Hardball vs. Hardball----Does Caliber Matter?

[indianalex01]

But that is exactly what I did.

Why.

Because all handguns SUCK for shooting people!

45 v 9mm is just as silly an argument in 2021 as saying a certain type of color of hair make a woman better at sex.


You can take a man that has tons of women and he can't tell you which color of hair makes the sex more enjoyable. Why because the blond he had sex with yesterday was terrible, but the black haired girl was great. But two days later it might be they both were terrible but the red haired girl rocked his world.

Gun fights with pistols are the same.

So my life has taught me the formula I shared about how we can't know anything about something that is impossible to prove. Which brought me to my economics of motion, the longer the gun can go bang and the faster I can accurately make it go bang the better.

9mm fits this bill in my mind. Easier to shoot fast and accurate and in my CZ I can have 22 rounds in the pistol.

Darn Yani, I like Sex as much as anyone but you argument makes absolutely no sense. If you are horny then keep it to yourself but let’s keep it to guns…lmao. It was funny though.

[okie]

I also believe this is VERY IMPORTANT for me to add.

I have ABSOLUTELY NO EXPERIENCE kicking in doors and shooting bad people in the face, I never was in the Military, I have never been a LEO the only experience with Self Defense Ammo I have is Hunting, & doing some impromptu bullet "test" , that is it. I have the upmost respect for all the folks that put there life on the line so I get to hunt and enjoy shooting, thank y'all.

I have shot a bit of Blisltstcs Gell to see how Self Defense & Hunting ammo works but I rather Hunt or train to keep my shooting skills up to the best of my ability.

I don't want to derail this, hell I don't know if the tiny bit of information I have about hunting hogs is even important to anyone.

The thing is though that those people who do, mostly, don't have very large sample sizes. Nor do they do autopsies on their kills. Nor do they generally know anything about ballistics. Relying on the experience of doorkickers has been a plague of terrible misinformation that has been horribly abused by the industry to sell stuff to us civilian types. It's been the source of myths regarding the unquestionable greatness of .45, the terribleness of 9mm and 223, and, worst of all, the worship of all things Kalashnikov.

[C-grunt]

My uncle shoots a decent amount of hogs. Most of them he shoots in traps he built. Most of them he kills with 22s. For wild hog hunting though, he prefers the 308 or 30-06.

In my 14 plus years as a street cop in a major city I have seen a good amount of handgun gunshot wounds. Between homicides, suicides, assaults, and accidents there have been many chances for me to "investigate". Being a gun guy, I pay attention to wound profile and guns and ammo used.

Looking at wounds, watching medical staff treat wounds, and talking with trauma doctors, I (or they) cant tell the difference between wounds from the duty calibers. I can usually notice the difference between a FMJ and a well expanded hollow point though. I believe that has to do with the rounded edges of the ball round not cutting full diameter holes while the expanded hollow points more jagged edges do.

That being said, I would not feel undergunned with a duty caliber using ball ammo. I dont choose to carry ball because I do believe that hollow points provide a real advantage on a gun that already is harder to use effectively and has marginal effectiveness. Ive seen more than a few guys take shots to very critical areas and still be up and mobile for a decent amount of time, even if they died soon after. Hell, my last gunfight I shot a guy in the chest with a 223 hollowpoint which shredded his left lung and went through his heart and the dude barely flinched and charged at me. I thought I missed him. Funny thing is, everyone Ive seen shot with M855 dropped right there... but meth is a hell of a drug.

Back to the my original point, Ive never seen a difference in 45, 40, or 9mm. Truthfully even 38 Special, though the number of shootings are far less. Good hits were good hits and bad hits were bad hits. Ive never heard a trauma doctor say "oh it's okay, it was only a 9mm that went through his liver" or "holy crap this guy is gonna die from this lower leg shot because it was a 45".

