TexasCHLforum.com

G.C.Montgomery wrote:

Gracegarden wrote: Don't get me wrong, I'm the first to say that 45ACP is a very efficient cartridge and 40S&W has left many a suspect DRT in police shootings. And while they do offer some advantages over 9mm,

Well, 9mm offers some advantages over these cartridges as well. That was the point I was trying to make. The obvious advantage is higher capacity. However there are numerous other advantages and they should not be overlooked. There is more to ammunition than just diameter or mass of the bullet.

It's easy to try and over-simplify and choose based mostly on caliber (diameter) to the exclusion of every other factor. Unfortunately it is not that simple.

The fact is that 9mm, .45ACP and .40SW are all very effective SD calibers, and each represent tradeoffs. You pick what you are comfortable with. Odds are extremely high that you will never have to find out and all the debate about it in the world is just a waste of time. If you do have to shoot another human being with a pistol, then the odds are that whatever caliber will be totally inadequate at the time, but the biggest factor is not at all related to ammo. A .45 is not going to turn an inexperienced, panicked person into a steady, calm, marksman. Likewise a 9mm in the hands of an expert is not going to turn them into a spray & pray knucklehead. With the right skills you can get the job done with any caliber bigger than a BB gun, and without the right skills then even a bazooka is not going to be enough.

I like how many of these answers are "9mm is adequate but".

There is no "but". In some cases, you would be better off with a different caliber. In some cases, you'd be best off with the 9mm. The choice of a SD caliber can become very complicated because there are none that are perfect, and despite what many will say, no one caliber is really more perfect than the others.

There is also more to think about regarding cartridge choice besides terminal performance. You probably will never have to shoot someone with it. But you are going to likely shoot many thousands of rounds in practice. You will have to buy it, store it, transport it, etc. If there ever is some reason to sort of stock-pile ammo, you will be glad to have something ubiquitous, abundant, and lighter/smaller to store and transport.