.45 +P Rounds

[Swampman]

Looking for a semi-auto pistol in .45 caliber that will handle +P rounds. Just started looking and the only one so far is the Ruger American pistol.

http://www.ruger.com/products/rugerAmer ... odels.html

I'll be going for the full sized frame to get as much mass as possible to help control recoil. I looked at one and like the grip angle and it was only $400 brand new.

Suggestions on other models is most appreciated. I may also be talked into a wheel-gun.

[jdonovan]

unless you REALLY have your heart set on a .45 you should look at the trend in LE sidearm selection which is rapidly shedding .40 and .45 cal firearms in favor of the 9mm.

Now that the FBI test protocols are well understood, and purpose built defense ammo is available in all popular cartridges. Almost all hand gun ammo starts at similar energy levels +/-20%, expands to similar sizes, and penetrates to about the same depth.

So if they all do about the same on impact... why not choose the one that recoils less, holds more ammo, costs less to practice with?

[WRW]

unless you REALLY have your heart set on a .45 you should look at the trend in LE sidearm selection which is rapidly shedding .40 and .45 cal firearms in favor of the 9mm.

Now that the FBI test protocols are well understood, and purpose built defense ammo is available in all popular cartridges. Almost all hand gun ammo starts at similar energy levels +/-20%, expands to similar sizes, and penetrates to about the same depth.

So if they all do about the same on impact... why not choose the one that recoils less, holds more ammo, costs less to practice with?

'Cause, while one most likely will expand, the other will never shrink.

At least to my way of thinking.

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[Rualert]

unless you REALLY have your heart set on a .45 you should look at the trend in LE sidearm selection which is rapidly shedding .40 and .45 cal firearms in favor of the 9mm.

Now that the FBI test protocols are well understood, and purpose built defense ammo is available in all popular cartridges. Almost all hand gun ammo starts at similar energy levels +/-20%, expands to similar sizes, and penetrates to about the same depth.

So if they all do about the same on impact... why not choose the one that recoils less, holds more ammo, costs less to practice with?

And call me an old timer, but my main reason is because it doesn't start with a 4 I just really like my 1911 and have always had them in 45, I would consider a 38 super only because I can get that in the 1911, and the ballistics are higher than the 9. I do own a 9, and the wife loves it to death, but I carry my 45's everywhere, always have.

Hey Swamp, have you looked at a ramped 1911 in 45 if there is such a beast? That would provide additional support for the case, like they did with the 10mm.

[MarcSpaz]

They will all fire +P... once. LOL

I'm not sure about a 1911 style frame...but Kar has the p45 and S&W has an M&P Shield that's rated for +P also.

Me personally, I love my SA 1911A1, but I carry a G17. I may have enough ammo in a self defense situation with my .45, but my brain says "18 rounds of simular ammo between reloads makes more sense than 8." or 7, depending on what you carry.

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[M1A4ME]

How many of you remember when we went through this last time? Back in the early 80's? Oh yeah, all the scientific testing, all the computer modeling, all the interviews with emergency room doctors, etc., etc., etc. The 9MM was king and LE began to dump everything but the latest/greatest 9MM semi-autos.

Then, one after another, on the street, in life or death situations LEO's got killed or seriously wounded after shooting the bad guy(s) one or more times. The result? The 10MM, followed by the 10MM light (.40 S&W).

Now, we're going to do it again.

Didn't the FBI start pursuing the 9MM (again) because qualification scores were considered too low with more powerful handguns?

Yes, I carry a 9MM with hollow points, sometimes. Most of the time I carry a .40 S&W, with hollow points and lots of spares to back them up.

Don't they make 1911's in 10MM? If they'll handle 10MM they should handle .45 acp +P ammo.

I, myself, don't care for the idea of +P ammo. It's harder on the gun if you shoot a lot of it. Just like a turbo charger is harder on a car engine, same as nitrous. You get more bang, the pressures/temperatures go up, the performance goes up, the maintenance requirements go up, etc., etc., etc.

Yeah, a good 1911 is a sweat gun. I just decided to carry something else (CZ semi autos) to keep from scratching/gouging up my nice 1911's.

[MarcSpaz]

I think you're right on all counts, as far as I can recall. The problem is you can do all the testing in the world and nothing's going to compare to real life.

If you carry a 22LR handgun with 30 round capacity and you shoot the bad guy enough times and in the right spot eventually he'll die. However there's a big difference between dead now and Dead 3 days from now.

The truth of the matter is I could use a 7.62 NATO AR-10 rifle for self-defense Everywhere I Go. It's perfectly legal. I probably only have to shoot the person once maybe twice and if they're standing in a straight line one behind the other I can probably kill two or three bad guys at once. Instead I carry a 9mm because it's lighter and more convenient.

I guess the point I'm trying to make through the bad joke I just said above is that life is a compromise, including self-defense of life. We're always looking for the perfect balance between convenience and capacity and stopping power. The bottom line is when you compare 40, 45, 9mm, and some of the other more common rounds that are about the same size and weight they all perform about the same.

This is one of the reasons why training is just as important as the weapon you have. You want to aim for the vital organs as often as possible because the faster they bleed the faster they pass out of a less of a problem they are.

Then of course there's always a kind of training where the guys are a little bit more gung-ho about it but they tell you to aim for the center of the face. And if you hit a bad guy in the middle of the face doesn't matter what caliber are you using the guy's dead.

