.40S&W vrs .45ACP

[sea2summit]

A friend just got his CCW. Interesting thing the instructor said. For protection, use a service grade, affordable weapon. If you do shoot someone, the police will take your gun. Whether or not you'll get it back, after court etc, may be the question, depending on you state/county/locality.

Hmmmm, protect wife and four children or leave best shooting/working gun at home. They can have the gun for all I care as long as my family is safe.

Regarding caliber my dad taught me growing up the most effective and powerful caliber you can carry for hunting or self defense is the one you have with you. i.e. the .45 in your dresser drawer does nothing for you but the .22 in your pocket might save your life. Buy what you will carry with you ALL THE TIME because it will be "that one time" when the fecal matter will hit the oscillating blade.

P.S. .45...because shooting twice is silly.

 

[TripleR]

Hmmmm, protect wife and four children or leave best shooting/working gun at home. They can have the gun for all I care as long as my family is safe.

Regarding caliber my dad taught me growing up the most effective and powerful caliber you can carry for hunting or self defense is the one you have with you. i.e. the .45 in your dresser drawer does nothing for you but the .22 in your pocket might save your life. Buy what you will carry with you ALL THE TIME because it will be "that one time" when the fecal matter will hit the oscillating blade.

P.S. .45...because shooting twice is silly.

Not sure I can shoot anything just once; all training/certification was double/triple taps and even strings of six.

 

[sea2summit]

Not sure I can shoot anything just once; all training/certification was double/triple taps and even strings of six.

Nothing wrong with that but I'd hate to put six on a single target...maybe I should carry more ammo. Dang why are you making me paranoid.

 

[TripleR]

Nothing wrong with that but I'd hate to put six on a single target...maybe I should carry more ammo. Dang why are you making me paranoid.

If you ever are unfortunate enough to come up against someone all cranked up or experiencing a psychotic break, six may not even be enough. People can soak up some fatal hits and keep going long enough to kill you.

 

[Car Doc]

I am a .45 guy always will be, shot them the first 18 years I competed in practical pistol comps then went to .38 Super which I happen to like a lot more than .40 S&W simply my .002 on that no science just opinion.

On the other hand I will take whatever pistol I have on me as the best one to use and thats not being snotty its just a matter of dress some days I cant hide my .45 and a .380 fits the clothes.

I might add a Glock 21SF is a lot of gun for the money Sigs are nice but pricey you might check the Glock before you make your final decision. hth

 

[sea2summit]

If you ever are unfortunate enough to come up against someone all cranked up or experiencing a psychotic break, six may not even be enough. People can soak up some fatal hits and keep going long enough to kill you.

Okay going to have to disagree with you. That is why we started doing the double to the chest/waist one to the head to defeat body armor and drugs.

I've been unfortunate enough to witness a few hopped up on whatever they where smoking absorb some rounds and they do stop they just don't know their done, the only one that was an issue was one driving a car. Shut the CNS down and the game is over no mater what they are on, the trick is hitting it.

 

[dmccarty]

Nothing wrong with that but I'd hate to put six on a single target...maybe I should carry more ammo. Dang why are you making me paranoid.

One uses deadly force until the threat is removed. That might take one round but most likely it will take more than one. Supposedly the FBI did a study of LEO shootings. The officers hit the bad guy 50% of their qualification score. That ain't good since danged few people score 100. Just because one fires six rounds does not mean the bad guy was hit six times. Nor does it mean the hits stopped the bad guy.

The reason the FBI went with the 10mm was because of the FBI Miami Shootout. In that firefight, the bad guys killed a couple of FBI agents and wounded a few more, before they died. Both bad buys had dozens of bullet and pellet wounds that were fatal. But fatal does not mean stopped. One of the bad buys had a bullet that ALMOST went into his heart. This was fatal but it did not immediately stop him. If I remember the chain of events, and if the reports were right, there are different reports on what happened, that bullet hit the bad guy at the start of the firefight. The bad buy eventually got out of a car and executed one or two FBI agents and almost killed a third. The bullet that almost hit the heart was a 9mm Silvertip which was The Bullet back in the day. The round just did not have the ommph to go the extra inch or two across the guys chest. Thus the FBI went with the 10mm.

The FBI Miami shootout was an outlier though. The bad guys had to die since they were not going to be taken alive. They had already executed a few people, wounded some more and a Power Chair at Starke was in their future. They were not going to be taken alive and they were going to take as many people with them as possible. And they did. You will have a bad day if you run into people who the same sort of arms and attitude as the bad guys in the FBI Miami shootout.

Later,
Dan

 

[TripleR]

Okay going to have to disagree with you. That is why we started doing the double to the chest/waist one to the head to defeat body armor and drugs.

I've been unfortunate enough to witness a few hopped up on whatever they where smoking absorb some rounds and they do stop they just don't know their done, the only one that was an issue was one driving a car. Shut the CNS down and the game is over no mater what they are on, the trick is hitting it.

One of those "you fight the way you train", if we did a head shot on anything other than out tactical course where only the head was visible behind a "hostage" we caught heck and were told "center mass, always go for center mass". Reasons for this were the head is a very mobile, hard to hit target under stress, bullets will glance off at some angles.

I am not an expert and can only say there are a lot of different schools of thought and all think theirs is the best. I doubt that I would be able to make a head shot under stress in a dynamic situation though I can do it all day on the range. Of course now that I'm retired and don't shoot as much as I use to, it's hard telling what I can hit.

 

[k0ua]

One of those "you fight the way you train", if we did a head shot on anything other than out tactical course where only the head was visible behind a "hostage" we caught heck and were told "center mass, always go for center mass". Reasons for this were the head is a very mobile, hard to hit target under stress, bullets will glance off at some angles.

I am not an expert and can only say there are a lot of different schools of thought and all think theirs is the best. I doubt that I would be able to make a head shot under stress in a dynamic situation though I can do it all day on the range. Of course now that I'm retired and don't shoot as much as I use to, it's hard telling what I can hit.

I wish we didn't live so far apart, I sure would like to get together as two old Dogs like us and find out what we can still hit and do.

James K0UA

 

[TripleR]

I wish we didn't live so far apart, I sure would like to get together as two old Dogs like us and find out what we can still hit and do.

James K0UA

As another old guy once said "I'd be lucky to hit the ground with my hat".:laughing:

I really need to stay away from these gun threads.