Possible new twist on 9mm vs. .45

Shot placement is the correct answer.

I'm sticking with my 13mm.

Not really a new twist. People have been making that kind of comparison forever.

Argument had a million times not worth having again.

All handgun rounds have poor terminal performance. Pick your favorite poor performer that you'll get out and practice with, and that your ego will still allow you to admit you carry. Carry that.

Dude, you just opened a smelly can of worms...lol. I'm with Sol. Shot placement is key.

I like to bowl. I know people who use all sorts of weight balls. Given that I've seen winners use both light and heavy balls, and everywhere in between, I say the best ball is the one best suited to you for a variety of reasons. And no match was ever won by rolling a single ball.

The way I see it, if you feel a .45 is 10% better than a 9mm and that's what makes your decision for you then go for it. I'm going with what I can shoot best. With "best" being the ability of properly work the gun under stress, shot placement, repeatability and so forth and so on.

And besides, it's actually 9.78%.

Shot placement, shot placement..... What exactly does that have to with a caliber war? I've never figured that out.

If both projectiles hit in the same spot it stands to reason one will do a better job than another. If they don't hit in the same spot it is no longer a caliber war, it's an accuracy war.

Agreed, shot placement is key because handguns are not as effective as rifle rounds.

The only advantage I see between the 9×19mm & .45ACP fmj is the projectile diameter, 9mm verses an 11.2mm but again marginal advantage at best.

peacebutready said:

I read something about a known trainer claiming 1 round of .45 auto is about 10% better than 1 round of 9mm in terms of stopping power/knockdown power. This is comparing the same bullet (ex: fmj vs. fmj or h.p. vs. h.p.).

Any opinions on how much better in terms of percent how much better the .45 is?

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It doesn't matter what this guy says. He lost me as soon as he used the phrases "stopping power" and "knockdown power".

Stopping power is a fictitious term in absolute terms and is always relative.

And there is no such thing as "knock down power, because simple physics says if it's powerful enough to knock down the two-legged critter you're shooting at, then you're gonna get knocked down, too.

All handgun rounds have poor terminal performance.

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True, but some are way better then others....
A 500 S&W Magnum is a handgun round

And there is no such thing as "knock down power, because simple physics says if it's powerful enough to knock down the two-legged critter you're shooting at, then you're gonna get knocked down, too.

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THIS^^^^^High school physics

Which is THE very reason you should go full boat Dirty Harry .44 Magnum instead of auto loaders which take up recoil in the slide and spring.

I think I read this in an add once. " The 45acp, proven to leave an attacker 10% more dead than the 9mm."


I look at it like this, use what works for you. Both are fully capable at hitting the off switch so it really just comes down to personal ability and preference.
Like the guys already said, shot placement is much more important.
It's like framing hammers, a 21 oz framing hammer will drive a nail, a 24 oz framing hammer may drive a nail better, if you can hit the nail. Some people drive the nail faster with the 21oz hammer while others drive it faster with the 24oz hammer. Point is, there is no such thing is a free lunch, there is going to be a trade off.
If your more comfortable with 380, then for you it's more effective than a 45acp and visa versa.

AFAIC, the advantage .45 has over 9mm is that, if you're lucky, that 9mm will expand to the size of a .45. Bigger holes leak faster.

Bullet expansion in the human body is apparently a very iffy thing, according to LEOs I have talked with direct knowledge of shootings. Sometimes you get expansion, more often you don't.

Consequently, I've been looking at single stack .45s lately. Clint Smith might have been right. Big hardball is the huckleberry in handguns.

Given the same number of shots fired, the .45 will damage what the 9mm only nicks, and gives you a slight edge.

If you need more shots than the .45 can offer, the 9mm is better.

Whichever caliber you can shoot faster and more accurately is 100% better than the other.

If you score a hit on the upper CNS or a critical structure such as the heart or great vessel, either will be equally effective. Unless you hit a critical structure or open a major vessel, no handgun caliber results in enough tissue destruction to result in blood loss sufficient for immediate or even quick incapacitation. A determined attacker might never pass out despite multiple hits, and even if they do, will probably have plenty of time to shoot back at you. Historically, 80-85% of handgun gunshot wounds are non-lethal. These are the "sad handgun facts of life."

