Good handguns

ImportConvert

Oh, for those of you that keep screaming "stay away from the 9mm, get a .45". Well, handguns suck. Period. Just get one that shows CONSISTANT expansion and penetrates 12"+ in IWBA protocol testing. The 9mm does this just fine. I can recount many articles where the .45 when placed COM did nothing to stop the attacker. The one I would like to reference, has been removed, but some of you may recall where a police officer went to a domestic dispute armed with his .45 Glock and 3 magazines full of Gold-Dots. The perp was hit 13 times and the last shot was to the cranial vault. That was the only one that stopped him, he was putting lead (shotgun) on the cop the entire time. The officer later was incapacitated by his wounds (large bird-shot, one pellet or two managed to get into his skull and cause frontal brain-damage, as I recall).

Based on what I have learned from Dr. Gary Roberts, and what I have learned in my time working at a hospital, blood-loss is the only thing that matters. The bullet that crushes more tissue will cause more blood-loss will cause quicker incapacitation.

However, this comes at a price. The .45 is harder to fire multiple-times with accuracy. However, if you can fire it equally well as a 9mm and don't mind the capacity penalty, I argue that the .45 is indeed a better choice for SOME applications. I have found the 9mm to be better suited toward penetrating hard barriers such as wood, car doors, etc. It has more kinetic energy per frontal area in the 124 and 127gr +P and +P+ loadings than the .45.

So far, the 357SIG seems to take the cake, there, though. It is my bedside pistol, and it does nasty, nasty things--but it still sucks and I still have a spare 13 round mag loaded and ready.