Cedric
Master Class
Perp was early 20s (IIRC), dosed with LSD, mad at his dad...and there you go. Climbed one of the bell towers of St Aloysius Cathedral and let rip.
What Is the Best Caliber for Self-Defense?
- Thread starter Mike H.
- Start date
Bassbob
Emissary
Ok, I lied. I am going to wade in. I'm bored. Sue me.
I was always a .45 guy and I still believe it is a ballistically superior round, BUT ( <<<< Notice it's BIG ) I can hammer a hole in a gnat's ass with these HKs and with a serious quickness. And I like carrying them. And having 40-ish plus rounds at my immediate disposal quells some of my urges to way over do it. However, in reality I think shot placement does mean an awful lot and I think Hans is on to something with his posts up there. Carry what you feel like carrying, just be sure you can shoot with it and can access it quickly. As always being aware of what is moving in and out of your "Sphere of influence" usually allows you to avoid or evade without what's in your pocket meaning a damn thing.
I was always a .45 guy and I still believe it is a ballistically superior round, BUT ( <<<< Notice it's BIG ) I can hammer a hole in a gnat's ass with these HKs and with a serious quickness. And I like carrying them. And having 40-ish plus rounds at my immediate disposal quells some of my urges to way over do it. However, in reality I think shot placement does mean an awful lot and I think Hans is on to something with his posts up there. Carry what you feel like carrying, just be sure you can shoot with it and can access it quickly. As always being aware of what is moving in and out of your "Sphere of influence" usually allows you to avoid or evade without what's in your pocket meaning a damn thing.
HansGruber
Ronin
I, uh.I imagine you had to hide your flintlock pistol from his prying eyes.
I used my Wilson EDC.
Shot a clean (down zero) qualification, too (it wasn’t a hard qual, though; no shots over 5 yards, and absolutely no stress; MN has no required course if fire to qualify…20 rounds total, all fromsights on target, 5 slow fire, 5 rapid fire, 5 single strong hand, 5 single weak hand.
“Rapid fire” meant you had 5 seconds to fire 5 rounds starting with sights on target…
HansGruber
Ronin
So…let’s have some fun.
Here’s where I play devil’s advocate with my own adopted carry philosophy (which I actually have done):
What if you only get one round?
The entire Elifritz “caliber doesn’t matter” premise is based on being able to get multiple shots off…so what happens when you can’t?
In that case…I want a caliber that begins with 4 (or 5!), and has “acp” or “magnum” after it…”Super”, “Casull”, “Linebaugh”, Norma” or “Action Express”would also be acceptable.
Because, if you are only afforded one shot…there is no replacement for displacement.
I’ve gone over this in my head for years. I’ve made my choice; and, I am for the most part comfortable with it…
But there’s always that “Yeah, but…” out there.
You pays your money and you makes your choice.
HansGruber
Ronin
Nah…I’d suck, because people want to be told definitive things.
As soon as I got into a 60 minute sidetrack of “it depends, and this is why…”, they’d run out of the classroom screaming…
Bassbob
Emissary
I'd definitely be looking at something starting with a 12. Even if it meant a ridiculous, sawed off break action single with the shell poking out the end of the barrel.
Well, better to properly equip the one ( or even zero for that matter) remaining student with pertinent facts than to fill them up with what they want to hear.
Hammer67
Professional
I know you already know all this Hans, and that you're playing devil's advocate and raising these points rhetorically, so I'll play along:
The Ellefritz study actually does address "one shot stops." And the conclusion is that there was statistically no difference among the 'middle of the road' calibers in this regard.
And that's where we start to drift into mythmaking and assumptions, imo. The "bigger must be better" argument (displacement). The reality is that there is no discernible improvement in incapacitation with the 'wider' calibers, i.e. .45 ACP vs 9mm, whether we are talking about "one shot stops" or multiple shots.
People tend to get very myopic when it comes to the differences between the common handgun calibers and amplify those differences way out of proportion, and lose the forest for the trees. The truth is that the common handgun calibers just aren't really any different in meaningful ways that affect terminal effectiveness - not in terms of velocity, not in width and not in how many world wars they've won. At the end of the day, they all do the same thing - they put little holes in people. There is no massive hydrostatic shock from these rounds - they just put holes in people, and you either hit the heart or you hit the CNS, and they go down fairly quickly, or you miss those things and the threat is still a threat which now has a little hole in it.
But of course, none of this will keep people from continuing to want to debate irrelevant minutiae.
The Ellefritz study actually does address "one shot stops." And the conclusion is that there was statistically no difference among the 'middle of the road' calibers in this regard.
And that's where we start to drift into mythmaking and assumptions, imo. The "bigger must be better" argument (displacement). The reality is that there is no discernible improvement in incapacitation with the 'wider' calibers, i.e. .45 ACP vs 9mm, whether we are talking about "one shot stops" or multiple shots.
People tend to get very myopic when it comes to the differences between the common handgun calibers and amplify those differences way out of proportion, and lose the forest for the trees. The truth is that the common handgun calibers just aren't really any different in meaningful ways that affect terminal effectiveness - not in terms of velocity, not in width and not in how many world wars they've won. At the end of the day, they all do the same thing - they put little holes in people. There is no massive hydrostatic shock from these rounds - they just put holes in people, and you either hit the heart or you hit the CNS, and they go down fairly quickly, or you miss those things and the threat is still a threat which now has a little hole in it.
But of course, none of this will keep people from continuing to want to debate irrelevant minutiae.
