Bottom line is all handgun rounds are pretty crummy fight stoppers. All calibers have horror stories of angry armed men that just won't go down. The big mags punch through so quickly that much of the energy is expended once its left the body. The other side of the equation, the smaller rounds are so ineffective they have problems on a cross torso shot, and may or may not reach the vitals.
Like a few on this board I carried a weapon as a part of my job, and responded to hundreds if not thousands of gunshot wounds over a 28 year period. The only death ray I found was a full on shot of 00 buckshot at about 10 yards and less. Handguns wounds, regardless of caliber, if the victims were conscious and talking when I got there, they usually lived. As much press as it gets, rifle wounds of any kind were really rare in my city of 250K.
I carried just about all the calibers at sometime during my career, 41 Mag, .357, .38, 45 ACP, 380, 9mm. As I've aged, I've settled on my issue weapon, a G17 with Trijicons, CT laser with a Abbrendo mag extension. This gives me 24 rounds of +P+ 127 grain Talons. I carry one spare mag with another 23 rounds.
I look at the +P+ round to be nothing more than an equivalent of a +P 125 JHP .38 Special. Only I have 47 of them.
