Which Caliber?

What would you do?
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I can only tell you what I have done. For home defense I use a CZ 75 P-01 (9MM), I can thread a nettle with it and have shot 9MM's for over 50 years. But I would not rely on a single shot to stop an attacker.

For outside carry, I use a Bersa Thunder 45 Compact Pro (45 ACP).

For hunting in my state, the min requirement for a handgun for hunting is a 357 Mag. Used with a 157 grain bullet it is very effective at short range.

I dumped both of my 40 S&W's because I did not like the snappy recoils and it really did not serve the purposes better than the other two calibers.

You need to make the choice on what YOU think will be the best solution for your use and what you feel most comfortable with.

Good luck and stay safe.
Jim
 
marine6680,

An excellent defense of the 9 Luger. I have one clarification and one correction.

Clarification
You might as well not even talk about the energy of a handgun round... As the energy differences don't really matter much if anything on how well a bullet performs terminally.
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For the most part, handgun energy is just fuel for bullet penetration and expansion. But, evidence suggests handgun energy transfers above 500 ft·lbf cause remote hydrostatic shock to the brain, thus contributing to rapid incapacitation:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrostatic_shock#Energy_transfer_required_for_remote_neural_effects.

In a semiauto platform, you can get such energy at the muzzle with a .357 SIG or a 10 Auto.

Correction
You may could make an argument based around ball ammo, but that's dubious, as the difference in the hole size is actually not very significant ... .
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A 9 Luger bullet has a diameter of 0.3555 inch, while a .45 Auto bullet has a diameter of 0.452 inch. This equates to cross-sectional areas of 0.0993 and 0.1605 square inches, respectively. The 62% advantage for the .45 Auto is yuge.
 
A 9 Luger bullet has a diameter of 0.3555 inch, while a .45 Auto bullet has a diameter of 0.452 inch. This equates to cross-sectional areas of 0.0993 and 0.1605 square inches, respectively. The 62% advantage for the .45 Auto is yuge.
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In terms of a percent difference, yes it is huge. Whether that percent difference equates to a huge difference in terminal effect on the target is, imo, open to debate.
 
9x19, 9mm Parabellum, 9mm Luger all the same cartridge is a fine choice.
Economical, less recoil, higher capacity make it my first choice for a pistol's ammunition.
 
Some handgun rounds do reach up there in energy, enough that it may start to matter... Just not the big three, which are the more practical for most people and use scenarios.

I thought about mentioning that, but felt it detracted from the topic a bit.
 
I'm with marine6680. He's covered the bases pretty good. I had hoped to limit myself to one caliber, which was 9mm. Then, .22lr ammo became more accessible, so I picked up a few guns of that caliber. Then, my wife wanted a revolver for home defense, so I picked up a couple of .375/.38 Specials's. Then my shooting buddy talked me into a 1911 handgun, so I have 3 .45APC handguns. Finally realized there were several guns I'd wanted, since forever, so it led me to .380 handguns.

If I ever go back to hunting, who knows how large a caliber I might go with. That same shooting buddy turned me on to the AR format. So LWRC IC M6 SPR wound up in my house, that's .5.56/.223. I guess I could hunt some types of game with it.

So much for one caliber, one gun. I've been shooting at least 70 years; a couple of times a week for the past two years.:)
 
I've decided.

Like I said in the OP I deff want something in all of the calibers so here's what I'm gonna do...

I'm going with the .40 since that is what I know and use best now and I'm not too convinced that 9mm is truly all that much better than 40, the only reason I can think is that I can carry 3 more rounds.
Having said that, I do still want a 9mm at some point. For that I am going to opt for a P226 Mk25 OR just a simple caliber exchange kit for the 320.
Seeing as how I still really want a .45 I am also putting one on my gun wish list, because the 10 round capacity on the 320 kills that option for me also. So next on the wish list is either a Glock .45 or a good old fashioned 1911.

Now I said this was a temporary hunting sidearm so what I am going to carry when I am out is a Glock 20 10mm for the medium sized game if I get close enough. And for the big game I'm gonna get a .454 Casull Taurus Raging Bull and put it in a chest rig.

So a grand total of 6 handguns. I like it!
 
