During the late 60’s to mid 90’s the hyping of .45ACP superiority over all other common self-defense calibers was at its high point in The Gun Press. I am curious about the number of shooters who as children and adolescents during these years were influenced to choose the .45ACP for self-defense carry but are no longer carrying a .45ACP as their primary SD caliber.
I did not enter anything in the poll because the poll did not cover me, as I mentioned earlier.
Also because the suppositions here are wrong. There is a point to this "poll" (which isn't a poll) and the authors misunderstanding of the history of handgunning for the last few decades enters into it.
The gun press never did hype the "45 acp over all other self-defense calibers". Repeat, they never did that as a whole.
To the extent that they did do it the round was the
.357 Magnum that was the "
King of the Handgun Rounds".
Jeff Cooper was never an advocate of the "One Shot Stop" theory and never advocated that one round from a .45 would "put a man down" without accurate shooting. There is a un-informed misunderstanding of Cooper's contributions.
Up until the post war period the U.S. was a nation of wheelgunners. That only began to change after the war and it did that slowly. Till the 1980's law enforcement used revolvers overwhelmingly and the 38 Spl. was the round of choice and considered "good enough". Law enforcement, with a few exceptions did not use 1911s or pistols in any caliber till the Illinois State Police adopted a S&W pistol in 9mm.
In general the
.357 Magnum was the go to round and the one that the gun press advanced as the king. This began in the 1970s once Super Vel ammo hit the market with jhp ammo of 90 gr., 110 gr. and 125 gr. that actually worked and in 125 gr. could occasionally hit 1400 fps from a 4" barrel of a Model 19 or M27. Law enforcement flocked to it and it was raised as a standard against which to measure the performance of other calibers. It still does that today. (357 Sig anyone?)
The 44 Magnum was immensely popular in the 1970's. More so than the 45 acp. The latter was thought of as a military round suited for the Army or bullseye work but not a good hunting gun or for self defense. (Cooper advocated it, but he was in a minority.)
In the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s Marshall and Sanow advocated the theory of the One Shot Stop (OSS) here too the .357 Magnum with a 125 gr. jhp ruled the roost as the "King of the OSS" with a 98% OSS rating. (They gave some loadings of the 45 acp a 96% but no one paid attention to that). They also praised the 9mm+P+ as the next most useful, before the 45acp and there many followers, well did what followers do, they did it for many years. It's only begun to fade out in the last 2-3 years. (It's being replaced by the "9mm is better than any other defensive round because it's performance is just as good and you can shoot it fast and accurately" crowd who have swum to that piece of flotsam now that OSS has sunk.)
The debate those years was light and fast vs. slow and heavy. The 9mm vs. 45 debate fell into that category.
It's a vague insult to believe that most shooters back in those years choose a gun or a caliber based on what the gun magazines said. That folks were so gullible and easily influenced.
tipoc