I have seen insufficient penetration on the smaller calibers. I have seen 380 hollow points that expanded well and penetrated shallow. 380 ball ammo tends to penetrate deep or have complete pass throughs. The 32s ACP and 25 ACP I havent seen enough of to really get a good consensus on but I do remember them to mostly penetrate on the more shallow side. 22s are wildly inconsistent. Some penetrate deep and some bullets completely shatter on the first bone they hit. My guess is there is the actual bullet used is the major difference there. Which kind does what, I couldnt tell you.

[okie]

My uncle shoots a decent amount of hogs. Most of them he shoots in traps he built. Most of them he kills with 22s. For wild hog hunting though, he prefers the 308 or 30-06.

In my 14 plus years as a street cop in a major city I have seen a good amount of handgun gunshot wounds. Between homicides, suicides, assaults, and accidents there have been many chances for me to "investigate". Being a gun guy, I pay attention to wound profile and guns and ammo used.

Looking at wounds, watching medical staff treat wounds, and talking with trauma doctors, I (or they) cant tell the difference between wounds from the duty calibers. I can usually notice the difference between a FMJ and a well expanded hollow point though. I believe that has to do with the rounded edges of the ball round not cutting full diameter holes while the expanded hollow points more jagged edges do.

That being said, I would not feel undergunned with a duty caliber using ball ammo. I dont choose to carry ball because I do believe that hollow points provide a real advantage on a gun that already is harder to use effectively and has marginal effectiveness. Ive seen more than a few guys take shots to very critical areas and still be up and mobile for a decent amount of time, even if they died soon after. Hell, my last gunfight I shot a guy in the chest with a 223 hollowpoint which shredded his left lung and went through his heart and the dude barely flinched and charged at me. I thought I missed him. Funny thing is, everyone Ive seen shot with M855 dropped right there... but meth is a hell of a drug.

Back to the my original point, Ive never seen a difference in 45, 40, or 9mm. Truthfully even 38 Special, though the number of shootings are far less. Good hits were good hits and bad hits were bad hits. Ive never heard a trauma doctor say "oh it's okay, it was only a 9mm that went through his liver" or "holy crap this guy is gonna die from this lower leg shot because it was a 45".

I have seen insufficient penetration on the smaller calibers. I have seen 380 hollow points that expanded well and penetrated shallow. 380 ball ammo tends to penetrate deep or have complete pass throughs. The 32s ACP and 25 ACP I havent seen enough of to really get a good consensus on but I do remember them to mostly penetrate on the more shallow side. 22s are wildly inconsistent. Some penetrate deep and some bullets completely shatter on the first bone they hit. My guess is there is the actual bullet used is the major difference there. Which kind does what, I couldnt tell you.

I can't remember which one, but Di Maio said in one of his reports that HPs are easy to spot from the entrance wound, and had the photos to prove it. The skin is very different from the underlying muscle tissue.

[Spooky1]

The thing is though that those people who do, mostly, don't have very large sample sizes. Nor do they do autopsies on their kills. Nor do they generally know anything about ballistics. Relying on the experience of doorkickers has been a plague of terrible misinformation that has been horribly abused by the industry to sell stuff to us civilian types. It's been the source of myths regarding the unquestionable greatness of .45, the terribleness of 9mm and 223, and, worst of all, the worship of all things Kalashnikov.

Mighty fine points you make 👍

Being new hear I don't want to act like I am more than I am, I'm just a ole Country Boy who lives in the woods with not enough guns 😁

I started out more of a "Outdoors" guy, hunting and fishing. My Dad did a bit of Self Defense Training and what he learned he taught me. When he passed I lost my "Teacher" so to speak. I new I didn't know enough so I have spent the better part of 20 + years seeking out more Self Defense Training. I kept hunting also and had this bright idea about keeping track of hogs shot with basically Self Defense Ammo.

I just don't want anyone to think I am disparaging there experiences. I thrive on learning new things about all this.

🤙

[WillBrink]

9mm, 40 S&W, 357 Sig and the all mighty 45 ACP kill 100 to 200 lb hog the same. No VooDoo or B.S magic, hit the "Timer's" or "Switches" and Porky goes down, miss and well..

