9mm vs. .45

FWIW:

My personal choice in the 9MM vs 45ACP battle is, as posted above, the 9MM..

My daily carry choice is the LWS380..

Go figure..

Jesse

I...like..both....equally.

Does anyone know what caliber has caused the most deaths?????????????


Well it's neither the 9mm or 45 anyone know what it is ???????????????????
It is the .22, so it isn't all about bigger is better is it. And a 9mm will only overpenetrate and go through a person if you use ball ammo not todays hollowpoints

I have both. Depends on a lot of things.

It has been done hundreds of times in hundreds of places since I started shooting in 1980. At that time I argued shot placement over caliber and I still do. I own and shoot both as well as several revolver calibers.

There's no .45 as teeny to pocket as a Kahr PM9 or a Rorbaugh R9.

Conversely, a longslide 1911 .45 makes me smile.

Its like asking if you like cake or do you like ice cream. The answer is "YES"!

They both go "boom" and put holes in things. They both can be reasonably accurate out to a reasonable distance. One is about 97 thousanths of an inch bigger around than the other. But the other tends to go faster out of the muzzle.

Right now, it depends what components I can get to reload when I go to the gunshop. I've got tons of brass for both. And several very nice pistols in each caliber.

There's no .45 as teeny to pocket as a Kahr PM9 or a Rorbaugh R9.

Conversely, a longslide 1911 .45 makes me smile.

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Y'know.. I feel the exact same way!

i like the 10mm love i'm seeing here.

First of all let me say that I am new to this forum,but not to shooting.I Was taught to
shoot the 45 acp in the Marine Corps,in1964,I loved it then,and I love it today.With the
ammo that is available today,you can hit A BG with things like the CorBon,or even worse
The AFR round,and brother that's it,lights out.I also have some Black Talons,say what you will,these things are nasty.I had an opportunity to see the AFR in action,extreme shock put on a demo at a local gun shop shooting range,with ballistic gel and some stuff they call MAKI,the wound cavity was devastating,if the BG had on nothing but A tee shirt
he's instantly dead,even with A denim jacket,he'd have about 3 seconds of life.so all in all,with me bigger is always better,it's the difference between getting hit by A motorcycle
going 60 and A locomotive traveling at 30.

I'm not sure what the .40 offers that is so much better than the 9mm or .45 ACP.

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well to start, it is exactly in the middle in size, stopping power, cost, and availability. I would have chose .40 if that was an option because you have 15 in the mag, almost the stopping power of the .45, and It cost a little more than 9mm, but far less than .45. also, there is a report by a mortician talking about this, he says that .40 cal bullets and up are usually one shot kills where the 9mm, .380 bullets are usually requiring more rounds to be instantly fatal.

Since most gunfights end in a few rounds, I want the largest and most brutal weapon available.

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in that case wouldn't you mean this?

http://www.guncrafterindustries.com/graphics/images/cartridge_1_500.jpg

I have a G19 9mm and a G21 .45 locked and loaded in my bedside safe at all times. If the time comes I would grab either one and feel very confident it would do the job.

wilkersk said:

Its like asking if you like cake or do you like ice cream. The answer is "YES"!

They both go "boom" and put holes in things. They both can be reasonably accurate out to a reasonable distance. One is about 97 thousanths of an inch bigger around than the other. But the other tends to go faster out of the muzzle.

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Exactly. It's sort of like asking if you like Peanut Butter bars (.45), Oatmeal Cookie Pies (9mm) or Swiss Rolls (.40). I usually end up buying one of each.

Placement

It is all about placement a 45 hitting an arm or a leg is going to be the same thing as a .45 hitting the limb. Has anyone been in a gunfight ???????????????????? A .22lr has caused more deaths then all of the other calibers combined. what do they teach in the police academy? Shot placement so all of you people saying the 45 is better because it is bigger know nothing I wouldn't want to get shot with any bullet, you will be just as dead with a hollowpoint in 9mm or 45 .:

I vote 9mm only because it has twice the rounds a .45 has (close to anyway). If we are talking about one round stop .45 all the way.

