The 9mm vs. .45ACP debate... in Combat and Defense Weapons Forum

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The 9mm vs. .45ACP debate...

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Plainsman	The 9mm vs. .45ACP debate...	Lead	[-]
Tribal Spirit Posts: 5630 Jan 18 10 6:37 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Tags : None Since this is one of the hottest cartridge choice debates in the world, I thought I'd start it up here again! After much contemplation, I'm wondering if the 9mm isn't really a better personal defense cartridge than it first appears!?! Part of the problem with the debate of the 9mm vs. .45ACP is the fact that most people are using MILITARY examples for their references. When we think about the MILITARY we need to remember that they MUST use ball ammo, i.e. jacketed, round nose! So therefore, caliber or bullet diameter is HUGE! There will be no expansion once the target is hit! So now that we adjust our views to 9mm vs. .45ACP with HP and other ammos, I wonder about the usefulness of the 9mm!?! With an HP, I think the round will have plenty of expansion to do some serious damage once it hits the target. I think an expanding round will do the damage we are looking for in a 9mm, obviously not as much as an expanding .45ACP, but I wonder if it wouldn't be plenty to do what we are looking for!?! Hitting the target is a PRIMARY consideration and with the lighter recoil of the 9mm I wonder if it wouldn't allow for quicker first round hits AND more accurate followup shots!?! So now if we have expanding rounds actually HITTING the target in effective areas, the 9mm is starting to look like a better round! Is it "better" than the .45ACP, probably not, but is it better than the debates have been leading us to believe? I think so! I think the 9mm may be an AWESOME CCW/Home defense round now! I think we need to keep things in perspective. A good hollow point or expanding softnose would probably allow the 9mm to be the best of both worlds. It has a high capacity, low recoil and lighter weight! I've convinced myself that if I get an automatic again, it will be in 9mm and not a .40-.45 as I've always thought was a minimum. What do you think? Plainsman "Aim small, miss small!" plainsmanscabin@yahoo.com Plainsmans Cabin Forums
netandtim	you hit the nail on the head, pun intended	#1	[-]
Scout Posts: 125 Jan 18 10 7:27 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	the first priority is round on target. a 45 or even 50 cal two inches to the right of you body will scare you, but not literaly to death. a 22 in the right spot and its lights out! the diferrence is this, there is little room for error with a 22. a 45 has more room for error because of it's energy and wound path. a 45 however is big and heavy and manly though you are, it kicks. the 9 is a great middle of the road. some room for error but more capcity and lighter recoil. also cheaper practice ammo. the key is good personel defense ammo. by cheap junk and practice. When it jams you can practice clearing it. then load the good stuff made for self defense. you can easily carry 3 to 4 more rounds in a gun with the same profile, remember bad guys come in pairs and triplets a lot. i have a 45 but cary a 9. (Glock 26). the military faces a different enemy in the field. those people are fighting for their god. they will fight through pain. most muggers will cry and run. the military would be better off with HP rounds but politics is what it is. tim
Lee1959		#2	[-]
Tribal Spirit Posts: 4285 Jan 18 10 8:02 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Using good quality ammunition either cartridge will do the job just fine if you do your part. I prefer the .45 as a bedside gun because I do think bigger is better on marginal shots, and hey, a marginal hit is not what I aspire to, but if it occurs, I still want them down if possible. That is where the biggest difference might be, in margial hits, which like it or not, occur occasionaly for what ever reason, stress, injury, or whatever. And then quite frankly, in my ported polymer .45 acp I do not see much difference in felt recoil and second shot between the two cartridges. That may sound odd, but given my preference for .44 magnum hunting handguns, it just is not that huge a deal. The ported polymer Witness is simply the shoftest shooting .45 I have ever shot. For ccw carry however the whole ballgame changes. I want something thin, and easily concealable. That is why I love the Mak, which is even less powerful, slightly, than the 9MM. It is hard to find a .45 that feels quite that comfortable to carry. But a nice single stack 9MM would be a pleasure. The thing I find with polymer small CCW pistols is felt recoil, which can be visciously excessive. This is another reason I love the Mak in steel so much, it is just a plain shooter par excellance, in my hand. A nice single stack 9MM in steel, like the EMP, might be an excellant compromise in thickness and size, with enough weight to be a really decent shoot. This is of course all personal feel.
