It seems there's No Love for 45 Auto in the Woods???

A few years ago I went bear hunting in Maine. I carried my Glock 21 (45 ACP) as a sidearm. Most of the local guides carried some type of 45 auto as well. One had a 9mm and used it do put down a wounded and treed bear. Down here, my hunting sidearm is an old Glock 23 (40 S&W). More than adequate for anything I may come across in Fl.

I carry a 6-shot 38 Special in the woods. I think your setup sounds more than adequate for my neck of the woods.

98s1lightning said:

I know a lot of answers will be negative or "get a 10mm"

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That's what I would say. Especially since the guns are the same size, more powerful, and capacity is better. Other than perhaps cost of ammo or certain guns availability there is no trade off.

That said, my county carried the Glock 21 for nearly 20 years and I've seen plenty of deer and cattle put down with a 45 acp. I would have no issue carrying one on the woods unless I knew bear were involved and If I KNEW bear were going to be involved I wouldnt carry my 10s either.

We have plenty of Black bear and I've spent many hours in the woods with only a 22 rifle. My entire youth pretty much, and I'm still here.

I often carry an RIA 1911 45ACP in the woods, 8 grs HS-6 and 230 grs Berry plated. Were I concerned with Brown bears, I'd be carrying a rifle.

I don't feel underarmed in general with a 45 acp, but feel better with a 45 Colt. Heavier bullets (280+) moving the same velocity or a bit higher (1150) in my loadings is more comfortable with me. In addition, I prefer a revolver for woods carry, and if i was going to load it with 45 acp, I'd just as soon carry my 1911.

I never felt underarmed with a 357 until I saw a sign warning of moose in the area. The 180 at 1350 felt awful small then.

I'd have no problem running 45 caliber 230-250gr WFN bullets at 800-850fps wether from a ACP or LC case for general purpose "woods duty".

Here in Ohio though, you'd be better served with a 22LR though.

I chose a Glock 10mm for my hiking/camping carry gun years ago. At the time there were some good options in 10mm for heavy for caliber hardcast bullets loaded pretty hot from DoubleTap and Buffalo Bore. The Double Tap loads I carry are a 200 gr bullet at 1300 fps. Much fewer options for other calibers at that time. I still think 10mm is the best all around option, but there are some 45 and 9mm loads that have proven to be effective on large predators. If a 45 is what I had I'd not hesitate to use it with some of the Buffalo Bore loads.

I've had those loads for my 10mm for years, but bought some 147 gr hardcast 9mm and 255 gr hardcast 45 ACP loads from Buffalo Bore. Then 9mm loads functioned just fine in all of my 9mm pistols, even the tiny G43. Accuracy was very good and that bullet has gone 60+ " in ballistics gel.

The 45's did the same from my 1911's and Glock 21. The test results I've seen with that bullet in gel was confidence inspiring although I can't recall the specifics. It was close to 10mm. But those loads simply would not work at all in the Smith M&P 45 Compact that I had at the time. I suppose I could have tried a heavier recoil spring, but I had other guns and traded that pistol off.

Using heavy for caliber hardcast bullets is the key. They penetrate MUCH better than hardball. The difference isn't even close. We're talking about 5 or 6 FEET instead of 15-20 INCHES with most FMJ ammo. I'd carry these in black bear country.

https://www.buffalobore.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=395

I have seen 45acp do its work on deer. I was not impressed. It did the job well enough, but the round just is too slow to expand and way too slow to do any kind of damage through cavitation. It’s more adequate than 38spl but not by a landslide. Add in the poor ballistics and you end up with a very unfavorable sidearm.

The point about 45acp and 45 Colt is a meaningful point. The ACP was developed in the early 1900s and did well for what it was intended to do. The 45 Colt however was not done with development and stronger guns quickly let it outpace the ACP. The acp was pretty well done with ability when it got to a point where the frame and slide were beating the snot out of each other on the 1911 and by the time it got popular in other guns the story was over. 45 Acp vs 45 Colt is not exactly the 30-06 vs 308 argument anymore. It’s more like the 223 vs 22-250

I carried a Star PD for several years when fishing and hunting in Alaska. Shot the occasional grouse and rabbit, but did kill one Kodiak Island blacktail around 1980. Used the old Speer 200 grain HP (known as the “flying ashtray”) loaded to about 950 fps. Shot through the lungs from about 20 yards the buck ran another 30 yards and fell over. He was dead by the time I got to him. Found the bullet under the far hide, very well expanded. Not my first choice - I carried a .45 LC after that - but from a single data point the .45 worked....with the right bullet.


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WestKentucky said:

I have seen 45acp do its work on deer. I was not impressed. It did the job well enough, but the round just is too slow to expand and way too slow to do any kind of damage through cavitation. It’s more adequate than 38spl but not by a landslide. Add in the poor ballistics and you end up with a very unfavorable sidearm.

The point about 45acp and 45 Colt is a meaningful point. The ACP was developed in the early 1900s and did well for what it was intended to do. The 45 Colt however was not done with development and stronger guns quickly let it outpace the ACP. The acp was pretty well done with ability when it got to a point where the frame and slide were beating the snot out of each other on the 1911 and by the time it got popular in other guns the story was over. 45 Acp vs 45 Colt is not exactly the 30-06 vs 308 argument anymore. It’s more like the 223 vs 22-250

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There's so much silly going on here, it's hard to pull it all apart. You must be of the "1911s can only shoot 230 grs hard ball" fallacy as well. I can't imagine the circumstances under which one would choose to hunt deer with a 45 pistol, but I can see how the thinking exemplified above would get you there. Perhaps you could tell us what the 45 ACP was designed to do when it was developed in the early 1900s? Because you clearly have a different understanding of it than those who are familiar with the military's requirements.

