In a recent AR15.com thread, it was claimed that Federal 9mm ammunition identified as XM9HA was a contract overrun of 147gr HST hollow point projectiles loaded to the impressive velocity of 1180 feet per second. That’s 9mm Major territory – and beyond. It was also reported that this ammunition had a high rate of failures to feed or failures to fire in a variety of handguns.
I was recently sent a small quantity of this ammunition for testing via a chronograph. It was requested that I use a Glock 19 as the test firearm.
Although I only fired 10 rounds through said Glock 19, I did not experience any failures to feed or fire. Unfortunately, I also did not experience anything approaching the claimed velocity. The fastest round was 1009.42fps, the slowest 973.06fps – with an average of 992.56fps.
For comparison, I also fired 10 rounds of Winchester Ranger Bonded 147gr through the same firearm. The high was 992.21, the low 963.15, with an average of 974.8.
If you can acquire this XM9HA ammunition for a fair price, and it functions reliably in your firearm, it would appear to be adequate ammunition. However, I wouldn’t expect 9x23mm performance from this cartridge. As a side note, recoil felt pretty tame compared to my 115gr handloads at 1200fps (which are not particularly hot to begin with).
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