Looking for Real World Experienced Opinion on .45ACP

[Onmilo]

Go buy a book written by Massad Ayoob.
He documents real world shootings and testifies in defense of people.
Plenty of real world documented affects of the .45acp in his writings.

 

[jaysouth]

The .45s that we had were at the end of their life cycle. Little finish left and lots of slop and extremely worn parts.

It took 30 minutes a day to keep the rust off for another 24 hours. The weight did not justify its lethality. Just a wet leather holster weights as much as the gun and three loaded mags. It takes several months for a wet holster to ever dry in the tropics. The piece was usually carried in a plastic bag inserted into the holster. Hardly a fast draw trick. If you carried a .45, it was with empty chamber and five rounds in the chamber. Any other method taken upon by yourself would cost a stripe and a month's pay.

The the opportunity presented itself, the grunts got rid of the .45s and picked up extra mags and frags. Other than a new lieutenant, no body carred the things in the bush.

I saw two wounds. One was self inflicted by a member of my squad. The bullet drilled a hole in one side of his calf and out the other. I appled first response first aid, I could not tell the difference between the entrance and exit wound. The other was an elderly Vietnamese that was shot under circumstances that I would not have tolerated from my men. He was drilled center of mass in the sternum. The entrance wound looked like it came from a .22. The exit wound was a skin flap next to his spine. There was no blood or bone fragments.

If you are in a situation where having a .45 would do you good, carry two or them. However on the modern battlefield they offer little other a little confidence. They will not stop any threats that inflict most casualites that our troops are suffering, ie. IEDs, grenades, automatic weapon fire or sniper fire.

 

[devildave31]

My intent was not to "fish" for any kind of gruesome details. My original thought was that everyone has probably done a lot of research on the internet to support their choice of caliber, mostly based on ballistic charts, one shot stop likeliness charts, etc. I thought that the best way to find out would be to find situations where the "rubber me the road" and see how a round actually performed in its intended design, nothing more nothing less.

In regards to your post, though, I do have to admit that for a short while after posting this thread, I did start having regrets, based on fear of that kind of perception from other readers. Even to the point of considering asking a moderator to just go ahead and shut it down for me. However since then, I saw several responses that were on topic and helpful.

If I did offend anyone by asking my original question I apologize, it was not my intent to ask people to drudge up events that they would most likely rather forget.