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Difference in 9mm ammo
msmalley1227
Member Posts: 119 ✭✭
What is the difference in Fiocchi 9mm 115gr FOA and Fiocchi 9mm 124gr FMJ #9APC? They are both priced the same, $270 for 1000 rd case but I wondered if either will work in my Beretta Px4 Compact Storm and if so would one be better than the other. Thanks.
Mike S
Mike S
Comments
Since all guns are a law unto themselves. The only way to really know, is to buy a box of each and run them through your Beretta.
http://www.fiocchiusa.com/foa/CMS/product_detail_2.aspx?id=4235
And this for the 124gr FMJ:
http://www.fiocchiusa.com/foa/CMS/product_detail_2.aspx?id=4236
Generally, I'd say 115gr (or lighter) bullets will be faster if fired from a shorter barreled 9mm. Fiocchi's are showing about the same muzzle energies, but generally, with the lighter bullet, you'll get slightly higher velocities and energies.
Overall, though, I'd say you'll probably do fine with either one; it is only 9 grains difference in weight between the two (that's about 8% difference in weight between the two).
The price sounds good. If this is from the listings on the auction side, I'd note that his 124 gr. is listed as 124gr FMJ Truncated Cone when I read the description; if the 115 grain is round ball, I'd go with that, but that is just based on my personal experience where "truncated cone" shaped bullets would sometimes not feed right in pistols that handled ball just fine.
"FOA" appears to stand for "Fiocchi of America":
http://www.fiocchiusa.com/foa/CMS/Aboutus.aspx
quote:Fiocchi of America
In partnership with Smith & Wesson, the Fiocchi family had a factory in Alton, Illinois in the 1950's. Diverging company interests caused Fiocchi to sell its share to S & W and withdraw from the American market. Great grandson Carlo Fiocchi joined the family business in 1980 at the age of 24 and worked as a product manager in charge of the English speaking market, his assignment no doubt influenced by the fact that his grandmother was British. His responsibilities included overseeing its meager exports to the United States.
Carlo traveled to the United States on his honeymoon but all was not champagne and moonlit strolls. He was instructed to bring back marketing research for a US facility. Carlo concluded that opportunities could not be exploited unless Fiocchi had a physical presence. In 1983, a FOA facility was built in Springfield, Missouri, to import ammunition, the location selected because of his father's existing contacts there and that it offered the most favorable rail and trucking costs.
After a year and a half they realized that importing loaded ammunition was not an effective business model. The company couldn't react fast enough to the needs of the US shooters. Carlo returned to Italy and convinced the president, Paolo, to build a manufacturing plant on a farm he identified in the Ozarks near Springfield. In a grand cosmic manner, history repeated itself, for the farmer was defaulting on property loans. Fiocchi negotiated a purchase with the farmer and loans with the bank. Providing a platform for quality manufacturing jobs, the Fiocchi enterprise was enthusiastically welcomed by the local government.
Carlo received substantial assistance from his mentor, Bob Oxsen. They started the company in 1984 but Fiocchi Munizioni requested that Carlo return to Italy to work in its sales and marketing department. He remained in Italy until 1996, then left to create his own consulting firm in the United States. During the next decade Carlo worked in an array of ammunition, optics and shotgun importing businesses. As the third generation Fiocchi family passed control to the fourth, Carlo's cousins Stefano, and Pietro, who became President of Fiocchi of America, persuaded him to return to the Fiocchi fold. The minimal sales of FOA and its marginal market share evoked contemplation of dissolving the US division, reminiscent of the choice facing the Fiocchi family after WW II .
Never theless, in 2005, Pietro, Carlo and Donna Swafford, Chief Operations Manager, boldly attempted to revitalize company in April 2005. Due in large measure to their acumen, since then FOA sales have increased 500%. The US subsidiary imports empty primed hulls from Fiocchi Munizioni and wads from Italy, produced mainly by Baschieri & Pellagri and Gualandi in Bologna, a world capital of machine shop engineering, home to Ferraris and Lamborghinis and the ancestral home of the Fiocchi family.
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