9mm won't protect you?


m444ss

New member
I agree that the 9mm is not the very best round as a man-stopper, but I just read an article saying it's absolutely no good as a man-stopper; this based on US Army experience in combat. I'm sorry, but apples vs oranges. The US military is required to use non-expanding ball ammo while the rest of us can use modern ammo that expands to transfer significantly more energy to the target than ball ammo. Certianly, the 9mm isn't the 45 ACP, .357 Mag or .44 Mag, but modern ammo available for the 9mm is certianly orders of magnitude better than the ball ammo the Army must use.
 

Actually if you look at terminal ballistics of major handgun ammo in modern loadings - they're all pretty similar. Some may have better performance on windshields and other "hard targets", but pretty much any "service caliber" in a modern HP loading will perform similarly enough that your choice really should be more about how well you shoot a specific platform/caliber and how many rounds you can cram in the gun... Which is why I shoot a 9mm. Follow up shots are quicker for me and I can carry 18 rounds in the gun.

See here for more info:

Service Pistol Duty and Self-Defense Loads - M4Carbine.net Forums
Ordnance gelatin test assessment for rifle and pistol calibers - M4Carbine.net Forums
 
Untrue, if this was the case, why would it be the must popular caliber for the US Military, and Law Enforcement !

I trust my life with my G26, loaded with Hornady Critical Defense
 
9mm is fine for personal protection, anyone who says that u need a 4 infront of it is full of it, i can shoot my .40 just as well as a 9, as to why i chose the bigger round, but even then it still dosent beat shot placement, even a .22 will stop a threat.
 
Uhhh, me thinks me doesn't want shot with any of the above mentioned calibers. Any of the previously mentioned caliber will do the job if ya hit the spot. Carry what you prefer.
 
Calibers

It's my understanding that any caliber will stop a threat if the hits are in the right spot...if one's comfortable with a .380 so be it, it's better than not being able to protect oneself (or one family) at all.
 
Well, I carry a 9mm. I am comfortable with that. I wouldn't carry a .22, however there is no caliber with which I would want a hole poked in me.
 
I have always subscribed to the notion that has been posted here on the forum that a well placed shot from a .22 is better than a near miss from a .454 Casull. Everyone should carry a weapon that is not too heavy, (or they won't carry it all the time)be proficient, and be comfortable with it and its recoil. I prefer to carry my 1911 .45 ACP. However, sometimes circumstances dictate my Keltec p11 9mm. I practice with both and I feel confident with both.
I remember many years ago when our state police carried .357 S&W's and a trooper shot a drugged-up suspect 5 times and he still did not go down. It took a single round from a sheriff's deputy to finally put down the suspect. (I think the deputy was using a 9mm, but I am not totally sure)
 
A 9mm center mass will stop the BG. No doubt about it. Seems a lot of folks think they will put a couple in the box and that will the end of that! (I am not discounting the fact that most 9s have a lot more rounds that the average 45.) It would be interesting to know how the reaction would be to a non-center mass shot. Is a 9 or 45 better? I am sure there is some data out there somewhere.

I really don't know, just asking the question... But I would think that the 45 would cause more ache than that 9. Just my thought.
 
I agree that the 9mm is not the very best round as a man-stopper, but I just read an article saying it's absolutely no good as a man-stopper; this based on US Army experience in combat. I'm sorry, but apples vs oranges. The US military is required to use non-expanding ball ammo while the rest of us can use modern ammo that expands to transfer significantly more energy to the target than ball ammo. Certianly, the 9mm isn't the 45 ACP, .357 Mag or .44 Mag, but modern ammo available for the 9mm is certianly orders of magnitude better than the ball ammo the Army must use.

m444ss,

First, can you please post a link to your article that you are referring to? If you can't find it, please list the title and author. I absolutely love to read the actual articles being referred to so I can address the exact same things!

Bodies are stopped by trauma and blood loss. If you are lucky, you get trauma to the brain or spine and it is immediate to the BG and he does not suffer and you do not have to continue to fire. However, any other shot does two things: creates a permanent wound cavity (PWC) as well as a temporary stretch cavity (TSC). The permanent wound cavity is the actual tearing created by the bullet, it's jacket, bullet fragments, pellets, or other foreign matter as it passes through the body. Some tearing is created as the cavity is formed, but this is usually minor compared to the cutting and tearing by the debris.

The second part of the wound created when the bullet enters is the temporary stretch cavity. This is larger than the PWC and is the area that is that is damaged by the tissue being stretched by the sheer energy of the round entering the body and dumping energy (rather than the actual metal) into the tissue. This stretching and tearing is very quick and violent and causes tearing and bleeding damage to muscle and organs but then immediately settles back into place and may or may not close. With ball ammo, the TSC is barely larger than the PWC, which means the round does the minimum trauma to the human body and therefore has the least amount of chance to stop the BG. However, when using a round like Hornady Critical Defense, a round with guaranteed expansion, the round expands in the first five inches of entering the body, thereby dumping its ballistic energy quickly. This has to very important results: It creates a much larger TSC and keeps the round from penetrating the body too deeply and exiting the rear of the body and harming innocent civilians. In this case, the TSC can be 2-4 times larger than the PWC, causing organs in the area of the TSC to rupture or fail, which means that you did not have to hit that organ with the actual bullet to cause the organ to shut down - the energy dumped in the body by a highly efficient bullet caused an organ or organs to fail which in turn caused BG to stop his attack.

Now, here's the rub: For our self-defense purposes, it may be possible to "hurt" these organs and cause him to collapse and modern medicine to save and revive him, so actually, the modern rounds are SAFER because fewer rounds can be used to stop a BG and it is possible that he will live because less actual lead and fewer PWC had to be created to stop his illegal actions. The military on the other hand, has a different agenda. A dead soldier is only one combatant removed from the fight; a wounded soldier has to be treated and carried to the rear for further care, which actually removes three combatants, even if temporarily. So it behooves the military to wound soldiers instead of killing them. This means smaller calibers and ball ammo instead of more efficient hollow point or other well-designed rounds. So as m444ss said, this may even be more of an apples and oranges comparison than we realize.
 
xdmowner615:228516 said:
Doc that's incorrect the .22 has killed more men in its entirety.

Is a .22 a pistol caliber? Or a rifle caliber? I always thought of it as a rifle caliber, and that handguns were made to be able to fire them. Another example, the .410 being a shotgun shell that a handgun was made for (judge).
 
Is a .22 a pistol caliber? Or a rifle caliber? I always thought of it as a rifle caliber, and that handguns were made to be able to fire them. Another example, the .410 being a shotgun shell that a handgun was made for (judge).

I believe it started out in the early Smith and Wesson pistols first. The design (rimfire, heel lubed) is the earliest for of the modern self contained cartridge and the first Smiths were made in .22 and .32 rimfire.
 
I have a Beretta 9mm and two 22 pistols -- I love both of them for practice...stopping power? well placed? Sure. Why not?
 

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