netandtim		#3	[-]
Scout Posts: 125 Jan 18 10 8:37 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Lee, you made a great point i missed. what feels good to me, what am i comfortable with. you shoot better if the gun fits. thanks for sharing this forum with Net and i. tim
southern utah		#4	[-]
Tracker Posts: 256 Jan 18 10 11:19 PM Tenderfoot Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The 45 was designed for combat in the Phillipines during WWII. The 38 wasn't doing the job on the enemy that was wraped in bambo and on sawky(sp?). The M1 wasn't any better. The 230 ball round was made to bust thru and due deadly damage.The 9mm with the 124 gr FMJ has become the nato round to wound not kill, simular to the 38special but high capicity. Better bullets have made them both better but I would go to the 45 given the choice for defence. I control the 1911 as easy if not easier then the light weigh 9mm. 8 rounds of 45 will do anyhing you want unless you can't hit what you are aiming at and 30 rrds. of 9mm won't help either. I have a miitary viedeo by a militay doctor that has a vic hit 43 times with a nine, took (2) 12 ga slugs to finish him. No drugs or alcoho were found,l CCW you pack what you can to be descrete and a 22 would be better than nothing.I've packed as small as a 22 mag, feel better with a nine, better still with 45 acp, really like the 44 mag in 4". I look at it as being hit by a VW or a Mack Truck and the old term " speed kills"
Raspy		#5	[-]
Tribal Elder Posts: 1046 Jan 19 10 9:39 PM Tribal Chieftain Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The 45 is still the KING! Everyone keeps claiming the king is dead and theirs is the new king. They first compare theirs using exotics trying to meet the performance of 45 ball. They seem to forget that 45 comes in hollow points, safety slugs and other exotics also. Then they claim higher capacity so you can shoot more. Well if it takes 2 or 3 of these others to equal the effect of 1 45 those high cap mags don't mean nearly as much. Also when it requires several hits to equal you have to hit that probably moving target more than once. Which means more chances of missing. A 9 is considered a 2 1/2 shot stop meaning 3 round and 3 hits to equal the one shot stop of a 45. So a 45 with 2 clips and one in the chamber for 15. A high cap 9 with 2 clips and one is 31. 10 stops with the 9 versus 15 with the 45. Sure you can find exceptional cases with any round on some person functioning after many hits of any round or the single hit from a 22 or 25 dropping a monster. But remember these are the exception. But I'll go with the proven odds. For multiple targets learn to ride the recoil to the next target. One each with the 45. You can clean up the exceptions after the first sweep. But with the lighter rounds you need multiple hits each. So the you have to take care of each several times before moving to the next target. More time for the others to react to you. Now there are those that want to go into the magnum range. All that power looks good on paper. But all that beautiful muzzle energy is wasted in the next 2 or 3 people they hit after the first one. Me I'll stick with the 45. I can hit what I want ad need to and it does the job nicely. No Glocks please. I love the ergonomics of John Browning's original design. When in danger or in doubt run in circles scream and shout RAH Now that you got that out of your system lets talk survival. And always remember TANSTAAFL Tried sanity once. Didn't like it.
