Capacity vs. Caliber Preference?

[West Texas]

This about sums it up...

...

Knowing that handguns are inadequate in terms of stopping power as compared to a shotgun or rifle should lead you to want to carry the biggest handgun that you can readily conceal, in the biggest caliber, with the heaviest bullet loaded as hot as you can handle it to deliver a couple of quick shots to the thoracic cavity of an extremely dedicated opponent.

You want big holes in your opponent and you want him bleeding through and through. That means you want large, heavy bullets that penetrate.

Pretty simple, wouldn’t you say?

Yes, it is pretty simple and that’s the point.

No need to overthink it.

Focus on your ability, not the equipment, because it is YOUR ABILITY to place the rounds you choose to carry in your gun that will determine whether you live or die in a gun fight.

OK, I know you still want recommendations. Here they are. Don’t get too hung up on them. A gun in any caliber is better than no gun at all.

.45 ACP. Our grandfathers knew it in World War II and our grandfathers’ grandsons are figuring it out again in Iraq. A .45 stops ‘em best.

.40 S&W is the next best choice and in most handguns allows more magazine capacity compared to the .45ACP.

.44 Special, .357 Magnum, .357 Sig, and 9mm Plus P all run near third place.

.38 Special and 9mm are in distant fourth place. You can plan on delivering a cranio-ocular shot after two to the chest to end the fight with these calibers.

.380, .32, .25, and .22 -- Don’t even bother shooting your opponent in the chest with these. Your standard response with these pocket pistol rounds is two to three rounds to between the mustache and eyebrows (cranio-ocular cavity).

If your carry gun is one of the smaller lighter calibers that is OK. You just need to understand that you must train that much more with a short sight radius, pocket pistol to be able to deliver fight stopping multiple rounds to your opponent’s head than you would if you were carrying a 1911 in .45 or a Glock in .40 caliber and delivering two shots to the chest.

Please stay away from fragmenting bullets. Those bullets that are designed to prevent over penetration will get you killed. You WANT penetration. Because even the hottest handgun bullet is slow and mediocre compared to a rifle, you need all the penetration you can get. You want the greatest amount of linear tissue damage possible for the best chance of incapacitation (immediately dropping your opponent). You want penetration. Penetration is your friend.

...

 

[TimberWolf7.62]

I'd rather have 10 or more rounds of .45 in a ParaOrdnance P10, P12, P13 or whatever the newer names for these models are. Glock and others make hi-cap .45's in small packages, too. You don't have to step down to a 9mm to get hi-cap.

 

[mkillebrew]

If sacrifices must be made, capacity will become the casualty of my mode of carry. Comparing a double-stack 9mm to a single stack .45, 18 rounds to 8 rounds. My argument centers around the volume of the crush cavity and its statistical ability to traverse a component of the central nervous system or artery that would induce a loss of consciousness rapidly. Assuming 0% bullet expansion, because that just complicates things, 9mm is obviously 9mm in diameter and .45 is 11.25mm, which does not outwardly seem like an appreciable difference, .45 is 127% the size of 9mm. 27% is not significant. However, area in this case used to figure volume of the crush cavity being logarithmic paints a different picture. 9mm would crush an area of 63mm while .45 would be 99mm, .45 now being 157% of 9mm. now taking the length of the wound tract into consideration since humans are in fact three dimensional beings with lots of squishy bits arraned inside on all three axis, we'll use for example 8 inches, or 203mm to keep conventions the same. 9mm now produces a crush cavity with the volume of 12.9cm and .45 yields 20.1cm, statistically increasing the chances of landing a disabling shot.

Of course the obvious question is why not just fire more 9mm, it would equal or best the displacement of the lower capacity larger caliber. Time. A larger caliber removes more material in less time, which when your life is in jeapordy, is of great importance.

This completely disregards shot placement, paramount to self defense, and training. Neither are substituted with either capacity or caliber.

 

[dt300mm]

here's a link to some interesting data. Although a bit dated, it lists common loads and their 1 shot stop ability in % from actual shootings

Stopping Power Statistics

 

[Adionik]

I am pretty sure a .380 Winchester PDX1 will do some damage. I need to carry an extra mag...but I don't feel underpowered with it.

 

[SIG_Fiend]

You people need to do more research into wound ballistics if you think pistol rounds are very effective. Your couple of millimeters of bullet diameter, couple hundred fps velocity difference, high tech new-age wonder caliber, super exploder nuclear API high tech defensive ammo....do not mean jack. There are countless examples of human beings surviving and fighting through unimaginable physical damage through sheer mental fortitude. Here's a good one to prove the point:

Roy Benavidez - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bottom line, all your pistol calibers are inferior to a determined mindset. Hell, the same can be said of pretty much any small arms caliber. If people can fight through having limbs blown off, being ripped in two from the torso down, losing half their blood, or any other number of insane things, bullets are decidedly less effective. Have as much ammo on you to stay in the fight as long as possible, get as many accurate hits as fast as possible, shoot them to the ground, never give up, have a superior mindset and will, watch out for Murphy. I will take a 9mm, .45acp, 10mm, .357sig, blah blah blah; I don't really care. It's far more important for people to be competent in their gun handling skills and to spend a lot of time resolving all of the mental aspects, weighing out the possibilities, and attempting to train themselves to have a superior mental attitude and will IMO. It is said of the Samurai that, during peacetime it was accepted and encouraged for them to constantly contemplate death. While this may sound odd at first, if you think about it metaphorically, it makes sense. Basically, they would constantly attempt to resolve these issues before hand, while not being faced with a threat, so that once they were faced with one they would hopefully have eliminated all fear and would be free to simply focus on winning.

