mljdeckard
Member
^^ You're joking, right?
Mag capacity vs Caliber
- Thread starter Darebear
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ForumSurfer
Member
Modern hollow points have come a long way. 9mm will do the job...after all, isn't the order (without exception):
1. Mindset
2. Skillset
3. Equipment
I can afford to shoot 9mm far more often than any other caliber. More practice = higher probability of shots where I want them. My choice has pretty much been made for me since I'm on a budget.
1. Mindset
2. Skillset
3. Equipment
I can afford to shoot 9mm far more often than any other caliber. More practice = higher probability of shots where I want them. My choice has pretty much been made for me since I'm on a budget.
CAOxInfinity
Member
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- Nov 19, 2011
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- 15
I've carried a Sig P226, glock 17, glock 21, Beretta m9, FN FiveseveN.... my favorite of all was the FN. I was more accurate and close and long range and was more comfortable shooting it than any other pistol I had.
I am confident every pistol I named would get the job done quite well, but im more confident with the FN, so that's my choice. I can easily conceal carry the FN with the 30rd mag. Guess that puts me in the capacity camp...tho not on purpose.
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I am confident every pistol I named would get the job done quite well, but im more confident with the FN, so that's my choice. I can easily conceal carry the FN with the 30rd mag. Guess that puts me in the capacity camp...tho not on purpose.
Sent from my Incredible 2 using Tapatalk
ForumSurfer
Member
That's a dangerous mindset and just plain false. Ask a few prison guards if all criminals are cowards and will back down at the threat of force.
If you have the mindset and ability to coolly deliver Clint Eastwood-esque catch phrases in the middle of a gunfight, then you're much more awesomer than I am.
Me? I'm going to be preoccupied with defending my life.
As for high-cap small caliber, v. low-cap big caliber.... I take the middle ground. I like the .40cal. I can give up some capacity, and give up some size, without giving up a whole lot of either.
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mljdeckard
Member
I suppose that when your life is threatened, you are allowed to make whatever assumptions about your attacker you want to.
That was meant to be light-hearted folks. No sense of humor on THR anymore?
Evaluate the threat. If you're approached by a group of ten, your first responsibility is to your personal safety. Cars can be replaced. I wouldn't suggest anyone take on ten assailants. Make an escape and be as good a witness as you can be.
As far as the poll, I've nearly gone full circle; from revolver guy, to 1911 fan, wondernines, and now the 40SW double stacks. Heck, I even have a .38 Special derringer I carry to the door when I answer it.
Evaluate the threat. If you're approached by a group of ten, your first responsibility is to your personal safety. Cars can be replaced. I wouldn't suggest anyone take on ten assailants. Make an escape and be as good a witness as you can be.
As far as the poll, I've nearly gone full circle; from revolver guy, to 1911 fan, wondernines, and now the 40SW double stacks. Heck, I even have a .38 Special derringer I carry to the door when I answer it.
robinkevin
Member
I voted for more little rounds with the school of thought that no matter the round a handgun is not the best defense weapon and I much rather has a great number of rounds to ensure the threat is stopped...
CAUTION WALL OF TEXT:
However I am starting to change my opinion on this as of last night. You see my wife is new to firearms and every now and then she hears something and ends up asking me about it. Last night she was asking my opinion on if or not our troops in overseas have a better rifle than the AKs being used against them. I sat there in silence for a minute and reply "yes and no" I explain to her that the M4s are fine weapons and more accurate than the AKs but that I felt that the round was not adequate. This lead me to explaining that I prefer to hunt with my .30-06 over my .243 as I once made a poor shot and the bullet hit the shoulder of the deer which stopped the .243 bullet and I tracked the deer for 500 yards before it had finally bleed out. At this time rest of my family was using .30-06s and I had saw the round tear right through shoulders and rib cages with ease and drop the deer quickly. It is from this experience that I bought my .30-06 and join the family tradition. Also it lead me to believe the .308 is a far better round than the .223. I even read that the M16 was first design to used the .308 round. Wife asks why they switch and from my understanding it was a mix of cost and weight, but as I point out it's a good thing that they can carry more rounds as they just may need the extra rounds with the smaller round. At this point it dawn on me that I never took this into account really when looking at handguns. I don't know why but now I am really thinking hard about switching camps.
*all of this is just my opinion I never claim to be an expert or even correct for that matter.
