Quote:
Originally Posted by eb07
I'll stick with 5 shots of 38 special or 44 special.
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Both have been around for a long time and have proven themselves to be capable cartridges. Most civilian Self-Defense shootings are over in 1-3 shots, and you've got 2 more in reserve, so you should be fine.
Pretty much any cartridge from .22LR upward can potentially deadly if it hits the right spot, and .38 Special has served policemen well for the better part of a century right up until police started using hollowpoints, which unfortunately seem to have been rather poor performers back in those days considering that up until then the .38 Special had a good reputation.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those annoying people that believes that there exists some ideal one-size-fits-all cartridge, nor that anyone who chooses to carry anything less "has a death wish" or "doesn't take their self-defense seriously" and I'm most certainly not one of those insecure men who just can't live with the fact that other men may opt to carry something more powerful that I. In fact, I find such naive people to be utterly insufferable. They're always going around, second-guessing everyone and making ignorant statements based purely on conjecture. The Village Idiots of the firearms community.
For the longest time I carried nothing but a .380 ACP pistol, and to this very day I feel that .380 ACP is a viable choice for self-defense, I only started carrying more after wild animals started wandering out of the woods which surround my neighborhood. (.380 ACP may be adequate for bipedal predators, but hardier quadrupeds...?) Besides, I can handle more, so why not? So now I carry a .40cal because that's as low as I'm willing to go when it comes to dangerous animals like boar. Some would say it's insufficient, but it seems to be enough for a number of park rangers as well as Fish & Game.