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Old December 4, 2024, 07:02 PM   #26
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My old Speer Number 10 manual shows a 125 gr sp over 8.8 grs Blue Dot reaching 1,233 fps out of a 4” S&W 39.
My old Speer Number 9 manual shows a 125 gr sp over 8.4 grs Blue Dot reaching 1,170 fps out of a 4” S&W 39.

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Same book has a 357 mag with 125 gr hp and 15.8 grs of Blue Dot reaching 1,536 fps from a 6” Security Six.
Same book has a 357 mag with 125 gr hp and 14.5 grs of Blue Dot reaching 1,490 fps from a 6” Security Six.

This was in 1974.

In the late 80s I loaded some near max 125gr .357 using 2400. Ammo was fired from a 6" model 19, and did 1620fps. It was also too hot for the test gun, cases would not extract under finger pressure.

Same ammo fired in a 6" Model 28, velocity was 1670fps and cases did extract from finger pressure alone.

Same ammo was run through a Desert Eagle (nominally a 6" barrel) Velocity was 1720fps and the gun ran flawlessly.

Point here is that different guns do different things and the book results are only guidelines and no guarantee of what the gun and ammo in your hand will actually do.

Also, don't obsess over a handful (or even a double handful) of fps. Another gun might be that much faster, or slower than yours. Possibly even more.
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Old December 5, 2024, 01:30 AM   #27
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Obsess……… Nobody does that on this forum
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Old December 5, 2024, 11:13 AM   #28
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I would carry 45 if I could be assured I would only be attacked by one thug. I would carry 9mm if I could be assured that I would only be attacked by at least 2-4 thugs at a time.

My crystal ball says ....... "carry a 10mm with lead hollow-points".
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Old December 5, 2024, 07:56 PM   #29
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According to Jack Reacher, take out the leader, and one, maybe two wingmen and the rest always run.

and then there's the comedy bit with the gang leader and a dozen or so gang members facing down the hero character.

Head badguy sneers, "what you gonna do, shoot ALL of us??"
to which the good guy replies, "No, but I can shoot YOU!"
And the bad guy leader says "oh,...yeah, I always forget that part...."



Point here is, it isn't 5, or 6 or 8 or 17 that wins the fight, its tactics and effective use of what you have. And, that includes your feet....
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Old December 5, 2024, 09:38 PM   #30
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The Thompson-LaGarde tests of 1904 compared the 9mm and the 45ACP and others. Read that for real data. The data from those tests gave us the 45ACP for the military. It’s very interesting.

They tested ammo on live horses and cows and human cadavers.
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Old December 5, 2024, 11:46 PM   #31
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The Thompson-LaGarde tests of 1904 compared the 9mm and the 45ACP and others. Read that for real data.

They tested ammo on live horses and cows and human cadavers.

I suppose it's good data if you plan on shooting live horses and cows and human cadavers.

For self defense against live humans, I suggest Ellifritz’s data.
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Old December 6, 2024, 12:33 AM   #32
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1904 basically sums this data up.
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Old December 6, 2024, 03:22 AM   #33
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Some material relating to the Thompson Lagarde testing.

https://unblinkingeye.com/Guns/TLGR/TLGR6/tlgr6.html
https://sightm1911.com/lib/history/b...nd.htm#cadaver
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Old December 7, 2024, 12:08 AM   #34
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The Thompson-LaGarde tests of 1904 compared the 9mm and the 45ACP and others.
Only, they did not. No .45 acp was used in the tests. And, they compared several calibers. Fun data, but it is a bit dated.
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Old December 7, 2024, 10:00 AM   #35
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In reading the results of the linked test, i find fault with the “cadaver” portion in that they seem to be interested in how much “sway” was caused in a hanging body. That does not seem relevant to terminal wound ballistics.

That is the same train of thought that led to the idea that the ability to knock over a steel plate or a bowling pin off a table made that cartridge a good fighting round.

Ive never been attacked by a steel plate or a bowling pin, but ive seen A few people shot with handguns of different calibers. The only good “stops” ive seen were CNS hits. Sometimes folks gave up after being hit, but sometimes they kept going.

I personally had a guy that after being hit center chest, run 3 blocks, jump a fence, try to hide his gun in a carport storage closet (clearly thinking at that point) and then hide himself in a bunch of bushes on the side of a highway.

Thst was with a thru and thru wound from high center chest exiting just above his kidney (shot was from a slightly elevated position).

