.30 Carbine vs .45 ACP?

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Fisherman12

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Out of carbines, which one has more "stopping power"? A hot JHP .45 would probably go about 1200 fps by my estimate, and it's a JHP 230 grain .45 caliber bullet.

A hot loaded JHP .30 Carbine probably goes 2000fps at most and is 110 grains at most.


Keep in mind I want to compare "high end" self defense loads.

Which is more likely to stop an attacker?
 
.45acp does not really benefit that much from a long barrel. I think somewhere around 12-14" is optimum, anything past that and it is slowing down. Of course you could handload with different powders to combat that.
 
The 45 ACP isn't going to go much faster in a carbine than in a pistol and the Marlin Camp Carbines are blowback actions, so special loads won't do much good.

The M1 carbine with soft/hollow points is pretty darn effective.
 
I have an AO M1 carbine and just obtained a Marlin Camp 45. I've shot the M1 a lot, but am still getting my Camp 45 ready for shooting (replaced recoil buffer and buffer). Plus, the trigger assembly is in the US Mail enroute to Bill Springfield for a trigger job and to remove the magazine disconnect. So, I won't be able to shoot it for another week or so. I like carbines.

I can hit a pie plate pretty consistently at 150 m with a red dot on my M1 carbine. I've read 100m or so is a stretch for the Camp 45. Heck, both are expensive to shoot but easy to reload.

One issue for my M1 is that it really likes FMJ/ball ammo (as it was intended to be used). It gets finicky on the soft tip ammo. Loves uber expensive Speer, seems to dislike cheaper version.
 
My main concern is the .30 Carbine's ability to stop an attacker. There's more to terminal ballistics than foot pounds of energy, isn't there?

I see and hear all the time how .30 Carbine really isn't an effective cartridge, even with JHP's.
 
mine's loaded with a 120 grn round nose lead bullet moving 1550fps. not something I'd want to get hit with. and there are 15 of them.
 
Inside of 50 yards bullet design is going to matter more than foot lbs. The .30 carbine is going to be much better if you need to reach out past 60 yards. .30 carbine is cool but commercially limited (in carbine format) to the M1 Carbine. I love the gun from a collectors standpoint but it is WWII technology and probably not the best fighting weapon for your dollar.
 
Look up Jim Cirillo from the notorious NYPD Stakeout Squad; he was very effective with the M1 Carbine, and used it to reduce a number of armed robbers. Loaded with some decent ammunition it can be a very good house gun.
 
Funny how a 357 out if a 4" barrel is an 'effective stopper' while the 30 carbine is "marginal" despite having more energy.
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But .357 is a slightly bigger, heavier, bullet.
 
45acp does not really benefit that much from a long barrel. I think somewhere around 12-14" is optimum, anything past that and it is slowing down. Of course you could handload with different powders to combat that.
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First, they're not slowing down after 14". They're just not gaining much. The bullet won't actually start losing velocity in the tube until you're looking at barrels of 40+".

Secondly, while factory .45 ACP doesn't gain a lot from carbines, handloads can. You load with larger charges of slower powders. I have .45 ACP loads that'll push 900 FPE from a 16" barrel.

For stopping power the ft/lbs is what you have to look at. Speed alone means little.
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Ft/lbs also means very little by itself. It's a yardstick to measure the relative capability of a cartridge, but there's a lot more to it. You think my .17 Rem and 10mm auto wound the same just because both produce 800 ft/lbs? One is driving a .172" 20 gr. bullet at 4,250 FPS, the other a .400" 180 gr. bullet at 1,405 FPS. Same kinetic energy, very different terminal performance.
 
MachIV,

Check out ballistics by the inch. Very few loads will be faster at 18" than 16". Most standard weight loadings will top out in the 10"-14" area, and by 18" be going as slow as a 6".
 
Some 45 ACP ammo does lose velocity in carbine length barrels. Regardless the 30 carbine is going to be a better round. It might be one the low end of rifle rounds, but it's still way more powerful than most pistol rounds.

45auto.png
 
It ALL comes down to the bullet


If comparing a premium jhp for 45 to FMJ or the primitive bullets that fedremchester use for wal mart grade 30 carbine then yes the 30 looks kinda poor.

Same for 357mag comparisons.

However if you change the 30 carbines projectile to something like a DPX then the carbine really begins to shine

However as far as rifle rounds go the 30carbine is pretty whimpy and very limited in its usefulness due to only being able to employ a very narrow bullet weight range. Take a 357 in the same length barrel or a 30 carbine handgun and make the same comparison and you'll quickly see that 357 is the more powerful and effective round




posted via that mobile app with the sig lines everyone complaints about
 
Bullets kill in the same way that swords, spears and arrows did before them, by making holes in tissue causing bleed outs or by disabling the central nervous system.

