9mm vs 40 cal

Men shoot a .40 or .45. Little girls shoot 9mm.

Open a box of .40 and set it beside a box of 9mm. Which would you rather trust your life to?

In all seriousness, the bigger calibers pack more punch, period.

If you hit what you're aiming at, not much. Just shoot what you shoot well and never look back. Don't get wrapped up in the caliber debate because as Chad has alluded above, it only opens a can of worms and the arguments never settle anything.

If you hit what you're aiming at, not much. Just shoot what you shoot well and never look back. Don't get wrapped up in the caliber debate because as Chad has alluded above, it only opens a can of worms and the arguments never settle anything.

Ten miles of bad road....

Or 1 1/2 miles of 3805!

I will say this from experience... when I went to police academy, we shot at heavy steel silhouette targets. The firearms instructor gathered us around the first day and told all the cadets, if you shoot a 9mm, you WILL HAVE to shoot the targets twice in order to knock them down. The 9mm just does not have the same terminal ballistics that the 40 and 45 have. The few cadets that had 9mms started to complain, but he told them to wait and see. Sure enough, the 9mm would not knock the targets down routinely. The 40s and 45s would knock it down first time, every time.

If you are shooting smaller targets (hogs, dogs, yotes, etc) it won't matter what you are hitting them with, but bigger stuff... bigger is better. I would highly recommend a high expansion hollow point no-matter what you are shooting. The wider it gets, the more energy it should transfer.

But all the cops are going back to 9mm

Bigger IS better...IF you can shoot it.

Hit the steel in the right place and a MiniMag knocks it over, no?

So there two data points. Have not tried it with a 40.

^^What they said^^

This could rank right up there with .30-06 vs. .308, which elk cartridge, and HF vs. LF.

Ten miles of bad road....

A 9mm might expand but a 45 will not contract.

I shoot a380, a 9, a 45, and 454 so I would think that eliminates the "real men" attitude. The 380 is for the pocket. The 9 sees all use and is hi capacity at 18 rounds. It is very accurate and offers faster follow up shots than the others. The 45 and 454 are also very accurate with less capacity and slower follow up.

The 40 is considered a good compromise between the two. With my lack of skill I find it has a slower follow up similar to the 45. Less capacity than the 9 although not by much.

I generally use a 22wmr rifle to kill pics in the trap, but for the bigger ones I use a 180 gr 40S&W. They don't get up.

.45 vs 9mm
Larry Vickers: The debate is over - 9mm won

Recently Bill Wilson of Wilson Combat fame sent around a survey to many notable people in the firearms industry - many M4C members will recognize instantly several on the survey such as myself, Hackathorn and Rob Leatham. The question was simple; if you had to choose one pistol caliber for self defense and range use what would it be. The results spoke volumes-9mm Para won in a landslide. Almost unanimously.


Survey Says

Assuming you had to buy your own pistol and ammunition (type of your choice) for combined self-defense and self-defense range training use, which caliber would you choose, 9x19mm Parabellum, .357 Sig, .38 super, .40 S&W, 10mm or .45 ACP ?
I surveyed the following and their answer:

BJ Norris 9mm
Bill Rogers 9mm
Bill Wilson 9mm
David Bahde 9mm
Ernest Langdon 9mm
Frank Proctor 9mm
Ken Hackathorn 9mm
Larry Vickers 9mm
Mike Seeklander 9mm
Paul Markel 9mm
Paul Howe 9mm
Paul Buffoni 9mm
Rob Haught .45
Rob Leatham .40
Super Dave Harrington 9mm


Benefits of 9mm

It was no surprise to me; I've been preaching the benefits of 9mm for quite awhile now and I'm not alone. 9mm pistols hold a lot of bullets and are easy to shoot. There are many good models to choose from. Practice Ammo is easy to get and fairly cheap. And most importantly some of the self defense loads on the market are very effective. I can't say I was surprised by this development at all.


Experience

In fact, I saw it coming years ago. One thing I had been doing for years is asking LE officers who carry 9mm what specific load they use and what performance has it provided on the job. Without exception anytime officers were carrying the Winchester Ranger 127 grain +P+ or the Speer Gold Dot they had nothing but good things to say. In fact one officer told me they had yet to have a bad guy survive who they had shot with the Ranger 127 gr +P+. To me when the FBI announced a switch back to 9mm that simply confirmed what I already knew. We live in a 9mm world and that's not changing anytime soon.


