.45 ACP: What is it good for? Absolutely nothing?

[kwh]

.45 needs longer barrel than 9mm to reliably expand hollow points.
I would rather have a jagged expanded hole with good penetration, than a smooth .45 size hole with excessive penetration.
For me, 9mm with short 3- 3.5 inch barrels. 45 a.c.p. with 4-4.5" in. barrels.

 

[Pigirondan]

My anecdotal experience has shown me the following, as far as efficacy on the street:

1. 12 gauge 00 Buck
2. .357 Magnum 125 grain SJHP
3. .45 ACP 230 grain JHP

Then all the rest... .40 S&W, 9mm, .38 Special. I have to add a caveat about the .38 Special. The +P 158 grain SWC-HP was effective when used in a full size K-frame.

And I'm basing this on what the LEO's used on the bad guys. Bad guy on bad guy counts and doesn't count. There was never any consistency to their madness.

 

[jerrydm60]

45 ACP

Carried one for two tours in RVN and saw what it can do! Since then I have been carrying one in one form or another. My wife carries a Kimber Ultra in 45 and she loves it. To me it does what it was designed for and that was stopping people, granted its not a perfect round but keep it in its limit and it will doo the job!

 

[oink]

I've found the 45ACP is good for punching a hole in the bottom of a used 55Gal drum so it'll drain, when preparing to use it for a burn barrel.

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT bend town below the mouth of the barrel to pop off the round without ears expecting the barrel to muffle the noise and deflect it up away from you.

 

[LostintheOzone]

I like the flying garbage can effect.

 

[Old Corp]

My viewpoint is a result of a sorta roundabout experience.....
I was involved in an OIS years ago - duty weapon was a S&W M66 4" loaded with the issued duty round - .38 Spl. 125 gr. JHP +P (S&W-brand ammo, so that dates me).
It took six (6) rounds to stop the subject assaulting me - all COM hits and the last in the CNS.

How different is the .38 +P from the 9mm?
I later saw all the recovered bullets from the autopsy. They were all perfectly expanded (except the 6th round, which did fragment), could have been in any ad.

Yes, I'm sure many advancements have been made in bullet design.
But as already opined - a .45 does not shrink and has sheer mass in it's favor.
Let's just say that when I left CONUS last year to work for half the year in an armed position - a M&P .45 is what went with me.

 

[Dogbone44Spl]

45ACP is the only round I've used in anger. It worked very well in 230 G hardball. I can only guess modern JHP's will work better.

 

[V0OBWxZS16]

.45 ACP: What is it good for?
- Reliable ones go bang
Uh...
- Bowling pin shoots
- Mis-calibrated falling steel targets
Uh...

...That's all I can think of at the moment.

 

[armadillo]

More than 40 years ago I knew a LEO who was in a gunfight with 2 assailants - the one with a 9mm hit him first with 2 rounds (1 in the arm and 1 in the mid-section) then the one with a 45 hit him once in the lower leg. He said he didn't initially think the 9mm hit him, but when the 45 hit him, he went down instantly. He was saved by his partner who got both shooters with a 6 shot 38 Spl.

In my opinion the advantage of a 9mm is that when you are being shot at it is comforting to have 12-16 shots without reloading (spray and pray).

 

[stansdds]

More than 40 years ago I knew a LEO who was in a gunfight with 2 assailants - the one with a 9mm hit him first with 2 rounds (1 in the arm and 1 in the mid-section) then the one with a 45 hit him once in the lower leg. He said he didn't initially think the 9mm hit him, but when the 45 hit him, he went down instantly. He was saved by his partner who got both shooters with a 6 shot 38 Spl.

In my opinion the advantage of a 9mm is that when you are being shot at it is comforting to have 12-16 shots without reloading (spray and pray).

Insufficient information from which to draw conclusions. What ammo was used? Did the torso shot hit any vital organs? Did the shot into the arm strike bone or just muscle? Did the shot into the lower leg strike bone? What organs were struck by the six rounds of 38 Special? So many questions here it would take a pretty detailed analysis to draw an accurate conclusion.

 

[jupiter1]

Insufficient information from which to draw conclusions. What ammo was used? Did the torso shot hit any vital organs? Did the shot into the arm strike bone or just muscle? Did the shot into the lower leg strike bone? What organs were struck by the six rounds of 38 Special? So many questions here it would take a pretty detailed analysis to draw an accurate conclusion.

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.

 

[IAM Rand]

If folks worried less about caliber and more about anatomy and shot placement everyone would be more secure.

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.

 

[Jessie]

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.

 

[gman51]

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.

 

[jaymoore]

The 45 Auto is hard to beat when it comes to penetrating barriers. Which may or may not be important to some.

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.

 

[Darkenfast]

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.

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.

 

[PALADIN85020]

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

 

[Echo40]

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.

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.

 

[BAM-BAM]

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.

 

[BigBill]

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.