Bane will take a 9mm, Hawkfish a .40

[HAWKFISH]

Okay, which do you perfer? (another chance to pick one or the other and tell why lol) If you only had two choices only..the 9mm or the .40 and nothing else, no .45, .380's..nothing, just one of the two..... Last night in the live blog the idea of .40 and 9mm came up. The man, Michael Bane, said that he is not a huge fan of the .40 in general and that he would take a 9mm with trick ammo. I've heard him say similar on the weekly podcasts. And I see his points and where he is coming from.

Well, I kinda almost feel the same, just with the two reversed. I'm not a huge 9mm fan in general, when I can have the .40 as a first choice. I do like 9mm's. I just like .40's better. In, fact all my pistols right are either 9mm's, .40's, or .22LR's. I guess for me I can shoot my .40's just as good or almost as good (if not it's super close always) as my 9mm's. Muzzle-flip/recoil for me is not much different. Yes the 9mm is not quite as much. But, if it is so close..then why not shoot a .40 with a bigger bullet and more ummth.. ? How do ya'll feel. If you can only choose one of the two?  I must also say that I do carry 9mm sometimes and I love 9mm's too.   

P.S. I would also like to give a special thanks for Michael Bane shooting his Glock 19 at Gunsite a couple of days ago. Hopefully, the spirit of Jeff Cooper isn't angry and all is fine now. **I am also glad that he didn't explode while shooting his Glock! 

[Big Frank]

There's just no way I'd carry a 9mm when I could have a .40 in the same exact sized pistol. The only way to get decent performance out of a 9mm is to load it to .44 Magnum pressure levels. They try to make a 9mm into an acceptable substitute for the .45 ACP, my actual preference. Since that isn't one of the options, I'd go with the .40, which is also loaded to high pressure levels to simulate a .45 ACP. All the users and suppliers of the guns and ammo, in 9mm and .40, demand .45 ACP performance, but aren't willing to admit that the .45 is superior to their pet caliber. A .45 bullet is nearly double the cross sectional area of a 9mm, .35x.35 vs. .45x.45, and all else being equal, bigger is always better. The .40 Short & Weak comes a lot closer than the 9mm, although at a cost of snappier recoil than a 9mm OR .45. If you can't have a .45, the .40 is next best, with the 9mm a distant third place. The only scenario where none of this applies is if you have a sub-compact 9mm that IS NOT also made in a .40 caliber version. There are very few of those made anymore.

Another comparison that I think gets the point across is to consider the Walther PPK that James Bond carried. Why on earth would he carry a .32 ACP in a pistol that's also chambered in .380 ACP. How many people would choose the smaller, less effective .32? My guess is right around zero. So why choose a 9 over a .40 in a same-sized gun? If you're packing the same sized gun, chose the larger caliber, whether it's .32 vs. .380, or 9mm vs. .40.

[ericire12]

Well, like I said last night during the live blog...... ballistically speaking a hot 9mm load (+P) has pretty much the same ft lbs of force as a typical .40 caliber load.

Its important to remember that velocity is twice as important as mass in the ballistic equation - thats why a .357 mag is so much more potent then a .38  special.
 
Mass x (Velocity squared) ÷ 450400 = foot pounds energy

Consequently, going from 9mm to .40 caliber does not produce an extremely significant gain in the amount of stopping power, but it will make your carry gun a few ounces heavier. The same is also true about comparing .40 loads to .45 caliber loads. The real significant gain is when going from 9mm to .45 caliber. (So, if one is not happy with 9mm stopping power, then why not just make the jump to .45?)

However, there is something to be said for the larger diameter rounds being able to create larger holes in a target and thus larger
wound cavities and more internal damage - and thats really where the big and slow .45 shines!

And yeah, yeah, yeah.... I know some of you are gonna say that its just handgun ammo and that they are just by definition inferior, BUT you are talking about your concealed carry setup. You want to make sure that you are carrying the most potent load possible that your particular carry gun's caliber can use. So, I think that when it comes to your carry ammo, you have to look at it like a hunter would look at his rifle ammo. (One shot, one kill. Right?) Check the ballistics, look at what calibers/loads get you in terms of energy on the target, and see what you feel comfortable having in a carry caliber. 

