That's not an indication of performance, though.
9mm big enough?
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First, I know some people that had access tothe 1989 tests. The true one shot manstopper was the Federal 158 Gr JHP in 357 and second was the 125 Gr version that the US Border Patrol used. You could qualify for the 158 Gr or qualify to the .45. That same year, my friend who was on the selection committee, the Border Patrol chose the Beretta 92DA as it saved trainning $$. I was at the SQ when they did the autopsy of 3 dealers whod died from a drug deal gone bad. They were all shot in the head by 9MM. A fourth survived. The first thing I said: They used FMJ! The round ricochet of the skull of the survivor. If one compares military ball 9mm to 45 ball, there is a sligh advantage to the 45 due to the extra energy. If you compare +9+, the gap lessens. As I have hunted all sorts of NA game with various pistols from .380 to SSK 45-70, shot placement and bullet choice is #1. I have shot large deer with .357 Maximum (SuperMag) using 158HP that would replicate the FBI performance at 100 yards. It was one shot one kill with proper bullet placement.
Paper punching does not make a good way to test ammo performance. I use a cheap method of a 24 inch stack of wet phone directories, the white pages with several layors f plywood at the end of the boxe. I check all my loads for performance using this. I do still have 30 or so large white pages for futur tests. BTW, the most destructive .45 round was Winchester's Black Talon, no longer offered but I have several boxes!
Henry
Paper punching does not make a good way to test ammo performance. I use a cheap method of a 24 inch stack of wet phone directories, the white pages with several layors f plywood at the end of the boxe. I check all my loads for performance using this. I do still have 30 or so large white pages for futur tests. BTW, the most destructive .45 round was Winchester's Black Talon, no longer offered but I have several boxes!
Henry
Take your .45 and 9mm out and start shooting things. That is the ONLY way to see what the rounds are capable of. I'm thinking of doing this sort of picture comparison this spring.
.45 makes you feel tougher I will admit, it's a big beefy round. I expected it to do some major damage to things.
Two of the first things I tested it on was a golf ball and an external hard drive. The golf ball had NO damage from the .45 whatsoever. The golf ball would go flying and the .45 would instantly mushroom (these were FMJ) and fall to the ground. We found all the mushroomed bullets lying where the golf ball used to be. The external hard drive was funny, one round skipped off the hard drive and the other was stopped dead. The .45 is beefy put the penetration just isn't there. Granted these were more solid objects that flesh in a defense scenario.
But when we tested the same objects with a .22LR that penetration was better but the holes were smaller. The .22LR went into the golf ball but stomped almost instantly. As for the hard drive it almost made it entirely through.
Am I saying the .45 sucks for home defense, no. It's still a beefy bullet and does damage.
Can't wait to test a .45 side by side with the 9mm next!
Have a look at this site:
http://www.theboxotruth.com/
Bingo. Energy is more important. And the energy levels between 9x19+p and standard-pressure .45ACP are not significant, and only about 50 lb/ft less than the .40.
You aren't going to get a 'half inch hole,' unless you use a fifty. And a silly millimetre, or two really isn't significant. CNS disruption and major vascular system trauma will happen with anything over a .22LR, or even those 'mouseguns' (.25, .32) that were banned in 1991.
The subsonic .45 does seem to be easier on unmuffled eardrums (e.g., cops who have to use them in buildings), and works better with suppressors (e.g., the H&K Mark 23). Refinement in finite element analysis and such has whittled away material on pistols to the point where .45 double stacks are no longer too fat for some people's hands, and some police departments use them (Glock G21SF, etc.). The low-pressure .45 makes for longer firearm life. And, if you cast your own bullets from scavenged lead, the costs of reloading are competitive (longer brass life than .40, and the same amount of propellant).
Take your .45 and 9mm out and start shooting things. That is the ONLY way to see what the rounds are capable of. I'm thinking of doing this sort of picture comparison this spring.
.45 makes you feel tougher I will admit, it's a big beefy round. I expected it to do some major damage to things.
