Conservative said:
To each his own.
I prefer Federal 147 grain HST - JHP.
I DON'T want super fast bullets as over-penetration is one of my concerns.
900 and change fps is plenty good enough for me.
Plus, the recoil is a bit less with 147 grain vs. 115.
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The first thing you want to make sure of is the bullet feeding properly from the magazine. I own the Ruger LC9S Pro semi-automatic 9 mm pistol and have found that bullets like the Hornady Critical Duty and Critical Defense don't feed right from a full 7 round Ruger Magazine. The nose of these FlexLock Bullets is smaller than the FMJ type bullets. And when you stack 7 of these FlexLock bullets on top of each other in the magazine the top one tends to nose down into the magazine. This causes the top bullet to hit the bottom of the feed ramp and jam up instead of feeding into the chamber. Now I've found that some other hollow point bullets tend to do the same thing and fail to feed into the chamber. Maybe it's just my gun or maybe it's all the Ruger LC9S and LC9S Pros that do this. But if the bullet won't chamber into the gun it won't fire and you won't have to worry about recoil at all. All you will feel is the firing pin clicking on an empty chamber on the second shot. First shot if you don't carry one in the chamber as I do. I can get at least one shot off before the gun jams. So that's why I carry FMJ bullets in my little Ruger LC9S Pro. It's also why I changed my personal carry gun to a Walther PPQ M2 Sub Compact 9 mm semiauto pistol which has a better feed ramp that actually will chamber hollow point type bullets and the FlexLock type bullets.
Recoil is greater with heavier bullets. It's just physics. As the mass going out is greater, then the reaction is greater. It's Newton's law. A force is opposed by an equal and opposite force. That is what I've read. But I'm not sure if the total of the speed plus the extra weight is greater unless your bullets are not only heavy but using extra power then for sure the gun is going to kick back more.
Now I tested my Ruger with the FlexLock type bullets by working the slide by hand to see how these bullets would feed. They will jam into the bottom of the feed ramp almost every time. Now maybe they will feed better when the slide is forced back after a bullet is fired. These type of bullets are expensive and I don't practice with them to save money. I practice with Blazer Brass FMJ 115 gr bullets instead. And I know how these FMJ 115 gr. Blazer Brass bullets feed and shoot.