Is 9mm really less effective than .45 ACP?
The eternal debate: Which cartridge is more effective? 9mm or .45. On the face of it, .45 seems like the obvious choice. However, if you take one of our classes (like General Defensive Handgun) you will realize you can’t use caliber to make up for poor shooting. The bullets just aren’t that big!
Occasionally, a student will mention some “horror story” he/she read or was told involving a bad guy who soaked up 20, 30 or more 9mm rounds and how you never hear about that happening with a .45. Or they will quote some “1 shot stop” book’s studies. By the time you’re done reading this post you should be able to figure out for yourself the usefulness of that material.
I believe there is a non-ballistic answer that can explain some (certainly not all though) of this discrepancy. So this post is going to largely ignore what we know from terminal ballistics and, instead, conduct a little thought experiment that should be illustrative of why you need to be so careful when reading about guns and self-defense.
We will use two hypothetical guns/shooters: Shooter #1 – The 1911 .45 ACP with 7 rd GI magazines. Shooter #2 – The Glock 17 9mm P with 17 rd magazines.
In our thought-experiment, we are going to shoot a bad guy (BG) who is posing a deadly threat towards us. We will assume he is reasonably motivated and doesn’t just quit upon seeing our gun. We will assume that our first shot is a mortal wound to the heart (thus subsequent shots are largely irrelevant). We will assume that there are no spinal hits or effective head shots (which, regardless of caliber, would be instantly incapacitating and so pointless to consider).
Common wisdom is that properly adrenalized and motivated individuals can continue to function for up to 15 seconds with a fatally damaged heart. We will also assume that the shooters can both shoot 3 rounds per second (0.33 splits) and their reload times are 3 seconds.
In our first case, we will assume the BG drops in just 5 seconds. In this instance Shooter #1 (1911) will shoot 7 rounds. Shooter #2 will shoot 16.
Say what?
Yes, the Glock 17 shooter shoots more than twice as many rounds! Remember, this is with the first round being a fatal though not instantly incapacitating wound. What happens if the BG drops in just 3 seconds? Shooter 1 gets off 7 rounds (still) and Shooter #2 shoots “only” 10. Still 40% more rounds! And 3 seconds is pretty quick!
Of course, I picked one of the most extreme cases, just to wake you up. As you lengthen the time to stop, the discrepancy in percentage terms drops but the round count differential still can be rather large. For example, 10 seconds to stop but with 8rd 1911 magazine instead of the 7rd. Shooter #1 shoots 16, Shooter #2 shoots 23. That’s down to +44% more, but +7 in the round count. Note that the 7rd shooter would only have shot 14 in this case!
If you assume a slower reload, say you have duty gear, the differential gets less still. Add in a 4 second instead of a 3 second reload and you have shooter #1 shooting 16 and shooter #2 shooting 20. But that’s still +4 rounds.
In all cases except extremely short times and/or very slow shooting, the larger the magazine, the more rounds you’re going to fire to stop the BG in the exact same timeframe. However, this isn’t an endorsement towards high-capacity magazines! The BG stops in the same amount of time regardless of how many rounds you fire. It’s simply that the shooter with the high-capacity gun is going to shoot more rounds in the same amount of time due to the frictional costs of having to reload more often.
The take away point is this: Round count is largely meaningless as a predictor of cartridge effectiveness without a lot more context. So take what “statistics” you read or hear about regarding self-defense and ammunition with a huge grain of salt!
I don’t think there are any meaningful statistics being gathered about shootings to date. There are far more variables than simply “1-shot stops” or even total number of shots – imagine two Glock 17 shooters against 1 BG in comparison to a lone 1911 shooter – what will the round count discrepancy be in that case?
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It is a debate that rages on, this calber verses that caliber, and caliber is simpley the least predictor in a gun fight. You do enough research, and you can produce shootings where a 25 acp stopped the bad guy, and another where they soaked up 45’s and kept coming. Most all of us can learn to shoot pretty well in any given caliber, but most of that is done in a “relaxed” range setting, but in the real world there are a lot more things affecting the outcome of the fight than the caliber.
Although there is a tendency for people with hi-cap guns to rely on spray & pray rather than skill in a gunfight. The usual “while there is Lead in the air, there is Hope in the heart”
If you have 2 shooters of equal skill level, usually the one with the 9mm should be able to put more rounds on target in less time than the one with the 45.
Now if we take 2 shooters one highly skilled with a 9mm, and one of lesser skill with a 45, the shooter with the skill sets is going to outshoot the other.
One thing that I keep in mind as a trainer, is the vast majority of the people I train are not going to much beyond the ccw course, and when ask what caliber I recommend 9mm.
Why? it’s a bit easier to manage, and costs less, when they see the added costs of 45 they are going to shoot less, and not obtain the skills they need to function in a fight.
