9mm vs. .40 vs. .45
A student recently asked about the terminal ballistics of different handgun calibers and the effectiveness of different bullet types.
From John Holschen:
Get a gun/cartridge combination that goes bang every time you pull the trigger and which you can shoot quickly and accurately. No common defensive handgun cartridge will quickly and reliably stop a human being who is committed to causing serious bodily harm, unless the bullet from that cartridge is applied to the correct anatomy. When the bullet is applied to the correct anatomy ANY of the 3 will serve equally well (9mm, .40, .45).
Handgun projectiles don’t have enough “energy” to damage tissue other than the tissue they directly touch (the drill bit analogy.) Therefore whether they come out the other side (energy remaining) or stop in the body (all energy transferred to the target) doesn’t really change the wound dynamics. In fact you could make an argument that passing all the way through the body gives you the best chance of damaging more tissue. Of course this could present a hazard to any innocents behind and beyond the threat (and to the shooter in legal liability.)
A good quality hollow point handgun bullet will expand and therefore create a bigger hole. If that hole is in the brain the larger size may not matter much at all (I’ve dropped fairly large animals in their tracks with single 22LR head shot.) When the hole is in the pump (heart) or pipes (blood vessels) the larger hole will usually result in greater leakage per unit of time (given the placement is identical.) How much faster leakage, and does it matter? Who knows?
Also hollow points often have fairly sharp “petals” when expanded. There is a chance these will cut vessels that round nosed bullets sometimes push out of the way and leave intact. If you can get hollow points use them, if you can’t then you have to use what you have.
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Miami shootout – 9mm passes thru shooters arm and penetrates 9 inches into his side stopping one inch from his heart – this round eventually killed him. Same time in New England a State Trooper drove himself to the hospital with two .45 bullets in his gut – same time in Texas a police officer drove himself to the hospital with some help having being shot six times with a .357. A gun store clerk was wounded by a .44 but shot and killed three robbers with a .380auto, the robbers had a .45, .44 Bulldog and a .357. Bullet placement, bullet placement, bullet placement.
9mm, .45, .40, even the .380 are all effective cartridges for selfl-def. The key is bullet placement or good marksmanship. 9mm is the cheapest and best all round self-def. cal. – least recoil, lots of good choices for rounds and good quality weapons. .45 and .40 also very good but require more practice because of greater recoil and cost more to shoot. Whatever you can afford. I have all three but I prefer the 9mm/115grJHP/1250-1300 fps(Corbon, Fiocchi, or Magtech)and 400-450 ftlbs. If I had to pick one it would be the 9mm and my favorite pistol – XD hands down.
I just bought a Glock 19 9mm, I had no idea how much power this gun has. It’s my first handgun and I was surprised on how muck kick back it had. I’m happy with the gun by all means. I read ALOT of articles before buying…Thanks for the post.
Shot placement is important, however the size of the round does make a difference. As well as if the round id HP or FMJ. I, for example was shot two years back. The bullet entered one inch to the right hand of my navel and came out my back smashing through a piece of my spine. It was a 9mm FMJ (fired through a Springfeild XD9 tactical by the way). Luckily I suffered fairly minor damage all things considered. But I can certainly say, if had it been a larger round or a HP, I wouldn’t be around today. So it’s nice to know even if you don’t hit ’em right where you want to, the fact that you’re packing a heavier punch might do the trick anyway.
Zak:
That is precisely incorrect. Sorry to hear about your injury.
The size of the bullet (either in terms of being a larger caliber, or expansion) is basically a way to try and “improve” the odds of good placement by making a bigger hole in two dimensions (at least.) If I could shoot a basketball size bullet at your chest it has pretty good chance of hitting something that matters.
Roughly speaking: handgun bullets destroy what they touch. The size of the bullet determines how much it touches two dimensions and the speed of the bullet determines how much the bullet touches in depth. Placement determines if the bullet is going to touch anything that matters.
Until a handgun round either achieves high velocity or gets big enough (larger than a soft ball) to always be touching a significant chunk of something that matters we are stuck with shot placement.
In terms of your own shooting, nobody can say with any certainty what a larger round or a HP would have done. A larger round might not have penetrated as deeply, a hollow point might not have expanded or it might not have penetrated as deeply. Hitting the spine in the lower abdomen is about the worst injury that can be delivered to that region.
