I'd have to agree. .45 is about the perfect caliber for a short barreled handgun. Even the US special forces are going back to it because the 9mm is a POS. Getting hit by a .45 is a pretty sure bet you are going down and this is what they need in close combat situations.

I like my version of the .45 however:

http://www.shootersshop.com/Kimber/s...sprocarry2.jpg

It's a little pricey, but a very good gun.

-S

You can tell a lot about a person by what weapon:DL they carry. I'm not surprised at your choice. The gun fits what I have been able to discern of your personality.

I wouldn't have figured that SUB would wield a 1911, though. He strikes me as more of a TEC-9 kind of guy. Or maybe an M60 kind of guy:hmmm: :DL

When your talking stopping power - its not just about the caliber. Also you have to take into account who would be the recieving target. My handguns are primarily for home defense. Thus, the 9mm Makarov is well suited when combined with the right ammunition.

For example, mine is normally stocked with Hornady cut points. I don't have to sweat a normal robber wearing body armor, so the cut points are excellent. Why?

Because the entry hole is the size of a dime.

The exit hole is the size of Long Island.

There is no doubt that its going to put a bad guy down if its fired in "anger" (always hated that term - I much prefer "need" as if your shooting "angry" you ought not to be shooting.). Once I tested these particular cut points, I didn't have to worry about a dt, though with the Makarov its rather easy for me to do.

Now I don't have anything against the .45 or even the .50 Desert Eagle, but I am not 6'5", so the most important thing for me concering accuracy is the fit and balance - and the M is nearly perfect for this particular individual.

I wonder what kind of firearm you have me down for:hmmm:

I have plenty against the .50 Desert Eagle, and im 6'3, but the comic relief it provides when someone trys to genuinely say that it is a practical handgun is worth it. That being said, it is a fun pistol to fire.

Well, we haven't talked much before so it is hard for me to say. Assuming that you do have a weapon despite the low ownership rate in Estonia, you'd be a person capable of bucking the trend, so to speak.
I imagine that the memory of Soviet occupation remains fresh in the minds of the proud and independent Estonian people, so I doubt you would choose an Eastern Bloc weapon. Hard to tell though, for reasons stated above.

Your posts often joke or are brief, and from the tone I suspect you'd carry a semi-auto. Being a self-proclaimed aetheist tends to reinforce that suspicion. IIRC, you also joined the military, no? EOD, right?

I don't know anything about your stature or weight but based on the above I'm going to go out on a limb and say you would carry a Glock chambered in 9mm or .45 ACP, but you'd rather have a powerful rifle of the automatic or semi-automatic veriety. Something powerful, but also light and safe.

How far off was I?:DL


edit- now that I think about it, you'd probably also own more than one firearm

Last week, for the first time since years, and the second time in my life ever, I went with my father to his shooting club and their gunnery range. He is doing it for sports, usually precision air pistol and some small callibre stuff, but he bought a new weapon a Taurus 357 Special, if I remember that name correctly. I shot - how do you call it? - 4 drums? breeches? empty, 24 shots all in all. It was for some strange reason I marked 15 shots within or mostly within the black rings at the centre, and not missing the target a single time with the other shots, which frustrated him a bit, since for a novice the result was pretty good, apparently. In the end I scored 155 points with 24 shots - for self-defense that would be more than good enough, i think. It was no fully charged Magnum ammunition of course, but Wadcutter projectiles. I assume my former experience with archery and sword fighting as well as my regular meditation routine assisted me in shooting that good and control breathing (good at least for a novice in firearms).

But still I fail to see the fun in it. I assume firearms shooting simply is not made for me, or me is not made for firearms. I have prefered archery in the past, and if I ever should come back to shooting, I probably still would choose a bow over firearms.

but I hate the rubber grip of that thing, and found the grip too thin in diameter. That rubber material may be practical, sure, but I hate the feeling of it. Don't ask me why... :DL

when I tried both fully charged Magnum ammunition and air pristol some years ago, I sucked with both. The Magnum was stress to fire, and the air pistol was so light that I did not hold it stable enough. The rapid fire competition they do at the Olympics - respect for being able to do that. That precision in handling compares to rifles or shooting with ordinary ammunition and revolvers/pistols like a surgeon's scalpel compares to a strike with a two-handed warhammer, it seems to me.

Well, here every able bodied male has to serve for a year in the armed forces, so I didnt join the army as such. Discharged for medical reasons.
Allso, I dont own any legal firearms, nor any illegal ones anymore. But you were not far off at all, though if i did carry it would be a Para-Ordnance P14-45 or a Glock 21, as far as pistols go anyway. For long arms a G3 would be right up my ally , use a variant of these as our service rifles, love it to bits. And people who say the G3 has too much recoil need to grow a pair:D
As far as east block weapons are concerned, I have nothing but respect for most of them, it is nigh on impossible to go wrong with em.

Saw a good movie yesterday, on TV, with some interesting cynical buit true comments in it. One of them was this:

"Nuclear weapons sit safely deep inside their silos and are guarded well, but the AK-47 is almost indestructable, still fires when covered with sand or mud, is so easy in construction that every child could handle it, and it is present in every war and every fight being fought anywhere on earth. The Kalashnikov is the real weapon of mass destruction."

And another one:

"The five greatest weapon producers in the world are the US, England, France, Russia and China. These are also the five standing members of the UN security council."



Food for thought. :hmmm:

Lord of War was on TV? remember seeing that not too long ago... good movie.

Yes:

Yes, it was on TV.

Yes, it was a good movie.