... your dealing with a pissed off pig. 🤣

The big Magnums, 44, 454 Casule, 460 S&W 500 L.B when used with bullets that will actually start expanding inside the pig will actually act like rifle rounds, to a extent. Take a 9mm with a 124gr Gold Dot at +P+ Velocity, I have only seen 1 or 2 weird things happen like a liver having a crack in it when the bullet didn't hit it. Couldn't find any bone or fragment that hit it but it was cracked. I have seen one heart that had a 9BPLE pass within a half inch from it have a split aorta, I believe the heart was full of blood when the bullet passed by and that was how that happened. I have only seen 2 cracked livers with hogs shot with a 357 Sig, I believe it was a fluik like the 9mm, I don't own any thing in 357 Sig, my buddy shot those hogs, not me. With the Big Bore Magnums there is more damage to arias that the bullet doesn't touch, nothing like a rifle but a little bit. The 40 S&W & 45 ACP act just like the Sig and 9mm, PoP! (in the proper spot) Poke, Expand, Penetrate, Leak Important Life Fluids, Dead Hog. 😁

Outta about 600 + hogs shot from 5 ft to about 25 yards, all standing still, and broadside we found out bullets sometimes do strange sh*t but if ya hit the Heart, Lungs, Liver we never lost one and actually with even the "wimpy" 9mm (me being snarky) I, personally have never had a hog go farther than 20 or so yards. Like I said earlier tho, these were 100 to 200 lbs hogs shot from 5ft to 20 or so yards broadside, standing still.

I don't believe in "Knock Down Power" in Duty or Self Defense caliber pistols, they poke holes going in and let important, life sustaining fluid out. Shot placement is King. I have seen strange things when 200 and up grain bullets are hitting things at 1,600 or more fps but I am not smart enough to say what it is other than it's way more damaging than Duty/Self Defense Calibers but not as much as a Rifle, also when it comes to my Daughters life and my life I trust what Doc Roberts says.

Edited to add : I carry a 9mm every day, that is my preferred carry caliber. I thought I would add that & all these Piggy's weren't shot by me. My buddy's and myself are blessed to have some very good people in our lives that let us hunt the way we want to and these pigs were taken by 8 of us. As long as we're helping keep the pig population in check we can hunt with Dogs, Under Feeders, with Rifles or Pistols and at night. We got bored just "Hunting Hogs" and decided to test Self Defense ammo our way. As long as we had a good broadside shot no further than 25 yards, we took it.

Good report and in line with what you'd expect really.

[yoni]

Darn Yani, I like Sex as much as anyone but you argument makes absolutely no sense. If you are horny then keep it to yourself but let’s keep it to guns…lmao. It was funny though.

That was the point!!!!!

I wanted to approach this whole thread from a different point to try and get people past their dogma.

Yani by the way is a Greek singer .

[Spooky1]

Good report and in line with what you'd expect really.

Thanks, while new hear I did years of lurking and I have read a bunch of your replies and have learned from them. Wish I had joined earlier tho cos I would have really liked to ask IraqiGunz some questions 😔

[WillBrink]

Thanks, while new hear I did years of lurking and I have read a bunch of your replies and have learned from them. Wish I had joined earlier tho cos I would have really liked to ask IraqiGunz some questions ��

Glad I was able to supply intel of value.

[T2C]

Thanks for the report Spooky1. IMHO observations about what projectiles do in hogs carries more weight than ballistic gelatin.

This morning, I met with a group of retired old goats for coffee and we discussed this issue. Two of the quorum spent a good part of their career investigating meth labs and had first hand knowledge on how a handgun performs when trying to stop a tweeker. The consensus was that even minor caliber rifles were not effective on a subject cranked up on meth unless you shot a lot of rounds into them. I inquired what the preferred weapon of choice would be should they need to rapidly incapacitate a determined attacker. The answer was "a Ford F250 at 75 mph."