Speer: Caliber doesn't matter

The inconvenient truth is that moving back to the .45 Colt didn't somehow prove the superiority of the .45 for all time and provide the impetus for God's Chosen Gun Designer, John Browning, to bestow upon a grateful world the .45 ACP AND the Colt 1911...
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Hey, is this what they call sarcasm? :rolleyes:

Mike, I'm sure you are familiar with the "Gospel of John Browning" (in part):
1 In the beginning was the 1911, and the 1911 was THE pistol, and it was good. And behold the Lord said, “Thou shalt not muck with my disciple John’s design for it is good and it workith. For John made the 1911, and lo all of his weapons, from the designs which I, the Lord, gave him upon the mountain.”

2 “And shouldst thou muck with it, and hang all manner of foul implements upon it, and profane its internal parts, thou shalt surely have malfunctions, and in the midst of battle thou shalt surely come to harm.” . . .

11 And when man had been totally ensnared with the plastic pistol, the lord of the underworld didst cause a plague of the terrible Ka-Boom to descend upon man and the plastic pistols delivered their retribution upon men. And there was a great wailing and gnashing of teeth in the land. . . .
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For the complete version, look at: http://www.frfrogspad.com/jmb.htm
 
"Hey, is this what they call sarcasm? "

Sarcasm? ME???

Of course not!

And that little... treatise... from frogpad is exactly why my cup of sarcasm floweth over.
 
Mike Irwin said:
"I'd venture to say that the Army went back to the .45 Colt because they had used it before and knew what it would do, and not do with decades of experience. And the fact that it was a bigger bullet didn't hurt any."



The Army went back to .45 Colt in the Philippines because it's what was available after the limitations of the .38 Long Colt became apparent...



Supposed even some of the old Remington Rolling Block pistols in .50 caliber were also dusted off and sent to the Philippines, but I've not heard how they fared -- if they were actual used against the Moros at all.



BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!



The inconvenient truth is that moving back to the .45 Colt didn't somehow prove the superiority of the .45 for all time and provide the impetus for God's Chosen Gun Designer, John Browning, to bestow upon a grateful world the .45 ACP AND the Colt 1911...



The inconvenient truth is that the .45 Colt failed to stop Moro attackers almost as often as the .38 Long Colt did. It did, however, have a much greater cumulative effect than the .38 LC, but it was far, FAR from being a certain thing, and it was not the laser beam of death so many have assumed it (and all other .45s) to be.



Another set of inconvenient truths is that Moros also were also often not stopped by either of the two standard rifle rounds in service in the Philippines -- the .30-40 US Army (Krag), and the .45-70 Springfield.



About the only thing that DID tend to stop a thoroughly pissed off Moro in his tracks was a load of buckshot from one of the Winchester 1893 or 1897 shotguns that were sent to the Philippines.
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The history here tells a clear story:
Pistol rounds suck at physiologically forcing a threat to stop. The ONLY sure way to stop a fight ESPECIALLY with pistol rounds is to directly and catastrophically disrupt the CNS of a threat. Rifle rounds get a little leeway due to the velocity of the round causing hydraulic "waves" strong enough to damage parts of the CNS without actually directly touching it, thought that doesn't guarantee anything even more so given lower velocities like the heavier 30-40 Krag loads.

.45ACP expands to the largest diameter of any "common" pistol round. This gives me the strongest chance per round of disrupting the CNS of a given threat. 9mm gives me more chances per magazine of a given size to disrupt the CNS of a given threat.

Sent from my SM-N981U using Tapatalk
 
When speaking of the Moro insurrection and the arms used, don't use the capabilities of modern expanding bullets as your yardstick.

The pistol bullets were lead (which does smush some but nothing like a HP or modern JHP) and the rifle bullets were issue FMJ (mostly .30-40 Krag, 220gr RN FMJ) which kills and has amazing penetration but not a good rep for close range stopping people. 12ga does, primarily due to the mass of the projectile(s) at short range with low pellet spread.

What I'm getting from that Speer fellow's opinion is that he's saying modern bullet construction and loads allow smaller calibers to be as good as larger ones.

