re: Handgun - Knockdown Power vs Concealment

Home defense handgun:
A reliable, full size, double stack, semi-auto from a reputable manufacturer chambered in 9mm, 357 Sig, 40 S&W, 45 ACP or 357 Mag (all are pretty much equally effective for self defense using current SD ammo). Choose the specific model that you handle best, including accurate and rapid follow up shots. 1911 plarform is acceptable as well for the shooter willing to adequately learn it's manual of arms.

Concealed carry handgun: Single stack gun the size of the Glock M43, S&W Shield, Kahr CM9, Springfield XDS, etc. Everything else is the same as the home defense gun.

If you're uncomfortable w/ the semi-auto, a full size revolver in the above calibers can be substituted in the home defense category. In the cc category, one can substitute a small frame, light weight revolver in 38 Spec +P or 9mm.

Practice, practice, practice.

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held 12 in the clip, etc.

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gangsta arse shite mannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

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shoot the largest caliber you can consistently shoot quickly and accurately

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Yea that pretty much says it all.

Signing up for you class soon btw. Ill be the only shooting a 357sig

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The other school of thought is that you will likely only fire one or two rounds (if any) in a self-defense situation so make sure that they can make a big hole. This is sort of the Jeff Cooper argument. It's true that ammo is much improved these days but that applies to .45 just as much as it does 9mm.

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The "big hole" way of looking at it may apply with full metal jacket ammo, but comparing it to the modern expanding bullet, the playing field gets leveled considerably.

A quality hollowpoint 9mm bullet will expand considerably upon impact and will transfer the bulk of its energy into the target. A 45 FMJ may make a bigger "hole" upon entry but it will do much less damage internally and will pass through the target more readily, taking loads of kinetic energy with it. You want energy to transfer into the target and the "hole" size isn't really that relevant - 9mm vs 45 is only about 2mm difference anyway.

Maybe because they have to consider that the revamped loads may be fired in the guns of yesteryear as well as modern guns where as the new trendy loads aren’t handicapped by such liability considerations. But I’m probably wrong but it seems the same with rifle ammo where a 6mm Creedmore and a 6.5mm Creedmore are badast but a .243 and a .260 are “meh”.

Except theyre exactly the same on paper and in real life

Seems like lots of calibers are downloaded (357sig, 10mm, 357mag) while 9mm gets loaded to +p++ specs

Well because the loads of yesteryear in 9mm were very lackluster in terms of performance. The loads back then if they were hollow point either didn’t expand at all and penetrated to 30” like an fmj. Or they expanded but they didn’t have the oomf to make it much past 8-10” of gel.

Now with the right selection of 9mm bullet you can achieve 16-18” of penetration with 100% expansion reliability with expanded diameters as much as .66”

Now go look at the lucky gunner ballistic data and look at the 9mm chart and see how many bullets alfailed to expand or successfully penetrate. Then go look at the 40s&w and see how many failed to expand or penetrate.

You should very easily notice that it seems almost all of the 40s&w loads perform to meet the fbi standards whereas with the 9mm the selection seems to be very narrow meaning you must select the bullets correctly.

So in the days of yesteryear it was fairly easy to pick a 40s&w bullet that performed well. Whereas for 9mm it seems that was not the case.

Fast forward to today and loadings like the hst are available and it seems it has somewhat leveled the playing field of 9vs40 and so and and so forth.

No one should be trying to claim that with the advanced loadings today that the 9mm is somehow ballisticaly superior to the 40 357 and such. You can’t fight physics mass and inertia of the bigger faster bullets means they will cause more trauma.

The place where the argument starts getting interesting is when you start seeing diminishing returns. When comparing the 124gr hst to say a 40s&w or 45 loaded with hst what are the actual terminal differences. All will penetrate to a depth of 16-18” however the only differences you will see is expanded diameter and somewhat better energy upon impact.

The thing to note here is that it is generally accepted by most professionals that no pistol creates enough hydrostatic shock to produce a one shot immediate kill. So what are you getting then with these bigger bullets if it isn’t a one stop shot.

You are gaining a larger hole for more possible bleeeding. Instead of expanding to .65” in the best performing 9mm you may get almost 1” out of the best performing 45, with noted shorter penetration but still above the accepted minimum of 12”.

This is obviously a better chance to hit something vital but note this difference is slight. Less than 1/2” shot placement difference.

The cost of this slight increase in hole size? Generally many rounds of capacity and much less control-ability from a smaller framed gun.

So with the advances in bullet technology it has made the 9mm a much more reliable performer than in yesteryear whereas the 40 and 45 have somewhat always been a reliable performer sonthey had less room to improve.

If the bullet technology improved to the point that reliable 1 shot stops from those larger pistol calibers had come along with the new bullet tech, this would be a different story however it has not.