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Georg Luger designed the 9 mm Luger cartridge on demand of the German army to increase the power of his famous Luger pistol which had been introduced in the 7.65 mm Luger caliber. He simply removed the bottleneck of the 7.65 mm Luger cartridge and by doing this created a new 9 mm (0.355 inch) straight walled rimless cartridge.
The original design used a 7.5 g (115 Gr) full metal jacket bullet, but after World War II, this was changed to 8.0 g (124 Gr) to increase the accuracy of the 9 mm Luger ammunition. Bullet weights up to 9.5 g (147 Gr) are available.
The 9 mm Luger cartridge combines a flat trajectory with moderate recoil, and fair stopping power (50–60% 1-hit incapacitation probability). Its main advantages lie in its small size and low use of resources for manufacturing. Its main disadvantages are its tendency to overpenetrate and poor energy transfer to the target.
Because it is inexpensive, easy to manufacture and effective enough for most uses, it has become the most used pistol cartridge in the world.
For police use, it is mainly used with higher speed overpressure (+P) expanding bullets to increase energy transfer and to reduce overpenetration.