That's the problem with most anecdotes. As of now, there is no science to prove one service caliber is noticeably more effective than another.

I agree fully with this statement. Just think the OP wanted to stir it up a little. With me it has always been location, location, location. I know that the FBI does hundreds upon hundreds of tests with different guns and different calibers and different....... Got nothing against them but, can tell you I will carry what I have trained with be it 45, 40, 357, 38, 380......... I know that some people think the sun rises and sets with them but, it doesn't.

Find a good gun in a caliber you can handle and train often! The fastest accurate shots is usually the winner. I have no illusions that 1 bullet of whatever caliber will stop the fight. You need to keep on fighting until the bad guy is not fighting anymore.

Other than the cartridges obvious pluses, I simply like how a .45 acp sounds when shot!
Always fun at the range after lots of smaller calibers being shot before hand.
It speaks with authority and if it was being aimed towards me my head would be digging further down behind good cover.

What's good about the 45 acp?

Recoil is more of a push than a flip. Easy to stay or get back on target.

Sound is noticeably less than many smaller calibers.

45 caliber begins with a 4 and according to ER doctors calibers beginning with a 4 more often have a deadly outcome.

I agree the 45 acp has taken a back seat to the smaller calibers because people have been sold on the got to have more rounds or die.


Granted placement is everything no matter what caliber but a 45 ACP shot placement in the same 9mm placement area will in my opinion be more likely to end the fight than the 9mm.

I asked a GI about performance of the 9mm used by US soldiers and he said shooting an enemy using a 9 was like shooting through paper. Granted those are not hollow points. There again I believe the greater amount of ammo carried in the weapon is why the 9mm got the vote by the military.

We were out shooting some 9mm Sterling SMGs with the local Sheriff's Dept., who were issued .45 HK UMPs at the time. They had hauled out some old vehicles to practice upon, so we took turns perforating them to see what happened to the targets behind and inside. Turns out the 9mms were rather better at reaching the "bad guys"! Very few of the .45 rounds would get through more than one layer of sheet metal, glass, or what have you, whilst the 9s would regularly get through the whole thing. Was surprising to all of us.

As for the .45 ACP as a carry round, I do so fairly often. Or a 9mm. But usually it's .38+ for me.

It does seem easier to get good bull's eye accuracy out to 50 yds. with the .45 ACP than most other auto pistol rounds. Again, YMMV.

Do you have a source for that "ER doctor" statement? Every time I can remember it being mentioned on this forum (usually by people involved in investigations in some way), the statement has been that doctors and M.E.s cannot tell from the wounds what caliber has been used.

The GI statement is the same anecdotal reporting we see so often. Were those GIs shooting people with both .45 and 9mm handguns to compare?

The greater amount of ammunition in the weapon is ONE reason that the 9mm Parabellum became the most popular military handgun cartridge. Others include: easier to shoot with the minimal training that most members get, lower cost and use of strategic materials, and better hard object penetration.

I have never seen a scientific study that showed that the .45 is significantly better than the 9mm as a service cartridge. In FMJ, both seem to have moderate stopping power. In good HP form, both seem to have good stopping power. We can agree that shooting quickly and accurately is far more important.

This is my personal battery of self-defense pistols that I would rely on to get the job done. That's all I want to say on this.

John

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- Cogito, ergo armatus sum -

Not at all. It's merely a subject that has been on my mind lately. Based on recent articles, it seems as though there is a sort of biased against the .45 ACP cartridge, since pretty much all recent articles on the subject of .45 ACP for self-defense seemingly cannot remain on-point and ultimately become a one-sided ".45 ACP vs 9mm Luger" debate, with the author basically making the argument that .45 ACP is a straight downgrade to 9mm Luger with virtually no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Honestly, I wasn't even going to bring up 9mm in the OP at all to begin with, but then I saw another recent thread elsewhere on the forum in which the TC came seeking advice on a carry gun chambered in .45 ACP, only to receive a number of disrespectful responses informing him that he'd be better off carrying a 9mm, so I had hoped that I could sway the thread away from such an argument by acknowledging its existence, but requesting that the subject remained focused upon the inherent strengths of the .45 ACP cartridge in particular.
However, it didn't work, but let's face it, it was a lose/lose situation in which I probably should have known better than to hope (much less expect) that any discussion of any cartridge could remain focused on the subject at hand without veering off into caliber wars territory, especially after calling attention to such debates in the first place.