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In terms of a percent difference, yes it is huge. Whether that percent difference equates to a huge difference in terminal effect on the target is, imo, open to debate.
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Only if you want to argue that the bigger bullet can pass through vital organs without making a larger wound channel. The FBI's argument is that forensic physicians can't determine the caliber of a bullet from eyeballing the wound channel. That's not the same as saying there is no difference in wound channels. The prevalence of JHP ammo would make any physician refrain from calling the caliber without a spent bullet in hand.

When dealing with JHPs, a look at the terminal ballistics performance being reported by manufacturers is enlightening. It does seem that 9 Luger is slightly outperforming .40 S&W and .45 Auto, as the FBI claims. I assume that is hecause manufacturers have been focusing on enhancing 9 Luger performance, and that the process is time and resource intensive. I have no doubt they can take what they've learned and improve performance of the larger calibers if they wanted to.

Some handgun rounds do reach up there in energy, enough that it may start to matter... Just not the big three, which are the more practical for most people and use scenarios.
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I agree. Handguns that can generate meaningful energies in terms of causing hydrostatic shock are handicapped by high recoil. For most DGUers, energy is simply fuel for what does the damage -- penetration and expansion.
 
Only if you want to argue that the bigger bullet can pass through vital organs without making a larger wound channel. The FBI's argument is that forensic physicians can't determine the caliber of a bullet from eyeballing the wound channel. That's not the same as saying there is no difference in wound channels. The prevalence of JHP ammo would make any physician refrain from calling the caliber without a spent bullet in hand.
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Handgun calibers don't primarily kill people by the holes they make when passing through the body, at least generally not quickly enough to end a fight before the other person can kill you. They kill people by hitting vital organs or preferably (in terms of time) the central nervous system on their way through the body. If the round passes through you without hitting either of those, it's no picnic but it doesn't generally stop a fight. When you think about it that way, it again becomes an issue of diameter as to whether on a straight line course through the body that extra width will hit one of those critical locations. Now 0.1" more is still 0.1" more, but then we have to imagine an instance where 0.1"/2 (that is the same round in the same location but with the larger diameter) more around the center is what hits the organ or central nervous system and ends the fight. That's not inconsequential, but to me not really convincing.
 
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Incapacitation from handgun rounds is through bleed out, which is slow... Hitting a vital organ, which can vary in time from a few seconds to minutes... Or hitting the central nervous system, which is pretty instantaneous.

So shot placement into important areas is the key to quickly stopping a threat.

If we assume no expansion, then the likelihood of any shot missing a vital area of the body as a 9mm, but managing a glancing but effective blow due to having the extra 0.1 inch diameter is low... And if we are assuming all variables are identical, down to the center of the wound path and the exact path taken... Then really, you only have the radius to work with, as that is the distance from center that it can extend farther in the direction we want... As in closer to the vital area.

So 0.05 inch difference... And that is supposed to increase the chances of any given shot being a hit or miss?


No, just no... The probabilities are just too low for it to matter.

Not when much more tangible and significant advantages exist for the 9mm.


There is a reason the military moved to smaller calibers that allowed a soldier to carry more rounds. So long as the bullet you are using can do the job of stopping the target, then more rounds are better. If the rounds are weak and not very effective... Then more rounds are definitely better. And the big three are all equally pathetic terminally.



I look at the argument that 45 is better because the extra diameter might turn a miss into a hit, as basically the same as someone who argues against wearing a seatbelt because they know a guy who died because he was wearing a seatbelt.

Basically it's a low chance of probability... It ignores the higher probability scenario.

The short of it... You are many times more likely to need more rounds, or quicker follow up shots than you will need 0.05in of added projectile radius to stop a fight.

Human beings have an amazingly hard time thinking rationally. In whole or in part... And often times when they do think they are being rational, their conclusions are actually contradictory to reality.

Many of the arguments over caliber, can fall into this category.
 
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TR and marine,

You are strawmanning the argument. No one is arguing that a bigger bullet permits one to be less accurate. In fact, I will argue the bigger the caliber, the greater the recoil; thus, less accuracy, which is a negative factor. But, ignoring that and confining the argument to bullet size alone, all else being equal, a bigger bullet is more effective.