Two of the first things I tested it on was a golf ball and an external hard drive. The golf ball had NO damage from the .45 whatsoever. The golf ball would go flying and the .45 would instantly mushroom (these were FMJ) and fall to the ground. We found all the mushroomed bullets lying where the golf ball used to be. The external hard drive was funny, one round skipped off the hard drive and the other was stopped dead. The .45 is beefy put the penetration just isn't there. Granted these were more solid objects that flesh in a defense scenario.
But when we tested the same objects with a .22LR that penetration was better but the holes were smaller. The .22LR went into the golf ball but stomped almost instantly. As for the hard drive it almost made it entirely through.
Am I saying the .45 sucks for home defense, no. It's still a beefy bullet and does damage.
Can't wait to test a .45 side by side with the 9mm next!
12ga. side-by-side: non-restricted means locked cabinet and no trigger lock, no Murphy's Law surprises (short-stroking a pump, hard primers), and >2,500ft/lbs. Note that cops carry shotguns in their cruisers, and I think some CIT companies have one in the van.
I've written many emails to Don, who owns that site,with various findings on tests I have done myself.
I've got my Benelli in the locker next to my bed with buckshot right above it. But my Sig P229 9mm is in a quick cabinet on the other side of the bed. Shotguns are good but very unwieldy in close quarters.
If You going to point a gun at someone You better use the rifle or shotgun and have damn good reason for that, otherwise showing off the small black hole may not work very well for You.
Do some reading man, because obviously You never seen a human shot with the handgun round except for the movies.
You may start with the real gunfighter - Jim Cirillo - "Tales of the Stakeout Squad" and "Lessons and Tales from a Modern-Day Gunfighter".
Come back with your findings, please.
Around the house, the first thing I'd pull out of the gun cabinet would be a 12ga. pump, but if there's also a .44Magnum revolver that I like.
But I have a Browning HiPower in 9mm and if I could carry a concealed handgun for self-defense, I'd take that rather than go buy a .45. In fact I have carried an issued HiPower for the purpose a few times, while serving in the British Army in N.Ireland and I never felt a bigger handgun would be better. (When moving around for admin purposes you'd be in civilian clothes with a driver with a civvy car, rather than tasking an eight or twelve man patrol in three armoured landrovers.)
Come on...I am almost positive that when the FBI or the US Army select calibers for ballistics testing, they use 2x4s and pumpkins. Those media are a perfect analogue to terminal effects on human bodies.
Which is important, because obviously massive law enforcement and military organizations don't have any actual data gleaned from thousands of shootings in both domestic shootings and military firefights to look at or anything. And even if they did, there's no way one of their foremost experts would every post about it on the internet.
And even if he did, nobody would have a link to his advice on pistol caliber selection in their signature.
And even if all the stars aligned and the military and law enforcement did have actual scientific testing on this specific subject, AND one of their foremost experts posted about it on the internet, AND somebody on this forum posted a link to that information in their sig, what are the odds he would find this thread and post in it with a specific direction to that signature so everyone could find out whether 9mm works or not?
I would say those odds are practically zero. So everyone should probably go with a combination of speculation, anecdotes, and unsubstantiated opinion.
Which is important, because obviously massive law enforcement and military organizations don't have any actual data gleaned from thousands of shootings in both domestic shootings and military firefights to look at or anything. And even if they did, there's no way one of their foremost experts would every post about it on the internet.
And even if he did, nobody would have a link to his advice on pistol caliber selection in their signature.
And even if all the stars aligned and the military and law enforcement did have actual scientific testing on this specific subject, AND one of their foremost experts posted about it on the internet, AND somebody on this forum posted a link to that information in their sig, what are the odds he would find this thread and post in it with a specific direction to that signature so everyone could find out whether 9mm works or not?
I would say those odds are practically zero. So everyone should probably go with a combination of speculation, anecdotes, and unsubstantiated opinion.
If ATC Type-3 rules were laxer, and barrel length laws were scrapped, I'd carry a .38 snubbie, with a bobbed hammer. Too much worry about lint and whatnot with autoloaders. And any gun tells a would-be human assailant "do not touch." CIT crews carried 4" .38s for years, and robberies were rare.