I have a friend who uses a modified and ported M1911. It has a lot less kick for only a little loss of muzzle velocity. He was once involved in one of those .45 vs 9mm arguments, and when someone said "Those .45 'knock-'em-down stories are all questionable at best" my friend just smiled and said "Yeah, but nobody even tells those stories about 9mms in combat."

The 45 knock em down stories are not questionable at all. The fact is that the 45 is a heavier shell fired at a lower velocity compared to a 9mm. Knock down primarily comes from transferring the energy of the round - that is the speed x mass - from the bullet to the target.

On average - a 45 is much better suited for this. The reason the military is going back to the 45 is caused by the fact that body armor is more prevalent. Body armor absorbs MOST (on penetrating shots) or all (on non penetrators) of the energy intended for the target. With a slower, heavy round, you still have the same amount of energy applied - whether it penetrates or not.

Whats important to realize is that a non-penetrating hit to body armor CAN - and does - sometimes still kill. Body armor is not some panacea. By moving to the 45, your causing much more "shock" tissue damage - even if you get no penetration. While a 9mm will on average penetrate better, anything class 2 or above will stop a 45 full jacket at 230 grain (the standard 45 round). It will also stop about half the 9mm rounds out there. Current military grade armor is well above class 2 (usually class 3a or better minimum).

What the military is doing is accepting a non penetration hit, with the thought that its current enemy isn't going to be fully equiped - meaning side plates, etc that help distribute that shock. Its a wise tradeoff. You get the knockdown - even MORE assured if your target is wearing armor - and even a non-penetrator is going to tear the bad guys innards up so bad he's dead though he doesn't know it yet.

However, this is why the ammunition used is important regarding 9mm. The rounds used by the military are FMJ, with the speed of the round resulting in relatively little tissue damage to the target, and almost all hits passing THROUGH the target, thus not imparting the mass x speed energy discussed above. Use what I use, and you either don't get an exit - which imparts all the energy - or you get an exit that tears out half the back torso of your target. Either way - in both cases - just like with the 45 - you get a knockdown. *Though I will admit that if I get the exit - its possible the target falls forward, instead of backwards - but thats ok because he is down and dead regardless.

Historically there is a manly admiration for the 45. Nothing wrong with that. But if your going to be using a firearm, you need to know the strengths of each.

And for the record - porting a 1911 slows the round slightly as was mentioned. This makes a knockdown even MORE likely due to the fact the slower the round goes, the more likely it will stop inside tissue.

Also - you often see military shows doing things like shooting a cinder block or a pumpkin to demonstrate effect on flesh. Its nothing like it. Want to see the energy in a round? Fire it (Safely!!) into a body of water where you can retrieve the round. Look at the deformation of the round. Now think of the speed of the bullet - deforming inside you and then stopping - thats a knockdown folks! For even more realism use a half of a cow - though thats going a bit overboard for the testing most people want to do.

FYI - knockdown power is a 'myth'. It is all about the greatest chance of severing something vital to ones requirement to live and continue trying to do you harm.

Newtons law of physics tells you that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Apply this to firearms and that law would say that if you could knock down the bad guy with your uber super bullet, that action to propel that bullet would also knock the shooter on his ass too! :D

Oh how Hollywood likes to make the gun out to be something that it is not. Then Guns Magazine starts to believe it. Then half the world also believes it. Then you wonder why all the inaccurate info flies around when people don't really analyze the facts? And then they make up situations where the debunked theory works when it really doesn't. Sanow from Guns and Ammo really propagated this myth. Simple science and the laws of physics should make you smart enough to look past it.

<...Watch this turn into the alternate global warming thread...>

I have a friend with an M-60. I need to go try that.

Anyway, I read up on what is best by the experts - US military and the FBI. They know a thing or two about killling people and what works and what doesn't. The guy shot 32 times w/9mm in the torso over the period of almost an hour before he was hit with a lucky juggler shot pretty much 9mm sealed its fate in my book - it s POS for stupid gangbangers and the US Military is dumping it after finding out it didn't work so well in Iraq. I think it's Chicago where the cops are forbidden from using 9mm because of that incident.

After researching the FBI classified reports (released due to freedom of information act), it turns out you better be at least using a .40 if you plan to use a short barreled weapon!

-S

Sorry Subman, but your wrong on this one.

Firing a pistol causes recoil - but due to the fact your using your arms, the kick is transfered into a vertical - which substantially reduces the "felt" impact. This is what makes a double tap from a 45 or 44 mag almost impossible. You can't hold the point of aim for the time required.

Also don't forget, your standard handgun is semi-automatic. The gun uses the force of the kickback to load the next round. The shock is absorbed and used, normally via a very stiff spring - to keep the energy being directly applied to you.

Part of good design on a handgun is so that the fire cycle energy is utilized to the maximum so that the shooter feels the minimum possible.

If you had a way of setting off a .45 shell against your chest - even using armor - the kickback would have no "cushion" to bleed of that energy - and would put a hole in you.

Edit - as for getting hit with multiple 9mm's and it not being fatal - sure I can agree there. Question is - what type rounds were used - weight, jacket and grain? Also where where the hits located? You can get hit multiple times by any handgun round and in not be fatal - depending on where your hit. Had the target you reference been hit with cut points in the area a normal shooter is told to aim for (being "center mass) - the odds of missing a vital artery, vein, nervous system or organ(s) would have been miniscule. That is why round selection is critical if your going to be shooting "in anger".

This is why single shot pistols have the recoil they do - no way to bleed off firing energy. Shoot one and your hand WILL go way up.

Better rethink your strategy if you ever plan to use that thing to save your life. I'd suggest selling it. 9mm does not have the strength, the velocity, or the deep enough penetration, nor the weight do do what you describe. You have been sold by marketing.

-S