Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns 10mm vs. .45acp

the 45ACP seems to be about what I have with me in the woods all the time, the 10mm's I have tried were fine I guess. The 45 has more attributes that I personally care for, low cost practice ammo, a few dB lower noise level, more commonly found on shelves, and seems to be about the same as what people are killing deer with in a 300bo subsonic, so I cannot convince myself to buy another 10. Damn near bought another 4 inch 1911 gun the other day, a used springfield champion with aluminum frame..

Quoted for truth. Hunt up the Linebaugn Seminar Penetration Tests for further education.

Kinetic energy never killed a damn thing except time that could have been spent in the woods.

It only requires a mental experiment to debunk that concept. Consider a pie plate traveling 100 MPH, bottom-first, vs an arrow of the same weight traveling at the same speed. Which do you imagine will penetrate further into your flesh? Naturally, this is provable with real experiments, too.

What if the arrow turns sideways on impact? Longer bullets often yaw or tumble and lose any theoretical penetration bestowed by a calculator. Every bullet has a velocity and spin that results in a performance sweet spot. A calculator can be used in an attempt to narrow the choices for a particular use, but the calculator or mental experiments don't debunk consistent actual results.

From what I have read and in my own expansion/penetrations tests, Sectional Density mainly relates to non-expanding bullets of equal construction and nose design.

If one was moose hunting with a .45 Colt, I have not heard of many people who would load a 230 grain LBT WFN when they could load a 290 of the same construction. The SD of the 230 is .161 where the 290 is .195. But that same hunter if choosing a .41 Magnum would choose a 230 grain bullet that has the same SD as a 290 grain .45 over a 200 grain bullet which has a .169 SD.

Dick has shot the length of a moose with a 230 grain .41 bullet at about 1100 fps. A .45 230 at the same speed having a larger frontal area and more squat design isn't going to go as far. Where bullet weight is going to become important is running into large bones...

When it comes to HPs all bets are off as the HP design, jacket thickness and core hardness determines how fast it slows down. The original SuperVel 180 grain .44 Magnum JHPs were made NOT to expand. They would run trough as many jugs of water jugs as you could put on a table. Replace that bullet with a 180 grain Sierra JHC and it would not make four jugs. I read an article from Lee Jurras stating that is how he designed that bullet...all velocity and no expansion. LEOs who used that round shot right through cars and people. Yet I have two friends who shot BGs with the Remington 240 grain scallop JHPs and the bullets expanded into large mushrooms and stayed in the body.

As said...got to compare apples to apples...

Though I can't prove it, I would wager the old cap and ball revolvers firing a round ball, experienced greater results on target with regards to "fight stopping" impact, than did bullets fired out of the same revolvers. Bullets undoubtedly offered greater penetration and perhaps accuracy out to ranges, but the profile of the ball seems to offer a darn good ballistic shape for a fighting projectile. I know the fox I shot experienced a significant wound channel.

The discussion is bullets, not arrows, not pie tins. Go shoot some bullets of various weights and calibers into a medium of your choice, you might learn something.

How about this mental excercise, take a radical hollowpoint, full wadcutter, WFN, LFN, SWC, round nose, pointed nose make some of pure lead and others of hardened lead in .45 caliber 230 gr and launch them all at 850 fps. All these bullets are the exact same sd, same energy, same momentum. You will find a dramatic difference in how the various bullets perform.

Why is that? Because sectional density is a meaningless number that has zero correlation to terminal performance.

Wow, such a heated discussion for two proven rounds. Proven for different things, but both good in their own niche. You might find a few rounds between 45 and 10 that have similar performance profiles in terms of external and terminal ballistics, but the big difference between the two is the design pressures. 45ACP +P is 23,000psi and the 10mm is 37,500psi. Sure bullet design comes into play, but the big deal here is that the 10mm has a lot more horsepower on tap. SD, BC, weight, all that matters and are variables that can be manipulated for a desired outcome, but a V6 engine will never be a V8.

Dan, I believe Elmer Keith said exactly that.

True, the 10mm is a V6 turbo, the 45 is a V8

LOL.

An officer I know in a different county took a 180gr bullet out of a 10mm in the center of his body armor. He said it sucked real bad.

What load is a slouch in the 45 a.c.p. as a defensive round?

It’s a cool idea though. I automatically defer to the 230 grain JHP and have no doubt in its defensive fire power.

...tell him it could have sucked a lot worse....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2LKZy5-y64

kind of sad to say it, but reconize i think the trash heap they were shooting at, just north of phx off of the carefree highway, west of ben avery.

well,
the enabler or mentor did it again,
i ordered some 10mm, 9mm, and 357mag in that penetrator round. yousa!!!!!

U R welcome Ron.....

I carry that ammo in my .38 Super, 10mm G40 and Kahr P380...

Actually the 10mm is lower on the food chain when compared to the 45 Super in my experience. The 180 grain XTP in my 10mm penetrated @ 1300 plus FPS as di the 230 grain 45 Super at 1100 FPS plus the difference was the 45 Super had a much larger expanded bullet with a much larger wound channel.

SD is most defiantly a useless number even when comparing non expanding Bullets to non expanding. Nose shape and meplat have a much factor in deterring penetration than SD.