He says that the 45 caliber is the least effective of the available effective SD calibers. He claims with the improvements of the other calibers that they are better.

Thoughts on this please........would you trade your 45 for a 9????

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Hipcocked & Locked

He has his opinions. So does everybody else. I don't consider him an authority though just because he makes youtube videos.

The caliber debates go on and on. They will not be decided because some attention seeking cross dresser made a YouTube video.

Certain calibers have advantages over others in certain situations. My opnion is the differences are often overstated but are real.

Like he said the 45 acp isn't a poor caliber it just doesn't stand head over heals over other calibers on every aspect.
Personally I like shooting the 45acp because I like the push recoil rather than the flip recoil of say the 9mm. My 45acp Kimber stays in my bedside table while my LCR 357 is my carry piece.
Every caliber has its good as well as its bad points. I have read a few reports written by doctors that usually patients shot by a caliber starting with a 4 were more apt to die than from a smaller caliber.
Shoot what you like because bottom line with any handgun is placement means more than caliber size. If you can control your caliber for better shot placement then have at it.

He makes some good points. I have watched his videos before, he likes to keep it stirred up so he gets hits on his videos. He's kind of humorous and knowledgeable. I think he's wrong about the "Bigger Hole" not being an advantage. I don't carry a .45acp for self defense, for the same reasons he said in his video but I know plenty of people who do.

I carry a LC9s with 124gr JHP +P, or a 38 special with 110gr Critical Defense JHPs, or a Sig P-238 with Glazer Powerballs.

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Have Gun Will Carry

Any self defence caliber you can handle and place the shots where they need to go works. If you can't hit effectively bigger isn't better.

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Two Handguns every day

As for me I like the idea that the .45 starts out big. A smaller caliber has to get big after good penetration to do its best job.

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

I say take that character with a grain of salt. His opinions are often designed just to invoke a response and increase his subscription base & YouTube income... not necessarily to educate.

It took me awhile to warm up to his videos b/c of how silly the opening is, but he does seem to be somewhat knowledgable. As to the caliber discussion that goes on and on, add nausium.

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Old Cop
LEO (Ret.)

Pretty much says it all. His recent videos on the horrors of lead ammo were in a similar vein. Full of misinformation and outright fabrication. But he seems to have his fanboys.

Don't really care what the guy thinks he knows he's an A hole and everyone has one. Oh wait I mean his opinions are like A Holes.

Friends don't let friends buy a Taurus

I saw that video a while ago. With modern self defense ammo, there's not much difference between the typical service calibers with regard to terminal ballistics. They all seem to work about the same in real encounters.

I think for most people choosing a semi-auto for self defense, 9mm makes the most sense. Relatively lower recoil, cheaper practice, and more rounds (may not be much of a difference with single-stack guns). Even someone who's very skilled with a .45ACP pistol will be able to get accurate rounds on target faster with a 9mm, given the same platform*.

Does that make the .45ACP a poor choice? Of course not. It's still a very effective round, and those who choose to carry it (or .40S&W, or .357SIG) will be well served, presuming they can shoot it well and it's reliable in their gun of choice. But at the same time it ends up being a case of diminishing returns, which I believe is the point he was trying to make in the video. Does the .45ACP's attributes really outweight the 9mm's attributes enough to justify it as a self defense gun? To me, not really. To someone else, maybe it does. It's nice to have choices so we can each choose what works best for us.

And I say this as someone who has a Beretta 92FS as a HD gun, which many say is too big for its caliber, and someone who thinks the Sig P239 in 9mm makes for an excellent carry gun despite critics saying it's also too big for its caliber.

As for Yankee Marshal himself, I do watch his videos from time to time, keeping in mind that he is basically just sharing his opinion on the topic at hand.









* OMG...did i really say "platform"...?!

Any of the three major calibers (9, 40, 45) are very good for self defense. Before buying a gun, I study and read many reviews. I want a good quality firearm, but mostly reliable. I do the same with self defense ammo. Yes many will say the gelatin ballistic tests are useless, but they are what the FBI use to test ammo. I want consistent expansion and most importantly not to over penetrate. I carry a 9mm and settled on Federal HST 147 grain ammo.

Click bait.
Controversial subject gets him more views.
More views=more YouTube money.

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Keep on Chooglin'

I appreciate what ContinentalOP has to say above. I'm about exactly on the same page with him in this matter. For me personally, my answer to this question has changed over the years, primarily because if the advancements in handgun ammunition that have been made.

