9MM vs .45 Good Article

I like that guy, and he really likes the XTP bullet in 9mm. He is penetrate first, expand if ya can.

I have some Fiocchi 9mm 124 gr with an XTP bullet and it performed quite well in ******* ballistics.

They did have more jacket seperation, but almost reached the depth of 125 gr 357 mag.

The MOST consistant bullet we tested was WWB 125g 357 mag JHP. Cheap ammo but every one looked exactly the same, and same penetration.

We had some speer gold dot 158 gr 357 magnum, and they were inconsistant with expansion. Penetration was off the chart, but some expanded, some didn't.

My preference is Ranger T 124gr+P, but Brownie has me thinking about the standard pressure 147 gr Bonded.

Thanks Brownie, I now have to explain to my wife why I need to buy MORE ammo.

Standard 9mm 115 ball one shot stops are estimated at 61-63%.

Standard 230 45acp ball one shot stops are estimated at 63-65%.

This is from the Marshall Sanow data collected from 1988 to 1996.

We see that 9mm is about 2% less effective than 45acp in ball configuration.

32acp ball has a one stop stop rating of 50-52%
380acp ball has a one shot stop rating of 51-55%

In other words, ball ammo has anywhere from 50-65% average one shot stops in most calibers, within a few percentage points. If neither the 9 or 45 expand, the percentage of differences between them seems to be statistically insignificant.

The best 45 230 loads will penetrate roughly 12.25" and expand to 1" in diameter.

The best 9mm 147 loads will penetrate 13.5" and expand to .73 caliber. If neither expand and act like ball ammo, there isn't going to be much difference. If they do expand as they do in test medium the statistical difference is still insignificant.

Morgue testimony has shown several doing autopsies stating they can't tell the caliber used based on the wound channel till they dig the bullets from the body, and most rds have acted like ball and not expanded much if at all like the testing mediums used. One morgue worker who's posted on the net emphatically stated he'd seen better performance in the 45acp over all other calibers but the funny thing is, the people he was looking at were all dead to begin with, so the bullets did their job. He couldn't determine how long the guy/gal had lived before succumbing to their bullet/s wound/s in any caliber nor had data to support his preference for the 45acp in stopping ability [ what was determined was that he was a competitive shooter and used a 1911 45acp in competition which really set my meter off about his objectivity in his reporting results ].

I like the 45acp, carried it for near 3 decades when the technology and bullet designs we have today were not available. Today I carry both the 9mm and the 45acp often and don't worry too much about the differences in stopping ability between them, knowing that if neither expand [ likely ] they'll be so close in comparison to stopping someone as to be insignificant.

I like em both and use them both with confidence that if I do my part, either will do theirs. In fact, the Ranger T 147 standard velocity 9mm was adopted by the San Jose, Ca. PD after extensive testing and their first 6 shootings [ it's a war zone in that city ], showed 6 dead perps with each shooting requiring just one round to stop the threat. Don't know if the bullets expanded or not, but does it matter when the first 6 perps they shot only need one of those rounds on the street to stop their aggression?

I believe, like the FBI concluded all things being equal, the bigger hole punched by the 45acp over other calibers may lend some advantage. It's still a crap shoot as you could be the one whose 45acp doesn't expand and the other guys 9mm does expand in any given scenario.

We've all read where the 45acp loads didn't stop someone after numerous hits to the torso, and reports of 9's making one shot stops and putting an end to the aggression-- and vice/versa. I don't believe you can rely on the 45 anymore than you can rely on any other pistol bullet and I don't believe you shouldn't rely on the 45 any less than any other pistol bullet. It's a crap shoot if any pistol bullet expands, it's a crap shoot if any pistol bullet penetrates deep enough to vital organs and it's a crap shoot the BG you have to deal with doesn't become a bullet sponge and require numerous rounds from any caliber to put him/her down.