I am always surprised at this talk of "stopping power", particularly when it is linked to velocity. It often follows that someone will suggest that cartridge X, Y or Z will "knock [A, B, C or D] off its feet". We know of course that this is impossible because physics tells us that were it able to knock A B C or D of of its feet, it would have done so for the shooter. A 40 gr hollow point .22lr fired into the brain of an elephant will be more effective at "stopping" that animal than will a 400 gr solid from .458 Win tearing through both lungs. Are we then to deduce that the .22lr is a better cartridge for elephant hunting? One would hope not. Nor should we imagine that the retina separation risk posed by firing large caliber belted magnum rounds is worth it because such rounds will knock anyone of similar to or larger size than the shooter over.

Velocity is only important in regards to effective range, trajectory, and impact on bullet design/performance at impact. What is most important to "stopping" animate creatures is placement, penetration, and wound size (in which velocity of course plays a critical supporting role).

If you can put a 110 gr .30 cal bullet in the eye of an elk at 200 yards, it is an effective elk rifle. It will most certainly disable the central nervous system and "drop" the elk. But one hopes that this is not something anyone will try at home.

Now, to our question. .30 Carbine vs 45 ACP. Presuming equal accuracy with both firearms (a big "if"), then the answer is that the .30 Carbine will likely have more "stopping power" outside 100 yards where it is more likely to reach and penetrate tissue than the .45 ACP. Inside 100 yards, the .45 ACP becomes accurate and therefore has greater stopping power by virtue of the bigger hole and greater tissue damage it will cause. All other things being equal, provided that at any given distance both bullets could be put on target and achieve at least 12" of tissue penetration, the .45 ACP always has more "stopping power" because it makes a bigger hole and leads to a faster bleed out.

Were I looking for a carbine (here defined solely as a sub 20" barreled rifle) with excellent "stopping power", it would be a Rossi lever gun in 454 Casull sent to Steve's Gunz for slicking up and a nice thick recoil pad. Alternatively, for the younger generation, a 16" AR in .450 Bushmaster pushing the 250 gr Hornady SST at @ 2200 fps would also be rather handy.
 
RPRNY said:
A 40 gr hollow point .22lr fired into the brain of an elephant will be more effective at "stopping" that animal than will a 400 gr solid from .458 Win tearing through both lungs.
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Good luck getting a .22LR bullet anywhere near an elephant's brain. Especially a hollow point. There is actually a thread on here right now of a guy who shot himself in the head four times with a 22 and none of the bullets penetrated his skull.

My limited hunting experience has made me a big believer in velocity over bullet weight. A smaller caliber higher velocity bullet will usually make a bigger hole and do more tissue damage than a low velocity larger caliber bullet. Especially when softpoint or hollowpoint ammo is used.
 
Check out ballistics by the inch. Very few loads will be faster at 18" than 16".
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Look more closely at their charts. Obvious control issues, as their was no solid linear increase/decrease from one length to the next. For example, the Federal 165 gr. EFMJ:

18" 1251
17" 1200
16" 1304
15" 1284
14" 1267
13" 1188
12" 1235
11" 1260
10" 1246
9" 1235
8" 1174
7" 1174
6" 1138

The bullet gains no velocity between 7" & 8", then jumps 70 FPS at 9", plateaus until 11", then slows down at 12", slows down more at 13", jumps back up at 14", drops 104 FPS from 16" to 17" then back up 51 FPS at 18". Every load "tested" has similar fluctuations, but at different points. Seem scientific to you?......

by 18" be going as slow as a 6".
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Ummm........OK. That's not what their chart says below, nor do my own chronograph results.

18" 1450 1309 1189 1065 1220 1251 1195 1062 888 937

6" 1283 1183 1102 1043 1117 1138 1061 1012 874 897

18" Avg: 1,157 FPS

6" Avg: 1,071 FPS

Like I said, factory loads don't gain much, but they do gain. Factory loads are optimized for 4-6" barrels, so this is to be expected. Loaded with slow magnum powders, the .45 ACP will behave more like the .357 magnum, showing significant gains in rifles. A 230 gr. FMJ over 9.0 grs. Blue Dot and a Winchester LPP achieved a typical 830 FPS avg. in my Colt Mk IV, but scored 1,060 FPS in my camp 45. That's an energy increase of 222 ft/lbs, or 63%.
 
I am not going to argue it can be done. Simply though to me a standard load is 230gr. They do not gain a whole lot, and start loosing much sooner than most calibers unless specifically loaded for a rifle length barrel. When you start throwing in very light for caliber bullets, or special powder loadings you can change things.
 