I happen to believe there's no substitute for mass in certain situations. But then, I'm not selling ammunition....:rolleyes:
 
"and the rifle bullets were issue FMJ (mostly .30-40 Krag, 220gr RN FMJ)"

The standard military load for the .45-70 was a 405-gr. LRN bullet at about 1400 fps, IIRC.

By the time the Moro Rebellion really kicked off into hard core fighting (around 1902-1903) the Springfield Trapdoors were being withdrawn from service but were still being issued to some American troops and to the Philippino Constabulary.

Interestingly enough, the Winchester shotguns that were sent to the Philippines were intended to arm the Constabulary, not American troops.

By the end of the Rebellion, Trapdoors and Krags had been withdrawn and replaced with the new Springfield Model 1903 in both .30-03 and .30-06. But, apparently by the time they really started hitting the hands of the troops the worst of the fighting was over.
 
44 AMP said:
I'd venture to say that the Army went back to the .45 Colt because they had used it before and knew what it would do, and not do with decades of experience. And the fact that it was a bigger bullet didn't hurt any. :rolleyes:

The .38 Colt's failure to stop Moro attacks as well as the .45 had stopped attacks in the past was enough for them to pull the "smallbore" pistol and go back to what they knew worked better.

And that mindset held firm, with good reason for a long time. When dealing with non expanding bullets at black powder speeds, bigger is ALWAYS better (more effective).
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I'm not so sure that it was caliber that mattered, I think the issue was the soldiers weren't used to the double action trigger and where they hit the enemy the shots were not where they should have been. Had they been the SAA with the single action trigger, they'd have hit the correct area.

We probably would have heard of the same issues with the New Service, but that was in service for such a short amount of time before the 1911 showed up.
 
44 AMP said:
Once you get above the minimum amount needed to get the bullet where it needs to go under all possible circumstances, more energy doesn't get you anything, HOWEVER not knowing what the needed minimum might be, and even if we did, delivering just enough and no more isn't possible, different situations need different amounts.

So, delivering the maximum amount practical is used to ensure, as much as anyone can, that enough reaches the needed point.

Personally, I'd rather have a bullet with enough energy to exit than rely on one that might stop just short of where it needs to go because some lab standard said it was enough and the real world said otherwise.
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Yeah, I've long held that 12 inches in gel is my standard, but I'm never going to complain if it was 15 or 18 inches deep. That said, I don't put as much faith in expansion diameter because, frankly, I don't think it matters what the diameter is, just that the bullet expanded and transferred more energy in a shorter amount of time than if it just passed right thru someone.

Exit wounds may be desired on the battlefield, but they're not in civilian self defense.

That said, with a long enough barrel like a Beretta 84, I'd have faith in .380 with a good hollow point to protect me.
 
Exit wounds may be desired on the battlefield, but they're not in civilian self defense.
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I'd say that exit wounds in self defense are a matter of personal preference. I happen to desire exit wounds because I think two hole are better than one. And my personal situation means other people are at little to no risk from an exiting bullet.

Police don't like exiting bullets, but police shoot lots and lots more people than I every have or will, and a lot of the time, there are other people at risk. I remember hearing about a NYC shootout where the cops wounded a half a dozen people, (I think killed a couple) and didn't even hit the bad guy.

SO in those kinds of situations, exits are ...suboptimal.

I live out in the country, nearest neighbor is several hundred yards away, and dozens of yards different in elevation. with orchards in between. I want a bullet that goes all the way through, because I KNOW one that does that has the power to reach and go through the vitals. Personal choice.
 
The only US ammo company Vista doesn't own is Hornady (spelling fixed), Winchester, and Barnes/Sierra.
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There are literally hundreds of ammo companies other than those listed, and Vista's ownership of CCI/Federal/Remington Brands. Some are pretty small of course, but they still exist, presumably at the pleasure of Vista since they control 80% of the primers.

We make too large an issue of stopping power and shot placement with handgun rounds. They are a compromise between a knife and a rifle. They are primarily a defensive weapon and comparison to rifle rounds is a silly argument. Lumped together, pistol calibers are actually pretty close and based on their use, there are a LOT of variables to consider. Better to have a pistol than not, and better to move up in caliber if you will still carry it and can shoot it well.
 
