The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post - Is caliber really all that important for ccw

ScottRiqui · February 6, 2012, 07:49 PM

I agree that it's probably not as critical as some would make it sound, but then again, if I'm going to try to beat someone senseless, I'm going to grab a baseball bat and not a pair of chopsticks. There are far more cases of a .22 or .25 round getting caught up in multiple layers of clothing compared to .40 or .45.

If you put any stock in the FBI penetration testing, there seems to be a big difference between ".380 ACP and larger" and "everything smaller". There's even a pretty fair jump between .380 ACP and 9mm. So all else being equal, I'd probably consider one of those rounds as my minimum for a SD gun.

February 6, 2012, 07:49 PM	#3
ScottRiqui Senior Member Join Date: January 27, 2010 Location: Norfolk, VA Posts: 2,905	I agree that it's probably not as critical as some would make it sound, but then again, if I'm going to try to beat someone senseless, I'm going to grab a baseball bat and not a pair of chopsticks. There are far more cases of a .22 or .25 round getting caught up in multiple layers of clothing compared to .40 or .45. If you put any stock in the FBI penetration testing, there seems to be a big difference between ".380 ACP and larger" and "everything smaller". There's even a pretty fair jump between .380 ACP and 9mm. So all else being equal, I'd probably consider one of those rounds as my minimum for a SD gun.