When we think of long range accuracy and precision we think of cartridges like the 6.5 Creedmoor, 6GT, 6mm BR, 22 PPC, and 308 Winchester. When Georg Luger designed the 9x19 for his Parabellum pistol way back in 1902 I doubt long range was on his mind. That shouldn't stop us.

I wanted to answer a question I always had: Can the 9mm Para. be accurate and precise – practical, even – at distances beyond what we traditionally view as normal for a pistol cartridge? I’m not just talking about throwing lead until you get a hit. I’m talking real actual repeatable and practical hits and use. Can it be done? The quick answer is yes. How far did I go? 500 yards on a 2/3 size (11.5”x20”) IPSC target. Would I consider it practical? It’s complicated. Keep reading to see how I did it & my final thoughts. 

It seems like around 2014 or so the pistol caliber carbine (PCC) started to gain popularity. Not many options existed commercially back then and many seemed to be putting together their own with known parts on the market. As the popularity increased it started getting adopted into competition like United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA) and others. Today we have a lot of options on the market now that are good and affordable. They all seem to be semi-auto though and not really conceived for long range.

When I built out my PCC I never thought I’d be shooting it beyond 100 yards. I built it for going fast (or trying) in USPSA’s PCC division shooting light bullets fast enough to make their minor power factor. The basics on carbine are that it’s a standard AR-15 lower with an adapter block to use Uzi mags. It has a 16” Wilson barrel with a 1:10” twist – Which is important here, more on that later. It’s a standard 9mm AR bolt with a YHM 9mm buffer. It is not a locked breech firearm, it’s a ‘blowback’ which is possibly limiting the velocity potential. The trigger? Standard off-the-shelf AR fare.

On top I started out with Weaver’s 20 MOA cantilever Flat Top Riser Rail to build in some cant to go the distance. I used Weaver’s 6-hole 34mm rings and in those I put the new MOA version of the Match Pro ED 5-30x56. I did end up eventually moving to an Elite Tactical DMRII Pro to get the extra internal travel it has (34 MRAD) vs the MPED (30 MRAD). 

I’m starting this part out with a disclaimer: always work up ammo loads from manufacturer published data and guidance for your firearm.

Chances of going a few hundred yards let alone 500 with a 9x19 while supersonic? Zero. Absolutely won’t happen. Never. Which means we need to start out subsonic to avoid going through transonic and having accuracy go all bad. Basically, we need to think like we do for 22LR match ammo. Slow & steady wins the race here. 

To keep things slow through that long barrel I thought I’d go with a heavy bullet. I also thought the heavy bullet would help greatly with wind. I also wanted to really maximize the long range performance potential of the cartridge and push it the limit as far as I could, so I decided not to go with the typical 147 grain bullet. No, I went to one of my favorites for USPSA minor in a pistol (think Production Division) which is the 165 grain Xtreme. I initially wanted to test it to see if it’d even stabilize and was feasible at all, so I grabbed some ammo I made for it for USPSA with some Titegroup.

They worked but were leaving the barrel at less than 700 FPS. From 100 yards I could actually see & watch the bullet on its way to the target. The good news was they seemed to be stable, even at that slow speed & RPM. Those bullets are long, so it was a good confirmation that the 10” twist on the barrel was stabilizing them. If I switched powder I could get that speed up and hopefully fill the case to get a better extreme spread and standard deviation (which were not good as tested), and hopefully still have stability out at 500 yards.

Another favorite of mine from my USPSA shooting days was Vihtavuori’s 3n38 pistol powder. From the equipment surveys I remember seeing, it was one of the most popular powders for 9mm Major use where people are launching 115-grain bullets from handguns to speeds usually reserved to 357 SIG and Magnum. 3n38 fills a case well, so I went to their site looking for data. They actually had it for the 165-grain Xtreme. I used that data and worked up. I got to a point where I was compressing at 9x19’s standard 1.169” COL. That point happened to coincide with hitting 1000 FPS. I could load longer and get more powder in there, but I wanted to try and remain inside the standards of the 9x19, even if a 165-grain bullet is outside the ‘norm’ for it.

With that case filled the ES/SD were surprisingly good with the ES around 25 FPS. Not what many would consider fantastic for a centerfire rifle round, but for a pistol round? I’ll take it. Also, that compressing combined with the long bearing length of that bullet gave me the confidence to avoid any crimping and actually mag-feed without worrying about bullet setback. Other brass prep? It’s all Federal Cartridge once-fired brass. I tumbled it then did some primer pocket uniforming and used CCI standard pistol primers. The 3n38 was thrown by a Chargemaster Supreme. I even seated them on a Summit press to stick with the precision theme. 

One of the helpful things to have when trying to figure out a ballistic solution is the actual bullet’s ballistic coefficient (BC). I didn’t have that. I contacted Xtreme Bullets and explained what I was trying to do and they stated it wasn’t designed with that in mind and they didn’t have a figure for me.