If all we could use in our handguns was lead round nose bullets or FMJ hardball, I'll take the .45 every time all day long. I happen to be able to fire this caliber about as well as I can any other the smaller calibers. Some folks cannot do that. Not a problem these days!! I am perfectly comfortable carrying anything from 9MM/.38 caliber up to the .45's. My needs these days is primarily personal protection. Any of these rounds with a good premium bullet will do the job IF I do my job correctly. NONE of them will work if I don't do my job! We've all read that emergency room doctors and pathologists who do autopsies can rarely tell the difference in that damage that any of these calibers have done. If they don't find the bullet in the body, or have some external evidence to tell them, all they really can say is that a bullet did this!

We enjoy discussing what's "best", and that's OK. EAch of us must make our own choices and live or die by them. What's best is what's best for ME! That pertains to both ammunition and the firearm that shoots it. What gun can I shoot the best? What ammo works all the time, every time in that gun? And which combination of the two allows me to fire multiple controlled shots and land those bullets where they need to land to have the maxiumum effect to get the job done? That might be the same combination for you and for me and for maybe the large majority of others looking for the same thing. Or what is best for me might be best for a very few others. You nor I can decide what's best for ourselves unless we examine and test and try (with a very open mind!) the available choices. Generally, we will find that we have several choices of both handguns and ammunition that will be very satisfactory choices. So then we can choose among them and pick what WE (I) like the best. Then we can go practice with it to make sure we can use our choices to their maximum effectiveness and do so under high stress and pretty much subconciously. Then we can hope and pray that we are never in that circumstance and have to use our choices for extremely serious purposes.

C'mon guys. Most of this beyond a certain point is a "mine is bigger than yours" discussion. So what? That's always the case when comparing, right, except for the opposite outcome after measurements. I like to learn about things as much as I can. What I really like to study are outcomes of actual shootings. But even then, the multitude of variables are so great that it's difficult to compare one shooting to any other. All we can do is do our best and hope for the best outcome.

Since practice with whatever you choose is important, and because there are so many good choices of well made and dependable handguns out there to fit almost any hand size, I say it's likely that the best choice among all of what's available is to find a good quality 9MM striker fired semi auto that's reasonably priced and then buy a 1000 rounds of good quality practice ammo and go shoot! 9MM has the benefit of being the cheapest priced ammo on the market today (with some of the usual exceptions ... but across the board everywhere). Get something you can use well and enjoy using that fits you and your budget and go shoot it. You don't have to shoot a thousand rounds a month, unless you want to do so, of course. But sadly, most of us go buy ourselves a handgun and a couple boxes of ammo, maybe shoot it a few times, and call it good. A handgun (or any gun!) ain't a magic pill. If you can't be very familiar with it, know that it'll go bang every time, and that you can hit the target with it, you'd be better off with a sack full of nice smooth easy throwing river rocks. They throw easier than does any hangun!!

Shoot what you can shoot the best with the most confidence, and know that you will have done the best you can do and the ammo will have done it's job too. Anything can and does happen when somebody gets shot. Sometimes it works well and sometimes it does NOT! We just need to have the mindset that we are going to protect ourselves with whatever we have or can lay hands on and we ain't gonna quit as long as we can lift a hand. That's the only chance we have to survive!!

Sorry ... got on my soapbox. Hope you find something of interest to think about here. Like I said, just my own thoughts presented to all for what ever, if anything, they might be worth!! Thanks for reading this far if you did!

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So long ... Ken

I can't think of any topic where so much hot air meets so little actual experience as "which caliber is best?". Scary news channels nonwithstanding, people just don't shoot people often enough to be able to have an experiental basis for declaring which caliber works for them and which doesn't; even Jeff Cooper didn't.

Compared to some of the people who purport to tell us which round is "best", I found this guy's video pretty refreshingly straightforward. Instead of trying to explain which round is best, he gives a number of fairly common sense reasons why the .45 ACP isn't. I can't say that I disagree with him on any of those. The .45 is an excellent defense round, and back a few decades when any but FMJ bullets had reliability issues in semi-autos, it was without doubt the only choice if you needed more "firepower" than a revolver. I carried cocked-and-locked 1911's for many years (Colt, Para-Ordnance, S&W), as well as a Sig P 220 for winter outdoor carry. But it is indeed hard to make the argument today that the .45 is the "best" choice for any reason, which is all he says.

