the 9mm vs .45 debate

reply to post by beautyndissonance


It's not a practical round. Let's say SHTF or something and you only have few hundred rounds left. Where would you get more ammo?

Hello

The are military groups whom are going back to the 45. Here is why. If you are doing up and close clearing work, like clearing out rooms, the 45 have better stopping power because it's a slower round. The 9mm would more likely penetrate the person but the person could still fight; whereas, when you get hit with the 45 you are going down.

I came to some conclusions recently. While I love my 686 it is big and heavy. That's why I stopped carrying it in the mid 1990s and it's no smaller or lighter today. My daughter is not going to give me back my Glock 22 without a fight. After owning and selling two of them I realize I still like the Glock 23 for concealed carry. So, I bit the bullet and now have a Glock 23 again for concealed carry. While I may replace this gun with a newer one I think a Glock 23 will be my carry gun for the foreseeable future:

OK, first off. I'm not an expert on weapons, certainly not like this. But I have a pretty good grounding in physics, Mass+Momentum= Splat. Not all that complicated. For short range "put down power", having fired both weapons under several different simulated combat situations, I like the .45. If you close enough to just point and shoot, your going down. Period. No questions asked. If you have to aim at all, why bother using a hand gun, of course to "tag" someone with a shot when others may be present, a laser sight would be helpful. But from what I understand the physical design of the .45 will expend its energy in the first thing it hits, making collateral involvement less likely. Perhaps those with more experience on this subject would comment?

reply to post by arbiture


"But from what I understand the physical design of the .45 will expend its energy in the first thing it hits, making collateral involvement less likely. Perhaps those with more experience on this subject would comment? "

I'm really not sure what you are talking about. Overpenetration with FMJ ammo is common in any caliber with enough energy, meaning any of the three common self defense calibers. If you're not bound by the Geneva Convention you can use any of the many high performance hollow point ammo available for self defense guns. The .45 has no magical design to keep it from over penetrating. With full metal jacket ammo what probably would keep it from overpenetrating is the relatively low kinetic energy available in standard loads. If you're going to carry a .45 for personal defense I would recommend something like Speer's Gold Dot 200gr +P JHP for maximum terminal ballistics.

In fact I picked up a box of .40 180gr Speer Gold Dots to stoke that new (to me) Glock 23 with.

reply to post by blackrain17


But that wasn't the point of the topic. The topic was which caliber is the best. It wasn't which caliber would be best suited for an apocalyptic situation.

reply to post by beautyndissonance


I'll Take a 230gr bullet over a 40gr bullet (Pistol Rounds) any day of the week... Hell I'd take a 7.62x25 over the 5.7x28 as well , at least it's a .30 cal round...



I think the FiveSeven is an awesome pistol , fun as hell to shoot! But imho it's more of a novelty than anything else , it's the answer to a question that nobody asked.

Originally posted by EyesWideShut
reply to post by beautyndissonance

 

I'll Take a 230gr bullet over a 40gr bullet (Pistol Rounds) any day of the week... Hell I'd take a 7.62x25 over the 5.7x28 as well , at least it's a .30 cal round...

I think the FiveSeven is an awesome pistol , fun as hell to shoot! But imho it's more of a novelty than anything else , it's the answer to a question that nobody asked.

The FiveSeven is an awesome addition to any tactical operations force or swat team. It gives the operators the ability to penetrate body armor with a light weight round that can be used in a pistol or submachine gun. It definitely was an answer to a question, thats the reason that SAS, Dallas Swat, LAPD swat, and several other highly reputable organizations have it in their arsenal. Anyone can buy body armor these days.

reply to post by beautyndissonance


I understand you like the round, I get it...I'm just not myopic about it. The 7.62x25 round will penetrate vests as well, is cheaper and makes bigger holes and transfers more energy. The reason that the P90 is on plenty of SWAT teams is clever marketing , not because it's the holy grail of subguns. I'm hard pressed to find a job that the P90 with it's 5.7x28 round can do better than an M4 or Colt Commando. If you're worried about overpenetration then run 40gr V-MAX rounds.

The basic problem I see with the 5.7 is it's lack of energy , the round starts off with only 380 Ft-Lbs (P90) and it's a small round that's moving fast , this usually leaves small holes. In order for the round to be marginally effective , you have to be very selective of the ammunition you use , then you have to pray that the round fragments reliably to make a big enough wound channel to cause rapid loss of blood pressure to stop the threat #1 this takes time #2 there are too many variables... (I LOVE the round, It's fun as hell to shoot and I can hammer like a champ with a FiveSeven) But in the end I just don't see the tactical application of the round.

