Happy Thanksgiving Pistoler0 and to other posters who've posted on this topic,
For Pistoler0: I completely get it. In your scenario of handgun hunting in CO, minimum energy standards (which I believe are arbitrary) make the .45 Super viable. Hence, I agree with you: a .45 Super has utility that the .45 Auto lacks.
For all otters: self-defense handgun cartridges discussions/debates are academic, mostly entertainment. They lack relevance if they exclude the dominant criterion: the process of human incapacitation. Biology is controlling when determining whether a bipedal threat remains a threat.
Destruction of a bad guy's CNS will always immediately terminate his bad intentions. Absent a lucky CNS hit, a good guy will have to reduce a bad guy's blood pressure to zero as necessary to deny oxygenated blood to his depraved noggin. Lacking topside oxygenated blood supply, all that is living will die. This is a fundamental law of biology. There are no exceptions. Metabolism will determine remaining vertical time remaining. For human beings, it's 8 seconds. For big game animals, it can be as long as 30 seconds.
It's always most wise idea to avoid gunfights. In a gunfight, a bad guy intends to reduce a good guy to evidence preparatory for autopsy the following morning. No one in his right mind would engage in a gunfight when running away from one would assure his survival. The only exception is law enforcement. Cops have to engage. They do not have option of running away. Engaging marauding bad guys is a requirement of their profession. For the rest of us, becoming a live witness rather than evidence of murder is the only sane option.
In extremely rare cases where tactical retreat is not an option leaving engaging as the only option, many factors will come into play. Far more important than hitting a bad guy is taking action that would, prayerfully, prevent a bad guy from hitting a good guy. A good guy must remove himself from a bad guy's sight picture. Standing toe-to-toe and shooting it out with a bad guy is Hollywood myth with deadly consequences.
We all have our opinions, some more enlightened than others. People can become ingenious when it comes to rationalizing their favorite handguns and cartridges. In the end, a self-defense handgun and cartridge should be the meshing of scientific evidence with circumstances of most likely bad guy confrontations. The best way to avoid bad guy confrontations and remaining vertical is situational awareness and tactical retreating. If I were in a 5-star restaurant dining with a drop dead gorgeous woman and tatted up bangers were to enter, I'd pay and leave posthaste. Avoidance = survival.
There's a controlling axiom in gunfighting: one good guy vs. one bag guy = bad odds for the good guy. I completely get it that a large city dweller (LA, for example) would probably be best served with a standard capacity 9MM if his most likely encounter would be 2 very bad guys. Add a third bad guy or more, and I'd pray for an Apache helicopter as back-up.
I'd recommend to good guys who want avoid becoming evidence of murder to exclude revolvers if reloading would be likely. Revolvers are pronounced tactical disadvantages in gunfights, exponentially more so if a good guy were confronted by more than one marauder.
Keeping in mind that sentimental preference almost always controls handgun selection, people do not always choose the best handguns for saving their lives. Many people choose their sentimental favorites that aren't always best. I will never tell such a person that he has chosen poorly. Depending upon circumstances, I might diplomatically angle in the concept of reconsidering. I do know that sentiment does negate practicality.
Returning to biological laws that hasten incapacitation, absent a CNS hit, one has to rely upon the lengthy process of reducing a bad guy's blood pressure to zero. 8 seconds is an eternity if a bad buy were putting rounds on a good guy. Absent a heart shot (Humans will live 8 seconds more with a nonfunctioning heart, an eternity if a bad guy were to continue to put rounds on a good guy.) a good guy will have to cause massive hemorrhaging of blood to effect zero blood pressure. Hence, my preference for the 1911A1 .45 Auto: bigger holes = more bleeding, all else been equal. More big holes = more blood loss. More blood loss = hastened incapacitation. I know the refrain: modern technology has elevated the 9MM's status. However, for practical reasons, I'll never rely upon a bullet to perform like magic mushrooms found in handgun ammunition manufacturers' marketing adds. I'll take bullet expansion, but I will not rely upon it to remain vertical. That Irishman and his pesky law seem to arise at worst possible times.
There is no such trick as defensive handgun stopping power. That is classic pulp fiction. The 10MM doesn't have it, and neither does the .45 Super.
There is no such thing as a bad hit on a bad guy. Any hit on a bad guy is a good hit. Some hits are better than others, but there are no bad hits.
For self-defense use, if anyone wants to go with a .45 Super or 10MM or any other cartridge, he might want to reconcile his choice with laws of biology.
I completely understand Psitoler0's need for a .45 Super. He is burdened with his state law that requires minimum handgun energy for big game hunting. For self-defense, there is no benefit of the .45 Super vis-a-vis the .45 Auto.
I've done a lot of circling to have long past full circle. While I couldn't tell you the last time I've carried a handgun on my person, if it were practical and I lived in an area plagued with high crime, I'd carry a full-size 1911A1 loaded with Fed 230 grain HST LE +P ammo. A full-size 1911A1 is easy to conceal. But it's not easy to carry when wearing urban clothing. It is one heavy handgun. My preference is based upon objective criteria: sight picture retention (recoil does not remove muzzle from threat), simplistic design of 1911A1, low pressure yet powerful cartridge, ease of concealment, proven cartridge with stellar track record, extremely fast reload, and the most perfect natural point of any handgun I've held. All of its vaunted attributes are wiped out by its weight. Hence, my urban carry compromise is a Springfield Armory EMP 3 9MM loaded with Fed 147 grain HST LE standard pressure rounds. However, when I'm in deep wilderness areas pursuing trout, I carry a Springfield Armory TRP .45 Auto loaded with Fed 230 grain HST LE +P ammo. I wear an excellent gun belt attached thereto is an excellent OWB open top holster.
Anecdote: I have carried a 1911 with 230 grain W-W White Box ball ammo and never felt the least bit slighted.
I know that personal preference and sentiment often does prevail. I'm completely good. Who the heck am I to tell another that his sentimental favorite is a poor choice? For bipedal self-defense, if people want to believe that the 10MM or .45 Super are superior to the .45 Auto, I'm good. They know what's right for them; however, their sentimental favorites might conflict with laws of biology and science of gunfight survival.
Pistoler0, under conditions of your state's handgun hunting law, the .45 Super is an excellent choice.
Here are a couple videos that support of my conclusion that the 1911A1 .45 Auto is alone at the pinnacle of self-defense handguns. I cannot over emphasize the critical importance of sight picture retention. Giving a bipedal marauder time to put rounds on a bad guy while a good guy reacquires sight picture due to recoil yanking his gun's muzzle off target can be a fatal tactical disadvantage.
Watch the blazing speed these guys accurately empty a full-size 1911A1, and that their gun's muzzles never leave sight pictures:
Skip to the 19:45 mark to view speed shooting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgs3nse8rW0
Thanksgiving 1911A1 rapid fire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgs3nse8rW0