The potential for flinching is also an issue for cartridges with heavy recoil.įelt recoil will differ from shooter to shooter and is often dependent on firearm choice, stance, and your chosen factory ammo or handloads. Recoil is an important consideration when purchasing a new handgun as a round with heavy recoil will be more difficult to control and will slow your rate of follow up shots. On the other hand, your typical 9mm pistol like a Glock 17 or Sig Sauer P320 uses a locked breech design that can handle higher pressures. The 9mm Makarov was specifically designed for a blowback recoil system and is considered by many shooters as the most powerful cartridge to use in this design. This difference is an excellent example of the handgun design considerations for both pistol cartridges. The case capacity for the Luger is measured at 13.3 gr compared to 12.8 gr for the Makarov.Īs such, the maximum pressure for the 9mm Luger is considerably higher at 35,000 psi per SAAMI specs compared to 23,500 psi for the 9mm Makarov. With a longer case, the 9mm Luger has a higher case capacity than the 9x18mm Makarov. In terms of bullet weight, the 9mm Luger typically fires 115, 124, and 147 grain bullets while the 9mm Makarov is typically loaded with 95 grain bullets. The overall length of the 9mm Luger is also larger than the Makarov round, measuring 1.169” vs 0.984” respectively. Furthermore, if it were even possible to close the chamber of a 9mm Mak pistol on a Luger round (it’s not possible), the bullet would not engage the rifling properly and would be horribly inaccurate.

There are some who theorize that the former Soviet Union did this on purpose to prevent potential enemies (primarily the Germans at that point in time) from using their ammo in Russian firearms.Īs the 9mm Luger case length is 19.15mm or 0.754” it will not fit into the chamber of a Makarov pistol since the case length is measured at 18.10mm or 0.713”. Therefore, the Russian ammunition requires a slightly wider bullet. American and NATO cartridge regulatory agencies uses the newer method, which is to measure across the grooves. The reason for the difference is due to the Russians using an older method for measuring bore diameter, which is to measure the distance across the lands of the rifling. Although both rounds carry the 9mm designation, the 9mm Luger fires a 0.355” diameter bullet while the Russian Makarov round fires a larger diameter bullet at 0.365”. Perhaps the biggest difference between the 9x18mm Makarov and the 9mm Luger is the bullet diameter each pistol cartridge fires. In 1951, the Makarov PM handgun and 9x18mm cartridge were accepted by the Soviets and the Makarov name was added to the cartridge name. In 1947, Nikolay Makarov developed the Makarov PM pistol using the 9x18mm round. This handgun had a bad tendency to have its magazine drop during firing and the Soviets wanted a direct blowback, fixed-barrel handgun design for accuracy and reliability.īoris Semin developed the 9mm Makarov pistol cartridge in 1946 off the German Luftwaffe 9x18mm Ultra cartridge as it was more powerful than the 9x17mm ( 380 ACP) round used in the Walther PP. In contrast, the 9x18mm Makarov was developed in the early phases of the Cold War to replace the 7.62x25mm Tokarev and its accompanying TT-35 pistol. The 9mm was not adopted by the US military until much later and was instead picked up by the German Imperial Navy and Army in 19, respectively. In 1903, Georg Luger presented the 9mm Parabellum to the US military for consideration at the Springfield Arsenal and was in competition with John Moses Browning and the 45 ACP. The 9mm Luger is the official name for the cartridge per SAAMI and the CIP, however it is also known as 9mm NATO, 9x19mm Parabellum, or simply 9mm. Luger used his previous design, the 7.62x21mm Parabellum as the parent case for his new creation. The 9x19mm Luger is the most popular centerfire submachine gun and pistol cartridge in the world and was developed in 1901 by Georg Luger.

9mm makarov ballistics