I also saw a guy on a training range shoot himself in the leg with a .45acp Hydro-shok. His leg did not disappear in a puff of red mist and he did not go down. Grunted and said some choice words.

No pistol round is a good stopper. Balance is whats needed. Recoil control, capacity, weight (weapon & ammo). Find the sweet spot for you and go to work.
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Old December 7, 2024, 04:48 PM   #36
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In reading the results of the linked test, i find fault with the “cadaver” portion in that they seem to be interested in how much “sway” was caused in a hanging body. That does not seem relevant to terminal wound ballistics.
You are right. It does not. It relates to momentum transfer. Essentially what it does (simplified somewhat) is measure the momentum in a projectile.

I suspect that they were still in the mode of believing that actual "knockdown" power was a thing. In which case, measuring momentum could make sense. Now we know that even tremendously powerful cartridges don't transfer enough momentum to knock a person down.

There are a lot of issues with the testing. To be fair, I'm not sure how they could have done much better than they did with the tools they had at the time. That doesn't make the results of the test any more useful, of course.
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Old December 7, 2024, 09:05 PM   #37
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The point was made that the 45ACP was not part of the Thompson-LaGuarde testing. But several 45 calibers were used, with bullet weight and velocity similar to the 45ACP. And the determination was stated that no caliber of less than 45 should be used. Has there ever been more extensive testing on pistol calibers? Personally, though I don’t own a 45 of any type, I’d expect more ‘knockdown’ from that over a 9mm.
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Old December 7, 2024, 11:27 PM   #38
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Originally Posted by 603Country View Post
Has there ever been more extensive testing on pistol calibers?
That's vague. Specifically?
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Old December 7, 2024, 11:45 PM   #39
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Personally, though I don’t own a 45 of any type, I’d expect more ‘knockdown’ from that over a 9mm.
Mythbusters definitively showed that even a .50BMG at point blank range doesn't have enough power to knock someone down, even if the bullet is completely stopped in their body.

As far as effectiveness in real-world gunfights goes, to date, no one has been able to show that within the general service pistol caliber performance class, there is any benefit to using one caliber over another.
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Old December 8, 2024, 12:35 AM   #40
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Well, let me ask you whether you’d want a 9mm or a 45ACP if you had one shot to use on a bear that was coming to kill you. Might be that neither would save us, but I’d go for the 45.

Or, let’s go back to the Moro Rebellion and the failure of the 38 to stop people intent on killing you. Same choice of 9mm or 45ACP. Your choice. One bullet. Stopping people is the reason for the 45ACP being picked by the military. The 9mm was an option that they declined.
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Old December 8, 2024, 01:13 AM   #41
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Originally Posted by 603Country
Or, let’s go back to the Moro Rebellion and the failure of the 38 to stop people intent on killing you. Same choice of 9mm or 45ACP. Your choice. One bullet. Stopping people is the reason for the 45ACP being picked by the military. The 9mm was an option that they declined.
The 9mm Luger is not the 38 Long Colt. The diameter of the round is not the only factor. Look at the energy differences between the two rounds as a function of the differences in their velocities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.38_Long_Colt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9%C3%9719mm_Parabellum
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Old December 8, 2024, 02:28 AM   #42
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The diameter of the round is not the only factor. Look at the energy differences between the two rounds as a function of the differences in their velocities.
The diameter of the round is not the only factor but it can be a significant factor. Energy alone is not a significant factor, particularly in the 9mm vs. .45 debate, as the energy of both is essentially identical.

Quote:
Stopping people is the reason for the 45ACP being picked by the military. The 9mm was an option that they declined.
Stopping people, and horses.

After the poor performance of the .38 Long Colt during the Moro uprising, and the Army reissuing .45 Colt SAAs to help counter that, the people running the Army had a sour taste about .38 caliber pistols. They did, however, have a respect for how well the .45 calibers worked, but not every .45. The Army actually rejected Browning's original .45ACP loading, which was a 200gr @ 900fps. What they insisted on, and got, was the 230 @ 850+/- which duplicated the US Govt/,45 Schoefield load they were well familiar with, using a jacketed bullet.
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Old December 8, 2024, 02:43 AM   #43
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Or, let’s go back to the Moro Rebellion and the failure of the 38 to stop people intent on killing you. Same choice of 9mm or 45ACP.
The .38 in question was the .38 Long Colt. For reference, the .32ACP can outperform the .38 Long Colt in terms of both energy and momentum.
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Well, let me ask you whether you’d want a 9mm or a 45ACP if you had one shot to use on a bear that was coming to kill you.
Whatever you pick, you're going to need either a lot of skill or a lot of luck, or a good bit of both. Bear charges have been stopped with 9mm. Probably with .45ACP too, although I don't know of any offhand.
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After the poor performance of the .38 Long Colt during the Moro uprising, and the Army reissuing .45 Colt SAAs to help counter that, the people running the Army had a sour taste about .38 caliber pistols.
Some sources indicate that the .45 Colts didn't fare any better, nor did the issued rifles at the time. That the only thing that would reliably stop a Moro berserker charge was a 12ga.
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Old December 8, 2024, 03:02 AM   #44
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45 vs 9mm interesting test

