Blackwater Ammunition contractor grade 9mm
Courtesy Blackwater Ammunition

Blackwater Worldwide is proud to announce their Contractor Grade 124 grain 9mm ammunition is now available and shipping to the civilian market.

Manufactured in the Blackwater Ammunition facility based in Concord NC, Contractor Grade 9mm is designed to deliver maximum reliability and terminal performance in all weapon platforms. Contractor Grade is a +P 124 grain 9mm, that features a lightweight split case with a nickel alloy top and aluminum base. This case design is reloadable, 30% lighter than traditional brass casing, and performs perfectly with the higher +P pressures. The powder is clean and temperature stable to support reliable function with high round count maintenance cycles of both suppressed and unsuppressed fire.

Blackwater Ammunition contractor grade 9mm
Courtesy Blackwater Ammunition

The 124 grain 9mm projectiles are precision CNC machined, lead free, solid copper expanding projectiles that expand to meet FBI penetration requirements while maintaining nearly 100% of its original weight.

Calibers from .380 through 50BMG will be available early summer 2020.

Features

Bullet Weight: 124 Grain
Bullet Type: Monolithic Copper Expanding Hollowpoint
Ammo Casing: NAS3
Ammo Caliber: 9mm Luger (9x19mm)
Muzzle Velocity 1100fps
MSRP: $20.95 per 20 round box!

For more information please visit: www.blackwaterworldwide.com

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86 COMMENTS

  1. At a dollar a round, I’m happy if forced to shoot somebody, to shoot them 3X for a dollar, rather than just once.

  3. When I was on the edges of the construction trade “contractor grade” meant the cheapest fixtures and fittings that would just meet the building codes.

    • As someone who has made a career out of doing quality, custom construction projects, I have always hated the description “contractor grade”. The implication being that contractors, of which I am one, install cheap crap as standard. Some may, I don’t.

      • I beleave the designation contractors grade is refferance to private security forces hence the name ( contractor ). You know mercs ( mercanaries ), soilder of fortune ( s.o.f.) or the Blackwater guys in the news for the Iraqi incident, shooting unarmed civilians, non combatants. They are trying to use this designation to appeal to those who may be in the business but probly those who are wannabes and those who beleave they will have a need to use them but never actually need them.
        Not to say it’s not a good round, im sure it is. Using the shell shock3 2 piece cases is a plus but do require special dies to reload. But they will take more abuse than brass and are lighter in weight case versus brass cases.

        • Well, it didn’t take long to find a comment from someone thinking know something about a topic and spouting their lack of knowledge like a gun expert on CNN.

          D.J.U says: “You know mercs ( mercanaries ), soilder of fortune ( s.o.f.) or the Blackwater guys in the news for the Iraqi incident, shooting unarmed civilians, non combatants.”

          So many falsities in this one sentence. Let me provide some edification:

          Contractors are not mercenaries.
          Mercenary = a professional soldier hired to serve in a foreign army.
          Blackwater contractors worked for the U.S.A., not a foreign government. They also did not serve in any military organization, although they did work closely with them.

          To try and discredit them by using the Nisour Square incident as an example demonstrates your ignorance and bias.
          I have been shot at and shot back at “enemy combatants” many times in Iraq. I have watched as men, women and even children have ran up to the aggressor, after the threat has been eliminated, and take the weapon and run off with it. Suddenly, it wasn’t an “enemy combatant” you killed, but an innocent civilian. This same thing occurred, according to numerous witnesses, at Nisour Square. Evidence was suppressed or eliminated, witnesses on both sides were unreliable, investigation results were contradictory. However, the individuals involved were persecuted and prosecuted for the sake of political expediency and as pay back .

          Please do not spread lies and make generalizations. It makes you look like a spokesperson for Everytown.

        • OK Ragnar, whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night. Mercs, SoF, “contractors”, slimeballs…whatever you want to call them. They’re all thugs that profit from war, enjoy hurting people, and want to keep the conflict active. You’re not the only person with Middle East experience here ya know and others may have different, valid, points regarding these creeps.

        • Kahlil, mark me down as another one with real experience that agrees with Ragnar.
          Your statement that all Special Operations Forces are thugs who profit from war makes anything you have to say on the subject easy to dismiss. You clearly have no idea what you’re talking about.