You brought up the "every one wears body armor" argument and that's valid , my answer to that is loaded in the speedfeed stock of my Mossy 590A1 , It's the Brenneke 3" Black Magic Slug... 600gr of lead moving @ 1500fps equals 3000 Ft-Lbs of energy. I don't care who you are , you can be wearing a damn E-SAPI if you want but at indoor ranges if you catch one of these in the torso , best believe you'll be sitting this one out. If you're wearing III or IIIA soft armor and that ton and a half of energy gets deposited into your chest cavity , you're instantly out of the fight.

But I digress....lol , like I've stated before , I'm a .45 guy... I like big holes...but with todays ammo selection I wouldn't feel "Outgunned" with a 9mm JHP +P or a .40 JHP... a 5.7 on the other hand would worry me as I don't have confidence in the round.

I hope my post isn't too long or boring but I've spent a significant amount of time reading and studying about the differences in handgun rounds.
I own 9mm, and .40S&W, and .45 ACP.
The first time I was introduced to this discussion was with a group of co-workers when I first started buying guns as a hobby. Everyone had a different "fact" or reason, and the first thing I noticed was cultural and social.
The group of people was diverse economically and socially. The group was comprised of Airline Pilots, Airline Mechanics, Office workers, and hourly employees. I'm one of the office workers.
The people in the group at the top of the economic scale, some pilots, mechanics and office workers all swore by the power and efficiency of the .45 and to a lesser extent the .40S&W. They also owned multiple pistols in these calibers that were very expensive and were items not just for shooting, but also for display, and discussion.
Those in the lower economic range extolled the virtues of the faster and and higher capacity 9mm and to a lesser extent the .40S&W. They owned much more modest weapons like Glock and Taurus and fewer of them.
I decided to go in the middle and get a .40S&W first since both groups agreed it was a good solid performing round with a good range of manufacturers creating solid weapons that used it.
Since the round was S&W I went with a S&W pistol. I shot a decent range of manufacturers and finally settled on a S&W sigma. I've shot thousands of .40 at this point from multiple fire arms and have a firm understanding of that round in multiple formulations.
After that I purchased a .45 ACP because a friend was selling it to raise some cash for a vehicle emergency.
It was a "cheap" gun, and I didn't enjoy shooting it. It was very loud, the re-acquire time after each shot made me feel like I was sighting up for the first time with each shot. It was less enjoyable than shooting .40S&W.
I have been told a thousand times that the "cheap" gun is the real reason I didn't like shooting .45ACP and if I only had a $3,000.00 Kimber Pro that had been lovingly crafted by Jesus's own hand, I would feel completely different. So I shot my friends Kimber Pro. Nope. Still very jumpy, still very loud, and still feels like each shot is a brand new shot.
The next pistol I purchased was a 9mm helwan my brother wanted to sell because his wife didn't like having a pistol in the house with their small children. After worrying for a month whether the gun was even safe to shoot I finally went to the range and was pleasantly surprised. Even with an 8 shot magazine and being 24 years old that helwan was a very enjoyable gun to shoot. So I went out and purchased "the" 9mm semi auto in the form of a Beretta 92 double stack. Could not have been happier. Such a smoother shooting experience. Even rapid firing it was so easy to keep on target. Double handed it was even better. One right after the other quick trigger pulls and grouping is cutting the paper as one round punches so close to the last one that it isn't even making a new hole it's just tearing the edges of the last hole.
I didn't really like .45, and I really liked 9mm and .40S&W seemed like a decent balance. But I couldn't figure out why my .45 friends were so adamant that 9mm wasn't good enough.
So I wanted actual research. They all talked about stopping power, stopping power, stopping power. I figured that much be important. Until I actually did the research. What I found surprised me.
With the standard FMJ rounds that you would pick up at wal-mart or the sporting goods store, there isn't much of a difference between the 3 rounds.
All of them are around 450 ft-lbf of energy transfer. Of course this is "approximate". 9mm being a little lower with 115 gr at about 420 ft-lbf and .45ACP being the middle with around 450 ft-lbf and .40S&W actually being on the higher end with 165 gr and 480 ft-lbf.
So they are all really transferring about the same energy on impact. So where is the difference I asked?
Well all the .45 guys had the perfect answer for me. Bigger bullet, bigger hole. Simple physics really. Transfer the same energy with a heavier bigger bullet means it spreads out faster and does more damage. Makes perfect sense. Ok, I could understand that, but I also know a bit about physics. So I wasn't certain. So I decided to do some more research.

Continued in next post.