In other words, it's not so important in the caliber selection or the bullet design or the weapon you fire it from as it is luck your hits are where they do enough damage, the bullet expands some if any, you can end the problem without having to reload while engaged, and your firearm doesn't puke when you need it.

Brownie

I am a reader of the warrior talk forum and their conclusion is very close to that of the article that was linked. If all I had was a single shot I would likely pick the .45. What is not mentioned in the article is that repeat shots are easier time wise to achieve with the 9mm (Less recoil) and practice ammo is much cheaper. The 9 mm hand guns tend to be smaller (Not always) and the author does admit they hold more ammo. I had been a 1911 fan from about 1963 to about a few years ago when I put a 9 mm barrel on my subcompat Glock model 33 (.357 sig caliber.). I plan now to buy a compact glock that will take a 9 mm barrrel. There is one field that 9 mm beats the .45 hands down and that is penetration in wood. The military speck FMJ 9 mm will out penetrate a .45 military fmj.

There is an arguement about the hot .357 velocity projectiles and that this may be more effective than the 9mm and .45's. I am not sure. These loads will sure damage your hearing in a "confined space". But I am overall sold that for combat under concealed carry conditions that the glock 19 is superior to either the P14 or the basic 1911 in .45 acP.. The P14 by paraordnance does hold a lot of rounds, but is hard (Slow one handed) to grip under combat conditions for me and of course recoils more. At close range you must be able to handle your weapon well one handed. The other hand may be blocking or grabbing your enemy.

ECHOONE said:

One Question, where on earth are you going to find a " Combat concealed carry situation" not to many of us are 007 here! If in the military your primary weapon will be a rifle,not a pistol.If Civilian I don't fore see you in Combat not even if WW111 breaks out< pretty far fetched to think another nation is going to just invade USA territory, which would be the only reason a civilian would be in a Combat mode!!!!!!!
Now if your Dumb enough to go walking into a gang looking for it yea you might need a 40 rd MAg good luck even that isnt going to help you with multiple shooters firing at you!!!! If your a civilian and * rds with an extra clip isnt enough, your some where you should never have been or your one bad shot and need to go practice! Enough of this Hoorah,gunhoo, I need 40-50 rds of ammo to be certified safe to walk streets safe concealed that's fantasy rambo talk from people that never even seen action but dreamed they did,wake up!

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I'd disagree with several of your points of contention here:

If you are in SD lethal force situation and have to use your firearm, you'd better be in a combat mentality mode, because that's what you are involved in [ combat ] whether it's one or multiples or whether you recognize it for what it is or not.

Facing any number of multiples are increasingly possible scenarios in today's society in the US.

You've obviously never heard of hiding behind a wall of bullets or the fact that you don't want to be shooting one or two rounds and assessing if you need to shoot more to get the desired results of their ceasing their aggression against you.

Having known a dep in Tenn who shot 5 of six rds into a BG through the heart [ very good shooter ] and the guy still being able to then run almost 200 yrds before collapsing [ if he had enough energy to do that after 5 357 mags into his heart, he had enough energy to continue putting rds into the dep if he had so chosen thereby verifying the dep could have still died ] it should be clear that pistol bullets aren't very effective on the streets at immediately stopping determined BG's.

Knowing those facts, I want as many bullets in the gun without a reload as possible. People have died for having to reload in the middle of a gun fight [ Miami debacle with the feds and the two California Highway Patrol officers [ affectionately known as the Newhall incident ] come to mind as perfect examples of this ]. I'm not going to want to stop pouring incoming into multiples in the middle of something while they are still capable of giving incoming. In the Newhall case, one officer was behind his cruiser reloading when one of the BG's walked up and put an end to not only the troopers career but his life. You know what they say "sucks to be you".