The Way I See It

An exception to that in my opinion would be if you are stuck for whatever reason to carrying ball Ammo only. At that point all the calibers are just gonna poke a hole in the bad guy and a bigger hole is better than a smaller one so .45 ACP rules. That leaves .40 S&W out in the cold in my opinion and that trend is seen everywhere now as the .40 has quickly become the black sheep of the whole Ammo debate. The guns are harder to shoot, hold less bullets and are no more effective on the street than 9mm. In fact some have proven to be problematic for many years (Glock 22) when there 9mm counterparts are gold standards for dependability and reliability (Glock 17).

So that's the way I see it; 9mm is in, .40 is out, and .45 if needed. Be safe, keep shooting, LAV out.

Larry Vickers
Master Sergeant ( Retired )
US Army SOF Combat Veteran
http://vickerstactical.com
http://m.youtube.com/user/VickersTacticalInc

A 9mm will generally take 4-5 rounds to knock a man down, 40 will do it in 3-4. .45acp will do it in 2-3. And .380acp will no even penetrate a denim jacket most of the time.

Denim backed by body armor?

Lol nope. Regular old denim.

You want a real man stopper? .32acp is king as far as I'm concerned.

And .380acp will no even penetrate a denim jacket most of the time.

A 9mm will generally take 4-5 rounds to knock a man down, 40 will do it in 3-4. .45acp will do it in 2-3. And .380acp will no even penetrate a denim jacket most of the time.

Wait! Wait! Wait! Hold on...

A 22LR with 104 lb/ft of energy at 1200 fps can go through clothes and kill a man. But you are saying that a 90gr .380acp with 200 lb/ft of energy at 1000 fps can't even go through a denim jacket?

It is the same size bullet as a 9x19 but 300fps slower.

I am gonna have to find a Canadian Tuxedo and check this out.

.22lr has exponentially more power than a .380

I'm amazed at the number of experts in this thread.

Hi everyone! I'm Bull279... and I am troll bait!

I'm amazed at the number of people in this thread who are so easily trolled.

Cmon guys.

I was just exaggerating all the nonsense weve heard over the years. Maybe giving answers that were as silly as the original question.

In my non expert opinion, you put a couple of rounds of anything .38 cal and above into a target, you will be fine. Center mass, multiple rounds, you are going to have a bad guy suddenly very unmotivated.

380 is actual a .357 bullet as is the 9mm and 38 special

As far as exaggeration, it would be funny if so many people didn't use the same words as serious points to this ridiculous argument. And I mean they're DEAD SERIOUS about it. As such, people are so far out there flapping on this argument that you really don't know if someone's joking or not. (But I still laugh at the ridiculous pontifications).

I am going to have to ask you to clarify this statement.

The information I pulled off the web could be contested so I pulled up bullet information from my Winchester Ballistics Calculator App

.380 ACP 95gr FMJ target round - Muzzle - 950 fps 190 ft/lbs
50 yds - 886 fps 166 ft/lbs

.22LR (fired from pistol) 40gr Lead Round Nose
Muzzle - 1060 fps 100 ft/lbs
50 yds - 980 fps 85 ft/lbs

and just for comparison

.22LR (fired from rifle) 40gr Lead Round Nose
Muzzle - 770 fps 38 ft/lbs
50 yds - 680 fps 30 ft/lbs

I am failing to see how the .22LR is "exponentially" more powerful than the .380 ACP

Would you please explain your answer so I can understand what you mean?

And FYI... we hauled my old washing machine to my father's scrap metal pile after it quit working. I shot it with my .380 and it had no trouble penetrating the sheet metal body and then the ceramic-coated, metal wash tub. It almost was able to penetrate out of the other side of the wash tub. My 45 penetrated the same distance through the washer. The 45 came closer to punching through the other side of the wash tub than the .380 did. But I really thing that the statement that a .380 can't penetrate denim is a gross understatement of power.

How is the .22 rifle slower than the pistol?