I wanted to know what happened when someone got shot. So I asked my sister in law who is a paramedic if she'd ever seen any GSW's. She was lucky enough to never have had a GSW call but she let me borrow her training videos about ballistic trauma. What an eye opener that was.
There was AMAZING information in that video for me. She didn't think it was all that impressive but she wasn't looking at it in the same way I was.
They showed wounds from .22's and .38s all the way up to deer rifles and accidental shotgun blasts. One guy in the video was about 30 and around 400 pounds and had been shot 6 times with a .38. WALKED HIMSELF into the ER and was immediately attended by two EMT's who were heading back out. 6 times. None of the bullets had exited his body. He was pretty fat. And he was pretty tall. 4 of the 6 shots were in his torso. No major organs hit, no artery's nothing vital. 1 in his thigh and 1 in his forearm. It was amazing. He was breathing hard and kind of whining when he had to move, but otherwise he was just walkin around and moving normal.

Another person shot with a .45 in the back of the shoulder had their shoulder blade shattered but they were otherwise unharmed. No giant hole through them, they had a punctured lung and were expected to make a full recovery.
A DOA had been shot 5 times with a .45 all in the center of his chest, but in that shooting apparently someone walked up on this man while he was sleeping and just lit him up. So that was no help to me as you can imagine.

What was the most help to me were the middle range of victims in the video. They were all 9mm wounds. Very few of them had exit wounds. Several of the people were bystanders shot in crossfire. Most of them were in a state of shock, twitching and moaning and incoherent. Most of them had 2-4 wounds ranging between their thigh and their neck. So these victims were suffering from ballistic shock.

Lemme shorten this. It's getting tedious again.
I decided to stick with 9mm. Once you look at the energy transfer for 9mm using Jacketed Hollow Point and then take into consideration the facts about Hydrostatic Shock waves that can cause more internal over pressure trauma you can see that a higher rate of fire, more controllable reacquire and the potential for multiple organ trauma to send a person into shock, it becomes kind of obvious that 9mm is the best overall round for self defense.

After doing all the research and learning about hydrostatic shock waves causing vascular, and organ trauma simply by passing through the semi solid tissue (very watery) at higher velocity, I'm very interested in purchasing an FN 5.7x28. I can't afford it right now, but I'd like to.

Because those rounds have a collapsing ballistic tip, and they move so much faster than even 9mm they hit with over 500 ft-lbf of energy. The shock waves from that much energy would probably cause even more ballistic trauma.
And my ONLY goal in carrying a hand gun is to make sure that I have to shoot as few rounds as possible to make the person I am shooting at stop being effective at whatever they were doing that made me want to shoot them in the first place. Right?
That's the goal, just to make that person STOP doing what they were doing. I don't need them to die. I don't need to rip them to shreds. I just need them to be unable to do what they were doing.

So if ballistic trauma sends a person into shock and makes them unable to add 2+2 and chew gum at the same time then that's good enough for me.
This also brings up an interesting point about .22 Magnum rounds and the velocity that they travel.

reply to post by Butterbone



I enjoyed your post , I'm just wondering where you got that 500 ft-lbs number from as far as the energy the round produces. The highest I've seen is mid to low 3's in the P90 and mid to low 2's in the FiveSeven.

Originally posted by Butterbone
All of them are around 450 ft-lbf of energy transfer. Of course this is "approximate". 9mm being a little lower with 115 gr at about 420 ft-lbf and .45ACP being the middle with around 450 ft-lbf and .40S&W actually being on the higher end with 165 gr and 480 ft-lbf.
.

This is what many people claiming the .40 is a compromise fail to understand. It's between the 9mm and .45 in size but at the top of the heap in terms of kinetic energy. The 125 gr JHP in my .357 Magnum are right at 500 ft lbs of energy. The 165 gr JHP in my .40 glock are just behind that at 494 ft lbs of energy. The reason many special military units use the .45 is they are bound by law to FMJ ammo. FMJ 9mm ammo is a very poor stopper. I will continue to carry my .40 glock and just look with amusement at those who claim the .45 is "top of the heap".

I don't dislike .45s by the way. I've shot a number of them and they are fun to shoot. I'm not sure I would carry one though. Many of them seem to have a propensity to jam, could be embarrassing when a goblin is unloading on you with a saturday night special and you try to return fire. My glock, all of them, has always gone "bang" when I pulled the trigger.

Originally posted by EyesWideShut
reply to post by Butterbone

 

I enjoyed your post , I'm just wondering where you got that 500 ft-lbs number from as far as the energy the round produces. The highest I've seen is mid to low 3's in the P90 and mid to low 2's in the FiveSeven.