Hornady has a 147-grain boattail FMJ with a published .212 G1. I figured that was a good place to start with the 165 Xtreme as it doesn’t have a boattail but it’s heavier so thought they’d probably come out even. I plugged that into the Bushnell Ballistics app along with the bullet weight, speed, and the usual environmental data. From there on I’d have to get a few different range points of reference to see how close the .212 G1 was to reality on the 165 Xtreme. It turned out to be a pretty good guess.

This firearm has no bipod ability and so I used a front rest and then an Armageddon Gear Gamechanger to stabilize the back. I loaded up and got what was a 100-yard zero I was comfortable with. It was always windy during this testing and made group hunting tough, so I didn’t spend too much time trying. Nevertheless, I was happy enough with the grouping - At 100 yards it was in the 3-3.5” range in winds switching from 5-20 MPH. With that, I figured I had a good enough 100-yard zero.

Next target out was 140 yards and with that it took almost 7 MOA to get there from 100 yards. This confirmed my .212 G1 was pretty close, close enough to try and go further. Next target out was 370 yards. The app was telling me 60 MOA and change to get there. I dialed 62 because I was worried about being under. The first few shots missed. The sun decided to start helping though and I was able to see the bullet out there that far since it was going so slow by the time it got there. I was high. I dialed down to what the app was saying and started scoring hits when the wind wasn’t pushing me off. It was great to be making hits that far and consistently. There was a problem though. Besides the wind messing with me, I was nearly out of dial with the MOA MPED and the 20 MOA base. The drop difference between 370 yards and 500 with this slow of a round is massive. The drop difference between them is the amount it takes my 6 Creedmoor to get to around 1200 yards.

The fastest solution I had on hand to get more dial was to take the Match Pro ED off and put an Elite Tactical on. The Match Pro has 100 MOA, or roughly 30 MRAD of total adjustment. The Elite Tacticals usually have around 34 MRAD, which is exactly what the DMRII Pro I had laying around had. That extra dialing ability combined with reticle holdover could get me there. According to the app I needed 28 MRAD to get to 500 yards. After mounting up the DMRII Pro and getting my 100-yard zero back, I ended up with 19.5 MRAD worth of dial. The G3 reticle’s holdovers would have to provide the rest to get to 500 yards. That extra 4 MRAD of travel would just barely be enough to get me there. In theory.

The next day with calm winds was great for trying for 500 yards. With the 2/3 IPSC out on the line I dialed the DMRII Pro 19 MRAD and held over 9 MRAD on the G3 Reticle. To get to 500 yards took over 1.8 seconds of flight time. Admittedly it took more rounds to get on target than I hoped. I sent a lot more and I simply couldn’t get what were consistent hits. I did get hits though.

I decided to pull the brake/compensator off the thing and clean the barrel really well to see if I could get the firearm to pull together groups better than 3 MOA at 100 yards. It didn’t seem to matter. The rounds still managed to mostly go around the 2/3 IPSC at 500 yards. I was really concerned – It was either me, or the rifle/ammo combo. To make sure it wasn’t me I grabbed a rifle I knew shot well and that had a very similar drop to 500 yards: my CZ 457 in 22 Long Rifle. 

On the firing line with the 457 I loaded it up with Federal Gold Medal Match 40-grain as usual, verified zero, then dialed out to 370 yards which called for 17.4 MRAD. The wind got me for a few rounds, but once I got that figured out I was going 5 for 5 on that target easy enough. Then I dialed the Match Pro ED out to its max with a 30 MOA rail which was 22 MRAD, and held 5 more on the Deploy Mil 2 reticle for a total of 27 MRAD. I held a little more wind than I was at 370 and started making hits easily on the 500 yard target. The issue with the 9mm was the 9mm or its ammo, and not me.

With the 9mm AR-15 a 3-3.5 MOA best precision at 100 yards translates to 15-17.5 MOA precision at 500 yards. The target dimensions were 11.5x20" So many are simply going to go around the target on all sides even if everything else is perfect. That seems to be the end issue with this firearm at 500 yards.

How about the original question on practicality? I think 9mm has a ton of potential for practical and fun target use. I’d say my particular 9mm firearm used for this does not. The hits at 500 yards were nice and square so that tells me those long 165-grain Xtremes were plenty stable at distance. The combination of the rifle’s inability to group better than 3 MOA at 100 yards for me, combined with wind and then whatever velocity spread existed just made this particular firearm not practical for precision long range shooting. In fact, that may be the biggest take-away from this experiment - A rifle that's 3+ MOA for precision at 100 yards likely won't get better the further distance you go.

The cost associated with this experiment, the fact the bullets could get there and make hits, and the positive response I received on Reddit when I shared my progress, well – it has me thinking the market wants 9mm practicality, precision, cost saving, and fun outside of pistols. Precision rifle competitions with 9mm Para. divisions could be a fantastic thing. I’d really love to see bolt actions chambered in 9mm hit the market. Will any manufacturers step up? I hope so.