Best caliber handgun for home defence?

I can't say exactly what was and wasn't on the individual reports or even what departments they came from but there was an article years ago in Guns and Ammo, if I remember correctly, and they claimed to have compiled information from police reports. What they were after was the percentage of time that the attacker was stopped with the first shot. None of this has anything to do with what happened to them afterwards, just whether or not they stopped which is all that really matters in a self defence scenario. What they found was a consistent increase in effectiveness as caliber and velocity went up and that, especially in smaller calibers, hollow points were more effective. They also found that handgun ammo designed for hunting was less effective since it is designed to penetrate and doesn't open as quickly which results in much of the rounds energy being deposited into whatever is behind the attacker instead of into the attacker.

I agree that when it comes to incapacitating a threat, human or otherwise, shot placement trumps power. If we were talking about a cns hit then I would agree that caliber/round choice is pretty much irrelevant but since we aren't, a bigger hole does more damage and lets more blood out. How much faster this results in an attacker being incapasitated is up to debate but a bigger hole is still a bigger hole. To say that caliber/round makes no difference is equivalent to saying that multiple hits would make no difference.

The bottom line is that the real question is not whether the caliber/round makes a difference. The real question is how much of a difference does it make.
 
"Safety Slugs" and the equivalent are gimmicks. Do some research on your own.

Everything else is opinion and preference. Since you asked :) I'll give you mine, and the data upon which I base it.

Low-pressure rounds such as the .38 Spl and the .45 acp, .45 LC produce a fair degree of power with relatively low noise/flash.

I prefer the .45 choices.
 
Webly, I must disagree with you on one point; tactics are not the solution to over penetration. Tactics are great, it is why we spent so much time training in the military, but in the heat of the moment instinct is what is gonna save your butt. Training helps develope instinct, but instinct allows little time for tactical considerations; this is good because in most(definitely not all) fire fights, things happen very fast.

I would suggest a round that will both not over penetrate(mostly) or under penetrate; a .45 acp or a .45 lc that is not+p. Avoid rounds with extremely high muzzle velocity, even though most are light they often tend to result in an in and out. Of course with pistols big enough to stop most men, if you miss, then you will probably go right through the wall or walls.
 
How good are your walls? Who lives in your home behind these walls?

Go from there.
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Really? Why don't cops consider walls and people who live behind the walls when they consider loads and guns?

I will tell you why. It's a non-issue. How many cases of collateral damage in shootings are you aware of?
 
The "best" post ever....

I loathe the "what's best" post questions on most firearm forums.
There are a lot of concerns or factors to consider before you can fully remark on what may or may not; "work best". :(

In general, for home protection or security, I'd suggest a simple DA only hammer fired pistol or revolver. Any of these common handgun calibers would work: 9x19mm, .38spl +P or +P+, .44spl, 10mm, .38Super, .45LC(long Colt), .40S&W, .327Fed, .357sig.
To use a well made factory hollowpoint or frangible/spec purpose round would do fine for protective use. Corbon Glaser Safety Slugs/Critical Defense/TAP/Magsafe etc.
I'd only use factory made, high quality rounds too. No reloads or handloads.

White lights(flashlights) & laser aiming units may help too.

ClydeFrog
www.SGammo.com www.ShopCorbon.com www.NatchezSS.com www.Cabelas.com www.Galls.com www.PoliceHQ.com
 
The best gun is the one you have at the time. caliber is probably one of the least important choices when you get down to it
 
Somebody else already posted the "biggest, heaviest you can shoot well" bit.

That said, one thing I like about heavier bullets is that they tend to be subsonic.

I like rounds that hit hard, without the sonic crack, or the recoil levels that tend to go with really high-speed rounds.

It's possible to find ammunition from good manufacturers, such as Hornady and Buffalo Bore, that is tailored to minimize flash, and propel a reliably expanding, reasonably heavy bullet at the high end of subsonic velocity. Less distracting, typically easier to shoot well than the high-velocity rounds a lot of people prefer.

I'd rather be able to put follow-on rounds on target, quickly, so I'd prefer to keep the flash and blast down if possible.
 
I use a 9mm because I reload for that caliber and most of my guns are 9mm,rifle cal or rimfire.

If I purchased a handgun specifically for home defense it would be a full size hicap .45 acp. I would hope the heavier bullet/slower speed would be less likely to penetrate(centerblock wall).
 
I'd like to see the G&A article, but I bet it is both full of flaws and lacking actual science behind the claim.