I honestly don't understand why it is that two completely different cartridges like 9mm Luger and .45 ACP have to be pitted against each other, nor why it is that one must be declared objectively superior to the other when both have their own individual strengths and weaknesses, but that's just something that seems to be unavoidable when discussing either cartridge, or any other cartridge(s) for that matter.

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Shooting Comfort is bilateral.

1, IMHO.......it's all about........ shot placement, shot placement,shot placement................caliber is secondary..........

2. FMJ...... the bigger the hole the better.......

3. SHTF ....... the higher capacity the better........

4. TEOTWAWKI.......... get a rifle ....... a pistol is secondary.......

5. In the early 1990s I had 9mms and .45s...... couldn't figure out a good reason to switch to .40....... see #1 above.

My 45acp has weathered many storms with these mcfizzled new wiz bang calibers that seem to come and grow. I give the stopping power to the 45acp everytime. When we talk about the 9mm it’s firepower with less stopping power? I refuse to change my ways I’m happy with my 45 acp in my 1911’s. No 9mm in my 1911.

For up close and personal work teotwawki it’s the 12ga pump riot shotgun with 00 buck, slug, 00 buck, slug, 00 buck, slug.

For up close and personal work teotwawki it’s the 12ga pump riot shotgun with 00 buck, slug, 00 buck, slug, 00 buck, slug. No other caliber will open doors like a 12 ga, just the ratchet of the pump will make the bad guy give up.

That guy on you tube compares the calibers shooting meat. I forget his name.

My Ruger .45acp leaves nice big holes in the paper that I can easily see. My 9mm S&W 6906, and oddly, my SCCY pocket pistol both group better in rapid fire. I trust my .45acp in the house and bedroom. I trust my 9's on the street.

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Heavily armed old man.

...everything else asside, a .45 caliber hole in my target is a whole lot easer for these old eyes to see than just about anything else.

p.s. I have to admit though, that the .45 inspires confidence in me when used for serious purposes.

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Dave

Please allow me to add my two cents. When I was growing up, unlike a lot of kids, I listened to my dad. He was in the National Guard in the late '50s (earning, but declining his commission). He had contact with a lot of WW2 and Korean Conflict vets. He would often comment about the excessive penetration of the 9mm, and the sound channel created by the 45.

When I turned 18, I had to get a 1911 in 45, and I learned how to shoot it. I got into NRA 2700 matches, and the prevailing philosophy was to use a 45 for the centerfire stage since the larger bullet diameter helped earn a higher score. When I deployed, I found a 1911 instead of an M9. I found the 1911 in 45 to be very comforting.

Maybe it is because I currently live in the Socialist Republic of New Jersey, I am not an advocate of hollow points, especially in a 45. Personally, I think the perfect self defense round in the 45 is the long discontinued Winchester 185gr FMJSWC (punches full diameter wound channels that bleed freely). For me, I will always lean to the 45 for SD, given the choice.

I think that why some of the smaller diameter cartridges are preferred by younger shooters is because they don't take the time to develop the skills that lead to precision. Most often newer shooters why away from decimal targets and lean towards Q type targets.

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Judge control not gun control!

A 9mm might expand. A .45 won't shrink.
Bigger holes are better.

I'm waiting for a 50 cal 1911.

When you hunt dangerous game like a 400+ pound black bear or a 1000 pound male moose, do you use a 30-30 or a 30-06. You go with a round that has more energy and with a greater bullet weight that will hopefully take care of the issue in short order. I hunted with a 180gr 300 Winchester mag. for all dangerous critters.