Good grief. I just realized that we're having the stopping power versus shot placement argument again. LOL

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[jdonovan]

The bottom line is when you compare 40, 45, 9mm, and some of the other more common rounds that are about the same size and weight they all perform about the same.

so now I'll quote myself, from post #2

So if they all do about the same on impact... why not choose the one that recoils less, holds more ammo, costs less to practice with?

[kelu]

Because .. macho reason
Mine is bigger!

[WRW]

Because .. macho reason
Mine is bigger!

Well...correct me if I'm wrong. According to this site:
http://www.luckygunner.com/labs/self-de ... tic-tests/#

The best expansion of the 9mm is around .70" which is a surface area of around .384 square inches.

The best expansion of the .45 is around 1" which is a surface area of around .785"

Since crush injury is the consideration for handgun ammunition, crushing double the surface area makes sense to me.

The last time I justified .45 to myself the figures were.63 and .79 for the 9mm and .45 respectively.

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[MarcSpaz]

The bottom line is when you compare 40, 45, 9mm, and some of the other more common rounds that are about the same size and weight they all perform about the same.

so now I'll quote myself, from post #2

So if they all do about the same on impact... why not choose the one that recoils less, holds more ammo, costs less to practice with?

Exactly!

[WRW]

Sorry, I missed the new Ranger T load in 9mm from Winchester. It has an expansion to .429 sq.inches.

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[MarcSpaz]

The crush factor really has nothing to do with it. It's all about blood loss.

I don't want to get into the whole caliber versus shot placement debate again but it's really a combination of the two for effectiveness.

The idea behind shooting someone in self-defense is, the blood loss leads to the brain not getting enough oxygen and they lose consciousness. You can crush all the soft tissue you want, if you don't hit the right organs or in the right location you're not going to stop your assailant.

It's been found that the fastest way to cause massive blood loss to the point where you disable your assailant is to actually sever the aortic artery coming out of the heart. With a clean sever the heart actually pumps blood out of the body and it takes approximately 4.5 seconds for someone to lose consciousness. That is the most effective means. However you're not going to be able to sever the human heart aortic artery with a bullet.

This is where the combination of accuracy and blunt trauma to the body by the round coming to play. You have to shoot someone in an area where it's going to cause as much blood loss as possible, so the assailant loses consciousness as quickly as possible. It just doesn't matter how big the bullet is if they're still conscious and can still hurt you. Regardless of the surface area of an expanded bullet, statistically speaking, the more holes you have in you and in the right location the faster you're going to lose consciousness.

As I mentioned earlier the only thing faster than severing the aorta of the human heart is to sever the brain from the rest of the body or to do massive damage to the brain. That is an instant off. That's why in a lot of firearms training, be at self-defense, offensive firearms training such as fight leaving rifle, etc., they teach you to shoot for the center of the face otherwise known as the T Zone or T box.

The best proof of the T Zone working, is a video I've seen of a young man who shot his mother's new boyfriend in the back of the head with a 22LR while they were at the range. The 22LR hit the man in the spine severed his spinal cord from his brain and the man died instantly.

Training, proficiency and accuracy are far more important, at least in my humble opinion, then the size of the weapon or the round you like carrying.

Even more specifically, it's not just a question of the size or the Bullet nor your accuracy, but rather the proper balance of both.

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[WRW]

Ok, give me this: bigger holes bleed out faster. Double the diameter of the hole=four times the area of the hole, meaning the blood loss will be similar volumes in 1/4 of the time. As well, surely you are not ruling out more holes using a larger caliber.

And yeah, CNS would be ideal if presented. An ice pick would work.

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[MarcSpaz]

Well... I sort of agree with you on all points. Technically, a the vein or artery will bleed the exact same amount, regardless of if it is cut with a scalpel or an axe. The hope of a bigger bullet is to cut more veins or arteries. That would lead to more blood loss.

That aside, if there was a double-stack pistol that held 17+ rounds, fired 45 auto, could be easily concealed, didn't weigh so much that it pulled my pants down, had manageable recoil and didn't cost a fortune, we wouldn't be having the convo...or maybe we would, and it would be 50 cal vs 45. LOL

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[WRW]

Yep. Some on your list are concerns of mine, and others not so much, and yet others are missing. Ah, well...

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[MarcSpaz]

[Reverenddel]

Wanna know the truth? It all has to be the individual being shot.

There are people who IMMEDIATELY go into shock after being shot, either due to stress, or nervous system reflex...

but there are others that take MASSIVE damage, but register it as if it were minor...

We can debate all we want with science, and velocities, and diameters, but that person being SHOT is who determines if they're going down.

After reading reports from around the world in actual war? There some hard core, won't-go-down, individuals out there...

[MarcSpaz]

There is some significant truth to that. I have read many reports that have documented that per the treating physician and combined witness reports, that the psychological affect is what stopped the assailant.

One report showed a suspect was shot by police with a bean bag and and confessed to some crime...saying he wanted to die with a clean conscience.

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[WRW]

There is some significant truth to that. I have read many reports that have documented that per the treating physician and combined witness reports, that the psychological affect is what stopped the assailant.

One report showed a suspect was shot by police with a bean bag and and confessed to some crime...saying he wanted to die with a clean conscience.

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That's funny. I've read of a person fainting at the thought that he had been shot. One of the FBI papers on handgun use describes the tendency of targets that are cognizant of having been shot to fall down. The author didn't have a good explanation, and, for giggles I would guess, that it could be a response conditioned by television.

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