Is the 45acp better than a 9mm for SD?

No. It doesn’t matter.

I carried this .45 for 25 years.


I’m retired now, I carry this .25 ACP.



You are more likely to be struck by a meteorite than shoot someone. Its fun to talk about, though.

The age old argument of which caliber is better; .45 or 9mm. Think whatever you are comfortable with and shoot the best is always the way to go.

sigp220.45 said:

No. It doesn’t matter.

I carried this .45 for 25 years.
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I’m retired now, I carry this .25 ACP.

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You are more likely to be struck by a meteorite than shoot someone. Its fun to talk about, though.

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I worked with a plainclothes trooper for a time that didn't carry a gun on his body. 38 in the briefcase he always had in his hand/s.

Used to be the pusher on one of the Olympic bobsled teams, no idea what year. Before 79 though.

Interesting choice of a carry piece.

StephenWhoDat said:

I exclusively carry the .45 ACP for self defense. As God intended.

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“As God intended” I nominate you for quote of the year. You can’t argue with God.
On a personal level I own one 9MM and four .45 ACP’s, all 1911’s, and I always advise people to carry what they are most adept at handling when it comes to personal defense.

I carry a .38 Special more than I carry a 9mm or a .45. It fits what I wear concealment-wise, and it will do the job. "Who cares" is right!!!

Yes

Doesn't matter if I've got a .22 or a .45. Pull the trigger until the threat is stopped.

I shoot a lot of 9mm & 45ACP for a carry gun you are better off with 9mm its more manageable for most folks and with 45ACP 7-8 rounds 9mm 15-20 rounds and ballistically 9mm will do the job.Either way a good placed hit does the job 9 or 45

Caliber does matter, especially when it comes to 9mm vs 45 ACP.
It's a fact that a 9mm can kill a man, but the 45 ACP not only kills the man, it also kills his soul.
Just more proof that the 45 ACP is the Lord's caliber.

jakeintexas said:

Unless it’s .41/.44 magnum up through the ubermagnums (454/460/500), arguing stopping power among handgun rounds is a lot like arguing date of rank amongst privates.

Doesn’t matter. Any major caliber will do.

There is some difference in using the .40 or 10mm when it comes to penetration in animals depending on what’s used but not enough really to matter.

Everyone always harps on shot placement. I get it; the only way to ensure a rapid stop with any handgun cartridge is some form of CNS hit (brain or spine) or mobility stop (hip). But good shot placement is hard when everything (including you) is moving. How many people routinely train to this ? Especially at longer distances ? While 2-legged engagements usually are at pretty close ranges, 25 yards is relatively close for shooting an animal which might hurt you (a much more likely scenario) and which can close that distance pretty rapidly. An RDS can help with precision but also creates problems of its own (and most of my ccws are not red dot equipped for a bunch of different reasons).

So practice and trigger control matter a fair bit more than caliber.

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As a great man once said..."If you can shoot, it doesn't matter and if you can't shoot, it doesn't matter"

Personally I choose the 43X with Shield Arms Gen 3 15 round mags. I use Federal Premium HST 147gr. I practice weekly. Besides, I use what the FBI has determined to be best.

This is a really interesting interview.



As others have said, carry what you practice with. I carried 45ACP in the military until they issued 9mm in the 80's.

I know off topic BUT! How come this discussion does not include the 38 Super! Browning would not use the 9mm Luger because of his years long legal battles with Luger. So he invented the better round. Because of its longer case S&W would call it a 9mm Magnum.


More ME than the 45ACP and the most powerful handgun cartridge until the .357.
JMHO!

Hill536 said:

I know off topic BUT! How come this discussion does not include the 38 Super! Browning would not use the 9mm Luger because of his years long legal battles with Luger. So he invented the better round. Because of its longer case S&W would call it a 9mm Magnum.


More ME than the 45ACP and the most powerful handgun cartridge until the .357.
JMHO!

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I was always under the impression that 38 super was nothing more than a 9 +P+

I carry .45ACP, .40 S&W, or 9mm depending on the particular pistol's ability to fit into my daily activities and clothing.

I've never been as heavily invested in this debate as many folks seem to be. I 'm a fan of both rounds.
That said, for SD purposes, I think the 9mm is generally the more practical choice.
A 45 pistol is often going to be heavier, bulkier, and more expensive.
.45 ammo costs more.
.45 has more recoil, and slower recovery.
A 9mm pistol will typically hold more rounds, often many more.
Modern 9mm hollow-points have fantastic performance.
I'm not criticizing anyone's choice, I just think the practical realities as they apply to an EDC in civilian self-defense applications, tend to favor 9mm over 45's
( generally speaking, exceptions notwithstanding, yadda, yadda, yadda....)

