smallest caliber for carry

[Richard]

9mm seems to be as popular as ever....and it's an adequate caliber. I used to carry a glock 19 for about five years. Today my comfort level rest on the big caliber, the 45.

shot placement is crucial, but as someone pointed out, in a high stress scenario your rounds can't always hit center mass. For that reason,I feel the bigger caliber can accomplish the knockdown effect.

Carrying a small gun is an important factor in concealment and comfort....I love the Para Carry LDA (3" bbl) 6+1 (smaller than my Glock 19)

[markymark]

I said 9mm, but only because I don't know what caliber the FN 5.7 is...

Well, the caliber of the 5.7 is 5.7mm. You were joking though, right?

[jjperl]

I agree with you 100%. It's too hard and burdensome carrying a full size .45 and even compact .45's, and most .40's and 9mm's; they're just to fat and heavy fully loaded. The main reason I would choose something in a .380, like a ppk, is because it's slim, light and its something I can clip on my pants as I'm walking out the door, with out having to take time trying to conceal a fat heavy gun like most larger caliber handguns. Easy concealability is crucial in a state that is not ccw friendly, and smaller caliber weapons offer that.

But don't get me wrong, if shtf I would definitely carry a larger caliber, like a .45, but for everyday carry I just have to say it's more practical to carry a something in a smaller caliber like a .380. But that's just my opinion.

Smallest caliber for carry is the one you will take with you everywhere, everyday, including when wearing just shorts and T-shirt. A big pistol is fairly useless in a fanny pack when a situation hits out of the blue. Sure .45 would be my choice, but no way that's concealable or accessible 24/7.

[ZapThyCat]

Well, the caliber of the 5.7 is 5.7mm. You were joking though, right?

5.7 isn't an option on the poll. In inches, it's more like a .22 or .25. Therefore, it's much smaller than a 9mm. This would be the smallest caliber I would carry, but I would skip anything in between the 5.7mm and the 9mm.

That's what I'm getting at.

[Teletiger7]

5.7 isn't an option on the poll. In inches, it's more like a .22 or .25. Therefore, it's much smaller than a 9mm. This would be the smallest caliber I would carry, but I would skip anything in between the 5.7mm and the 9mm.

That's what I'm getting at.

I'd be curios to see testing of 5.7. It's a small caliber. It's designed to penetrate armor. It supposedly has little recoil so there wouldn't be much "knockdown". Only wounding mechanism that would help such a small caliber would be fragmentation or tumbling(like .223)

[M. Sage]

I'm not a big fan of 9mms for a multitute of reasons. But I will give 9mm pistols a lot of credit for being amazing compact for a carrying gun. Case in point, take the Glock 26, it's a freaking tiny gun(makes my 36 look huge), yet it's got 10 rounds of ammo in the magazine. the width is around the same as the 36, but it's close to an inch smaller in height and length. It's a damn good reason to carry 9mm(if you like them).

But yeah, if the policy of where I live in California becomes reasonable due to a serious miracle, a 45 is what I would carry too. But I would be pretty comfortable with just a 32 as well.

I did vote 9mm as my minimum, by the way. I just like .45 better. 9mm is a bit easier to package, yeah, but I just don't like it as much.

As noted above, though, any gun is better than no gun. Though if I had my druthers, which I thought was what this was about...

I dunno about the 5.7 round. It's available as either the light lead-free aluminum-cored round, or as a V-Max hollow point designed for Varmints. Not sure how either one would do in the penetration department, though I'm sure the V-Max has a good chance of fragmenting and the LF should tumble nicely. I'm kinda leery of light handgun bullets. Frictional drag is a cubed function, meaning at twice the velocity, you have 8 times the drag (between same-sized and -shaped objects). Light but fast bullets will slow down much much faster on initial impact, and then continue slowing down at a higher rate than a slow, heavy round.

Again, though, if we had access to high-caps, I'd be a big fan of the 5.7 because of the combined benefits of low recoil and 20 rounds to burn. Even if the wounds are inferior, I'll trade some stopping power for more shots on target.