is just me and one other hardcore pistolero shooting God’s caliber.

This forces the stage designers to design stages which tests both the ability to fire accurate shoots at various distances and increases the disaster factor through the use of penalty targets for the spray and pray crowd. I also think we should use both speed shoots and standards to force the competitors to demonstrate their skills besides the ability to pull the trigger really fast. For that crowd we have another sport called Steel Challenge.

So, going back to the beginning, Accuracy and Speed, we can continue to push pretty hard. The Power is going to be an issue since I predict within two years the two biggest divisions in USPSA are going to be Carry/Limited Optics and Open with Limited running pretty close. The low capacity iron-sighted divisions are in trouble, except in states where they are stuck with the magazine restrictions. Time will tell.

Article from the January/February 2025 issue of USPSA’s magazine.