Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote:9mm were never meant to penetrate body armor... And a side arm is never meant to be an offensive weapon anyways. For a soldier I mean... It's a last-resort defensive weapon.

Correct, but especially now, so many of those you're defending yourself from WILL be equipped with some sort of body armor in a lot of cases. Shouldn't your defensive weapon have a chance at actually defending you against them rather than just pissing them off?

No. Accuracy is key. Training and muscle memory are what will save you, not the caliber of the weapon (to an extent, of course). A 45 wouldn't do much on body armour/ceramic plates either (if you want to go down the "armor vs weapon" road). A well-placed/aimed shot is what will down your opponent. And either way, a quick volley/successive 9mm shots will down an opponent just as well as a 45 would. As I said, I don't think going the "armor vs gun" is the right way of approaching this. Otherwise you could argue that the 45 is nothing and you need a way bigger weapon and the argument will never end. Training and muscle memory...

Off topic, but it came up in my news feed... imagine how long it would take to scrub what's left of a burglar out of the carpet after this thing:

Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote:No. Accuracy is key. Training and muscle memory are what will save you, not the caliber of the weapon (to an extent, of course). A 45 wouldn't do much on body armour/ceramic plates either (if you want to go down the "armor vs weapon" road). A well-placed/aimed shot is what will down your opponent. And either way, a quick volley/successive 9mm shots will down an opponent just as well as a 45 would. As I said, I don't think going the "armor vs gun" is the right way of approaching this. Otherwise you could argue that the 45 is nothing and you need a way bigger weapon and the argument will never end. Training and muscle memory...

Exactly right, a good article on that point in Police Law Enforcement Mag. by Sydney Vail MD, FACS, who is an associate professor of surgery on the trauma faculty at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, Pa. He also serves as director of tactical medicine programs for the Arizona Department of Public Safety and Maricopa County (Ariz.) Sheriff's Office SWAT teams.

Real Gunshot Wounds

The point here is that no single ammunition that is typically used by law enforcement officers today can reliably claim to have superior stopping power. I have seen a .22 caliber bullet completely incapacitate someone and a .45 ACP fail to achieve that result. People and animals shot with 10mm rounds and .357 SIG rounds have continued to run from the police. I have been on scene as a tactical medical provider when a suicidal person shot himself in the head with a .45 Colt round resulting in instant death. And I have seen the same results in suicides that used smaller calibers, including .22, .25, and .32. I have also seen people hit with 9mm, .40, and .45 without so much as staggering or slowing their verbal or physical activities.

So we come back to the original question: Which ammunition has the best stopping power? I can't answer that question. What I can say is that you should look for ammunition that reliably lives up to its claims of penetration and expansion but don't believe that these two factors alone are related to stopping power.

The ultimate stopping power rests with your training with your weapon system. Accurate hits in any reasonable caliber will "stop" a person if that person has experienced enough brain or spinal cord damage to interrupt regular neurologic impulses from reaching vital areas of the body or the person has hemorrhaged enough blood to lower his or her blood pressure where the brain no longer is able to function well. You can also stop a person if a major bone shatters after a bullet injures it, but does that stop the fight?
http://www.policemag.com/channel/weapon ... ities.aspx

Just for extra measure, when I would load my .45acp cartidges with hollow points (they looked like ashtrays)(950+fbs not the stock 850fps) , I'd drop in a drop of mercury and a drop of wax on top of that. Not a nice round, but if you have to shoot someone who wants to be nice, just deadly. The Galser Safety round was my second choice as it was fangible metal encased in a plastic shell and would explode all over the place on contact, thus the "safety" part as it wouldn't go through a wall and kill an innocent person, but leave a massive hole in who you shot.

How many thieves/bad guys do you know who wear body armor? They are usually stupid or drugged out jerks that are in your house or your path that just want to steal from you, rape, kill and go enjoy your money, belongings, wife/children. Go watch a movie called "Law Abiding Citizen." (Three quarters of the movie was great, specially offing a judge, but in the end the government had to win which ruined the movie.) These are the targets for your personal weapon, no body armor, just full body targets. (I'm talking about the thieves, attorneys and judges. Open season no bag limit. Just my dream.)