If I had a wilderness ATC, I would carry nothing less than an 8 round .357 (wolves, coyotes, wildcats), or .454 Casull (bears). Again, too much (mud, lint) that could render an autoloader non-functional, at the worst possible time. But I would rather have a .45-70.
Unprotected maybe not, but if he happens to be on the other side of a door I don't trust my .45 to make it through the door
If you're worried about lint you might want to check the type of firearm you're carrying.
The video below shows a Sig P226 being loaded full of dirt, fired, held under water till the bubbles stopped, fired, buried in the mud at the bottom of the water, fired, then held under water and fired.
[youtube]mlbPBGME0No[/youtube]
I doubt lint is going to do much. If lint might be a problem then I'm sure many military forces wouldn't be using automatics.
It all comes down to energy transfer. 9mm bullets have had more scientific $$ committed to them due to popularity so yes 9mm is a good choice and gives up little to nothing to the 45. you will find most serious users, guys who are charged with defending others, are using mainly 9mm, rarely 45. There are many reasons for this. Effectiveness of the round, ease of follow up shots due to lower recoil, easier to conceal more rounds in a smaller package....just to name a few.
nonstandard: regardless
Usage Discussion of IRREGARDLESS
Irregardless originated in dialectal American speech in the early 20th century. Its fairly widespread use in speech called it to the attention of usage commentators as early as 1927. The most frequently repeated remark about it is that “there is no such word.” There is such a word, however. It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose. Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance.
http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2008/ps-sp/PS63-2-1995-1E.pdf
http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2008/ps-sp/PS63-2-1998-3E.pdf
Note that they use pig ribs in gelatin. And note the article about security contractors in Iraq that I posted above, where plain old 9mm ball dropped people with thoracic triangle hits. I've read somewhere that the majority of fatal shootings involved .22LRs. Most police departments and militaries are just too cheap to 'waste' enough practice ammo on maintaining the shooting proficiencies of their personnel, and that's why the debate over 'stopping power.'
Sigs and H&Ks are the gold standard. But even a .357Sig won't stop a cougar. 10mm (e.g., G20sf, with a 6" barrel and 200gr. hardcast) on smaller predators, but not black bears and no way adequate for browns. And even restrikeable pistols leave you ineffectually bumping the same dud primer, when a revolver just rotates a new cartridge into play. Pistols of any calibre work against humans (unless they are crazed tweakers), because no rational human wants to suffer a gunshot wound. However, animals don't know what a gun is, and don't care. And, with their heads at about the same level as their hearts, tetrapeds can sustain major collapse of bloodpressure, before they keel over. There is also, cross-sectionally, more tissue and bone to plough through, before hitting the heart, or CNS. For example, the scull on a brown bear can be up to 7" thick in parts. This is why high sectional density rounds work well on, say, white tails, while lighter HPs are good on humans, even though their weights are similar.
Lint finds its way into everything (e.g., the extractor and slightly greasy barrel, peaking out of the ejection port), and moisture from perspiration kills primers. And have you ever been in the back country, slipped and ended up in silty muck? I've done this, and I dread to think what that would do to a Glock 20 that I was depending on protecting me from a cougar. And yes, one should use a holster...but a good one:
http://www.itstactical.com/warcom/f...her-holsters-can-cause-accidental-discharges/
Obviously, CCW is a non-issue for me as a lowly civilian Canuck, but I'd be inclined to use a Kydex holster, and preferably something with an external hammer that I can hold my thumb on whilst holstering. I've tried this with a cheap, stiff leather Yaqui holster, and it seems safe.
Don't forget hoop stress and less chance of kabooms. Kabooms are exceedingly rare with nines. This is important to me, as I'd like to get into reloading my own ammo, and casting my own bullets (I have an enormous hoard of old lead and wheelweights...). And even the beefed-up .45 G.A.P. brass seems kaboom-prone:
http://www.theledger.com/article/20080313/NEWS/803130481
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And I can show you a video where a dirtbag was hit 5 times in the chest with a 357 and survived.
