9mm vs .40

[HK-40]

I keep reading this.....

I (someone who carries a pistol for most of my life) find it very strange how people can compare calibers alone.

I dont find 40 better than nine or 45 better than .357 magnum....

[Agent Orange]

Yawn. This 16 year old punk in Florida killed two British tourists. With a .22

http://tinyurl.com/7f6bvt7

[ianS]

Yawn. This 16 year old punk in Florida killed two British tourists. With a .22

http://tinyurl.com/7f6bvt7

Basically he murdered them with multiple shots to the back while they were fleeing. You have a circumstance where he wasn't facing an assailant that wasn't determined to kill him. His victims were likely scared and probably wanted to keep running even after they were shot. This is entirely different from trying to immediately stop a perp who is determined to kill you with a weapon of his own.

[gotshotgun?]

Sad sad story.

[wurger]

Sounds like a sucked jury duty for some people.

[gumby]

Wow...brother that sucks. I have never heard of a department teaching that method. Not since the North Hollywood Shootout where the beat cops continued to shoot only at the body which was covered in armor and none of them thought to shoot at the head (not until SWAT finally arrived after being stuck in traffic) anyway. That incident caused departments to stop letting lawyers dictate training and instead looked at reality.

For a while most departments went with 2 shots (controlled pair) to the body and one to the head. Until an officer shot a suspect twice in the chest and as he was falling, trailed him and took the head shot executing him infront of witnesses. I used to know the name of the officer, city, etc but have since forgotten...CRS. The officer didn't mean to...didn't think. Did it on instinct. TAfter that departments started emphasising that you needed to pause for a beat and confirm the suspect was still a threat before doing a "failure to stop drill" aka head shot.

Wasn't until I started taking weekend classes taught by local SWAT guys that I learned their department (and according to them most departments) had switched to the non-standard response of 3-5 shots center mass and then a failure to stop drill (head shot) if necessary. Their argument for which is that when you are up close and personal speed is everything and it takes multiple wound paths to cause the bad guy's body to go into shock and drop right there on the spot regardless of the round (they mostly use 45 ACP but are also all young big buff dudes with arms the size of tree trunks). These guys often find themselves at arms length with armed suspects while clearing buildings with lots of tight hallways, closets and corners.

I am really surprised your department teaches the methods they teach. That is really not good. Very pre-90s thinking (at least according to the schools that I have attended). It definately explains your failure to stops. It is not a one shot one stop world. Especially if the guy is wacked out on meth. Unless you get the brain pan or spinal cord, the bad guy can and will often stay in the fight until you put enough holes in him that his body cannot help but go into shock...or so the experts say (not counting myself among them other than I subsribe to their view).

Yep, it did suck. I'm retired now, we were the last agency in the county to transition to semi-autos. We are among the last Sheriff Dept.'s to wear all green and we were not even allowed back up weapons; no one followed that rule. I don't miss the place at all.

[someR1]

there are so many cases of people taking 9mm rounds to the body and not going down.

this is very true. My buddy is a medic, and he has seen multiple cases where people have been shot 10-12 times with 9mm and survived.

for pistol home defense your best bet is .45

For range plinking and practice 9mm is the best choice ....but either way everybody should own at least one 9mm, .40, and .45

[mif_slim]

^ that can be said with 40 and 45....just look at the channel wounds for the 9 - 45 and its pretty identical. The 357 actually looks like it beats the all-mighty 45acp......

No matter what caliber, shot placement is still key to stopping a threat. Shoot 30 rounds into a mans arms wont kill him as fast as a single shot to the head..

[Cali-Shooter]

When I went to buy my first gun(s) several years ago, the FFL I bought from told me a story about a black elementary school kid who got shot with a 9mm fmj round in a bad part of L.A. as he was walking home from school; a punk gang member pulled up, taunted the kid, and shot him in the back as the kid was walking away. The bullet went thru the child's body leaving an entrance and exit wound, and the kid stumbled to a nearby house where someone was outside watering their lawn, and asked for an ambulance to be called, and the kid fell down and passed out.
By the next day, the kid woke up in the hospital and they put two bandages, one on each gunshot wound (from getting shot once) and he was just fine, good to walk and go back to school.

