10mm vs 45 ACP which has more stopping power.

Define stopping power.

Choosing a platform you're fast & accurate with in any major caliber matters far more than which particular major caliber you choose. If you make fast, consistent hits to center of mass, and use any quality JHP, 10mm vs. 45 ACP won't matter. Both will expand significantly, and both will penetrate deeply enough to hit areas that will render an assailant incapable of attacking you.

MUSICALGUNNUT45 said:

The 10mm is a high velocity round that fires a 40 cal bullet at very high speeds. while the 45 fires a big 45 caliber bullet at a slow speed but still hits very hard. Both seem to be at the opposite ends of what makes up good stopping power, small and fast vs big and slow. Which one do you think has better stopping power.

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Neither.

There is no such thing as "stopping power".

Well unfortunately it can go either way.

FBI and most typical 10mm vs .45: They will both have about the same power factor.
Full house 10mm vs .45: The 10mm will blow that .45 out of the water as far as power is concerned.

I believe Buffalo Bore loads some full house 10mm loads. I'm pretty sure in a lot of handguns chambered for 10mm your supposed to up the recoil spring to a heavier one.

"Stopping power"? I dunno you tell me.....

A 10mm slug to the arm.....

or .45acp to the heart?

If what you're really asking is which cartridge is more powerful, then obviously it's the 10mm.

MUSICALGUNNUT45 said:

I was going to mention not to say that but I forgot. Yes it does. according to the laws of physics stopping power exists. mass times velocity the more you have of both the more kinetic energy is going to transfered onto the target and the more energy that is transfered onto the target the better chance you have at incapacitating a target. think about it would you trust a 150 grain bullet moving at 300 fps no it just doesn't transfer enough energy but a 150 grain bullet moving at 1500 fps would transfer more than enough energy to incapacitate a target. you can talk about aiming center mass as much as you want but still common sense should tell you that a 32 auto is less effective than a 45 because it simply has more stopping power. And you can bring up the story about the cop who shot a suspect 4 times with a 357 and was killed with a 22 all you want but it's just one of those moments where the phrase stuff happens comes into play. 45 vs 10mm might be splitting hairs but stopping power exists none the less.

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Neither kinetic energy (½mv²) nor momentum (mv) should be confused with one another and neither equates to "stopping power" since there is no such thing.

Ignoring the necessity and importance of appropriate shot placement is also ill-advised.

You want stopping power, you should get 120mm.

10mm fares better with BG, I'm gonna give it to 10mm.

Go hunt something with a firearm and get back to us on the myth of stopping power.

Nothing will disavow a person quicker of this silly notion than to take something that wants to stay alive and try to make it dead with a firearm.

That and a certain mythbustets episode

posted via tapatalk using android.

I've never actually shot a full power 10mm. Common sense tells me its extra power over the .45 Auto comes at a price, that being a larger and heavier gun - which is more likely to get left at home than a smaller lighter gun - with more recoil. The .45 - which I have shot extensively - has about as much recoil as I feel is prudent for controllability in rapid fire. Are you seriously going to shoot your attacker once and wait for him to fall?

Stopping effect (that an animal that has been shot will stop what it is doing) and stopping power are two completely different things.

The "power" that the target feels when you shoot it is equal to the force you feel in the recoil of the firearm, plus the adjustments for the energy used in cycling the action, and lowering the bore axis so that the energy goes directly into your hands, rather than generating upward force. That's it. Can this knock a man over? Kind of. In that, if you were shooting a heavy revolver of some sort, standing off balance, and unprepared for the recoil. The recoil might make you lose your balance. That is all the recipient of the bullet actually feels.

Stopping EFFECT is the combined effect of cavity trauma, blood loss, psychological acknowledgement of injury, and sometimes paralysis. If you cause injury to someone, they will stop doing what they are doing for a variety of reasons, but no, that .45 or 10mm bullet did NOT stop them from doing anything.

Since no one here carries 10mm ammo here, 45 acp because you can actually buy it and shoot it. Even that is getting hard to find these days... LOL

Only shot one 10mm auto. Loved the gun. But I own 45 and 40 autos

Um, So I'm going with

Caliber war threads....
So blase, I mean really, what's your point, other than starting ANOTHER caliber war thread...

45 acp, bullets need not expand. http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=112824

I don't know....but I'm dying to find out

10mm is on my short list

MUSICALGUNNUT45 said:

Im not ignoring it Im just saying common sense should show that stopping power exsists denying it is just ignorant. Im just saying that people use shot placement as an excuse to ignore stopping power all together. and kientic energy and momentum are 2 of the 3 parts of stopping power in my opinion the other one being sufficient tissue/organ damage which isn't happening without a good amount of kinetin energy and momentum.

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Common sense suggests many things. Many of those things simply aren't correct. Such is the case with what you are suggesting.

You call shot placement "an excuse to ignore 'stopping power' all together", yet you claim that organ damage must be sufficient ("which isn't happening without a good amount of kinetin energy and momentum") to produce the alleged phenomena. Without correct shot placement, you don't get sufficient organ damage. Can't have it both ways.

Ignore reality at your own peril. No skin off of my back.

10mm vs 45 ACP which has more stopping power.

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The use of the term "stopping power" is probably best limited to those discussions where the subject is disc brakes and how quickly a vehicle can be stopped ...

How well can you shoot a pistol chambered in either caliber?