Getting to the original question of what use is a 45acp. Except for the 180gr 357 mag which has a mean recoil and a longer recovery for a second shot,the 45acp in 185gr+p has equal or more energy and makes a bigger hole which with or without expansion will create a larger and more forceful wound cavity than any other caliber below it along with breaking bones when hit etc. and has a higher round count than most revolvers,it’s also good for going through car doors, windshields etc..
The 45 also has a faster recovery time for that second shot.
Everyone must remember that the idea behind a military round is to wound a solder so it will take not only the one shot out of the fight but also one or two more comrades to take that solder to safety. That is why hollow point ammo is not allowed in combat.
So I would consider someone that was trying to take my life a dangerous critter and I believe the 45acp is the round that would do the job better than any other! JMO
A local Police Department used 45acp 200gr Speer Gold Dot reg. Vel in Glock 21’s for many years.

Be SAFE and Shoot often!

It's the best commonly available single stack auto cartridge for fighting two-legged critters.

Why the "single stack" qualifier? It's too fat as a double stack for many shooters, but then again so are many 9mms. My wife, for instance, loves her 1911. I like both the 1911 and the P220, probably the most common two single stack .45s in the US (pretty darn sure about the first one).

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Psalm 27:2

They did offer a 50 cal 1911 decades ago I guess it never caught on.

I think the FBI is mostly full of it. These are the same people that told us in the 1980s that the 9mm was useless and they needed a 40 cal. We wouldn't have the .40 cal if it wasn't for the FBI. Now they tell us that the 40 is insufficient and the 9mm is the ticket.

I don't think the FBI has any more of a clue than anyone else.

Having stared into the business end of a .45 1911 at nose length, I'm here to say it was very intimidating. Fifty years later, I still remember how cavernous that muzzle was. I don't think a 9mm would have been as impressive. A .45 was my first carry caliber for that reason, although I do switch between .45 and 9mm now.

The FBI agents were a bunch of wimps that could not handle the 40 cal. pistol !!

They backed it off to a wimpy 9mm, to where ALL there "Agents" could qualify.

FBI recruits are no more or less wimpy than any body else. Everybody, from high school cheerleaders to experienced military and law enforcement, handles the Nine better than 10 or .45. It's just a question of mechanics. Less recoil = better shooting.

And if the 9 is wimpy, I guess that makes Americans smarter than the whole rest of the world, who haven't in a hundred years figured out that their 9mm is weak.

Mega handgun power is an American thing. Not that it lacks utility for hunting and certain competition, but anything bigger than 9mm or .38 is mostly overkill.

The FBI has many considerations when selecting a STANDARD cartridge. They've had a history of complaints from non gun "guy" agents who don't like shooting anything, they want the least recoil they have to take. Ayoob had to testify at a Federal hearing about female agents whining about service rounds for the 38 Special back in the early 80's. Those agents always exist somewhere and some of them always complain. At some point management might just see it fit to simply standardize a smaller round and tell the people who want bigger and/or more powerful to just carry their own gun that falls within parameters.

9mm Luger is cheap and easy to come by, 40 S&W isn't dying or on its way out, but its promise is long, long gone. 40 never gained the government or private use that one would like to see to make it a generally more common caliber. The more EVERYONE consumes, the cheaper and more available it gets. 9mm is logistically superior to 40 in every single way. A lot of the decisions could be from that alone. It leads to the death cycle of a cartridge, sport shooters use it less which increases price and helps to make government agencies make the decision to discontinue it, which helps send a signal to the sports shooters to use it less, which decreases popularity and decreases production, which helps government agencies make the decision to drop it..... Commonality breeds commonality in the wold of firearms, obscurity and obsolescence breeds more of the same.

The FBI dumped the 9mm Luger in the 80's because early light weight hollow points and FMJ had real issues in terminal performance. 10mm was being pushed by serous experts like Cooper and the cartridge showed great promise, perhaps grater than the 357 Magnum, in an auto loading cartridge! Interestingly enough, in the report on why they were going to 10mm from 9mm, the FBI stated the 45 ACP was completely and fully adequate, but wanted to go with the new cartridge that had room to improve, as well as more rounds per magazine. To be honest, the FBI was 100% correct in its reasoning then; save for the fact those people who don't like big booming cartridges were going to reject it and complain about it again.

Things that have changed over that period of time till the new decisions was improvements in 9mm Luger bullets, the 10mm being chucked in favor of the 40 because people just won't shoot a hot round. By the time 40 is tamed enough, 9mm Luger isn't far behind. 9mm Luger is holding its own in the market, is cheaper, has less complaints form whiners, and the 40 is going downhill market wise. The decision to go 9mm Luger wasn't that its equal or better in terminal performance, its because other factors, including saving money (a seemingly rare thing with the government).

The whole subjective statement "we can't tell the difference between bullets in those who are shot" is weasel worded, they aren't talking about effectiveness more than they can claim "the doc working the ER can't tell the difference when it pokes his finger in it when the guy arrives on a gurney". Whenever the agency makes a choice it has to defend that choice, so they made the argument to fit the decision. The 10mm decision announcement came with stuff about wounding dogs with 38 and 9mm, not hardly scientific explanations. The FBI didn't go case by case into wounds and their effects to come to their decision. They pulled convoluted statements out of somewhere to justify.

They aren't incompetent paper pushers. I always get sick of that when cartridge wars pop up, before the FBI changed over to 9mm all the 9mm Luger fanbois called the FBI the nastiest names on the earth, called them incompetent and worthless. As soon as the FBI changed to 9mm Luger again, those same people spitting on the FBI held it up to the sky and proclaimed "These are the world's greatest experts, their word is TRUTH and FACT". What a joke. Its a case of declaring people and organizations experts and authorities based on when they side with YOU. Nonsense. Look at the science and be objective, something people just don't like to do. If the FBI switched to 5.7 tommorrow, I can't imagine the insanity on the web boards. Today's experts were yesterday's clueless schmucks, and tomorrow's clueless schmucks too?

Again, the 45 ACP has always been a good choice. Science vindicated it back in the late 80's, its bullets worked adequately back then when 9mm's were still catching up. They are still top performers now. One has to be very picky what 9mm Luger rounds he chooses, 10mm and 45 ACP have great leeway and a whole host of bullets that work. 45 ACP offers good penetration on living tissue while still causing a lot of damage in shape and size. Its not a downgrade form the 9mm Luger at all, it not only stands on its own, shot for shot it is superior.

I have a Beretta 92FS and the less said about it the better. The other 9mm is an old Sig P6 made in West Germany. Yeah it's a single stack with 8 rounds. Having said that I shoot the P6 much better than the Beretta. normally all I use at the range is WWB 115 grain FMJ's. Still got pretty good accuracy. However I bought about 500 rds of the Swiss 124 grain FMJ's sometime back. Found out the P6 loves the 124 grain bullets plus they are loaded to CIP specs which I found out they are a little hotter but do give me better accuracy. Been shooting 45 acp for years. Truth be told wouldn't want to be hit by either of them. I have an aversion to foreign metallic objects hitting me. Speer used to sell a 45 acp load with a 200 JHP called the flying ash tray. Fed in both my 1943 Ithaca and my Springfield Armory 45. Great accuracy from both but the SA one always did better especially with the highly visible iron sights than the Ithaca. This 9mm versus 45acp arguement has been going on for years. next one will be the 4 megawatt pulse rifle versus the 10 megawatt pulse rifle. Frank

Recent??? It's been going on for as long as I can remember.

They aren't "two completely different cartridges." They were designed for the same purpose within a few years of each other and are two of the most common defense/duty semi-auto cartridges available. Comparing and contrasting them is inevitable.

In a Gold Cup or Government Model .... works for me.
I always carry FMJ 230s...... or whatever is loaded

Why wait? Guncrafter Industries has the 50 caliber semi-automatic pistol ammo, complete pistols, and Glock conversions.


https://www.guncrafterindustries.com/

Am I missing something? Has a bad guy complained about getting shot by a 45? Have they complained about being shot by any round? If the bad guy is complaining about being shot then the person pulling the trigger did not shoot in the right place or stopped too soon.

That statement should be good for 2-3 more pages, or getting the thread locked. Popcorn anyone?

How about we just stay on-topic and not derail the thread based on one poster's radical opinion?

9mm vs .45 ACP posts are one thing that I'm willing to begrudgingly accept in context, but having the thread derail into some lame argument in regards to the FBI over a single post is just dumb.

If you want to see that argument play out then I'm sure you can find it elsewhere.

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Shooting Comfort is bilateral.

the man you are refering to was in a rice paddy in vietnam. His name was John Holbrook, a frequent poster on culver's shooting pages. He brought the 1911 home with him, and had an extensive collection of 1911's. Also produced a hold open device for the garand if i remember right. His story in the rice paddy was on the culver's forum at various points. Use to correspond with him from time to time, he was a acknowleged expert on 1911's.
hoping this is acceptable to post, here is his story:If You’re Serious, Get a .45! or The Colt M1911A1 in Combat >> Sight M1911

at one time you could buy that p6 for about 230bucks. some had the factory targets and were basically unused. friend in bavaria told me average usage, if used, was about 50 rounds a year. manufacture date was on gun, so multiply 50 times the number of years till importation, get the usage of the gun. Few years ago, being in love with the speer flying ashtray, i located about ten boxes of the bullets, still use them. the complaint was with the wide hollowpoint they would hang up in some guns. i never had that problem. loaded with power pistol, it is awesome the way it smacks water jugs.
as to that p6 and accuracy, my daughter first time shooting one, was popping spent shotgun casings time after time at about ten yards.

i could add one more comment. years ago a guy i knew, deputy, had to fire a 230gr ball out of his 45 at a bad guy in a double wide trailer. it went through the guy, a wall, and hit his partner on the other side. They will penetrate.

In 1902 the Germans demanded a larger caliber cartridge than the 7.65mm Parabellum for their new Luger pistol. Thus, the 'big bore', 9mm Parabellum was born. For the rest of the world, the caliber debate had ended.

I’ve been saying for years “it’s not the size of the wand, it’s the magic of the magician”. I wasn’t talking about guns, but the saying holds true here as well.......

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SWCA 3255 SWHF 615

Ask any recent war vet how the 9mm vs the performance of the 45acp.

In a close quarter conflict it takes too many 9mm rounds to kill the bad guy. The 100yo 45acp will always be the rooster in the hen house amongst the ladies(9mm/40cal ect).

.50 GI - Wikipedia

The 45 acp is best because That Is What I Own and have owned for the last 35 years. My molds, dies, holsters, and magazines are 45 acp. My Dillon is 45 acp. So that makes it better.
(IfIwasstartingoutfromscratchtodayIthinkIwouldgeta9mm.)

In an era of 10 round maximum capacity magazines, I would prefer 10 rounds of 45 than 10 rounds of 9mm to neutralize a threat. Honestly, in a defensive situation, the term "overkill" should not exist in a person's vocabulary. I would rather any armed encounter facing me or my family be over before it starts.

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Judge control not gun control!

"And the Europeans and everybody else says, Look at those Americans. We've known all along that Nine is all you need."

This is all the reason anybody should need to favor the 45ACP. There was once 13 million Germans and 4 million Italians fighting 16 million Americans in Europe. Some carried 9mm's, some carried 45's. How'd that turn out?

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Carry.."hope" isn't a strategy

No argument here. .45 AUTO and 9mm PARA, both have always been favorites of mine.

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Wonder what will become of the very large Government order for .40 ammo that was awarded to Federal....seems like it was for billions of rounds?
Probably destroyed somewhere or in the ocean.....

I am sure that the government made a very wise decision in regards to this.........

Randy

Actually, the THIRTY caliber pistol and submachine gun round that the USSR used probably made a much bigger contribution to winning the war than the .45 did. Better stock up on Tokarev!

I prefer buttered popcorn, but it is bad for my heart...

If I remember correctly, the only thing that put the Moros down decisively almost every time was the 1897 pump 12 gauge shotgun with buckshot or slugs.

Would we be still having this discussion if DWM had continued on in the trials that lead to the adoption of the 1911?

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Peace was my Profession

The 7.62x25 tokarev round is one little speedy round. The surplus ammo was dirt cheap by the case. The Russian sub machine gun did win the war for the Russians, plus the millions of mosins and svt 38/40 tokarev.