My limited hunting experience has made me a big believer in velocity over bullet weight. A smaller caliber higher velocity bullet will usually make a bigger hole and do more tissue damage than a low velocity larger caliber bullet. Especially when softpoint or hollowpoint ammo is used.
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The myth of high velocity hydrostatic shock liquefying tissue upon entry has been debunked numerous times. How it continues as an urban myth is beyond me. Your statement above that a high velocity small caliber bullet will make a larger hole in tissue than a low velocity large caliber bullet (providing impact is at optimal velocity for bullet design in both cases) is simply false.

Were the 5.56 Nato round the devastating liquifier of tissue that you would have us believe, A) those shot with it would be found as simply a pile of clothes and a pair of shoes containing a gelatinous mass and B) it would have been banned under the Geneva Convention (or subsequent amendments, to be precise). Wound channels from the 5.56 are relatively small and very survivable unless, as intended, there is considerable bullet yaw on impact, which has the effect of mimicking the impact of a larger caliber projectile.

Tissue is spongey and highly elastic. Unless the effect of hydrostatic shock is very close to the heart or liver, it will have the sole effect of making the recipient very sore. Primary damage from bullet penetration is generated by the size of the hole that is ripped through tissue, severing blood vessels and elements of the central nervous system. Size matters.

While focused on pistol caliber wound channel analysis, the attached FBI study which extensively reviews a range of previous studies is extremely effective in illustrating the case nonetheless. As with cubic inches, there is no substitute for bigger holes. That carbine which can reliably make the largest hole at least 12" deep (at the range the user designates as optimal) will always have the most "stopping power". Ideally, "stopping power" would be delivered in .45 cal grain weights at @ 3,000 fps. Since that has numerous disadvantages, starting with retina separation, compromise ensues. Velocity and bullet design can mitigate a good deal of the compromises ensuing from a small caliber, but the fact remains that at 12" of penetration or more and optimal bullet performance in each, the bigger hole has more "stopping power".

http://www.firearmstactical.com/pdf/fbi-hwfe.pdf

To wit:
The pistol was designed to comply with the requirements of the U.S. Army, which, during its campaign against the Moros in Philippines, had seen its trusty .38 revolver to be incapable of stopping attackers. An Ordnance Board headed by Col. John T. Thompson (inventor of the Thompson sub-machine-gun) and Col. Louis A. La Garde, had reached the conclusion that the army needed a .45" caliber cartridge, to provide adequate stopping power. In the mean time, J. Browning who was working for Colt, had already designed an autoloader pistol, around a cartridge similar to contemporary .38 Super (dimension-wise). When the Army announced its interest in a new handgun, Browning re-engineered this handgun to accommodate a .45" diameter cartridge of his own design (with a 230 gr. FMJ bullet), and submitted the pistol to the Army for evaluation. - M1911.org History of the M1911
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http://www.m1911.org/history.htm

And info on the Sandy Hook Trials of 1879 demonstrating the "stopping power" of the low velocity large caliber 45-70 at 2,500 yards.

The long range Springfield's 500-grain bullets hit the target four times - twice where it was one board thick, and twice where it was two boards thick. In each case the heavy blunt nosed lead bullet punched through the wood planks and buried itself several inches into the sand.
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http://www.researchpress.co.uk/longrange/sandyhook.htm
 
statement above that a high velocity small caliber bullet will make a larger hole in tissue than a low velocity large caliber bullet (providing impact is at optimal velocity for bullet design in both cases) is simply false.
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No, he's correct. Bullets moving significantly in excess of 2,000 FPS produce wound channels much larger than the bullets themselves, as tissue is displaced further and faster than it's elastic limits. The less elastic the tissue, the greater the effect. Bullets at handgun velocities will produce a wound channel little wider than the slug itself, save for hits on completely inelastic tissue like the liver.

To suggest that it's false clearly demonstrates that you 1) cherry pick only the data supporting your argument and 2) have no hunting experience.

Now, a round like the .458 Socom is not high velocity, but not exacly low velocity either. At 1,900 FPS, you do begin to see the kind of damage associated with high velocity rifle rounds, and of course, it's a large bullet. So, is the .458 Socom a more effective anti-personnel round? From a strictly ballistic standpoint, yes. However, the greatly increased recoil will drastically affect the speed and accuracy of follow up shots, and if in an urban or suburban environment, greatly increases the risks of collateral damage, as the big 300 gr. slug is far more likely to penetrate through non-armored barriers.

In short, the .458 Socom is ballistically superior to the 5.56 for most applications, but may not be the better choice for "social work".
 
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