The bottom line is that the real question is not whether the caliber/round makes a difference. The real question is how much of a difference does it make.
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That's about it. The difference is minimal at very best. Bigger holes are bigger holes, but everything has a cost vs. benefit. The benefit is the bigger hole, that does ever-so-slightly more damage to tissue (that is often not realized), while the cost is speed with follow-up shots and capacity. It's a personal decision as to which one a person values more, and that's all that matters. I have rounds from .22 to .45 Auto, and many in between (including 10mm Auto). I don't feel undergunned with anything 9mm and up, but also don't feel like I'm gaining anything if I go above 9mm, due to the cost/benefit of each round. As I said before,carry anything .380 and up with confidence that it will work.

I agree with the post about overpenetration being less of an issue than underpenetration. You can't stop the fight if you can't reach the vitals.
 
In the context of the issue at hand, a 9mm JHP made cheaply by Winchester in their USA bulk line will work as well as a .45 ACP Gold Dot
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I disagree. Can't back it up but neither have you.

You say everything with such confidence. So, why are you .357 Sig?
 
I disagree. Can't back it up but neither have you.

You say everything with such confidence. So, why are you .357 Sig?
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Try this to start:
http://www.tacticalmedicalpacks.com/files/Combat_Tactics_Trauma_article.pdf
http://www.ajronline.org/cgi/reprint/155/4/685
http://radiographics.rsna.org/content/19/5/1358.full#sec-3
http://www.firearmstactical.com/wound.htm
http://www.soton.ac.uk/~jb3/bullet/gsw.html
http://www.veinsveinsveins.com/vein_treatment_news/62/Gunshot_Wounds_to_the_Heart.html

These both explain how gunshot wounds work and what can cause incapacitation. It can't tell you everything, which is why you need a background in some sort of medicine or human A&P to understand it fully. Nothing pinpoints the differences between calibers very well, but there are references to velocity being the determining factor in wounding, not size or weight. It is true that a larger round can cause more damage, but again, talking about a healthy person with, for example, a height of ~6' and 180 lbs, with 5 liters of blood running through them, how much is it going to matter whether you poke a hole with a 3/8" diameter vs. a 7/16" one? Couple that with psychological and physiological differences from person-to-person, and the answer is "not much" in the grand scheme of things, as has been observed with real treatment of real gunshots to various people, not gun magazine writers or LEOs who do not have even the first piece of a role in treatment of these injuries. Again, before bashing me for the LE comment, I have worked as a LEO for two large departments, so I'm not speaking as an inexperienced person on the issue. It sounds rough, but you can't expect people in a totally different role to be able to speak as experts on a subject that is unfamiliar to them, right?

Here are some CT images of gunshot wounds:
http://radiology.rsna.org/content/240/2/522.full

Again, look at the info, research further on your own, and you may see that there are many more important factors to incapacitation than caliber, and that caliber itself, or the tiny variance in KE when you go up in caliber, is at the bottom of the list, when speaking of common defense rounds.
 
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Webly, I must disagree with you on one point; tactics are not the solution to over penetration. Tactics are great, it is why we spent so much time training in the military, but in the heat of the moment instinct is what is gonna save your butt. Training helps develope instinct, but instinct allows little time for tactical considerations; this is good because in most(definitely not all) fire fights, things happen very fast.
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I never meant to imply that tactics can compensate for every possible situation, because they can't. However, I do still maintain that a well-developed home defense plan is a better way to address overpenetration than choosing underpenetrating ammo like safety slugs.

I would suggest a round that will both not over penetrate(mostly) or under penetrate; a .45 acp or a .45 lc that is not+p. Avoid rounds with extremely high muzzle velocity, even though most are light they often tend to result in an in and out. Of course with pistols big enough to stop most men, if you miss, then you will probably go right through the wall or walls.
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The problem with your suggestion is that high-velocity bullets often penetrate less rather than more because the higher velocity usually generates more aggressive expansion which, in turn, retards penetration. Have a look at the following:

http://www.firearmstactical.com/ammo_data/357magnum.htm

The heavier 145grn and 158grn loadings, despite their lower velocity, consistently penetrated several inches deeper than the lighter 125grn loadings.

Also, even if you hit the target, a .45 ACP isn't going to cure the risk of overpenetration. Most of the better .45 JHP's these days like Federal HST, Speer Gold Dot, and Winchester Rangers seem to penetrate in the neighborhood of 14". I am a fairly large individual at 6'4" and roughly 300lbs and even so, my torso is only about 10" deep at chest level. This means that even on someone of my size, a good .45 ACP with a straight-on frontal shot is likely to pass completely through. Of course, a shallowly-penetrating bullet would reduce such chances, but then you'd have issues of underpenetration with oblique angles or extremities.

The way I see it, I have at least some control over what angle I choose to position myself in so as to compensate for overpenetration. I do not, however, have any control over what position my attacker chooses to place himself in nor what size such an individual will be (though given my own size someone choosing to attack me is likely to be very large). While neither overpenetration nor underpenetration is a good thing, I'll choose to err on the side of what I have at least some control over.
 
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