In the handgun forums and magazines, a new narrative holds that .45 and 9mm are virtually the same in \u201cstopping power,\u201d so we should all carry the 9mm for its (relatively) lighter recoil and larger cartridge capacity.\u00a0 While lighter recoil and more ammo are certainly good reasons to go to a 9mm instead of something larger, are smaller bullets really as good as bigger bullets?<\/p>\n
The answer, of course, is \u201cit depends on the bullets.\u201d\u00a0 Historically, it takes superior bullet design and\/or higher velocity for the smaller bullet to do as much damage as the larger. The smaller round is much more demanding of careful ammo selection, in my experience.\u00a0 Any deer hunter will tell you that you have to carefully select .243 loads for quick, humane kills on deer, while there is a broader spectrum of .308 loads that will do the job.\u00a0 Any soldier with a specialty in small arms will tell you that much more money and research has gone into making effective anti-personnel ammo in 5.56mm NATO than was ever needed for effective 7.62mm NATO.\u00a0 In the same vein, while I\u2019m usually perfectly comfortable carrying a 9mm for personal protection, I\u2019ve found myself having to be MUCH more picky to find street proven ammo for that chambering than for my old favorite .45.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not alone in that. A fellow writer, Charlie Petty, wrote 25 years ago in American Rifleman <\/em>magazine<\/a> \u00a0of FBI\u2019s research at the time, \u201cAs the testing progressed, another factor became obvious. No 9mm loads came close to the 10 mm and .45. \u2018We expected that there would be a gap,\u2019 said (FBI\u2019s Urey) Patrick, \u2018but we didn’t expect it to be so large.\u2019 In the first series of tests, the best a 9 mm could do was 67.5%. The .38 Spl. fared just as poorly, and the standard FBI-issue .38 Spl. (158-gr. lead hollow-point +P) also achieved a 67.5% success rate. Among the initial rounds tested, only the 10 -mm, .45 ACP and a single .357 Mag. round were able to score consistently above 90%.\u201d<\/p>\n Time went on. Ammo got better, and the new designs probably benefitted the 9mm proportionally more than the bigger calibers, but all were made better. A famous wound ballistics specialist whose work was pivotal to the FBI\u2019s testing protocols was Dr. Martin Fackler, who died last month. In a 2012 interview<\/a> Dr. Fackler said, \u201cThe size of the hole the bullet makes, the .45 is bigger than a nine-mill. But how much bigger, by diameter, it really doesn\u2019t give you the measure of how much tissue it disrupts. \u00a0What does is the area of a circle. Area of a circle, it was pi-r-squared. It\u2019s the radius squared. So, if you take your .45, your point four-five-one and your nine-millimeter as your point three-five-five, take half, take the radius, square that, and what you\u2019ll find is that the volume, or the area, of damaged tissue made by the .45 is about sixty percent more than made by the nine.\u201d<\/p>\n