There is one argument for the .45 he leaves out, the psychological one. That big black hole somehow looks a lot more threatening than a 9mm when pointed at you. And after all, the best gunfight is the one you win without having to actually pull the trigger .

You could always just paint a black ring around the muzzle.

Does his hat say "Blow Teacher" on it?

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My sgntr is mor thn 30 chrctrs

Just another goofball know it all.

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Life Is A Gift. Defend it!

At 7-10 yards, I'd say my 9mm & 45 accuracy is very close to the same. Quick & accurate. Stretching out to 25 yrds, my 45 wins every time. I really do prefer the 45, and it's what I usually carry.

It only took a couple of views on his various subjects to write him off. Everybody has a choice, so my choice is not to watch him.

Have a blessed day,

Leon

Same here.

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America First

Aw-w-w...not this guy again?

And another ".45acp vs. 9mm" thread? C'mon.

Most sensible and to-the-point comment in this entire thread.

I just dedicated this beer I'm drinking to you.

Thank you.

.17 it is!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

He amuses me.....in a good way. But you also have to take into account he is the guy that filmed himself repeatedly racking the slide on a P239 SAS review saying it wont cycle after firing a round.... mag after mag after mag. Turns out he discovered he was putting P239 9mm mags in his new P239 .40 S&W!!!!!!!!!!

A 9mm JHP might expand, but a .45ACP won't get smaller.

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Freedom isn't free.

Well As the ol gunny said you hit em in the hand with the 45 ACP you still knock em down, I also carry this round daily and trust it will silence most that need to be silenced.

just my.02

Pete

Just pick a firearm that you like and actually carry it daily, oh and practice/train with it... I happen to run into quite a few people who have their carry permit and well......... shoot maybe twice a year. I like my 45 quite a bit, and I shoot it quite a bit, if I ever need it, I feel like I can trust it and it will perform flawlessly. Stop worrying about what size firearm is the "best". Just get one and become proficient with it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm surprised that no one has pointed out that this in NOT what was said.

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Stay protected my friends.

Are we watching the same video? "Cross dresser"?!? What? Who? Where?
I saw a guy in a camo hat and brown T-shirt...

He wears a wig and dances around sometimes


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I like TYM and all his vids. His comments on the .45ACP have been somewhat exaggerated. He just bought the Big FNC with the optic sight cut slide, high sights, threaded barrel in .45 ACP.
Geoff
Who notes you gotta love a guy who loves S&W Revolvers.

Nope...not this time. Not ever again.

He's entitled to his opinion, and the 45 ACP is obviously a proven round. I think it is one of the easiest to reload cartridges that have been conceived. Certainly the most easy go reload and get good accuracy and reliability in my experience.

The 45's legendary man-stopping properties all seem to originate from the Philippine Insurrection where the Army's 38 Colt service revolvers were found to be ineffective against determined, possibly substance-influenced attackers. My question in all of the debate was about where the rifles were to begin with? From what I've read of that overall campaign, there were some attacks on Army units that were primarily successful due to surprise on the part of the insurgents, and lax security on the part of the Army. I don't know if officers who might have had their revolvers readily available while the troops had their long guns stacked played into the story of the ineffectiveness of the smaller caliber. Another question was what long arms the Army carried into the Philippines? The 30-40 Krag was the standard infantry weapon of the time, but it seems that even after the Spanish-American War, was not necessarily in great supply. I've even seen some reference that Guard units activated from the Midwest could have even still been armed with 45-70 Trapdoor Springfield single shots. The Trapdoors, while faster to load and fire then their muzzle loading predecessors, still weren't ideal, which may have indicated the need to transition to a handgun during a massed frontal attacks. And furthermore, no one seems to dispute the effectiveness of the .45 Colt cartridge, or likely the .45 Scholfield in 230 grain RNL form that might have accompanied the SAAs that were supposedly shipped in.

Until the Centerfire cartridge is replaced by eventual advances in weaponry (particle handgun, lasers, phasers, disrupters, blaster, etc) the 45 ACP is going to appreciate a following, along with all of the advances that enhance the performance of lesser calibers.

If one looks for the information from real experts who conduct validated research, the most accessible of which is probably Gary Roberts, the major service calibers all perform about the same. The proper basis for deciding among the those loads that have been found to meet the standard is cost and accessibility of ammo, which will come out in favor of the 9mm almost all the time.