Plus there is a lot of mis information & beliefs out there, a couple of examples I had a student who believed the 17HMR was the best self defense round, as it traveled “So Fast” it would “Suck” the vital organs out the back, to a student who believed if you hit a BG in the thumb, with a 45ACP the shock would be so terrible, he would go down.
As Clint Smith says you can have the best gun, the best ammo, & the best training, and still lose.
While the battle for the best caliber may rage on, the weapon you have with you and allows you to take down your target when needed is the best caliber. Can you hit your target with one better than the other..? If not, carry what you like. If all else fails,…Carry one of each!!! OpenCarry.Org
Thanks for adding more BS to the controversy. Someone should kick you in the butt for it. You need to stic to the facts and ONLY facts and forget speculation. HERE are the real FACTS and there are ONLY TWO… FIRST: SHOT PLACEMENT, SECOND: Tissue damage. These are the ONLY things that matter. And they matter in that order. Real world evidence caused the US military to go from the .38 (.357)to the .45 because the 38 just didnt do the damage necessary to take down hopped up combatants such as those encountered during the Morro Rebellion. Even Today the move to return to the .45 acp is underway as the 9mm (.355) just is not effective as a sidearm caliber.
No Caliber is not the single answer but is is not as limited as you non-combat experienced “experts” try to claim. BUT it is only slightly less than half of the equation. You will notice that this discussion doesnt happen among experienced hunters either, as this group too, knows the facts, through experience, not speculation.
Simple understanding of what is necessary to cause death will bring you a long ways in knowing the truth in this controversy. There are only three things that cause death and they are all inter-related. 1) total disruption of neurological function, 2) disruption of circulation, and 3) total disruption of resperation. Only #1 will cause instantanious death, so we are talking either a head shot or spine above the shoulder blade to instantly disable an opponent (below the shoulder blades may allow the heart and lungs as well as arms to still function). So realistically we are talking head shot to the medulla oblongata (lower back of head to guarantee instant death)… not exactly a defensive option in most instances. So we have to look at options # 2 and 3. In both cases you need to ensure massive tissue damage to ensure quick demise. Ask any experienced hunter or ER doctor with experience in treating gunshot wounds, there are two things that will increase the damage, and when combined the damage is even greater, first is bullet weight, and second is bullet diameter. Lets look at the bullet diameter first: 9mm = .355″, .45 = .452″ thats a full tent of an inch wider, almost 1/3 wider than the 9mm. In Bullet weights we are looking at 147 grains in the 9mm vs 230 grains in the .45 acp. These simple facts equate to greater tissue damage.
As I stated to begin with, Shot placement is imperative, HOWEVER, can YOU guarantee every circumstance is going to allow for optimum tissue damage with the lesser projectile?
You can not argue bullet design as the same technology applies to both calibers, with the larger bullet having the ability to expand to a greater degree due to the larger face area of the bullet. You also can not use your arguement of greater magazine capacity as there are high capacity .45 acp handguns available, and there is no guarantee that the person using your BAD ADVICE will have access to a 9mm with the high capacity of the hand gun you cited.
The one thing YOU should have pointed out and NEGLECTED (almost criminally so!) is that the person should gauge their choice on the most powerful CALIBER they can reliably handle, balancing firepower with the ability to shoot accurately with FAST repeatability. WHILE you alluded to this by citing your time frames, you never got down to the nitty-gritty.
In the end what really matters is the shooters, ability first and formost, not just in shot placement, but in handling recoil and recovery time.
As you can tell I am sick and tired of this controversy as well, and too many people consider the WRONG information when they think they have the answer. ONLY experience with the firearms and calibers in question, can answer this, and then it is an INDIVIDUAL choice, not one size fits all.
And one more thing, before someone even asks, the reason that law enforcement agencies and military standardize is so that everyone has interchangable ammunition/magazines and military supply logistics.
Did we ever say anything other than this? By enumerating this it would appear that these issues (placement and tissue damage) are equal and proportional – they aren’t. Nicking your spine is a far bigger problem for you (in the short term) than destroying your appendix.
Measuring the diameter of the bullet (expanded or otherwise) does not give you any comparison of the amount of tissue damaged. You need to combine that with the penetration depth, simply speaking:
If if bullet A is half the diameter of bullet B and it penetrates twice as deep (as bullet B penetrates) it destroys the same amount of tissue. This would be fine if we were shooting ground beef, but vital tissue is not at a uniform depth within any given target. Destroying the top two inches is probably not as important as destroying the middle two inches (or maybe the bottom two inches) – an apples vs. oranges comparison.
Moving right along (and even using your math) I can still destroy more total tissue because I have more than twice as many rounds to do it in. It is something of an open question if I can get all of those rounds into the target in any given situation, but if this is about total tissue damage – you might (assuming equal penetration) destroy more on each shot with .45, but I destroy more at the end of the day with 9mm. If we get back to the idea that job #1 is shot placement, I have more chances to get good shot placement. The way too ensure a 100% larger wound channel is to shoot another round.
