[SIGarmed]

I was wondering what is the best caliber for knocking down steel?

I thought .45 would be great since its heavy.
What about .357SIG because its pretty hot?
I've used 9mm to knock down steel effectively so I guess .40 would be good too.

What say you?

[JohnK]

Steel as in speed shooting or steel as in silhouette shooting?

The top speed shooters at the Steel Challenge use very light loads, below standard 9mm in many cases, it doesn't take much to tip over a plate that isn't much more than balanced on edge.

The Silhouette shooters go to the other extreme using very powerfull loads, hotter than anything you listed, knocking over a 50 lb ram at 200 yards takes a bit more oomph than the plates used in speed matchs.

[SIGarmed]

I did mean for speed as in shooting a bunch of pepper poppers.

[chevrofreak]

for plates 9mm does fine, but for the larger "pepper poppers" i would say .40S&W as a minimum, and faster 200+ grain .45ACP, along with .38 Super and 10mm auto with a compensator/ported barrel would be ideal

[KP95DAO]

I have seen and found that 9mm will work; but, unless you are using a warm load and are sure that you are hitting dead center or higher, you can not be sure that it is going to fall. This will induce hesitation and therefore slower times.

That is why I have gone back to a 180 gr bullet in my 40, for paper and steel.

[Kahr carrier]

45 ACP.:)

[Shoney]

I'm using handloaded 40 Strong & Whoofda. Try 1100fps from the 200 gr Montana Gold flat point in front of VihtaVuori N105.

In case you haven't looked, that equals 10mm 200 gr bulletes and excedes 45ACP 200 gr by 100-150 fps.

Shoney

[Longbow]

.40 cal ! That's the second reason why it dominates limited class in USPSA.

[SIGarmed]

OK here's what I got. I was thinking of using my SIG Pro 2340.
I bought it in .40 but have since added a .357 barrel. I was thinking along the lines of keeping the .357 barrel but this ammo is a little bit harder to come by and slightly more expensive. I've been saving my brass so that I can reload it sometime this year when I get around to buying a reloading press. Has anyone used the .357SIG on steel?

I've fired one shot or quick pairs on big pepper poppers with 124gr 9mm in the past with great success, but if all it takes is one 180 gr .40 then I might have to switch back to the .40 barrel. I think I'll see how good the .357SIG works first though.

[duncan]

I have aGlock 34 in 9mm and it does quite well knocking over plates at 15 yards with standard velocity 9mm bullets.

But there still is a little muzzle flip.

Our top plates shooter uses 147 grainers with only 3.0 grains of TiteGroup. About 4/10 of grain under specs and has no flip at all in his G34.

But I would be very interested in a Glock 35 in 40SW because I could load some light recoiling 165/180/200 grainers in that case. And 1911 guys do shoot 40SW in addition to 45 ACP. Although there are some like me with a 9mm 1911 too;)

[Longbow]

Sigarmed,
As you had experienced, the 9mm will do the job on knocking down IPSC calibrated poppers, but .45 and .40 cal does it with more authority in my opinion. The .357 auto might do it better than the 9mm due its higher velocity/energy, but brass are harder to come by and requires a bit more step to handload compared to non bottle necked catridges. Also I've heard that reloaded .357 auto ammo is notorious on setting back when cycled on the gun, ' can cause the pressure to rise up. ' can be dangerous in my opinion. I suggest keeping the gun in .40 cal, brass is easier to find and lots of load info around. Good luck!

[kalibear45]

.38 super