CAUTION WALL OF TEXT:
However I am starting to change my opinion on this as of last night. You see my wife is new to firearms and every now and then she hears something and ends up asking me about it. Last night she was asking my opinion on if or not our troops in overseas have a better rifle than the AKs being used against them. I sat there in silence for a minute and reply "yes and no" I explain to her that the M4s are fine weapons and more accurate than the AKs but that I felt that the round was not adequate. This lead me to explaining that I prefer to hunt with my .30-06 over my .243 as I once made a poor shot and the bullet hit the shoulder of the deer which stopped the .243 bullet and I tracked the deer for 500 yards before it had finally bleed out. At this time rest of my family was using .30-06s and I had saw the round tear right through shoulders and rib cages with ease and drop the deer quickly. It is from this experience that I bought my .30-06 and join the family tradition. Also it lead me to believe the .308 is a far better round than the .223. I even read that the M16 was first design to used the .308 round. Wife asks why they switch and from my understanding it was a mix of cost and weight, but as I point out it's a good thing that they can carry more rounds as they just may need the extra rounds with the smaller round. At this point it dawn on me that I never took this into account really when looking at handguns. I don't know why but now I am really thinking hard about switching camps.
*all of this is just my opinion I never claim to be an expert or even correct for that matter.
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Loosedhorse
member
Can I be in the fewer, smaller rounds group? 
We could say that what we have is a choice here between having a bullet that's 0.93" bigger, vs having one or two (or 10!) more rounds. But that's not usually the choice people make.
If round count were supreme then we'd all be running around with Glocks and 33-rnd mags (at least until my belt-fed comes back from the gunsmith. But generally, we don't.
Similarly, if caliber were supreme, we'd all be toting .50 GI or .50 AE (and trying to get .60 pistols, too!).
I think what most folks do is decide on a caliber. Love the .45 ACP? Great. Think .45 ACP and 9mm are about the same (but 9 is cheaper, and you can get more in the same-sized gun), great. Then they decide on a gun.
Maybe instead, they decide on the gun first if they really like a particular gun (like a 1911, or P7, or revolver) or if they have a specific size requirement (dictated by hand-size or concealment requirement). And that choice may "decide" the caliber/capacity question.
Other things we all consider: How big and heavy a pistol do we want to have? Are we carrying concealed? Are we carrying spare mags? How well do we handle the recoil of a given round from a given pistol? What fits our hands?
I have carried a 15-rnd .45 concealed. I've also carried a 7-shot .32. They both have their places.
We could say that what we have is a choice here between having a bullet that's 0.93" bigger, vs having one or two (or 10!) more rounds. But that's not usually the choice people make.
If round count were supreme then we'd all be running around with Glocks and 33-rnd mags (at least until my belt-fed comes back from the gunsmith
. But generally, we don't.Similarly, if caliber were supreme, we'd all be toting .50 GI or .50 AE (and trying to get .60 pistols, too!).
I think what most folks do is decide on a caliber. Love the .45 ACP? Great. Think .45 ACP and 9mm are about the same (but 9 is cheaper, and you can get more in the same-sized gun), great. Then they decide on a gun.
Maybe instead, they decide on the gun first if they really like a particular gun (like a 1911, or P7, or revolver) or if they have a specific size requirement (dictated by hand-size or concealment requirement). And that choice may "decide" the caliber/capacity question.
Other things we all consider: How big and heavy a pistol do we want to have? Are we carrying concealed? Are we carrying spare mags? How well do we handle the recoil of a given round from a given pistol? What fits our hands?
I have carried a 15-rnd .45 concealed. I've also carried a 7-shot .32. They both have their places.
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ForumSurfer
Member
Sarcasm is hard to pick up over the interwebz.
(Especially when there are all sorts of folks who do beleive all bad guys will back down, bad guys are easy to spot because they wear bad guy clothes, the leader wears a golden crown so that he is easy to spot and that they always disperse once the leader is down.)I try to use the sarcasm smiley because...well people miss sarcasm on the interwebs.
Especially if you're driving a 3500lb+ defensive weapon.
Back to the subject at hand, shoot what you are comfortable with and practice often. Shot placement trumps caliber.
mljdeckard
Member
That's why I asked if you were joking. You said you weren't.
Please not this again......
David E
Member
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- Aug 3, 2008
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- 7,459
Who is advocating "spray and pray?"
It's a stupid way to attempt to solve the situation.
I've seen a recurrent theme that implies anyone with a high capacity gun will inevitably "spray and pray" whilst the person who has chosen a revolver or low capacity firearm will calmly take their 1-2 shots, invariably ending the hostilities.