A bullet does not wound on the basis of diameter or radius; it wounds on the basis of cross-sectional area. Perhaps the best metric for comparison is volume of tissue damaged per unit length of vital tissue traversed. In the case of a FMJ .45 that is 0.1605 in^3/in; for the FMJ 9 it is 0.0993 in^3/in. The metric simplifies to in^2, or simply the cross-sectional area.

There can be no doubt that two identical wound paths, one with a .45 and the other with a 9, the one with the .45 will impart more damage, precisely 62% more. A bad guy with a .16-in^2 hole in his heart will almost certainly bleed out faster than his twin with a hole in the same place, but only 0.0992-in^2. Neither will live long enough to dictate his will, but the guy with the bigger hole will very likely bleed out faster.

Now, from my perspective, other factors have led me to choose 9 Luger over .45 Auto, specifically, less recoil (thus, greater accuracy), and far greater capacity. In terms of wounding potential, my 15-round CZ 75 Compact chambered in 9 Luger exceeds that of an 8-round compact 1911 chambered in .45 Auto. But, don't fool yourself and others by falsely stating that a bigger FMJ bullet does not make a bigger wound, which, all else being equal, is more effective.
 
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We're not strawmanning the argument. We see it from a different perspective than you do.

You constantly accuse people of using strawman arguments on this forum. In order for there to be a strawman argument there has to be an effort on our part to intentionally debate a topic we believe we can win to avoid having an honest debate with you. The topic of debate here is, to my knowledge, the terminal effect of handgun calibers. I don't believe anything we've said has strayed from this, nor am I aware of myself remotely suggesting a bigger bullet permits less accuracy. That notion is in fact a strawman on your behalf! Last time you accused me of saying you said something that you didn't I had to quote what you said in order for you to remember that you had typed it. Perhaps give us the benefit of the doubt, as I have done with you in the past, instead of implying our dishonesty?

A bad guy with a .16-in^2 hole in his heart will almost certainly bleed out faster than his twin with a hole in the same place, but only 0.0992-in^2. Neither will live long enough to dictate his will, but the guy with the bigger hole will very likely bleed out faster."]A bad guy with a .16-in^2 hole in his heart will almost certainly bleed out faster than his twin with a hole in the same place, but only 0.0992-in^2. Neither will live long enough to dictate his will, but the guy with the bigger hole will very likely bleed out faster.
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A hit to the heart or aorta is bound to be an incapacitating shot with either of these calibers. I'm not convinced that the difference in time of bleed out will be significant between the two, unless you have medical reports suggesting otherwise (and any medical reports I have read regarding handgun wounds indicate that the differences between them are not significant). The same is true for a hit to the central nervous system. My argument is that a hit to a critical organ is just as debilitating with 9mm as 45ACP and a hit to the central nervous system is usually instantly debilitating. If your point is that bleeding out in 0.5 seconds is faster than 0.7 seconds, then yes I agree. However, my point is that I don't believe these differences to necessarily have a noticeable real world effect.

From the ballistics testing I've seen, I'm of the opinion that the goal of a handgun round is to penetrate to the required depth and maintain enough mass to damage a critical organ/central nervous system. While removing/moving more tissue on the path to that organ is likely beneficial, I think of it as a secondary effect and not as important as doing what I stated previously.

But, don't fool yourself and others by falsely stating that a bigger FMJ bullet does not make a bigger wound, which, all else being equal, is more effective.
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Please cite where I said this. My comments up to this point have been whether that difference is noticeable in terms of terminal effect on a human, not that I believe there is no difference in the size of the wound. Once again you yourself are on the edge of making strawman arguments.
 
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The problem with asking Qs such as this is you get answers pertaining to what someone owns, and arguments.

Instead of asking on a forum, I researched bullet expansion with the barrel length I was going to buy. I ended up with a G26 9mm with Hornaday Critical Defense rounds. I'm satisfied I made the right choice.

Buy the .40 and get bullets that tests show what you want.
 
Yeah...

I'm definitely not saying that a 45 caliber hole is the basically the same size as a 9mm hole. Nor am I arguing that people feel they can be less accurate with a 45.