You've got to hunt for your spent brass with the 1911. Not so with a .45 Colt or magnum revolver.

It wouldn't be my first choice or even in the top 10 really.

The whole thing about fast follow up shots is silly, the power doesn't stack together it's just 3 not very adequate rounds penetrating not enough. Really if you are gonna use a 45 you better be damn good at shot placement rather than worrying about how many rounds you can fire off.

The comparison to 45 Colt is also silly because most people that do woods carry a 45 Colt are using +p rounds. That's a 325 grain bullet at 1350fps out of my Blackhawk. Most consider the 44 special to be marginal at bears and that's a 255gr bullet at 100fps more, or 10 percent more velocity than buffalo bores 45acp+p 255gr load.

It's up to you, chances are you'll never meet up with a bear but in my opinion.....I always set myself up for as much success as possible and I know people who have had trouble killing bear with a 30-06, one of which was a head shot that glanced off.

Handguns are really not that powerful and service calibers like the 45 are less so. The 45acp is no magnum

DocRock said:

There's so much silly going on here, it's hard to pull it all apart. You must be of the "1911s can only shoot 230 grs hard ball" fallacy as well. I can't imagine the circumstances under which one would choose to hunt deer with a 45 pistol, but I can see how the thinking exemplified above would get you there. Perhaps you could tell us what the 45 ACP was designed to do when it was developed in the early 1900s? Because you clearly have a different understanding of it than those who are familiar with the military's requirements.

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Pretty well covered in history. They wanted a semiauto to mimick the 45 Colt velocities and power level. The 45acp did that, but ball ammo flat out sucks, and other stuff is a big trade off where in many guns it chokes if it’s too flat on the nose, and to gain velocity you move to a shorter bullet that is as short as it is wide, and unless you go really soft you don’t get much expansion, and you can’t trade enough weight for enough velocity to get cavitation in a .45.

The one deer I saw killed with a .45 was hit at about 20 yards or so and ran a long way eventually drowning in its own blood from internal bleeding. There wasn’t much trouble finding him though with the hacking cough and massive blood trail from his mouth trailing down his neck. It was not pretty. Nobody was happy about the long drawn out process.

Now, I must ask, what is it about the .45 acp that makes a man so excited about it? Compared to modern rounds it’s a dog, so is it the video games, the world war factor, or just that it looks big compared to most other rounds? Fat and slow... in fact so slow that it is a favored round for people who use suppressors because it’s one of only a few that’s pretty consistently subsonic... do you hunt suppressed?

Some states have laws that prevent one from carrying a handgun with cartridges less than a certain length. MN's minimum used to be 1.285 case length, the exact length of the .357 Magnum. (I haven't lived there for 26 years-maybe it's changed.) Some states have minimum barrel length requirements. WI is one of them. 5.5" is the minimum barrel length. So one could have snubnosed .357 and be legal in MN, but not WI. (I used to carry my Python snub as a backup in MN.) Conversely, one could have a 6" barreled .25 ACP and be legal in WI, but not in MN. States having laws that impair carrying of .45 ACP's could have some effect on the amount of "Love for .45 ACP in the Woods''.

WestKentucky said:

Pretty well covered in history. They wanted a semiauto to mimick the 45 Colt velocities and power level. The 45acp did that, but ball ammo flat out sucks, and other stuff is a big trade off where in many guns it chokes if it’s too flat on the nose, and to gain velocity you move to a shorter bullet that is as short as it is wide, and unless you go really soft you don’t get much expansion, and you can’t trade enough weight for enough velocity to get cavitation in a .45.

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Just as I foretold. Well, I can't fix that.

DocRock said:

Just as I foretold. Well, I can't fix that.

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Absolutely not if your not willing to try. Not if your going to have that attitude. I gave you a chance to explain, and you offered nothing but a joke. Your insinuation that I am a stuck-in-the-mud hater after explaining my reasoning for why I don’t like the round is as laughable as your comeback. Please enlighten the world on how a 100+ year old, small case volume to moving mass contraption is better than modern stuff. I would love to hear a description of how it performs better in a Glock or some other modern pistol, but all that is ever regurgitated about the .45 is relative to the 1911 design and how great it is. Guess what, it’s really not that great. The 1911 truthfully isn’t that great of a design either but it is endeared to so many because of its military service.

I will ask this again... what makes you like it. And please make sure to leave out all the regurgitated BS about “.45 because they don’t make .46” or “1911 because for 109 years it’s been working”. Why?

@WestKentucky As I said, no explanation, no facts, no anything is going to fix what you've got going on. You start with the "hardball only " fallacy. You set up the straw man that bullets available in the early 1900s are the only bullets available today. You then proceed to presume that the only firearm 45acp can be chambered in is a 1911. Then you go on to confuse your prejudice against and misconceptions of that firearm with performance of the cartridge. I was mistaken in my original response. It's not silliness that's going on.

FL-NC said:

A few years ago I went bear hunting in Maine. I carried my Glock 21 (45 ACP) as a sidearm. Most of the local guides carried some type of 45 auto as well. One had a 9mm and used it do put down a wounded and treed bear. Down here, my hunting sidearm is an old Glock 23 (40 S&W). More than adequate for anything I may come across in Fl.

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What part of maine where you hunting? Most people are here carry a 9mm or 45 ACP.