The way I understand it is "servings".
The discussion always comes loaded with presuppositions or assumptions that are not stated.
When you write in defense of your preferred caliber, you must use terminology which in your own mind means more to you than you realize.
For many people the term gun means more than they consciously grasp.
So the thing cannot inherently ever be settled. It is not a dead horse because if it is a horse then nobody killed it yet. Even saying the issue is a dead horse comes with your unstated assumptions.
Assume that the handgun is in fact a fight ender. (Is it?)
Assume that the fastest and the firstest is the winner. (?)
Assume that it will take one pill in the right place.
Assume that it will take many hits in the right places.
Assume that you cannot be sure to hit the right place.
Or assume that you will hit the right place.
It is a matter of luck.
It is not a matter of luck but
A matter of training.
A matter of skill, or
A matter of mindset.
If two people could see and agree on basic assumptions, those two could debate and settle something for those who accept the same premises.

Servings?
If you have ever shot fully auto or a three round selector you understand where I am headed.

If your assumptions are that each individual round must have the fight stopping magic then it makes sense that each projectile must have awesomeness in it.
However if your assumptions are that the very weapon itself has that awesomeness in it, then the caliber won't matter, or if as some here have already stated, if no gun or no bullet or caliber has any awesomeness in it then it won't matter to them either.
If you carry a j-frame .38 do you expect you are carrying one serving of five pills, or five servings of one pill each?
If you carry a G17 with two spare magazines, are you carrying enough ammunition to deal with 50 threats or three? Three servings of 17 pills! Don't laugh because we have seen the cops do it for real.
To answer Brownie's question, the asserted superiority of the 45ACP over the 9mm assumes a one shot fight ender, by the mechanism of minimum necessary diameter and cross sectional density, with momentum as the factor in penetration rather than velocity.
Pardon please my wordiness.
Regards!
Brian D

Navy vet said:

Personally I choose the 43X with Shield Arms Gen 3 15 round mags. I use Federal Premium HST 147gr. I practice weekly. Besides, I use what the FBI has determined to be best.

This is a really interesting interview.



As others have said, carry what you practice with. I carried 45ACP in the military until they issued 9mm in the 80's.

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The FBI did not determine 9mm to be "the best". The FBI determined the 9mm was best for what the FBI needed.

I've read the Police1 story before. The officer fires 33 rounds with 14 hits, all hits in major organs. Suspect dies at the hospital. So, the officer decides to ditch the Glock 21 in 45acp for a Glock 17 and carries nearly 3 whole 50 round boxes of 9mm on his person.

Here's my real world story. Fugitive is using the free Wi-Fi in a McDonald's dining area early one morning in Houston, Texas. U.S. Marshals fugitive task force puts eyes on the target. Four TFOs go into the McDonald's with one being a K9 handler and his dog. Other TFO's line up outside the window of the table the fugitive is sitting at making a tactical "L".

Fugitive fails to comply with orders. Taser hit doesn't work. Dog bite doesn't work. Fugitive pulls a pistol from behind his back. The fugitive is shot 15 times with 9mm rounds from Glock 17s. Rounds hits hit fugitive center mass and his forearms as he used his arms to shield himself.

Result - Two broken arms. The fugitive was cleared for confinement after overnight observation and extradited to stand trial.

What's the fix? Carry more bullets? Carry a caliber smaller than 9mm so there can be even more bullets?

The love affair with capacity isn't helping cops.

Brownie0486 said:

I was always under the impression that 38 super was nothing more than a 9 +P+

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Again OT! Then I guess a 38 Super +P is a 9mm+P+ P+

Mike SC Hunter said:

Carry what you like............WHO CARES??????????????????????

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These threads kill me.... but it bring up something someone said if a similar thread... They were asked what they shoot and they said they shoot "45 AARP". That made me laugh.