If I'm not carrying a higher capacity semi auto and a BUG, I've been known to carry up to three J frames at the same time. Is that Rambo thinking or forethinking to have enough ammo to not make a reload while action may be in progress. In the event I have the 3 J frames, they'll be dropped empty while another is being used, or two could be used at the same time, and that gives me 15 rds on board without stopping to reload but only having to pull another gun from the back pocket or the waistband depending on which gun/s were utilized first. Now that may sound a little Rambo-ish to you but when I've got three J's on me, at least one is available to either hand immediately, and that isn't a bad thing as you could be fending off someone's attack with one hand and be able to draw from the other side, or you may be injured and not have one side available to you like what happened in the Miami Fed shootout with Mattox and his partner.

You play the odds and you takes your chances. Me? I've always been of the mindset to cut the odds in my favor whenever possible and to have enough forethought to look at a worst case scenario and plan accordingly.

BTW-- my response and thought process in this post comes from having seen the up close and personal nature of staying above ground with determined BG's. You may feel it's beyond the realm of possibility that a civilian could face multiples but I don't, and I'll train accordingly to be better prepared for that if it ever happens. I like erring on the side of caution and knowing forethought goes a long way. Both have proven to be good at keeping me above ground.

Thanks for your thoughts on this subject, it's not unusual for many people to think as you do. History proves them wrong time and again however. Hopefully not dead wrong.

Not sure where the James Bond remark comes from as he carried a single stack PPK for decades and before that a little .22 Thing is with the Bond character, he never ran out of bullets and the rounds he had in the gun were all one shot stoppers. We know better than to believe that his bullets only required one per in that caliber all the time, and it holds true for any caliber. You can run out of bullets very quickly at 4-5 rounds outgoing a second into threat/s.

TampaSsgt said:

I have respected Jeff Cooper's opinion for years ...

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In Coopers later years, he had changed his opinion of the higher capacity weapons available to him and was actually quoted a few times that if he weren't so set in his ways he'd probably be carrying a glock high cap pistol.

In his later years, he made a lot of amends to his thinking and writings about what might be acceptable TS.

As well, Cooper was firmly known for the advancement of front sight press skills using the stance Jack Weaver had adopted [ adopted because it was being used back prior to WW2 as many would not know ], yet admitted to using point shooting skills in the real world during his WW2 shootings.

He was a marketer of the highest order, was extremely opinionated and would not, while he was marketing his exclusive use of front sight press skills through his training school, admit to using something else that worked as well until many years after he was out of the business and had made his money off people who were pushed to believe the Weaver stance and front sight press was the best combative skills with a pistol.

There was more to Cooper than meets the eye and he never made statements that would injure his own schools doctrine, all in the name of the almighty dollar.

I'm going to have to agree with Brownie on the amount of ammo necessary in a gunfight. It can be anywhere from a single round to 50+, depending upon the circumtances. And the two worst feelings in the world are when the parachute doesn't open on a low altitude jump and when your pistol goes click in the middle of a short range gunfight. Now, most people are going to end up carrying what they feel comfortable carrying. For some that will be a revolver with 5 or 6 rounds. For others, that will be 45 to 50 rounds. And for most, it will be somewhere in between. I am usually comfortable carrying 20 to 25 rounds of 45acp.

As to Jeff Cooper, he advocated the .45acp for two very good reasons. First, he was very familiar with the Colt 1911 and felt comfortable trusting his life to it. And second, in the period of the 1960's through the early 1980's, when Cooper was most active, the 9mm was not as effective a defensive round as the 45acp, unless you used hollowpoints. Unfortunately, the hollowpoints of that time were not very reliable. They did not expand reliably, for a variety of reasons, and many did not chamber well in the pistols of the day. The 45acp produced much better wound ballistics in fmj than did fmj 9mm's and was still superior if hollowpoints expanded in both calibers. Due to advances in bullet design and construction, hollowpoints are much more reliable today. Because of this, both calibers are effective for self defense. As to advocating a weapons platform and technique in which he had a financial stake, every trainer does the same thing to some extent. That is business.