Fortunate to that kid that that bullet wasn't a hollowpoint and that 9mm fmj didn't do much damage (just almost made him bleed out), but it just comes to show, if you shoot 9mm FMJ's at someone who is an armed and dangerous perp, the worst case even if you hit them is they are essentially unscathed by the rounds or the damage doesn't occur quick enough to save your and other ppl's lives. What good does it make if the threat gets hit by several 9mm fmj's and eventually will bleed out in half an hour when by then he could have murdered you and your whole family by then?

[JeremyS]

...but it just comes to show, if you shoot 9mm FMJ's at someone who is an armed and dangerous perp, the worst case even if you hit them is they are essentially unscathed by the rounds or the damage doesn't occur quick enough to save your and other ppl's lives. What good does it make if the threat gets hit by several 9mm fmj's and eventually will bleed out in half an hour when by then he could have murdered you and your whole family by then?

I'm sure it would have been totally different if it had been a .40 (which is 10mm diameter) FMJ placed in the same spot on the victim.

Give me a break. The caliber debates are ridiculous and impossible to prove one way or the other.

he has seen multiple cases where people have been shot 10-12 times with 9mm and survived.

for pistol home defense your best bet is .45

Well thank god .45 is 10-12 times deadlier than 9mm so only 1 shot would be necessary. There are, of course, no cases where somebody has been shot by a .45 multiple times and lived. It's that extra 0.098" of bullet diameter that kills 'em dead every time.

[ianS]

Its tempting to make generalizations based on individual cases. But we should try to avoid it.

There have been cases where people have been shot by .45's and .357 Magnums hollowpoints multiple times to COM and survived. Not just survived but more importantly continued fighting. Rifles and shotguns too. .223/5.56, 00 buck, even .308/7.62 and slugs. These were well documented officer involved shootings. Sometimes human monsters are hard to stop.

There are no magic bullets. There are no guarantees. How many times does this need to be repeated?

[tacticalcity]

Its tempting to make generalizations based on individual cases. But we should try to avoid it.

There have been cases where people have been shot by .45's and .357 Magnums hollowpoints multiple times to COM and survived. Not just survived but more importantly continued fighting. Rifles and shotguns too. .223/5.56, 00 buck, even .308/7.62 and slugs. These were well documented officer involved shootings. Sometimes human monsters are hard to stop.

There are no magic bullets. There are no guarantees. How many times does this need to be repeated?

Very true. Something to keep in mind while training. If you expect the guy to go down in one shot or two shots and train that way for years, you could find yourself pausing too long or worse freezing when he doesn't in real life. Gotta mentally prepare for and train for him not going down right away. Whether you do that with the non-standard response, or controlled pair followed by head shots as needed or some other method is dealers choice.

[mvrk]

Went in to my local deal today and looked at the following, all in .40.

Sig SP2022
Beretta PX4 Storm
Springfield XD40
S&W MP
Glock 23

I was torn between the Sig and the MP, I loved both guns. In the end I liked the Sig better, and put my money down on it. I ended up getting the gun for $449.99, the MP was $549.99 so cost definitely played a factor as well. I wanted to do my best to stay under $500 on my first gun. I did put it on a 90 day lay-away but plan to have it paid in full by the middle to end of next month.

While I was there I also took the time to look at a safe, I really liked the Gun Vault stuff I'm planning on getting one of those ASAP.

I'm really excited about this purchase!

[gumby]

Good choice imho, my EDC is the 40 2022.

[giantsfan]

The FBI has a report that says very clearly...caliber doesn't matter. Shot placement is everything. For me, from this agency, that's the last word..

No amount of caliber will make up for a lack of training. You could have a howitzer and if you don't know how to make it work, it won't.

Well...maybe if you had grenades?? That's it...go to grenades that solves everything