 

[Charlie]

Soooo, since the original question was regarding a preference of either more ammo (smaller caliber) or not as much ammo (larger caliber) Sig-Fiend appears to be a proponent of the more ammo theory regardless of caliber. I would personally consider this to be the best choice in a downright war type, suvivor oriented senario.

 

[chubbyzook]

now the real question should be how fast can you get the provided 15 rounds of 9mm out compared to how fast you can get 7 rounds of 45 out.

 

[TimberWolf7.62]

Of course, in addition to all of their contemplation of death, the samurai armed themselves with what many still consider to be the best sword ever created, the katana. For all of their mindset, they didn't handicap themselves with a short, inferior sword.

Ergo, choose the best tool you can find - a .45.

 

[Charlie]

I was thinkin' more in terms of (if the situation would allow it) shooting initial rounds to stop the threat (maybe 4 to 5 or less) and if that didn't work, continue on. I don't think the average shooter could necessarily shoot the 9 any faster than the .45

 

[codeman]

I choose capacity over caliper. A 45 doesn’t do me any good because I can’t carry it 24/7/365. You never know when the attack is coming, so I carry 24 hours a day,7 days a week, 365 days a year. I get up in the morning, take a piss and holster my weapon. The last thing I do at night before I go to bed is un-holster my weapon.
In hot weather I carry a Ruger LCP with +1 mag extenders and an extra mag. That’s 1 in the chamber, 7 in the mag and 7 more in the spare mag. It’s loaded with hornady critical defense @ 115 grain.
In cooler weather I carry an H&K P2000SK 9mil and an extra mag. That’s 1 in the chamber, 10 in the mag and 10 more in the spare mag. It will be loaded with hornady critical defense @ 115 grain when they become available, but for now I’ve got CCI Gold Dot 124 grain in it.
Ultimately the deciding factor for me is “do I have a firearm and can I hit my target when my life depends on it.” I go to the range 2 to 5 times a week. I can draw, from concealment, and fire the first round in 1 second. My practice sessions are based on Massad Ayoob’s Stress Fire training. He has a book out by the same name and I highly recommend it.
There’s nothing wrong with carrying a large caliper weapon, if you can do so comfortably and are proficient with it. If you can carry a 50 cal 24/7 and hit what your aiming at when your live depends on it, I say go for it.

"The first rule of a gun fight is to have a gun." "The second rule of a gun fight is be a better shot than the other guy."

 

[atticus]

I have handguns in 9mm, 40 cal., 38/357, and 45 ACP. I shoot the 9mm the most accurately, but it's a semi-auto. I trust the 38/357 revolver (6 cartridge) more in terms of reliability. So I carry the 6 shooter wheelgun and a couple of speedloaders. I figure that if I need to use it, I'll most likely be close enough to the bad guy to make my accuracy less critical.

 

[ZX9RCAM]

deleted

 

[Texas42]

You start to wonder how people died from gunshot wounds in the past. You'd think before 1911, no one actually was hurt.

 

[SIG_Fiend]

Soooo, since the original question was regarding a preference of either more ammo (smaller caliber) or not as much ammo (larger caliber) Sig-Fiend appears to be a proponent of the more ammo theory regardless of caliber. I would personally consider this to be the best choice in a downright war type, suvivor oriented senario.

I am a proponent of having a tool that is as well-balanced in as many aspects as possible, that I am able to easily run and keep running. I don't want a single aspect such as caliber, capacity, etc to solely determine what I use, as that may be at the detriment to how effectively I can employ that gun if need be. Extreme ends of that spectrum would be either a 2.5" .500sw, or opposite end maybe a FN57 or Glock 17 w/ 33rd mag. I know that I can run a mid-sized 9mm handgun in any position (2-handed, 1-handed, support hand only, etc.) just fine, can easily control the recoil one-handed and be able to rapid fire quickly (usually ~4 rounds a second average, maybe 5rds peak), it will likely have ~15rd capacity so reloads won't be as often, etc. For some people, that balance is a .40sw, .45acp, etc. Bottom line, choose what you feel comfortable with (not mentally/emotionally comfortable but physically), set all this other BS aside and focus on learning how to run it as effectively as possible. People want their wonder gun, magic caliber, hollywood bullets, etc, but I would say a majority of people I've met can't even clear a malfunction or reload quickly, cold and on demand, which is far more important. I like my 9mm's and do not feel like I'm missing anything with them. At some point though, I probably will have to have multiple carry setups, one of which will be a full size 5" 1911. The only question then would be single stack and with 10 rounders for backups, or STI 2011 frame double stack and 14+rds of enjoyment.

Forget about caliber. Considering how most people shoot, they need as much capacity as possible to make up for their crappy fundamentals. I've seen people empty an entire 15-17rd mag at a B-27 target at THREE YARDS and completely miss the paper with every single shot.