It depends on how you've trained and practiced, not how many rounds your gun holds.
There was a shooting in the Louisiana French Quarter a couple months back and the shooter used the spray & pray method. He hit several innocent by standers and never hit his intended target which got away. Talk about stupid is as stupid does!
Time to stop, drop, & roll??
Time to stop, drop, & roll??
JustinJ
Member
I wonder if anybody whose actually been in a gunfight still goes on about "shot placement". How people think they will be able to repeat paper target accuracy against moving targets that are returning fire is something that amazes me. Actual gun fights that i've read about and seen footage of very rarely allowed either party time to align for accurate shots. That being said, the ability to get the gun back on target, which often means in the bad guys general direction, and fire is important as is "stopping power". So in smaller and lighter guns i've started leaning more towards 9 mm not so much for higher capacity but for quicker follow up shots. I considered a Khar.40 for pocket carry but settled on a Ruger LC9 instead for that very reason. For my larger carrier gun(HKP2000sk) that goes IWB or OWB i generally go with .40 and .357 sig. While i may be able to get off rounds slightly faster with that gun in 9 mm i think .40 is only slightly slower for me and worth the trade off in greater "stopping power". And to clarify, "stopping power" to me is essentially the probability of a single round neutralizing the threat.
Yea I'm not advocating spray and pray. Never have never will. Having a Glock 33 round mag shouldn't give anyone the inclination to just spray and pray. I plan for all my rounds to hit my threat(s), not saying that I'm that good but with continued training, awareness and yes divine help I plan for all my rounds to go in my threat. I never been in a high stress situation in which I had to use my gun to stop a threat especially a moving threat so I don't know if all my rounds will end up in the threat so my realistic side says "Yes there MIGHT be a round or more that might not hit my target, I hope they also don't hit anyone else"... Now that may piss alot of people off, but I never woke up at 3AM, grabbed my gun, groggy and can barely see, and tried to stop a threat. I shot IDPA, took NRA home protection classes and sought other training but I never had a moving, scary, determined, attacker attempt to take my life so no I don't know with 100% certainty that I can do the same thing to paper targets as I can do with real bad guys.
This is the reason I like higher capacity guns, because first I don't know if it will take 3, 5, or 8 rounds to stop the threat(s) and secondly because I can not say with 100% certainty that my attacker will be as lit up as the stationary paper that I practice with at the range.
This is the reason I like higher capacity guns, because first I don't know if it will take 3, 5, or 8 rounds to stop the threat(s) and secondly because I can not say with 100% certainty that my attacker will be as lit up as the stationary paper that I practice with at the range.
Onward Allusion
Member
Gimme 20+1 rounds of 9mm with a couple of extra mags any day. I have no delusions about being able to hit 1" groups @ POA like I do at the range should the adrenaline start flowing through my veins. Call it insurance. However, I'll take what I can get or carry.
Bobson
Member
Thank you for bringing logic to the party when few others would.I've seen a recurrent theme that implies anyone with a high capacity gun will inevitably "spray and pray" whilst the person who has chosen a revolver or low capacity firearm will calmly take their 1-2 shots, invariably ending the hostilities.
High magazine capacity doesn't mean the user will be spraying bullets all over the place without aiming. Why not think of it as 15+ well placed shots, instead of just 5-6 well placed shots?
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COAxInfinity said:
I'm offering an E-High Five. 1 for conceal carrying the FN 5.7 (I haven't heard of anyone willing to do that), 2 for carrying a full size gun to begin with. I don't mean to belittle those that carry small guns, but I admire the will and skill it takes to conceal carry a full size gun.
Bonesinium
Member
Quoted for truth.
Obviously 1 hit with .45ACP is more effective then 15 misses of 9mm. But how does that argument even work?
If you want to argue that way, then my response?
14 misses and 1 hit with 9mm is more effective then 8 misses of .45ACP.
Is that good reasoning?
If I'm in that bad of an area I would be wondering why I have to choose a handgun and not a rifle(which I would just toss in my truck if I was going to go to a bad area as state law allows it), or why I couldn't just run them over. As for what handgun I am also in the "whatever you shoot best and is reliable" group as it doesn't matter how powerful the gun is or how many rounds the gun can hold if you can't shoot the gun accurately.
JohnBiltz
Member
I see that 2-3 round quoted a lot for bigger caliber. I don't understand why. If 2-3 rounds seems to be the rule I doubt most of them are firing .45s. So 9mm and .38 would seem to be good to go.
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