All sorts of factors ‘might’ stop an attacker, but some are of much lower probability than others. The reliable way to get people to stop is to shoot them in something that matters.
Plain and simple the bigger calibers cause more trauma and shock. There is something called knock down power. This is been studied by Federal agency’s and is one of the reasons the .40S&W was developed in 1990.
When you have a big guy running strait at you loaded up on drugs you want him stopped NOW. If shot placement is the most important aspect then just use a .22 pistol. Actually you could even use a new high velocity BB gun that would kill him also.
I don’t mean to go overboard here in making a point, but use the biggest caliber you can handle well. 9mm’s are great guns and fun to shoot but facts are facts they just don’t cause they same level of trauma and shock than the .40’s and .45’s do.
If your an expert marksman, and can bullseye dark moving targets a 9mm will be fine. If you are anything less than this use a .40 or .45 so the shock of impact will help compensate for a less than perfect bullseye.
thank you Robert for your clear concise understanding and explanation i am in total agreement while the .40 and .45 are more expensive to buy and shoot when it comes to lie (the reason we carry) a few more bucks is more than worth it i look at my .40 as insurance i dont want the cheap policy i want the policy that is gonna work quick fast and in a hurry and being that i go to the range often and my patterns are fairly decent at 10′ it doesn’t matter bc real life situations are never like the well lit straight forward highlighted target at the range people 9mm are fun but .40s mean business and when your life counts on it you dont want a fun gun
Gentleman it is very clear to me and anyone who has read your postings, That the ballistics of the three rounds being compared is beyond your present knowledge. Factory charts are available, and I suggest you give them there a look see. If you had the blind luck to purchas a firearm cappble of chambering +P ammunition, Then 9mm. is the way to go. Factory +P amunition will provide anyone with the capability to inflict mortal tissue damage, and still allow a high reaquire rate for second and third strike. Good Luck
Oh and wile I am sharing, if you know someone who can reload for you, Try my simple 9mm.+P+ formula CCI500 primer, .755 Winchester cased, load at 4.0gr. of Unique power, top it off with Speer 124gr.JHP. make sure to hold 1.130 over all to hold PSI. to 40,000 and 1,470 FPS. and hang on. This round is way off the charts. And cycles just fine in most guns rated for +P ammo. Blows up cheep guns. So be smart or visit the ER. Good Luck
I’ve read tons of articles and blog posts on this issue (plus i have shot thousands of 9mm and .40 rounds in practice), and i firmly believe that the best all around handgun cartridge is the 9mm. What matters in an armed self-defense situation more than anything are shot placement and round capacity, hands down. If the .45 or the .40 rounds were ever statistically or ballistically proven to be 100% guaranteed one-shot manstoppers no matter where their shot placement was, then there would be no argument against them as the ideal, but that is not the case nor will it ever be the case…so round capacity becomes the dominant factor. 9mm rounds are perfectly capable of one shot stops plus offer a higher round capacity, so a 9mm in the hands of a superb shooter can be more deadly than several .40’s or .45’s in the hands of even fairly skilled shooters. Personally i do not think that a few micro-centimeters of increased bullet size at a slower velocity are a wise trade-off for a few extra rounds, each of which could drop a few more attackers with expert shot placement (and maybe a little luck thrown in for good measure) lol. 9mm rounds also have the added benefit of manageable recoil and a less expensive cost, so i feel way more secure and confident carrying a 9mm over a .40 or .45 anyday. With all due respect, i’ve always felt that the folks who so loudly and proudly insist on the huge, heavy calibers being #1 (and brushing off the 9mm as nothing more than a mere capgun) are just insecure about their own shooting accuracy 😛
A few months ago, here in South Carolina, a police officer confronted a robber outide a convenience store. The cop and the robber both unloaded their handguns at each other from 10 feet. Neither hit the other even once. The robber needed a new pair of pants though. The point is that people do strange things when under an adrenaline dump. If my accuracy is severly impaired under stress, I would rather have a higher capacity handgun than a larger caliber.
This may be of interest:
http://www.gunweek.com/2005/feature0910.html
Also, the fact that ‘hoop stress’ makes the smaller-diameter 9 Para cartridge less likely to ‘kaBoom!’ than the equal-pressure .40.