I am arguing the notion/idea that the extra diameter can turn a near miss into a hit. And the notion that the larger hole actually matters at all.


An incapacitating hit to a vital area with a 9mm or 45 is still an incapacitating hit. There is little difference in effect on the target. Bleeding out half a second quicker from a shot to the heart, while possibly a huge difference in fringe cases, it is not statistically likely to be the determining factor in a victim surviving an encounter with an assailant.


A hit in a non-vital area is dependent on bleed out to incapacitate... And I find no evidence that bleed out is significantly different between a 9mm and a 45 in that case. While the difference of bleeding out in 4 minutes instead of 4.5 minutes seems important in a hypothetical case that a 45 would cause faster bleeding...

I feel that the more immediate concern is not that a shot will take some amount more to stop the assailant minutes from now... But my immediate need to make more hits on the target to reduce those minutes to seconds or immediacy...

And 9mm with its higher capacity and greater ease of shooting, comes out on top in this situation.


There is simply no evidence that 45 (or 40... Or many other pistol calibers) causes faster incapacitation... In fact evidence shows that the calibers are pretty much dead equal in incapacitation.


That's the basic argument I am making... That none of the supposed reasons given that 45 (or 40) is better at stopping an assailant hold water, they simply do not exist in any meaningful way. That terminal effects between calibers is basically identical.

At best arguments favoring 45 or 40 over 9mm, can focus on secondary factors, like barrier performance... And those are quickly eroded by modern bullet designs.

I don't think 9mm has been getting significantly more development, at the expense of the other calibers. Not only due to the popularity of 40 in the police field (a group that can lead to significant purchase amounts, and demands performance) but 45 is popular in general, and is a market worth serving. So on the whole, I think all the calibers are benefiting from the research being done... Just that these improvements that come from that research and development are increasing the performance of 9mm at a higher rate, and narrowing the gap that did exist at one time.
 
Limnophile,

You mentioned in one of the recent posts above that 9mm in JHP form out does .40 and .45acp

You could not be more wrong. Simply go on you-tube and watch the brassfetcher slow motion videos of the different caliber JHP and different loads. The gel disturbance and width of pressure channel will tell you all you need to know
 
Imagine this scenario, a hit by a 9mm where it only brushed an artery and had it been a 40 or a 45 it would have severed it?

I know we're just cutting it close but I don't see how a heavier caliber don't have an advantage over a 9mm.

We can argue recoils til the cows come home but being experienced with recoils has an advantage. I know how to use my 40's recoil to my advantage.
 
Pilot...

No one is saying that 40 or 45 do not have more energy than 9mm...


Only that the extra energy and hole size is ultimately meaningless in real world use, in that it does little to nothing to increase the terminal effects of the round.

40 and 45 make bigger holes... 40 and 45 carries more energy... 40 and 45 have more impressive looking effect on test gel...

40 and 45 have the same terminal effects on living targets...


It is possible for differences to show up in testing and simulation data... That ultimately has no effect outside of testing and simulation.


Oyster...

You argument was addressed in one of my earlier posts... The one using seat belts as an allegory. (Motorcycle helmets could be substituted for the seat belt)

Basically the argument you put forth is that... (just using rounded numbers for example purposes)

1% of the time, this particular thing can happen (nicked artery) that a bigger bullet would have made a difference. Ignoring the fact that merely changing the caliber would change several aspects of the situation, like shot placement, number of shots fired, etc...

You are betting on a 1% chance... When 99% of the time, the smaller caliber would be the better choice.

"I don't wear a helmet because I heard one story about a guy who broke his neck because of his helmet."

Which ignores the multitude of times that a helmet saved someone's life...


When playing the odds, it's better to bet on the more likely situation, even if taking the big risk has a big payout, lower risks give you better chances of coming out ahead.

Risk analysis and cost/benefit planning are excellent tools in many areas.

Example:
More rounds makes for better chances, 9mm gives you more rounds vs other rounds... The cost of using 9mm over other rounds is zero (based on available evidence) therefore it's prudent to choose 9mm in that case...

And most examples given would favor 9mm in this way.
 
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