The ergonomics of the platform for a given shooter are also important. That includes, among other things, recoil, again, the 9mm is likely to come out ahead. I find the 45ACP at standard pressure to be much less obnoxious than the .40. The biggest thing is training - knowing where to put rounds on a human body, and doing so as reliably as possible. That takes a lot of ammo and range time - hence, the 9mm most of the time is the best of the compromises. This is even more true with smaller shooters, including women, and older shooters, a group to which I am transitioning. My days of hot loads in .357/.41/.44 are ending - 9mm +p and standard velocity SWCs for revolvers are becoming my default.

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NHI, 10-8.

R U kidding. That guys a fat ***

Actually, the part about the hastily substituted .45 not being much more effective against the Moros either usually is much less well-known.

I believe it was Jack Lott who did research into that and corrected the fairy-tales in a series of articles back in the 1970s.

But by then the conventional story of the "legendary .45" that knocked the Moros off their feet if you just hit them in the finger was too well-established, and since that was also the heyday of 1911 worship, the correction didn't get much traction.

He lost me at the "myth of female orgasm". I point I could make about a .45 acp being effective is that it has a way better trigger than anything else I have shot. The most accurate pistol I have ever shot.

But then you are entirely missing his point, which is about the caliber (available in many types of pistols), not the 1911 (available also in 9mm, 10mm, .38 Super).

And the suitability of the SA auto for self-defense nowadays is a completely different can of worms. If you want to get people's dander up, start a thread about that ...

He's right about less capacity with the 45ACP.

My LCP magazine holds six rounds of 380ACP, but it won't even hold one 45ACP.

Everybody is biased and he may be correct. However, I find his humor sophomoric and his authoritative attitude irritating. I always feel like he's talking down to me.

OK. Never watched any of his videos before so I had no idea. He doesn't seem like one who would look all that great in a dress...

I think he makes good points in this video. I do carry a .45 sometimes, when I carry a 1911. But in more modern platforms I prefer other calibers.

.45 ACP means less capacity and higher cost than 9mm in a semiauto and still can't match the power of 10mm or magnum cartridges in a revolver.

When I heard about Smith & Wesson putting out a 45 ACP Shield for sale, I thought no way. I had no interest whatsoever. I already had the 9mm Shield, while comparing their new 45, to 1911s & my Springfield 5.25" XDM 45 in my mind.

I figured the accuracy, wouldn't be there, and the recoil would be too much. After reading numerous positive reports for the 45 Shield, I picked one up. First day I had it at the range, I was amazed. Great accuracy, and recoil that wasn't much more than the 9mm. That was six months ago.

Today, I still feel the same! Shot it, along with my 9mm & Ruger 380 LCP. In reality, the 45 Shield isn't that much worse recoil wise, than that teeny wimpy LCP. It's still amazingly accurate too!

I grew up with revolvers (357 & 44 mag), but this 45 will remain my carry weapon. It's not that much larger or heavier than the 9mm Shield. I'll never plan to haul a 1911 around, for a CC.

I don't mind some of Yankee Marshall videos. I've seen a lot of them. Of course, this one, I didn't agree.

P.S. --- I reload 45's by the thousands. Cost is almost a non event. Same for 38 Special, 357 & 44 mag.

That's a good point, I never thought about trying to carry a .45 in a small package like a Shield. If I want a bit more power in a carry gun I just grab my Model 66 snubby with Buffalo Bore Short Barrel .357 magnum ammo (158 gr JHP @ 1,100 fps from the 2.5" barrel).

I guess if you need a big bore in a compact firearm the Shield .45 could work.

I carry a 44 special and just picked up a 325 in 45acp. These choices are supported by the large number of grave sites they have filled in the last 100+ years.

I trained with the 45acp at 18, now that I'm 75, I see no reason to change horses in mid-stream. My 1917 will stay right on the night table with extra moon clip as always. Oh! and my backup is a 1911.

Hey, there, oldtimer. I like your choices in caliber and firearms, and I even think you have your priorities straight between first choice and backup. However, I think "mid-stream" has done passed both you and me by.

Leastways, that's how I see it.

the difference between a 9mm and a 45 is .097 inches .. not a big difference .. difference
between the 40S&W and a 45 is only .051 inches ..