Don’t make any assumptions about why the military or a law enforcement chooses any particular weapon, caliber, or firearm. It is not always based upon science, logic, or any other semi-sensible assumption. By way of example you could build a firearm that was absolutely the-one-shot-death-ray, it doesn’t mean it is going to get adopted for reasons of cost, logistics, training, or just plain politics.
Finally Scott, while I appreciate the comments and even the disagreement, I don’t think much of the tone. I encourage your follow up comments, but I if you can’t keep the vitriol out of it then don’t bother.
“If if bullet A is half the diameter of bullet B and it penetrates twice as deep (as bullet B penetrates) it destroys the same amount of tissue.”
Given your description, bullet B destroys twice the tissue as bullet A. The volume of a cylinder varies linearly with height, but with the square of radius. The volume of a cylinder is (pi * radius^2 * height).
If B is 0.40 inches in diameter and penetrates 6 inches, it would destroy 0.754 cubic inches of tissue (3.14 * 0.2^2 * 6.0). Bullet A is then 0.20 inches in diameter, penetrates 12 inches, and destroys 0.377 cubic inches of tissue (3.14 * 0.1^2 * 12.0).
I see where you’re going with this, but your math is wrong.
Come on why don’t you compare a high-cap AR (30rd mag)to the Glock 17. I love 9mm fans. The only way you can compare a 9mm to a .45 is by using the argument of the high-cap 17rd mag can shoot more rounds. Why don’t you compare it to a Glock 21 (13rd mag) or some Para Ordinance (14rd mags) or even the Glock 30 (10rd mag) that can hold the 21’s magazines. We can see that you like the 9mm but I see nowhere in your you answered the question.
Your flawed logic partially lies in the fact that military units are stuck with FMJ rounds. Anyone who uses a 9mm for self defense should also be equipped with quality Hollow-Points which easily and consistently expand to .700. What do .45’s consistently expand to? Is it much better than that? What about the additional speed and force behind a 9mm hollow-point?
If I was military and limited to FMJ, maybe I’d consider a .45 seriously. As a civilian though, we have far better options.
Imagine three shooters with 7-round 1911 pistols versus one guy with a Glock 17. What’s the round count discrepancy there?
One comment I’d like to make is that when people keep using the US army’s change from 38 to 45 cal handguns, the rounds available in 1899 are in no way comparable to modern JHP rounds available today. So to say that anything less than 45 cal (exempting 357mag) is not effective due to the above example, is simply not valid. I carry quality 9mm +P JHP and I challenge anyone to prove that these WILL NOT get the job done when it counts. Is a single quality 45 JHP more deadly than the 9mm equivalent? I’m sure it is. But is that the only important factor? No.
In my humble opinion, the “correct” choice is to choose the most powerful caliber that fits your budget and individual circumstances and that you can PRACTICE with on a regular basis. And situational awareness with an eye to avoiding trouble, is far more important than which gun!
Hi guys. There are some real good comments on here. Within the disagreements and arguments the real facts manifest themselves. Here is my 2 cents in a nutshell. Higher capacity equates to more firepower. While there is no argument that scientifically the .45 is bigger than the 9mm and dumps more energy it is also logical to assume that the 9mm can be fired faster and more accurately by the majority of shooters. Consider two 9mm hits in close proximity equating to an 18mm projectile or similar. Clearly stepping outside of the semantics of the argument it is also logical to assume that the human body is not designed to accomodate ANY penetration of a metallic projectile and ALL bullets have the intended purpose of causing damage. Modern 9mm JHP ammunition has been shown to close the gap rather effectively against the 230gr .45. IS the .45 better? that probably depends on a case by case basis. It is far worse than a 9mm if it misses its target when the 9mm finds its mark, and the converse is true of course. The one shot stop equation is also mostly fodder for argument as well because who is gonna shoot just once. If the BG has earned getting shot he has earned getting the whole magazine delivered to him in haste. Maybe the firepower is the ticket in that regard. Does 3 well placed 9mms outperform 2 poorly placed .45s? Does 3 adequately placed .45s out perform 6 outstandingly placed 9mms. Just some thoughts to chew on i reckon. I carry .45 and 9mm, maybe we should all just carry .40S&W so we can all get along… You know who is laughing at us all right now? The 12 gauge.
I say that it does not matter what kind of caliber, but the skill of the shooter + the gun. If a highly trained individual is given a very low caliber weapon (.22 for ex.) and your average Joe is given a large, highly powerful weapon (.44 Magnum for ex.) I believe that they should be able to eliminate the threat of a person with an intent to kill in equal times, IF they are at the perfect range, IF they manage to pull the trigger in a rapid manner, and IF they manage to land a high percentage of rounds, then I believe it should not matter even if you are given a knife, as long as you know how to use it effectively.