        • In that line you quoted do you see Special Forces mentioned? Special Forces means enlisted or active military, currently serving…correct? The classes of paramilitary I pointed out are not active military, so by default they are not special forces or a protected class. They are people that benefit off the US and global war industry, nothing special and plenty of room for criticism. Grown men [presumably] that want to continue to play soldier without the accountability or restrictions of .gov.

        • Kahlil clearly has a strong opinion on this subject. No factual statements or rebuttals, just a blatant disdain for contractors. I won’t speculate what horrors he may have experienced at the hands of these contractors. Sadly, he has believed everything he has read in the New York Times and Washington Post about PMCs.

          If he had real life experience working with these contractors, like me, he could tell you they performed a much needed mission at great risk that was compensated with great pay. There are a few bad players in the organization, but I can say the same thing about the SEALs, Ranger Regiment and other SOCOM guys I worked with during that time.

          Not going to change any opinions here, but it is only fair to other readers to provide some relevant honesty to the discussion.

        • Kahlil,
          It is now obvious now that you don’t know what SoF means. I spelled it out. It means Special Operations Forces. In the United States Army, that includes Special Forces, Rangers, 160th SOAR, some specialized medical personnel, as well as some Civil Affairs and Psychological Warfare personnel. SoF/ SOF/ S.O.F., specifically refers to military forces, not DoD or other agency contractors.
          You have made it very clear that your opinion is not based on knowledge of the subject matter you are talking about.

        • Khalil

          We don’t believe in whatever you care about, we are just here for the violence. Enjoy the freedom to bitch about it, and when that’s gone, you can try reaching out of the rubble in the hopes one of those specialists sees your bloody hand, because no one else will save you. Thanks for the reminders of the dangers in being complacent, and naive, to say the least.

    • Truth. I was in the trades as well for a few years (cabinetry, framing, electrical). And a third of all workers who show up on a job site are high or hung over.

        • They might have been on to something though. I’m in my mid 50’s and CBD seems to work better on jobsite aches and pains than anything else over the counter and doesn’t hammer your stomach. I hardly even think about my back anymore unless I’m working over my head.

        • DrewN
          Yes. CBD, but that’s like advil compared to what everyone is looking for. People who use CBD are not looking to get high, they want pain relief. People who think getting high relieves pain are already addicted.

          Either way, too many people hooked on some form of mind altering substances. Especially alcohol. Because “it’s their right” and all… Saddest excuse ever.

      • one site banner read, “work performed by drug free ironworkers.”
        i texted a photo to my local 63 guy who entertained everyone at the site with it.
        straight mess, some.

    • Yeah, they should call it Mercenary Grade.

      Contractor grade *is* cheap tools. The term evolved from job bosses buying a bunch of DeWalt cordless stuff with the full expectation that it would all be trash by the end of the job.

      Home Depot somehow decided it sounded cool and has made a concerted effort to shift the meaning from the original (cheap shit you buy to ride hard, abuse and toss) to the weird “So tough contractors use it!” fooffy Esquire magazine pretends to build a shed meaning.

  4. “Contractor grade”? Ammo for discerning hit men?

    Will the hit men make their contracts a base bid plus consumables at $1.00+ per round?

  5. I am still confused why “blackwater contractor” is a boutique label for which someone would want to pay premium or even standard prices.

      • As far as I know, the ‘Blackwater’ name was retired years back, and the name changed to ‘Xe Services’ in 2009, and ‘Academi’ in 2011 :

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi

        Name changes are common when a company wants the customer to forget who you really are, like when the airline ‘ValueJet’ bored a hole into the Florida Glades bedrock in a ghastly 1996 crash. So they changed their name to AirTran until Southwest bought them out in 2014…

      • hit man approved ? and there is no black water any more ? im thinking they are knockoff black talons or gold dots . the price is far , they should send be 2 boxes for free so my group can test them out ?

      • If someone named ammo “Unicorn skittles” it would 100% outsell every other brand since the history of ammunition. The government would have to re-write billions of documents because nobody would every call it ammo again.

        😉

  6. Considering all the scandals that Blackwater was involved in, I don’t understand how anyone thinks using the Blackwater name is a good idea.

  7. Blackwater, a crappy ammo for the discerning mercenary. yawn…like the name Blackwater really drives people except 3-pers and mall ninjas to purchase their product.

  8. I’ll stick with my Gold dots 124gr +P rated at 1220 fps that I get for $27.50 for a box of 50 rds. and I’ll stick with the lead core bonded…..chances are he’s not gonna die from “Lead” poisoning literally!