How well can you obtain effectively accurate hits against an attacker attempting to use deadly force against you in an unexpected dynamic, chaotic and rapidly changing situation involving stressful physical action when experiencing physiological and psychological stresses? Probably going to happen in less-than-optimal lighting conditions and when you're either off-balance and/or involved in thinking about something else at the moment, too.

How well do you know and understand the laws involving the use of deadly force in defense of self (or an innocent third person) in your state?

How well can you safely, quickly and effectively draw & present whichever weapon you decide to carry from the holster you use?

Lots of things to consider when thinking about lawfully using a firearm as a defensive weapon. These few things just begin to scratch the surface of the subject.

I'm not so sure that caliber/cartridge rates all that high up on the list of critical priorities to consider, myself ... and I've been working around the edges of the subject as LE (now retired) and as a LE firearms instructor (still active as an instructor) for a fair number of years.

Suit yourself. Hopefully for well considered reasons allowing for an informed decision ...

The 10mm Auto was developed for the FBI so that they could shoot an assailant who was wearing light body armor or hiding in light cover and the round penetrate the armor/cover before it expanded. This is why the 10mm is a much hotter round than the 45 ACP or 40 S&W.

The 40 S&W is a far less powerful round that uses 10mm bullets as well. It was designed with lower recoil and no cover or body armor in mind. The assumed target, since police were quick to adopt the 40 S&W, is an assailant wearing street clothes. The 45 ACP is designed to stop darn near anyone in its tracks with no thought to recoil or cover/armor. Massad Ayoob tells of how Germans in WWII cursed their 9mm Lugers as it took several rounds from them to stop a soldier were as the Yank 45 sledged anyone it hit.

I have used .45,357, and 10mm to put down wild life, cattle, and horses. These animals want to live and don't say "OMG, I've been shot" and lay down and die.

I'll take a 10mm any day.

I have a fullsize .45 and a 10mm Glock, and I carry a G29 or G27. I load for all of them.

The 10mm can fire bullets that have a higher BC, greater sectional density, and they can be driven pretty fast. The 180's and below are pretty fast, and 200 grain bullets can be supersonic or subsonic. Because of this, the round shoots flat and is pretty accurate at distance, and retains more energy. I love shooting it.

The 10mm can simply deliver more energy to the target than the .45 can, provided the round doesn't overpenetrate, which could be easy to do with a 10mm. A clogged XTP (can't recall the weight) will go almost 3 feet in gelatin. You also have 15 rounds in a G20, or 10 in a G29, which is nice. When loaded for defense, I mostly use fairly warm 180 grain loads, but always within published data. I don't load "hot" rounds. They are more powerful than the .40, but they have less recoil due to the larger and heavier pistol. Typically, the 10mm has about a 300fps advantage over the .40.

As far as defense though, that happens at close range, and a .45 will do just fine. I like the 10mm because of the accuracy, capacity, and because I like shooting it. I figure the last is more important, since I will shoot a lot on the range and probably (hopefully) never at a person. So either will work for that, but I think the 10mm is more fun to shoot.

If you don't handload though, just stick with .40, or better, .45. Factory 10mm ammo is watered down quite a bit, and the only thing you gain is reduced recoil. If you do handload, don't overdo it either, 10mm is forgiving, but not supernatural.

kientic energy and momentum are 2 of the 3 parts of stopping power in my opinion the other one being sufficient tissue/organ damage which isn't happening without a good amount of kinetin energy and momentum.

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Typical .243 Winchester loadings have the same KE as typical .45-70 Gov't loadings. Which one do you want to hunt brown bear & bison with?

10mm Auto is probably a better hunting cartridge than .45 ACP simply because of the 10mm's flatter trajectory. At self defense ranges it isn't going to matter. The 10mm will have more energy, the .45 ACP will have more momentum. A properly placed shot from either is going to create a very similar wound to that created by the other.

I shoot both as well as 40sw and 45super. My handloaded 40 is about the same velocity as factory 10mm. My handload 45super is same as hot 10mm just a fatter bullet. As far as killing mammals the 10mm is better because of the simple physics that it is faster and penetrates better. The fat relatively slow 45 will glance off of heavy bones(like skulls of large mamals). When I was a little boy my uncle who was a farmer/part time butcher had to put an old hereford bull down. He routinely used a 22 rifle, after 2 shots and the bull shaking his head from the sting, my uncle grabbed a 12 gauge which ripped all the hide off the poor bulls forehead. In exasperation uncle clarence used his 06 so he could start the cutting process. Large mammals are not made of gelatin, heavy clothing, heavy bones...you never know...gotta get that bullet to cause bleeding or nothing is going to happen. Watch hunting video's. TV and movies are fake and I think most people do not realize how fake they are.

Shoot a small doe with a 416 Rigby - even with expanding 'soft point' bullets, you are not likely to see much effect over a 308.

"More power" is only effective up to a point. Just because a certain projectile has more energy does not mean it will impart all of that energy to the target. Far from it. The vast majority of the 416's energy will be wasted.

That said, the actual diameter difference between the 10mm and 45 is somewhat negligible. The final diameter of expanded hollow points is even more negligible. Since the 10mm has velocity and energy advantage, then it is the winner in my eyes.

And THAT said, I would still love to have my 4506 converted to 45super

At least 9mm is still better than .45 ACP, that round moves TOO slow to be useful for anything...