GlockDoc		#6	[-]
Scout Posts: 146 Jan 20 10 5:26 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	To paraphrase something I read somewhere: Accuracy is King, Penetration is Queen and Caliber is a Prince, at best. -Maker of Fine Cigar Ashes Since 1963-
lawdog41		#7	[-]
Tribal Elder Posts: 1126 Jan 20 10 8:59 PM Dog Soldier Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	southern utah wrote: The 45 was designed for combat in the Phillipines during WWII. The 38 wasn't doing the job on the enemy that was wraped in bambo and on sawky(sp?). The M1 wasn't any better. The 230 ball round was made to bust thru and due deadly damage.The 9mm with the 124 gr FMJ has become the nato round to wound not kill, simular to the 38special but high capicity. Better bullets have made them both better but I would go to the 45 given the choice for defence. I control the 1911 as easy if not easier then the light weigh 9mm. 8 rounds of 45 will do anyhing you want unless you can't hit what you are aiming at and 30 rrds. of 9mm won't help either. I have a miitary viedeo by a militay doctor that has a vic hit 43 times with a nine, took (2) 12 ga slugs to finish him. No drugs or alcoho were found,l CCW you pack what you can to be descrete and a 22 would be better than nothing.I've packed as small as a 22 mag, feel better with a nine, better still with 45 acp, really like the 44 mag in 4". I look at it as being hit by a VW or a Mack Truck and the old term " speed kills" The .45 was insisted on because of the failure of the .38 caliber in the Phillippines circa 1900, not WWII. The M-1 wasn't even a blip on the radar yet. The Krag rifle was the issue rifle then. The .45 caliber was re-adopted because of it's effectiveness going back to the Indian wars (.45 Colt/.45 Schofield) and it's effectiveness even at low velocity. 9mm was a common European chambering going back farther than the .45 Auto, it dates to 1907 in the Parabellum and has been used and adopted by most European countries long before we even considered it. As it was the standard round for most countries in the NATO pact, it only made sense for the US to eventually go to it. At the time both were designed, the pre-1910's, FMJ was needed to get the cartridge to feed. I know of one city copper that took 6 rounds of .45 Ball and while laying on the ground, shot both of his attackers with one shot each and killed them. His ammo? .38 Special round nose. He shot better than they did. I'd like to see that video, however there was a PCP freak back a number of years ago that took 43 rounds of 9mm and 2 12ga slugs, the last to the head, his optic nerve had been hit, he was a walking sieve. He was a dead person that hadn't fallen down yet. It wasn't so much a failure of the 9mm but a failure of the bullet design of the day. This was some 40 years ago. 9mm isn't bad. It's a compromise cartridge. It's good to have a bunch of BB's in your gun. Bigger is better. Yes. Is there a definite advantage to the .45 cartridge over the 9mm when good ammo is used in both? No. A handgun is a notoriously poor at best fight stopper. Pick what you prefer, they're all about the same in people with good ammo. In critters, I've found that the bigger the better, they don't react the same way as people. The Morgue-Monsters, Marshall, Sanow and the late Jim Cirillo all used and carried the 9mm by choice (Cirillo preferred the 10mm as a one-gun chambering for those in one-gun carry areas). That says a lot about the cartridge. Last Edited By: lawdog41 Jan 20 10 9:47 PM. Edited 1 times.
Old Judge Creek		#8	[-]
Scout Posts: 147 Jun 29 10 10:19 AM Scout Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I prefer the 45. My all time favorite 1911 45ACP has been the Kimber. Then, a couple of years ago I gave in to my personal need to Give a Glock a Chance. Glock has won me over - speciffically the Glock 30SF. It's even easier for me to carry albeit not quite as flat. Then there's the comparison between it and what in my opinon is the most perfect pocket pistol ever designed: the S&W 642. For pocket carry the 642 still is, but othewise 10 rounds of 45ACP vs 5 rounds of 38 Special??????? Well ... OJC Old Judge Creek http://northlandphoto.com/campfire/
StillMaineiac88		#9	[-]
Tribal Councilman Posts: 790 Jun 30 10 6:38 AM War Chief Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I'm going to come down on the side of the .45acp. I have no scientific data to point to as a reason. All I've got is my gut (if "gut" good enough for Jethro Leroy Gibbs...) feeling. I picked up an M1911A1 in Boot Camp and fired 5 straight bullseyes. No other firearm I've ever put hand to has ever fit as well as that. Shotgun Jeff , Out! "We're surrounded, that simplifies our problem." ~ LtGen. Lewis B. (Chesty) Puller

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The 9mm vs. .45ACP debate...

The 9mm vs. .45ACP debate...