    • No, we did not. We identify sponsored content in the byline and with a big sponsored content tag at the top.

      This is a press release from an ammunition company.

        • Why? You are either interested in the article or not, and by this article title, it should be pretty clear cut.

          The internet does not usually attract the most forward thinking individuals though… and people like you are why everything in the grocery business is labeled “natural” now…

  11. From 500 magnum ammo land, that’s not bad. A good deal is $35 per 20 rounds. The good hornady stuff goes upwards of $67 for 20 rounds

  13. According to the spec sheet this comes out to. 333 ft/lbs of energy from what ever barrel length they fired it from. The above negative reference to “Contractor Grade” seems to be appropriate here. 333 ft/lbs is practice ammo if this from a 4″ barrel.

  14. Hhhmmm…
    Contractor grade is a weird term to apply to ammo. I might would have attached it to something like Freedom Munitions.

    • I wouldn’t call a domestic “active shooter” since they just shot each other. I understand the sentiment, but nonetheless.

      • You can call it whatever you want. The cops called it an “active shooter situation” and locked the area down until they figured out what happened.

        Rolled more than half the on-duty Broomfield cops to that store too.

  16. “Contractor grade”, what a slimy merc company Picks up at Wally World and sells for a markup to governments and wanna be army boys.

    • The company may have been (and probably still is, under whatever name they are operating under now) slimy, but they have record of not losing a ‘principal’ under their protection. If I was under their hired protection, that would comfort me.

      I would never get that level of protection, since their clientele was (and is?) Department of State and similar level government…

      • I personally don’t care how “slimy” they are. They get the job done and that’s all that maters. The incident that got them a bad rap requires us to believe durka durkas over Americans which, given how many IEDs got planted in highly visible high traffic areas with “nobody seein nutin”, I will never do. How do you tell a haji is lying? His lips are moving.

        • Haji is an honorific title, refering to someone has completed the holy pilgrimage. You are complimenting them calling them Haji. As I have been to Mecca (although as I am a Christian and not devout Muslim I was not allowed into the holy site itself) I could claim the title Haji as well.
          But your statement about Blackwater is dead on. I’m sure they had some shitbirds in the group, but the ONE thing they got hired to do, they got done.

    • Somethings fishy about a split case design. ,,,,Does the military still use the spun 105 case? Back around 1973 or 4 you could pull them apart in a long sheet.. .

  18. Can we explain how a solid copper 124+P is only moving at 1100? This is a massive fail, considering we can get standard velocity 124 at 1125.

    I want: Solid copper HP, 115gr @1300 or better. The only people coming close are the Pi’s new company (the name is lost on me). Corbon DPX was close, but you could never get it in stock.

    • I think you explained my question. How do you get an extra large 124 gr pure copper bullet into a standard 9mm cartridge? Answer: use less powder. 1100 ft/sec actually sounds fast. Lead’s density is 11.4 gm/cm^3 whereas copper’s density is about 9 gm/cm^3. So the copper bullet has 26% greater volume.

  19. Why bother???

    There are plenty of ammo manufacturers with long standing solid reputations. Why mess about with these guys and their questionable claims of super duper grade magical wonder bullets???

    Just not seeing the attraction here.

  20. I haven’t worked a construction joh for 6 years, why would I need contractor grade bullets. And besides,. 45acp in a 1911 is perfection.

  21. Is that the same funky high-tech reloadable casing that TTAG got a bunch of to test a year or so back that TTAG showed on their Instagram? And never reviewed, as I recall? 🙂

    • I have these cases and the die and have used them for a couple years now.
      Quick review: they are lighter than brass, hold up just as well, and with a special die, reload just fine.
      And that’s it. I’ve found no significant difference, other than weight, in brass cases.

      • President Bloomberg will mandate 40SW once again for all FBI/Antifa Freedom Forces.

        Because routing bitter clingers is no job for puny 9mm euro trash rounds.

  27. Expansion numbers please , into jell through a jacket and shirt.
    I have a feeling, if the ammo has enough speed to get that big piece of copper to open up enough that we’ll see some real interest here but I bet they change the name sooner than later.
    Contractor grade sounds cheap and cheap combined with self defense doesn’t fly off the shelf. Most people don’t read the specs. they go by word of mouth name recognition.
    How about upper shelf Nine ?

  28. “30% lighter”; I’m SO relieved that someone has cracked the problem of those oh so heavy 9mm casings. Another overpriced gimmick to separate the wannabe operators from their money.

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