Brownie0486 said:

There's a host of people who believe a 45acp load will produce better results on the street than a 9mm load due to many factors mentioned like cross section differences etc

Does it? Or is it always a crap shoot no matter what load you're using for SD? There's numerous examples of 9's not performing well on the street urchins, but then there's also examples of 45acp not performing well on the street too

I don't think it really matter what caliber, put em where they need to go and hope for the best

https://www.police1.com/officer-sho...5-rounds-of-ammo-on-the-job-clGBbLYpnqqHxwMq/

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"Stopping Power" by Evan Marshall (and Ed Sanow) was written in the late 90's and went into print before HST loads were in wide use by public safety agencies (before there was any real "track record.") The bases of the book are hundreds of shootings with various defensive cartridges in use at the time. It should be noted that Federal's 9mm BPLE (+p+) round was among the very best performing rounds in actual combat shootings, though it seldom penetrated farther than 12 inches in human targets. At that time the USBP had more shootings than all the other Federal agencies combined. The BP standard was 10-12 inches of penetration. They used the BPLE for years. Two factors I believe were common to the best stoppers listed: 1) At least 300 foot pounds of energy at the muzzle 2) expansion that deposited all the energy within the human target (usually did not exist). The .45 ACP 230 grain FMJ averaged 62% one shot stops; the 9mm Luger 115 FMJ 70%.

erikpolcrack said:

Yes. I really believe that to be the case, even though my main EDC is a Sig P365XL MS.

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Brownie0486 said:

There's a host of people who believe a 45acp load will produce better results on the street than a 9mm load due to many factors mentioned like cross section differences etc

Does it? Or is it always a crap shoot no matter what load you're using for SD? There's numerous examples of 9's not performing well on the street urchins, but then there's also examples of 45acp not performing well on the street too

I don't think it really matter what caliber, put em where they need to go and hope for the best

https://www.police1.com/officer-sho...5-rounds-of-ammo-on-the-job-clGBbLYpnqqHxwMq/

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Or one could avoid the issue entirely and get that wonder of all cartridges, the one which truly does it all, the one that guarantees any hit will be an instant stop, the one that we all wish were carrying. The one that we’d all wish we had during the zombie apocalypse.

That’s right.

The .30 SUPER CARRY !

Go forth, shoot animals and gather up your very own conclusions, they will be right.

Dump1567 said:

Old article. That same officer went back to .45 ACP in retirement (Wilson Combat 1911), but some of that was due to mag cap. restrictions in his jurisdiction.

The modern consensus is it's better to get hits with less recoil with quicker recovery. And keep getting those hits until the threat stops (and where your favorite 5 shot .38 may fail you if you run out of ammo). According to the guys at Federal who do this every day all-day, there really isn't any advantage due to skin elasticity unless the round is travelling around 1800 fps (IIRC). And they'll tell you to carry whatever major caliber you can consistently hit with.

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sure sure, the .25acp or .380 acp that fails to expand is soooo much the equal to a 45acp that expands to .8" and penetrates 20" in the same jello block.

Enough said.

Hill536 said:

I know off topic BUT! How come this discussion does not include the 38 Super!

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Probably because most ammo makers sell ammo that is not loaded to full power, but to lower pressure, possibly due to the .38 ACP and the .38 Super +P having identical dimensions, but .38 ACP pistols are not as robust as those chambered in .38 Super. I do agree that the Super .38 is a potent round and would likely be fantastic if Federal loaded it with an HST bullet, Speer loaded it with a Gold Dot bullet, and Remington made it with their Golden Saber design, but they don't, so potent self-defense ammo is hard to find.

Hill536 said:

Again OT! Then I guess a 38 Super +P is a 9mm+P+ P+

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38 super =124 grain bullet traveling at roughly 1,350 ft/s
9+P+=124 grain roughly 1300 to 1350ft/s

So, the 38 super +P is nearly identical to the 9mm +P+

rwsmith said:

Doesn't matter if I've got a .22 or a .45. Pull the trigger until the threat is stopped.

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Yes!

I am literally a guy that used a .22 to defend myself while my .44 Mag was at home in the safe.

Carry…a .36 at moderate velocities probably works better than smaller and slower.

Practice. Situational awareness. And pray you never have to use it.

jeep200 said:

Go forth, shoot animals and gather up your very own conclusions, they will be right.

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I was running snares we had set for wild hogs and I was carrying my brand new 9mm. I ran across a very mad 200lb boar in a snare that wasn't in great shape so I started shooting, nine hits later he finally dropped. I sold it the next week and bought a model 94 Wrangler caliber 32 Winchester special to run snares after that. Not sure we can use animals to figure out if 9mm is enough, at least not a hog.