Good Lord, I step over into the Malkoff and Rimfire threads for a day, and the internet goes pear shaped.
My favorite piece of wound ballistic/stopping power wisdom *ever* came from @Sean M;
"Bullets do weird shit in people. People do weird shit when hit by bullets." Roughly.
Choosing something from GKR’s list might mitigate a small portion of the weirdness.
JMO, OMMV, etc.
”But in the end all of these ideas just manufacture new criminals when the problem isn't a lack of criminals.” -JRB
With the assumption we aren't talking about niche use type things like bear country carry or making a certain power factor for certain competitive events, and eliminating legacy reasons then I think being married to a certain platform is the main reason. Someone coming in fresh with no legacy to build on is almost certainly best served by the 9mm.Originally Posted by GlorifiedMailman
I've not sold any of my .40 S&W or .45 Auto Sig pistols. I have a lot of, as you put it, legacy reasons. I have a metric shit ton of ammunition and components for them, have significant supporting equipment (holsters,magazines, spare recoil springs, etc.) for guns like the P220 and P245 for which .45 Auto is the only option. I do have 9mm copies of my .40 S&W guns (P226 and P229), along with a 9mm slide conversion for the P226. I don't see any compelling reason to get rid of any of them and all the supporting equipment I've built up over the years.
Sorta around sometimes for some of your shitty mod needs.
I'm late to this thread and have not read all of it, but the concept of thresholds is important. Years ago I was discussing some data at work, and I asked a colleague if he though a 2x difference was meaningful. He replied, "it depends on how close you are to the threshold." If I drop a 1 lb magazine on a house fly, the force will kill the fly. If I drop a three pound phone book on a housefly, that'll kill it too. The 3x increase in the mass of the object didn't affect the outcome with respect to the fly. Once you've passed the threshold, you don't gain anything by going farther past.
Biology is full of thresholds. Death from blood loss is a great example. Once a person dies from blood loss, they don't die more if they continue to bleed (to whatever extent that could occur without cardiac output). Oxygen tension in the brain and brain function is probably another relevant example of a threshold relationship. Drop too low and your brain stops. The end.
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I also have some napkin drawings for a revolver grip product I plan on working on in 2020 when I get back to the world
Small matter of semantics most likely but, I see many state they chose 124 grain HST because it was on “the list” from Doc. However, 124 grain HST standard pressure isn’t on the list. 147 HST is the only standard pressure on the 9mm list. Am I missing something?
Late to the dance, but OP, I think your points are well made. I carry a G19, 92FS or P228 most days with 9mm HST +P, but I still worry about it sometimes, too. I was 20 in 1990 when "The Big Switch" to .40 happened, and all that FBI Miami fallout is always in my mind.
I do believe this: I think the 9mm is held to a higher performance standard than any other duty round precisely because of Miami. Its shadows linger to this day. For example, we're all aware of shootings with the .40 and .45 which were slow to incapacitate even with quality shot placement and multiple rounds fired (think Tim Grammins). The .40 and .45 cartridges are rarely, if ever, called into question or doubted after such shootings. Had those same gunfights involved the 9mm, there would've been major inquiries from various sources. Frankly, the .38 LSWCHP +P didn't perform that well in Miami either, but it was the 9mm that hit Platt in the arm and chest and that was all that mattered. I know that 9mm HST will do the job, but the Ghosts of Miami Past continue to haunt me just a bit, and probably for no good reason.
However, I've said it to my friends, and I'm calling it now, one or two future high profile gunfights with the 9mm which fail to immediately incapacitate felons will lead to questions and maybe even backtracking. The .40 is not dead. Sometimes, history does repeat itself. Don't be surprised if in 5 years that the .40 will again be in American police holsters.
Last edited by jbourneidentity; 11-24-2019 at 11:38 AM.
Both standard pressure 124 HST and Gold Dot work adequately, however the 124 +P versions are a bit better. In 147, the standard pressure is great and there is no advantage going to +P.
Facts matter...Feelings Can Lie
Here’s how history will repeat itself in your hypothetical - the LE carrying 9, that make these shots that you’re going to use to justify 40 with - they’ll be average to worse marksmen and the shot placement will be bad, too late to stop the target, or both.
And a sober, uninvested party doing an AAR would assign responsibility to the failure with the nut behind the trigger and not the ammunition or handgun. That’s the history that repeats, historically.
If you wanna carry forty, get on with your dirty self, you don’t need any pats on the back around here (and it might be hard to find them anyway)
Any significant difference with a 3" barrel? My feeling is that there may be, but that it is marginal at best.
I don't think so, and because of one reason:
Compared to the 70s and 80s chasing "magic bullets" and their incapacitation theories without supporting evidence, we have a much better understanding of terminal ballistics these days. Due to this, we also have better expectation management.
There will be more failures to stop. It's not like we're waiting for another event to happen.....we know it will happen, it's already happened, has happened this year, and will continue to happen. The difference is that we know what to expect, and what not to expect, from handgun bullets.
"Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer
