Proper sight alignment in conjunction with sight placement and trigger press, thus allowing projectile to impact in the proper/vital place will always be of greater value than projectile size.

But if your skills are not up to sending bullets precisely where you want them, then at least send big ones. It will make you feel better.

I agree with Howard B. Stick it up their nose and pull the trigger. 9,40, 45 = End of story.

I am not a scientist and have never shot ballistic jello on the street, but I do know a 230gr bullet will sting a little and for sure leave a mark. I still love my .40 though.

NONE!!!

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V/R
Roger / SG

Isn't the secret of any round shot placement? Most of us, hopefully, don't ever want to be in a defense situation (I know I don't want to), but we should be prepared if such a situation occurs. I know, for me, I carry a 40 cal or a 10mm for defense, but those calibers work well for me. I am accurate with them and comfortable with these rounds. That being said, I like 9mm and 45 cal too. The point is they all make a hole in the bad guy, you just have to be able to place that hole where it needs to go.

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J.D. Roy

Right on FirebirdV8. Shot placement is primary and caliber is secondary. You know the saying, " Its hard to stop a train", and its even harder to get up after one has run you over. I would hate to get shot with any caliber by a good marksman. I love the 9MM,357 Sig, 40S&W, 10MM, and the 45acp in pistols. For revolvers its the 357 S&W Magnum and the 10MM. I practice with them all so whatever I have to use, I can put the round in a lethal spot. That being said, I do have more 45acp pistols than any other caliber. They tie with the 9MM for accuracy but that may be due to the fact that most of my 9MM and 45acp pistols are S&W Performance Center models. Lastly, don't forget that the bullet and powder are also a significant part of the equasion.

don't know or care why the FBI switched. i can only tell you why i built my newest competition 1911 in .40. .45 brass was running a nickle or so per. .40 brass was and still is free if i go to the range after any of the local LE quallifies. i can pick up several thousand once fired cases in in about 10-15 min. and get some .223 and some loose loaded LE only rounds as a bonus. i almost never see anyone leave .45 brass on the ground, even those that don't reload seem to police their .45 brass fairly well.

c.p.

You are partly rite in my opinion .40s&w is a 9x19 with a bigger ego because they can be more accurate at greater distance then the 9 or .45
A .40 cal gose further point first then 9x19 and.45 because they begin to tummble at diffrent points thats why the fbi likes the accuracy with "stopping power"

One advantage of the .40 that I haven't seen mentioned yet is the fact that most of the tactical tupperware pistols chambered for it can be converted to 9mm with just a barrel swap. (And a mag, of course). I also have a conversion for my Browning Hi Power.

ZOMBIE THREAD ALERT!!!

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Lounge Lizard Extraordinaire

.40 has higher mag capacity and better intermediate barrier penetration with most loads.

Actual felt recoil during defensive shootings will likely be negligible. During competition it'd depend on too many variables to give a blanket statement.

Terminal ballistics in handgun rounds are all comparable, and the advantages/differences are small.

Place em center mass, and the subject on the receiving end will have little debate on either! Have both, and feel safe with either holstered up.. I do like the 45 simply because I seem to shoot it better..Shot placement and bullet selection way more important than caliber.

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+1 for this. Also, I don't care what the numbers say because nothing beats a slow, fat, heavy bullet to put a bad guy on his back porch. If you're that sensitive to recoil from a "standard" defensive pistol round, maybe you should find a new line of work or spend more time on the range.

I complain about the recoil of the .40 cal. I much prefer shooting the 45 ACP in my CS45 or 4513TSW . When I had a .40 ( or two) only the 180gr ammo was palatable . Give me the big bullet, obsolete or not .

Brent

I carry a 9mm in the pocket and a 45 iwb. Best of both worlds.

I see this all the time. The .40SW and the 9mm are the same 35,000 psi rating.

I know a dude here in town who took two 12.7s. He managed to get his FAC plane down.
All the doctors kept saying that he was not supposed to be alive.
He was hospitalized for over a year.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

To all the naysayers of either caliber, would you prefer to be on the receiving end of one versus the other? Why take the chance? Shoot em if you got em.

A 40 is a compromise between capacity and bullet diameter. There is nothing wrong with that but if I want capacity, I use a 9MM. If I want a big hole in something, I use a .45 ACP in a 1911 platform. Those are my preferences and that might be based upon the fact that before the 40 was invented, I was already shooting Browning Hi-Powers and 1911s. That said if I could only own one handgun that had to do everything (target shoot, carry and home defense) I might pick a .40.

The 10mm has been tried and found to be too big with too much recoil and the .45 is even a little bigger and a lot of people can't readily handle it well, either. It seems that the biggest gun and round that MOST AGENTS CAN HANDLE is the .40 so unless they come up with another 'in between' caliber to try (I don't doubt that this can and probably will happen) it's the end of the road unless they want to intensively train people to be able to carry tougher weapons.

I made the point on another thread that LEOs and armed agents won't benefit from bigger handguns as much as they would having ready access to heavier weapons, in particular, rifles.

My rundown of the Miami Shootout....

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

40S&W is favored for competition because it can be reloaded to make both major PF and minor PF from the same pistol, plus capacity is decent.

40S&W is a capable and versatile caliber that borrows benefits from both the 9mm and 45acp. The best of both worlds? I don't know about that, but IMHO it has excellent performance & flexibility...especially when handloaded.

Wow, a five year old caliber war thread, and just for S's & Giggles I would state that it will never be resolved. There is, to my knowledge no remarks from any paper, cardboard, plywood, steel, tin can, foam ball, pig , cow horse , deer, or human targets to dissuade anyone from thinking their chosen cartridge is the "BEST".
Without such information I would propose that any anecdotal evidence, put forth without supporting evidence as to the actual lethality of any aforementioned round is supposition and subject to interpretation by anyone. JMHO

Me, right now I like the 45GAP, unless I'm carrying my 3913, or my BHP, or my 4506, or my .586. YMMV

This argument will go on for another 5 years...easy.

There is none, I only own .45's. If you hit what you are aiming at, you don't need a huge magazine capacity. With a .45 you have a much better chance of making a one shot stop. My sheriff's office changed to the .40 caliber after I retired. They hired a lot of female deputies, who have smaller hands. I think female deputies are great, we had some when I was working. They handled the .45 caliber 645 & 4506 that we had, and did it well. I think the change to .40 caliber makes it easier on them, and I am all for that. With the .40 caliber they need a larger magazine capacity, because one shot stops are quite rare with that caliber. What I do disagree with is they went to Glock handguns. I have never fired a Glock and have no wish to, I like Smith & Wesson products. We had them from back when we had .38 special revolvers, then .357, and changed to the 645 and later the 4506.

The above is a really old post, and the link the poster included no longer works.

But I found the following article on the same site:

NEIA Associates - Selecting Duty Weapon

As most of these articles usually conclude, 9mm, 40, 357, and 45 are about equally effective.

But the interesting thing to me is the comparison in "stopping power" (as defined in this article) between 380acp and 38 special from a 2" revolver shows the 380acp to be slightly superior.

Now from a 4" revolver, 38 special is quite a bit better.

This is interesting. I suspect that, in real use, many of the SD bullets just don't achieve enough velocity from a 2" revolver to expand much (or any).

Perhaps this is a vote in favor of the 380 mouse guns for pocket carry.

On the other hand, this article is several years old and maybe some of the new "short barrel" 38 special rounds do better than the ammo available back then.

Dave

The thread on 10 mm vs the 45 for agents I have a colt gov 10 love it my son has the 45 The FBI I think ordered the 10 for more smack over the 40 but the thought process is be lighter than the 45 when in reality the 10 had a hard racking system because of the double recoil spring vs the single spring in both other models my son would be a better suitor for this but because he is in law enforcement and because of his position he will not respond most of the 10 mm carriers on the force has changed back to the 40 because of the qualifying issues with weight and racking of the 10. Past that don't have a mp 45 in the collection any thoughts would be appreciated please bare in mind I only have one arm.

I will take a 45APC over most anything else for the stopping power. Especially if my shot is accurate. I do my own reloading and a 225 grain bullet will do the job with 5.5 grains of powder. One or two of them should stop any attacker in his tracks very quickly.

The Square Cube Law. An 11% increase in bullet diameter yields a 56% increase in mass. Between the 9 and the .40 the muzzle energy increases by about 50 foot pounds. Still not nearly as good as the .45 but the inflated ego is not entirely unjustified.

Back in the '80s my agency transitioned to the Glock 19, but after a couple of officer involved shootings the 9mm was coming up short w/respect to stopping the bad guy. We decided on the Model 23 b/c Glock offered us an even swap, no need to buy new holsters and mag carriers, women could handle the size of the Glock 23 better, and the .40 was supposed to be a better stopper than the forty-five.

Our SWAT guys pushed hard for the .45 but were on board w/the .40 after handling them, plus real world street performance. I've been retired since 1997 and still have my Gen II Glock 23, which was retired w/me, and it still runs great.

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Old Cop
LEO (Ret.)

One more time! But don't hurry I need more popcorn!

Don't really care one way of the other. Both will work if you do your job.

Ditching 10mm was easy. They immediately found out that a good many of the agents couldn't handle one. As far as bigger more powerful handgun bullets, I said in a previous post that if they need something bigger than any decent sized caliber, they should have carbines and rifles.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Ditching 10mm was easy. They immediately found out that a good many of the agents couldn't handle one. As far as bigger more powerful handgun bullets, I said in a previous post that if they need something bigger than any decent sized caliber, they should have carbines and rifles.

PS: One problem with putting a .40 barrel on a 9mm frame is that the frame doesn't hold up, depending on how beefy it was made.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Why do I carry a 45? Because they don't make a 46 LOL.

I own both and must say I find it harder in follow up shots with the 40 then the 45. I have no worries carrying either round. I also carry a 9 and still carry a 38 revolver. Funny thing is be it 38, 9, 40 or 45 put it in the right spot and watch them go down.

Double the capacity is pretty compelling of an advantage.....

40 has better hard barrier penetration than 45 as well.

40 is pretty ideal for a cop working the road.

Could you define "stopping power"?

"Back in the 80's.....Glock 19"



It's 30 years later.........defensive loads of 9mm of 2015 is substantially better than It was in the 80's.


FBI is going back it 9mm.


45 is nice and nostalgic. It will do the job, but make mine a 9mm.

What???......

^^^^Not only "what", but "what the fudge"?

I am a long-time 45 auto fan, and have never fired even a single round of 40 S&W. That said, I will never forget how disappointed I was the first time I fired my new Colt GM at an old car and discovered it would not reliably penetrate the doors. I would imagine the 40 S&W out performs a 45 in this case. 9mm will sail right through a car door.

From what I've read the FBI skipped the 9mm and .45acp because they were of the opinion that both of those cartridges were pretty much already all they were ever going to be. In other words; they had advanced as much as was possible. NOTE: They were wrong about that, more so for the 9mm than the .45, but hollow points have gotten a lot better in both.

So they went looking for a new round and decided on the 10mm. Since the 10mm story was still being written, they had the option of writing it any way they wanted. After some testing they decided they could get the performance they wanted by loading the 10mm down.

Someone at S&W figured if there was empty room in the case, why not just use a shorter case, then the OAL would be shorter and the cartridge would fit in smaller framed guns. The .40S&W was born.

Opinion now: The .40S&W isn't merely a 10mm case cut down shorter- there were some other dimensional changes made as well, especially in the thickness of the case wall down at the bottom. The kabooms are a result of the lack of case thickness at the bottom, or the lack of chamber support in the same area, or both.

I don't own any .40s right now. I have nothing against them, but for me they're the answer to a question I wasn't asking. I'm not in police work or the military (any more) so the whole hub-bub about capacity seems silly enough to enjoy from the sidelines. (I still haven't found any stories of a regular citizen losing a self-defense gunfight because they couldn't reload fast enough.) I'm perfectly comfortable with the nine rounds in my 1911, and one or two spare mags.

Like the perpetual debate between 270 and 30-06 cranks, the debate between handguns and ammo will continue ad nauseum well into the future.

In the grand scheme of things, there's not enough meaningful difference between current, mainstream handgun rounds and their paper ballistics - training, shot placement and personal preference are more important. If you're confident and well trained any combination of the above will handily do the job. But I agree it's still entertaining to listen to folk's reasoning and rational, some of which borders on delusional.

For me, I prefer the nostalgia among other intangibles of the .45acp. However, llike many I carried a .40 S&W (P229) most of my career because I got caught up in the "it's a compromise between the 9mm's capacity and the 45acp's bore diameter. Being retired with a Modest stable of handguns, I choose whatever gun makes me happy at the moment. Sometimes I give the nod to my P232 in .380 and feel just as confident as if I were carrying one of my .357 mags.

Why shoot the 40 short & weak when you can have the 45. Plus reloading the 45 acp is so much nicer.

A man with a sense of humor in a debate this serious? THANK YOU!! Shooting to save lives is like buying real estate, LOCATION x 3. Get 18 inches of penetration on a 250 pound bad guy turned quartered to you and you will stand a chance of getting to something to help your cause. Please don't fall into the FT LB trap. Penetration and placement is ALL that matters. Without those you have problems.

Remember.. All things being equal..Design, mass, and velocity, a smaller caliber will always out penetrate a larger one. We run 200 grain Cast Performance Gas Checks in 357 out of 4 inch guns that will penetrate 21 inches in our media box that exactly duplicates animal autopsies .

I will say, from personal experience, and on-site experience with others, the .45 lets out more blood and pushes in more crud. Some guys shot with .40 don't even know they are shot right away. That's not a good thing. I never felt poorly equipped with my duty 226 in .40, but I would have preferred a .45.
I sort of watch Texas Rangers ad the Secret Service, and the Air Marshals' equipment. Consequently, I like .357 sig and .45 acp.

Because ballistics............


Not interested in comparing girth.



I don't reload ammo that I carry for self defense. Factory crimped and sealed only.

Post #84 . But, specifically in regards to laminated auto glass or modern automobile doors, .40s&w performs substantially better than similar loadings in 45acp and 9mm.



Also, anything worth shooting once, is worth shooting a bunch of times. Capacity is good. 8+1 is not enough.

Okay then, think of the 45 as an itty bitty buss, the 9mm as an itty bitty car, and the 40 as an itty bitty pick up truck.....which do you want to get run over with.

Ah the poor 40 slow n whimpy, jack of all trades, king of none. I like compromise, so it's okay for me.

One advantage of the .45, better selection of target guns.

For those interested... The FBI commissioned a pretty intensive study on handgun wounding with some SCIENCE behind the process. You may be interested in what they found after working through the data they gathered from across LE Agencies across the nation. I am new(er) to the forum so forgive me if it is NOT ok to post a link to article. I will edit if need be.

FBI Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness - FirearmsTactical.com

* For those who want to save the read time:
1.) Psychological stop is more prevalent / a greater factor than a physiological stop - most often.

2.) Physiological stopping capacity is pretty much a wash across the major calibers

3.) Accurate hits on target are crucial

4.) Multiple hits on target are crucial

YMMV

I use and like both, and I'd really hate to be shot by either.

To me, bullet type and construction matter a great deal.

Right now, if I want solids, I'll go with the 45 auto. I really like a lot of the hardcast and FMJ choices out there. Hard hitting with decent penetration, especially from a modern 45.

If I want JHP's I'll go with 40 S&W. I really like how XTP's perform at 40 S&W velocities. These are my choice for go to carry.

If I want lead free HPs, I'll go with the 45 or go up to 10mm auto. I can't get the lead free 40's to do as well as I'd like at the S&W velocities. Bumped up just a bit, they can be pretty good. The 10mm lite loadings with some of the lead free options are nice.

Just my thoughts from seeing how the available choices work in my guns and on the things I shoot.