I have both and both are deadly I prefer 9mm cuz at the range I have to reloadmags a lot less often and I can afford to shoot it far more often so I prefer the 9 a great bit but I still keep my 45

..."A .22lr has caused more deaths then all of the other calibers combined"...

and swords have killed more people than 22lr. does that mean that a sword would be a good choice against a good shooter with a 22lr? or does it mean that swords have been around much longer, and are cheaper and more plentifull than handguns? wouldn't that improve their chances of being used for self defence, in spite of being poorly suited to the job?

i agree that grazing the skin on an arm with a browning .50 is less effective than hitting the eye with a BB gun. but the problem with only taking bullet placement into consideration is that when condition "red" comes to pass, frequently there is not ample time or light. it is also assuming your opponent hasn't got enough sense to take cover, or keep moving to make themselves a diffficult target. in the dynamic situation of a gunfight, the "less is more" idea can not be farther from true.


..."Has anyone been in a gunfight ????????????????????"...

i haven't with an armed opponent, thank god. but my father and uncle weren't so lucky. by coincidence, my uncle brought down their attacker [who had a 1911] with just a colt woodsman 22 pistol. even with a 38 spcl slug in his leg. he had been hiding behind cover untill my father threw him the 22 he had just gotten out of my uncle's car. he did so because the guy with the .45 had him pinned down behind the same automobile. my uncle emptied the 10 round magazine into him, with a ~VERY~ rapid cadence. he was intent on doing all the damage he could before the guy with the boxcar could swing onto him. the guy stopped most of the rounds in the boiler room, and one wild one in his leg. and lived to tell about it.

had the handgun been a 45 OR 9mm, i doubt the last sentence would be true.....

gunnie

upsides and downsides

when it comes down to the nitty gritty, either one will do for me. if someone were to bust into my home and i was in the room that has the .45 in it, i would use the .45. if i was in the room with the 9mm in it, i would use the 9mm. for range use? my 9mm. cheaper, and in my neck of the woods, easier to find than .45acp ammo. i think that in the range from 9mm, 10mm, .40s&w, and .45acp anything will do for me. all upsides come with downsides. a 45acp has alot of stopping power but not much in the way of capacity, which makes it a pain out on the range because of constant refilling of the magazine. it also has less of an ability of a quick follow up shot because it has more kick and blowback slide time. 9mm has a ton of capacity but not as much stopping power, which means that you need better shot placement. but it has a great ability for follow up shots because of less recoil and faster slide recovery. 10mm and 40sw are great and are somewhat of a median between the two "super calibers" but they lack in the ability to find the range of handgun designs that the "super calibers" have. it's all a game of upsides and downsides

justinvoigts said:

It is all about placement a 45 hitting an arm or a leg is going to be the same thing as a .45 hitting the limb.

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Uhm, Justin? Arms and legs are limbs.

Shot placement so all of you people saying the 45 is better because it is bigger know nothing I wouldn't want to get shot with any bullet,

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The anti-9mm feeling flared because a good, solid and lethal hit from a 9mm that severed a major artery didn't stop the fabled FBI Miami massacre.

Of course, since there was only one central hit and 27 peripheral hits or misses is NEVER brought up, nor was the fact that the agent who fired that shot had lost his corrective lenses, so he was effectively shooting blind.

okespe04 said:

I have a G19 9mm and a G21 .45 locked and loaded in my bedside safe at all times. If the time comes I would grab either one and feel very confident it would do the job.

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I have the exact same guns, and feel very well armed with either. However, if punks were kicking your door in, and you had both of them in front of you, which one would you grab? I'd grab the G21.

justinvoigts said:

A .22lr has caused more deaths then all of the other calibers combined.

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I've always heard that, and never believed it. No military issues the .22lr, and most of them use the 9mm. I'd vote for the 9.

That's just my opinion, though. I'm not interested enough in the subject to Google it.

Hitler and his

nasty lot of murderers toastded allot of brains with the 9mm .
The only thing a .45 ACP would have done in the same episode of disgusting actions is the same thing the 9mm did , just with a bigger hole .
There both fine rounds .
I prefer the .45 for stopping ( permanantly stopping ) power though , but they are both very good killers . Ones got horsepower ( 9mm ) , the other is the HORSE !

Jaeger

Hey dougdubya

Sorry about that dude i didn't proofread it before i posted i meant basically it all boils down to placement. If you shoot a bg with a 9mm or a 45 cal in a limb they will shoot back. So it is all about placement i don't care what everybody says that is what they teach in the academy. And if you kill the head you kill the body. Have a great night. I can outrun a 45

It's all good, Justin. Peripheral hits = still need to fight (though destroying the shooting arm means they have to switch hands, and maybe even need to pick up the weapon).

PS: I want you for my track team as 829 fps = 566 mph.