^^^^

Clearly I am a huge fan of the 5.7 round, but I don't think I have ever seen any ballistic charts where it produced 500ft-lbs during impact. I honestly don't even think this is physically possible considering the beginning gr of the round. The 5.7 isn't designed to hit an object with huge amounts of weight, it was designed to hit an object with extremely fast speeds, penetrate armor, and then fragment leaving massive internal wounding, very similar to the 5.56nato. I am a huge believer in any round that doesn't exit, simply because I have used the 5.56 in Iraq and know how crazy the wounds can get when it doesn't exit. Imagine a pinball machine, where the ball is moving at 2500fps and hitting bones, organs, and tissue, MASSIVE destruction.

Originally posted by EyesWideShut
reply to post by Butterbone

 

I enjoyed your post , I'm just wondering where you got that 500 ft-lbs number from as far as the energy the round produces. The highest I've seen is mid to low 3's in the P90 and mid to low 2's in the FiveSeven.

Yeah that was my bad. Average 500 Joules so roughly 375 ft-lbf from a 10 inch barrel, and slightly lower for a 5 inch. Readin the wrong number and got all excited like.

Penetration and rate of expansion is where I was most interested. And multiple (splinter) object cavitation.
It fits with my belief in multiple organ trauma over pressurization damage throughout other systems in the body.

I alternately carry the 9mm or the .40S&W depending on the situation anyway. One holds 15 and one holds 17, so it's not a real contest. I'm more comfortable and confident in my abilities with both of them than the .45 so that's what gets carried.

I've never fired a .45, only a 9mm and I'm not sure from which gun, it was a beretta, it was small and had a fair amount of kick. Seeing as I have no experience firing a .45 I don't have any say there but If I was going to buy a hand gun I would go with the 9mm just for the common ammo alone. It's not a small round, I'm an okay shot, I'm not worried about a living target still coming at me after I've plugged several bullets into their chest. Besides, if it's real stopping power I'm after... that's what I got the AK for.

9mm is a hotter round that tends to over-penetrate so its best to go with hollow-points.

.45acp is all about the mass factor of the slug with less speed so its best to go full metal jacket.

Both are good but the 9mm is more plentiful and better for shtf scenario.

Even a .22lr shot by an expert will get the job done on the first shot, so the arguement of bigger is always better is mute as far as I am concerned. Whatever feels more comfortable during shooting, best for your budget and most adaptable to all combat situations would be the gun to get.

If you can afford to get more than one gun then so much the better for you. Stocking up on ammunition before shtf should be your #1 concern though. There is no sense in carrying "excessive luggage" if you know what I mean.

reply to post by EarthCitizen07


Yes, indeed. It doesn't matter what caliber you have. As long as you have one and know how to use it. Train well, train often.

80% of your training should be done with no ammo. Get those techniques trained into muscle memory.

Train 80% with iron sights. Trust me. Mr. Murphy will visit you during the most inconvenient times. Your optics may be out of batteries. Or sight got misaligned somehow. Practice with your iron sights. They are the most challenging to use.

reply to post by guppy


I think it is better to train with the lightest caliber gun at first so that flinching is a non-issue. 22lr pistol and 22lr rifle are best in this regard or .25acp! Then move to .32acp, 9mm and then .45acp. Shooting a gun should be both comfortable and effective at the same time.

It is good to have friends with access to guns so you can try out various schemes before commiting money.

An excellent article on this:

Handgun Stopping Power

Bullet Performance Misconceptions On page 35, Marshall and Sanow state: "The Winchester 9mm 147-grain OSM was designed for maximum accuracy from carbine weapons in military roles. It is not suitable for maximum stopping power from handguns in a police or defensive role." On the next page, they add that the 9mm 147gr JHP: "...could not be a worse round for police use, according to actual police shooting results." On page 188, the authors state: "The lackluster street performance from the heavy 9mm 147-grain bullets can be traced directly to too much penetration and too little expansion." Marshall and Sanow write on page 62: "Ballistic gelatin results clearly predict the 115-grain jacket hollowpoint to be the top load in 9mm." They offer no justification to support their assertions. In fact, the actual published data on 9mm JHP ammunition shows their comments to be utterly false and inaccurate. After extensive testing to determine the best 9mm JHP ammunition for personal defense use in the XM-11 9mm compact pistol designated for military criminal investigators, military police, Department of Defense security personnel, and military intelligence agencies, ordnance engineers selected the 9mm 147gr JHP, citing its "outstanding performance" compared to 9mm 124gr and 115gr ammunition.13 The test report makes special note that the various 9mm 115gr +P+ and 124gr +P+ JHP cartridges offered the worst performance of any ammunition tested. The 9mm 147gr JHP is also in current operational use by some U.S. military special operations forces and, despite Marshall’s and Sanow’s opinion, it has proven quite effective when fired from pistols such as the SIG P226 and Beretta M9/10 (92F/92FS).

I'll stick with my .40/.45s, I think. Sig P229 is my carry.

I'll stick with my Sig p229.