My wife carried a .380 ACP for a number of years until we reached a certain point in our wound ballistics studies where we were quantifying the performance of .357 Sig in deer compared with 9mm. Not only did the deer always drop pretty quickly with the .357 Sig, but the wound damage was very impressive. Finally, my wife exclaimed, "I want to carry a gun that does THAT."
Performance of the 9mm is not too bad with some of the best loads. The 127 grain Ranger SXT is a great choice all around load. Some of the 147 grain JHP loads are little better than ball ammo. But no 9mm loads perform as well in the shorter barrels as they do in service length barrels. 100-200 fps lower velocity robs wounding potential in several ways: reduced expansion, reduced energy, reduced temporary cavity.
My twin brother has trained more shooters than I have (Louisiana Shooters Unlimited in LC), but I've trained enough to see my share of bad shooting with the mini 9mms compared with the service sized pistols. It probably takes 3000 rounds of practice a year to maintain the proficiency with a mini 9mm that one could maintain with 1000 rounds annually through a service pistol. In practice, the recoil of those guns is not conducivve to practice, and few of them would stand up very well to 3000 rounds per year of practice. Consequently, almost no one acquires and maintains proficiency with them. Learning to dress around a more appropriately sized gun that one will actually practice with is a probably a better option for most.
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