Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Let's be honest...

Oh contraire my friend. The larger diameter projectiles do offer an advantage, although the advantage is not as great as some believe, but if it is only 1% I want it on my side. Hitting where one aims is must with any caliber and should be a given in these discusins...

Not at the expense of less reliability/shootability... multiple smaller rounds is always better than one single slightly larger round... given equal shot placement of course.

Why would it be at the expense of reliability/shootability?? Why can't one place multiply 45 ACPs on target? 9mm doesn't have the market cornerd on multiply shots

Just what I was thinking! I would rather have multiple shots with a .45 than multiple shots with a 9mm.
From what I have seen if people can't hit with a .45 they wouldn't do much better with a 9mm.
whelennut

yep it goes right down the list for me as well,

I'd prefer multiple hits with a shotgun if trying to stop someone trying to do me or mine harm.


next would be my .30-.30

would rather have a .45 than a .40 but willing to compromise on occassion

I'll drop all the way down to .380 and .38 as it's better than nothing

but truth be known, in a self defense situation, you use any tool available to try and give you an edge, be it a book, a vase a letter opener, a flashlight or a knife.

though I'd prefer a shotgun, I'm willing to settle for a handgun that begins with a .4 in caliber

though I have no personal experience I have been told if you take your riot gun into McDonalds often times you can go right to the front of the line.

Go watch a little IDPA... and you'll see the difference on multiples and shootability between the 9 and the .45. There's a reason that they created the CDP division... it's because the guys running .45s (mostly 1911s) were getting their collective asses kicked in the ESP division. Ain't much better assessment of shooting in a defensive type situation than IDPA. I've shot expert times with all three auto pistol divisions (SSP, ESP, and CDP) the .45 is WAY tougher to run controlled pairs and it's tougher to shoot accurately.... that ain't just me. Some folks can shoot a .45... but it's the exception rather than the rule.

Totally depends on the proficiency of the individual; reliability of the weapon has little to do with caliber.

All things being equal, a milder recoiling round will be easier for most people to make multiple hits with but multiple hits with inferior calibers or bullets still does not guarantee any better stopping or incident ending assurance than one or 2 hits from a larger caliber.

And then of course, there's always the subject of bullet selection...................you really should read the FBI report on the Miami shooting, might open your eyes a bit.

The argument is circular & you can always find data/info/opinions to support any position you want to take.

Been shooting competition (& 45's) all my life & I'm as comfortable shooting that gun style & caliber (& reliability too, by the way) as anything else so that's what I'll stay with for the most part.

Doesn't mean that's an exclusive though; a small Glock in 40 & a 38 J-Frame also see a lot of carry time.

Fact is, it's sometimes hard to carry a larger gun as easily as a smaller one, & in my mind, a mostly inferior caliber.

Do as you please as everyone can only deal with what they know & how they feel, though some of it be clearly misguided.

For me, for the most part, if I can't be carrying my shotgun or AR-15, I prefer the 1911.

MM

I would have agreed with about the cns hit until a couple years ago.

A little back ground about the incident I am about to tell you about. A guy I work with is a SWAT cop and has his chit together. Runs 8 miles aday, works out everyday and one of the best tactics guys I have ever known. He is not a very big guy but is one of the toughest guys I have ever known. Has a great mind set and together we have been alot of situations that would not have turned out so good had it not been for his ability to deal with people that did not want to be dealt with.

A couple years ago he was on a suicidal guy call. He was standing beside his patrol car (behind the passenger side door) slightly bent forward talking on his PA system trying to get the guy to come out of his house. There was a window that was partially open but he could not see inside the window. As he was talking on the PA the turd shot him with 123 grain FMJ from 7.62x39. The bullet entered his left upper chest (near the shoulder/collar bone) and traveled at a angle down his back on the left side. The bullet exited on the left side of his back near the top of his kidney area. The bullet never hit the spine or was blew any pieces into the spine. The bullet did go through the front vest panel but stopped in the back vest panel.

He told me when he hit the ground that was all he remembered for quite some time. His patrol car was shot another 18 times I think but he did not hear it. He said he wanted to do alot of things but could not. He could not run or crawl form where he was. Another cop had to pull him behind the patrol car so he did not catch another round.

No CNS hit but it was a stop.

I agree with trying for a cns hit but they are difficult to make. I can't tell how many times (several) that I have tried to shoot a crippled deer in the head that has been hit by a car and shoot them low,high or to the side of there brain. If they have enough life in them to crawl its hard as hell sometimes to shoot one right in noggin.

Dink

I have read it... multiple times. More a report on schitty shooting than anything else though.

All I'm saying is: if it ain't CNS... all bets are off. If you can't run the gun with proficiency... then caliber don't matter much. If you can run the gun... and put multiple rounds where they need to be (quickly)... then caliber don't matter much either.

I'd also encourage anyone who carries a pistol to find an IDPA match and go shoot it... you'll learn more about your personal ability to run your weapon, under defensive conditions, in those couple of hours (and only 100 rounds) than you can anywhere else in years. Unless of course you want to pay the dough and fly out to Front Sight (or some other similar facility).

Can't argue much with that..........



Can't really buy that; too many potential variables.......clothing type, weight, size of the bad guy, etc.

I'll stick with bigger (more powerful), within reason, as generally being my preference.

Too many sub-calibers just don't cut it in too many potential scenarios.

YMMV

MM

If you read it and think that [bleep] shooting was the problem then I am suspect of any conclusions that you may make.

Dink, I never said that it was impossible to stop someone with a body shot. I said that the CNS shot was the only one that guarented an instant stop.

And then only if you manage to get to the CNS parts in order to take them out. Hitting the spinal cord from the front side is pretty tough, and handgun cartridges have a hard time reliably penetrating the skull.

I'm pretty sure that my choice will make the journey thorugh the skull

I mis-read that somehow.

Dink

.45 ACP? Yeah, it typically does, but I had a patient one time that had been shot just above the right eyebrow with an exit wound behind the right ear...shot with a .45 ACP. Guy was conscious, alert, complaining of pain to the face and a good headache. The bullet (unknown what the load was) deflected off the skull, and traveled sub-cutaneously until it exited behind the ear...damndest thing I ever saw.

There's never any guarantees...but I'll bet if you shot 1,000 skulls with a .45 ACP, you'd get 1,000 penetrations. I'd say my patient was a one in a million. One lucky SOB; guess his number just wasn't up.

You are spot on about no guarantees. I know a guy that survived being shot at point blank range with a 16 gauge shot gun. He was duck hunting and got shot in the sternum with a full power duck load. I met him play in a men's softball league after he had recovered. He played rather well

+1, at least into the target side of it..........

MM

That's a real fact, but it usually pays to play the odds...........

Minor calibers & loads have much lower odds.

MM

You can make your own decisions, but mine was fairly easy. With my only son (4yo) standing behind me at the counter, I really didn't see the need to leave him alone. Taking him with me would, in my mind, have only been more foolish.