According to Dr Gary Roberts most modern hollowpoint 9mms expand to an average caliber of .60" compared to .70" for .45 caliber ACP. So if you missed that critical structure by .05" or less (less than 1/16") with your 9mm, a .45 caliber ACP would have been much better. Otherwise assuming equal penetration, it isn't going to make that much difference.

HexHead said:

AFAIC, the advantage .45 has over 9mm is that, if you're lucky, that 9mm will expand to the size of a .45. Bigger holes leak faster.

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True, that's why I'm leaning toward the PDX1 165 gr .40, expanding to .76" and still giving me 16" of penetration.

au_prospector said:

Which is THE very reason you should go full boat Dirty Harry .44 Magnum instead of auto loaders which take up recoil in the slide and spring.

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Full Boat Dirty Harry is truly the only way to go. I mean, people didn't even die or were stopped until that gun came out.

This isn't really a new twist on a (almost) 100yr old debate. As stated before, shot placement is key.

Shoot whatever you shoot well. Reload and repeat as necessary.

gun_with_a_view said:

Bullet expansion in the human body is apparently a very iffy thing, according to LEOs I have talked with direct knowledge of shootings. Sometimes you get expansion, more often you don't.

Consequently, I've been looking at single stack .45s lately. Clint Smith might have been right. Big hardball is the huckleberry in handguns.

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I've shot pigs with hardball and found it severely lacking. Not sure I'm with Clint on this one.

Factory hardball is notoriously light-loaded. Maybe hot hand loads would have a better result with ball, but the factory ball I used sucked.

What could possibly be considered new about this?

DeepSouth said:

Shot placement, shot placement..... What exactly does that have to with a caliber war? I've never figured that out.

If both projectiles hit in the same spot it stands to reason one will do a better job than another. If they don't hit in the same spot it is no longer a caliber war, it's an accuracy war.

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Thank you DeepSouth for pointing this out. I agree with you completely.

As far as defense effectiveness and chances for survival are concerned, shot placement is in fact very important. However, that is a measure of a person as a shooter, the accuracy of a particular gun, and has nothing to do with ballistics performance of different types or sized bullets, given the same shot placement.

That being said, this thread is not a new idea at all. I recently took the Utah concealed carry coarse, and the instructor presented a spreadsheet of numbers of defensive or police shootings, and a percentage of how many of them were one shot stops. The 45 acp and 357 had about a 10% higher percentage of one shot stops when compared to shootings with other handgun cartridges. I'm guessing that is where he got his number from.

It's a meaningless number really. It would only be truly useful if the exact same conditions were repeated with two different cartridges, which is unlikely to happen given a lack of volunteers.

What is relevant is measurable differences between the 45 and 9mm. 45 will penetrate deeper than 9mm in most cases. Is that good or bad for your needs? 45 creates larger temporary cavitation. Do you feel that is important?

In my mind the most important factor is permanent wound channel. Given non expansion of FMJs, or equal % expansion of HPs, the 45 will always create a larger wound channel, which means a faster bleed out. If you don't hit the central nervous system for a quick stop, then a bleed out is the next fastest form of physical stoppage available when using a gun to protect oneself.

Impact energy is only important to a certain point. If a big enough and fast enough cartridge blasts a hole clean through a target, what benefit is there in adding more impact energy? I suppose greater temporary cavitation, but since I'm not trying to explode anyone, I question the relevance. Though, it is a measurable performance issue.

Knock down power is total nonsense as Chief pointed out.

Stopping power is more relevant, but describes a combination of ballistics effects, not some inherent trait of a particular bullet or cartridge.

Both cartridges work, especially given modern HP tech. So pick the one that you shoot better, and the one that gives you a more warm and fuzzy feeling.

I like 45 for carry, but I shoot 9mm too, and would definitely consider it adequate for defense.

I think 10% is a good generalism to put the issue in context. There is no right/wrong answer.