About the only thing that DID tend to stop a thoroughly pissed off Moro in his tracks was a load of buckshot from one of the Winchester 1893 or 1897 shotguns that were sent to the Philippines.
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I have been at this for a long time and I have watched caliber debates rage like religious jihad, I have seen folks die on the hill of Glock or AK or AR etc. I’ve seen fairly intelligent people fall back on “They all fall to hard ball” or “Cuz they don’t make a .46” etc. (I like .45 by the way :)). The point of all this is I have seen every argument possible in the gun community enough times to be able to predict answers. All that said you know the ONE thing I have virtually never seen argued in the gun community? The effectiveness of 12 gauge 00 buck within its effective envelope. Ohhh they’ll argue platform or shotgun vs. rifle etc. and I am the first person to say a shotgun is more an experts weapon then not but at the end of the day a properly placed load of 00 Buck is BIG MEDICINE. :)
 
There is no magic bullet. Some things tend to work better than others on average but everything has succeeded, (at least once) and everything has failed. Every shooting and everyone shot is at least slightly different, and some are drastically different.

Read a report once where a guy took two (2) 12 ga slugs in the chest and ran away. Didn't run far, ran around the corner of a building and died, but he did run away.

Saw a morgue photo of a large man (300lbs) with 33 (thirty three) 9mm torso hits. They said one round killed him, 5 or 6 would have, but he was hit that many times before falling down.

Friend of mine spoke with a guy who had shot two people both with ball ammo, one with a .45 and the other with a 9mm. He said the same thing about both times, "I shot him twice, he fell down".

If the bullet gets to the right place, it usually works. If it doesn't, it usually doesn't. And, I think a bullet that goes through the right place has a better chance of working than one that doesn't.
 
There are magic bullets but only on TV and in the movies. I recall seeing one surveillance video, the storekeeper/cashier shot the perpetrator once, he screamed, ran outside may 10 steps and collapsed. I would like to see the toxicology reports in many of these cases.
IIRC the Moros often wore armor made of bamboo or something equally tough and they were accused of using drugs.
 
Sorry, did not read the article, but from the summary this comes across as Marketspeak for, "We can't meet demand for the good stuff, so just buy what you can find and be happy."
 
Mike Irwin said:
"Steel plates fall faster when hit with the .45 than they do with the .38."

That's called momentum. It doesn't have a lot of correlation against targets in which the bullet actually penetrates.
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You wanna be hit with a BB going 150FPS and a Bowling Ball going 150FPS and then tell me momentum doesn't matter?????
 
"You wanna be hit with a BB going 150FPS and a Bowling Ball going 150FPS and then tell me momentum doesn't matter?????"

Ludicrous, meaningless, and completely pointless "comparison."

A BB weigh 3 grains. A bowling ball can weigh as much as 112,000 grains (16 pounds) or over 37THOUSAND times the weight.

The discussion was of bullets of a similar weight traveling at a similar velocity striking a non deforming target.

But, to join the spirit of the supposition, how about a puff of wind vs Mt. Everest? Of course, Mt. Everest would probably make the steel plate deform... a bit.
 
No, the point is, when it comes to bullet effectiveness and ability to "stop" someone, momentum is so far down the list that it's not even funny.

If it were truly the be all end all of bullet performance, it wouldn't matter what happened with the bullet when it impacts the target. Expand? Who cares? MOMENTUM!

And, if momentum were truly the be all and end all to handgun/bullet performance, larger calibers would show exponentially greater performance over smaller calibers. They don't not even by a long shot.

As I said, the only time momentum really comes into play is when you're trying to knock over a steel plate or a bowling pin.

If you're trying to stop a human from harming/killing you, you'd best be concentrating on considerations other than momentum.
 
Momentum comes into play when you punch a deer through the shoulders or impact the vertebrae or major skeletal structures of an upright biped. That these high momentum bullets are typically larger is just icing on the cake.

I've shot too much stuff and had too much exposure to autopsy reports where a .4+ service pistol bullet's effect was described as " an approximate one inch defect through (name 2-3 major organs/systems and associated membranes/bones) to be convinced otherwise.

Carry whatever you want and shoot well. The critical aspects of personal defense are having a weapon available, an 'auto-pilot familiarity' with it, the determination to fight back and the resolve follow through with it.
 
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