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Originally Posted by 44 AMP View Post
Energy alone is not a significant factor, particularly in the 9mm vs. .45 debate, as the energy of both is essentially identical.
Except I wasn’t talking about the energy differences between 9mm and 45 ACP. I was specifically talking about 38 Long Colt and 9mm Luger. Hence the first sentence in that quote of mine, the sentence you chose to exclude. It was also why I followed up that quote with links giving information on those two cartridges.

38 Long Colt has noticeably less energy than either 9mm Luger or 45 ACP. Harkening back to the poor performance of the 38 Long Colt in reference to the specific argument in this thread shows an ignorance of the cartridges in question. Just because 38 Long Colt and 9mm Luger have similar bullet diameters does not mean they are equivalent in performance.

Last edited by TunnelRat; December 8, 2024 at 03:34 AM.
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Old December 8, 2024, 03:39 AM   #45
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Well, let me ask you whether you’d want a 9mm or a 45ACP if you had one shot to use on a bear that was coming to kill you. Might be that neither would save us, but I’d go for the 45.
It used to be the one advantage the 45 had over the 9 is versatility, you could buy common hollowpoints for self defense but also hardcast lead wadcutters for bear defense. There's a couple options now in 9mm for hardcast or solid copper penetrators for bear defense, penetration is virtually the same.
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Old December 8, 2024, 09:33 AM   #46
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I really don’t think any of you would choose the 9mm over the 45 to defend yourself against a bear or doped up Guy with a short sword that was intent on chopping you into chunks.
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Old December 8, 2024, 09:41 AM   #47
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I really don’t think any of you would choose the 9mm over the 45 to defend yourself against a bear or doped up Guy with a short sword that was intent on chopping you into chunks.
That's because you truly believe there's a real-world advantage to using the .45ACP over the 9mm in spite of the fact that in a century of trying, no one has been able to prove that there is.

Think about that for awhile. The caliber debate has been going on for a very long time. In all that time, no one has been able to come up with conclusive proof that there's a real world practical difference in shooting outcomes when comparing calibers in the service pistol performance class.

Tell me, what makes more sense in light of that fact that. Assuming that there is a real-world practical difference that's so small no one can detect it and choosing a caliber based on that undetectable difference? Or assuming that since no one can prove the difference exists in 100 years of trying that it must be such a small difference that it's pointless to worry about it?
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Old December 8, 2024, 09:51 AM   #48
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45 vs 9mm interesting test

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I really don’t think any of you would choose the 9mm over the 45 to defend yourself against a bear or doped up Guy with a short sword that was intent on chopping you into chunks.

You don’t know me. In the situations you’re describing I would be more interested in any differences in the pistols in question than whether or not one was in 9mm or 45 ACP.

As an example that even 45 ACP is not a guarantee, officer Jared Reston was shot 7 times with a 45 ACP, 4 of those times not in the vest and one of those right in his face. He kept fighting and killed his assailant.

https://lockedback.com/lessons-jared...mes-still-won/

https://www.policemag.com/patrol/art...ida-01-26-2008

Here’s a story of an assailant shot 14 times with 45 ACP.

https://www.police1.com/officer-shoo...BbLYpnqqHxwMq/

Last edited by TunnelRat; December 8, 2024 at 10:22 AM. Reason: Found more detailed articles
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Old December 8, 2024, 01:10 PM   #49
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ALL Defensive pistols SUCK at stopping human attackers. Dont use one if given another option.
As stated above. The difference between 9 and 45 is SO small that no one has been able to show it. DESPITE this caliber debate going on for mtpl decades.

A slightly better tasting crap sandwhich is still crappy.
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Old December 8, 2024, 01:38 PM   #50
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I really don’t think any of you would choose the 9mm over the 45 to defend yourself against a bear or doped up Guy with a short sword that was intent on chopping you into chunks.
What is the advantage the 45 has?
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