.45 ACP, 10% better in terminal effect with a bit more recoil, a lot less capacity and a larger gun.

9mm, 10% less terminal effect, lower recoil, higher capacity, smaller gun.

Take your pick or split the difference with a .40 S&W! Actually the .40 S&W will be closer the 9mm in size/capacity but closer the the .45 in terminal effect (basically a tie) and in my experience worse than either for recoil but that is subjective and I'm assuming same size class pistol for any comparison.

The argument is rooted in the historical events surrounding the Moros insurrection during the American occupation of the Philipines, in which small caliber service revolvers proved insufficient to stop the death charge of doped up moros attackers.

The search for a larger caliber side arm lead directly to the development of the 1911 pistol.

The problem is that modern improvements in 9 mm and .38 cal handgun ammo, greatly alters the comparison between the calibers.

I personally wouldn't want to be hit by either.

YMMV

A lot of these "knockdown power", "stopping power", "one-shot stop" effectiveness ratings come from the old Marshall and Sanow data. I don't wish to start a separate debate, but suffice it to say that many people feel this data was falsified, and even if it wasn't, the selection criteria render the results meaningless.

I think a more reliable analysis was done by Greg Ellifritz who compiled and documented data from 1513 shootings with handgun calibers, 126 shootings with centerfire rifle calibers, and 146 shootings with shotguns (90% 12 gauge) over a 10 year period. He excluded accidental shootings and suicides. All shootings occurred in a "combat" environment.

In each case he looked at rounds that hit, and the average number of rounds that hit before the attacker ran, surrendered, or was incapacitated. To be considered an immediate incapacitation the round needed to immediately stop the attack without another blow thrown or shot fired. If the attacker was shot running, he had to have fallen to the ground within five feet to be called an immediate incapacitation.

Ellifritz also looked at the percentage of people who were not incapacitated for each caliber, regardless of the number of times they were hit. He considered accuracy of shootings by the percentage of hits to the head or torso, the percentage of shootings that included a head or torso hit that had a fatal result, and the percentage of attackers who were immediately stopped by one hit to the head or torso.

The "one shot stop percentage" was the number of attackers incapacitated divided by the number of hits the attacker took to the head and/or torso. He also looked at the percentage of people stopped with one hit to the head or torso.

He would have liked to have broken the results down by cartridge and projectile type (FMJ vs. JHP for example) but did not feel he had enough data points to do so meaningfully.

Here are the results for 9mm parabellum:

# of people shot - 456
# of hits - 1121
% of hits that were fatal - 24%
average number of rounds until incapacitation - 2.45
% of attackers not incapacitated - 13%
one shot stop percentage - 34%
accuracy (head and torso hits) - 74%
percentage actually incapacitated by a single head or torso hit - 47%

Here are the results for .45 cal ACP:

# of people shot - 209
# of hits -436
% of hits that were fatal - 29%
average number of rounds until incapacitation - 2.08
% of attackers not incapacitated - 14%
one shot stop percentage - 39%
accuracy (head and torso hits) - 85%
percentage actually incapacitated by a single head or torso hit - 51%

You will note that the .45 cal ACP had a slightly higher rate of one-shot incapacitation and one-shot stop percentage, as well as fatality rate per hit and slightly fewer shots were required for incapacitation with the .45 caliber. On the other hand, the .45 caliber hits happened to have a significantly higher accuracy rate (85% head or torso hits for .45 ACP compared to 74% for 9mm) which probably accounts for much, if not most of the difference.

The percentage of attackers who were not incapacitated regardless of the number of hits was virtually the same for both calibers: 13% for 9mm, 14% for .45 ACP.

Considering only single head and torso hits, the .45 ACP did have a small edge over 9mm in immediate incapacitation (51% for .45 and 47% for 9mm) but Ellifritz noted that the shootings data for 9mm Pb happened to have a much larger percentage of ball ammo hits as opposed to expanding hollowpoints (over 50% FMJ) which he feels skewed the lethality results of 9mm downward somewhat.

The bottom line: there ain't that much difference.