Bassbob
Emissary
I seem to remember several years ago FBI stats bearing out that .357 had a higher percentage of one shot stops than .44 mag. Though it no doubt has more to do with the caliber of guns typically carried than ballistics. I would assume that 9mm, by that metric, has a higher percentage than .45ACP.
rcurtner
Custom
Had never seen that report. Thanks
Hammer67
Professional
Here's a link to the full writeup:
and the 'Cliff Notes'
rcurtner
Custom
You're probably right, 45acp & 9mm are in reality very close. Having said that I still like the bigger hole
Bassbob
Emissary
I'm old school too brother and I learned to shoot handguns with a .45 and it's what I carried and trained with for decades. Ya know though, I argued my case here in the beginning about how any advantages of 9mm could be trained out of relevance by a guy like me who spent many, many hours and thousands and thousands of rounds shooting .45s. The thing is after procuring high quality 9MMs and training with them I am MUCH faster than I was even in my prime with a .45.
rcurtner
Custom
Although I'm partial to 1911's in 45 acp I have to be honest my EDC is 9mm. Larger capacity, lower recoil 9's are much easier to make follow-up shots with & my arthritic hands like them better. Good ammo, like 147 HST's, make the caliber much more effective.
Hammer67
Professional
A little additional food for thought on the "bigger is better" perspective:
If we are talking about comparing relative sizes of defensive hollow point rounds, then expansion is obviously the critical factor, not the comparative width of the unfired round.
With that agreed upon, let's look at what "good expansion" looks like in 9mm vs. .45 ACP:
Good expansion for a 9mm HP is typically somewhere between .60" and .72"
Good expansion for a .45 ACP HP is typically between .70" to .82".
(source)
So, with ideal expansion, we are basically looking at a difference of 1/10" of an inch, at most, And that's only if you're comparing the best expanding 9mm hollow points to the best expanding .45 ACP hollow points. With some ammo choices, the difference will be even less than that.
However, it's also possible to choose a 9mm hollow point that expands more than a poor performing .45 ACP round. Thus, .45 ACP isn't always "bigger" - that's an assumption being made. In fact, there are some 9mm rounds that will expand to .70" and some .45 ACP rounds that don't consistently expand much beyond .50". On top of that, keep in mind that even with the highest quality, best expanding rounds of either caliber, ideal expansion still doesn't happen sometimes, for a variety of different reasons.
So, it really isn't as clean-cut as just saying, ".45 ACP is bigger than 9mm" when we look more closely at actual hollow point expansion. The reality is that there is actually a fair bit of overlap in the terminal size of both rounds, and it's entirely possible to select a 9mm round that consistently expands more than some .45 ACP rounds.
Beyond that, whether a maximum of 1/10" of an inch in difference really translates into a higher percentage of "stops" is also highly debatable, and to date, I haven't come across any definitive data that proves that to be the case. The Ellefritz study clearly concludes exactly the opposite..
If we are talking about comparing relative sizes of defensive hollow point rounds, then expansion is obviously the critical factor, not the comparative width of the unfired round.
With that agreed upon, let's look at what "good expansion" looks like in 9mm vs. .45 ACP:
Good expansion for a 9mm HP is typically somewhere between .60" and .72"
Good expansion for a .45 ACP HP is typically between .70" to .82".
(source)
So, with ideal expansion, we are basically looking at a difference of 1/10" of an inch, at most, And that's only if you're comparing the best expanding 9mm hollow points to the best expanding .45 ACP hollow points. With some ammo choices, the difference will be even less than that.
However, it's also possible to choose a 9mm hollow point that expands more than a poor performing .45 ACP round. Thus, .45 ACP isn't always "bigger" - that's an assumption being made. In fact, there are some 9mm rounds that will expand to .70" and some .45 ACP rounds that don't consistently expand much beyond .50". On top of that, keep in mind that even with the highest quality, best expanding rounds of either caliber, ideal expansion still doesn't happen sometimes, for a variety of different reasons.
So, it really isn't as clean-cut as just saying, ".45 ACP is bigger than 9mm" when we look more closely at actual hollow point expansion. The reality is that there is actually a fair bit of overlap in the terminal size of both rounds, and it's entirely possible to select a 9mm round that consistently expands more than some .45 ACP rounds.
Beyond that, whether a maximum of 1/10" of an inch in difference really translates into a higher percentage of "stops" is also highly debatable, and to date, I haven't come across any definitive data that proves that to be the case. The Ellefritz study clearly concludes exactly the opposite..
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rcurtner
Custom
From Lucky Gunner Labs: 45ACP, 230 HST .85 expansion, penetration 14" out of 3.64" barrel
9mm, 147 HST .61 expansion, penetration 15.2" out of 3.5" barrel
Two ww 45 ACP loads were 1.0 & .99" expansion
Hammer67
Professional
Yes, in both cases there are a couple outliers that actually performed even better than "good."
But my point is that we can't just implicitly assume that .45 ACP is going to be "bigger" at the end of the day, much less "better." It might be, it might not, depending not just on one's choices or even the data on Lucky Gunner, but by testing those specific rounds with your exact pistol until you're confident that you're consistently getting very good expansion. Otherwise, no one should be confidently saying, "I choose .45 ACP because it's bigger" - that's just an unverified assumption based on unfired width, which is irrelevant.
BTW, I shoot and carry .45 ACP a fair bit. But I have never convinced myself that it does something the other middle of the road calibers don't.
rcurtner
Custom
Hopefully when a person decides to carry a handgun for self defense they do research to help determine what ammo to use. Although I consider myself pretty savy that in no way makes me an expert. Of course the ammo has to reliably function and be at least capable of combat accuracy. As you stated there's a lot of good and bad ammo choices in todays market. This forum helps especially newer shooters in making decisions on just about all things firearm related.