Federal has a nice online ballistics calculator that also includes their line of handgun ammunition if you want to compare calibers and their differing ft lbs of energy they can deliver:

http://www.federalpremium.com/ballistics/default.aspx 




P.S. This ballistic comparison is exactly why I voted for the 9mm as the smallest possible caliber for concealed carry. I personally don't feel comfortable carrying anything smaller then 9mm. After all, a .380 has about half the ft lbs of energy on target as a standard 9mm round.   

[addict]

Sorry Hawkfish, I am with Michael on this one.
Two reasons primarily.
1) For a given size the 9 mm gives you more capacity, which if you need it is good (though you really may need more practice ). As Michael indicated all handgun bullets are insufficient, and shot placement is what is important in self defense. With modern bullets you gain little to nothing in one shot stops in .40 vs 9mm. This doesn't work into my own ccw equation as I either carry a J frame airweight or a P3AT in calibers not applicable to this thread !
2)Practice is important to be effective and the 9mm is cheaper to practice with. This disparity may get larger as prices skyrocket out of control.

I see the .40 as a solution in search of a problem. Not bad in its own right, but the 9 trumps it in capacity and the 1911 food trumps it in weight/frontal area!
Addict 

[keithm]

I'd take 9mm because of availability / cost.  If we were to assume for the sake of this exercise that the costs and availability were equal, I'd probably carry .40... because as the OP asks, why not?  I'm one that's had little tolerance for the never-ending 9mm/45acp wars.  Adding .40 into a religious war just further distracts from what I think shooters should really focus on.  That being speed and accuracy.

Sure, 10mm is better than .45 which is better than .40 which is better than 9mm.  But a COM hit with a 9mm beats a miss with a 10mm.  I mean, I'm sure all of you guys get this, and I'm preaching to the choir.  But in my opinion, we're probably better off spending that energy doing dry-fire drills from concealment or working on body indexing and other drills.

[Sponsor]

[tombogan03884]

I'd pick 9mm for 2 reasons, Ammo available pretty much everywhere in the world, and I'm more familiar with the 9 only having shot one .40 cal but owned several 9mm over the years.  Generaly I make do with what I have, So I buy .45 and .357 for "real" use and .22 for playing

[warhawke]

The idea that velocity is twice as important as mass is udder nonsense!

The effectiveness of any bullet is dependent on a number of factors, mass, velocity, initial diameter, expansion, energy transfer, energy loss, etc., etc.   

A foot-pound of energy is the energy needed to move 1 pound 1 foot so why doesn't a 600fpe bullet knock a 200lb man 3 feet? Because the fpe is nearly meaningless in the real world! The transmission of the energy to the target occurs over time (a very short time, but still over time), the bullets tendency to deform which wastes energy, the conversion of kinetic energy to other forms (mostly heat), the targets ability to absorb energy all play a part in the effect of the bullet on the target.

If we go by 1/2 mass times velocity squared and ignore all the other factors then yes, a 50gr bullet at 4000fps would be a death-ray and a 100gr bullet at 1000fps would be worthless by comparison. Here in the real world a huge number of factors enter into the equation and render the paper calculations of fpe meaningless. 

With a low-powered pistol round (and they are basically ALL low-powered) the mass and diameter of the bullet can and will make a huge difference because they are the means by which the energy of the powder are transfered to the target. Yes a .357 is better than a .38 in terms of power, but a .38 jhp will be far more effective than a pointy nosed .357 fmj because the jhp will deliver the energy to the target while the fmj will zip through with minimal disruption.


All that being said, the way to choose between a 9mm and a .40S&W is be finding out which YOU SHOOT BETTER, which you are more comfortable with, which has the more effective ammunition AVAILABLE. I would rather have a good effective hollow-point 9mm than a .40 with fmj's because I know the jhp's will be more likely to incapacitate the target faster and thereby improve my chances of ending the situation. If the bullets are equally effective at expanding and delivering their energy to the target I would choose the .40 as the increased diameter is more likely to damage the target in a critical way and the increased mass means more of the energy will be available to do the damage as the bullet passes through the target instead of rapidly shedding the energy as it first hits.


I don't mean to be to be insulting or anything but too many people spew mathematical formulas without understanding how the math and the matter interact and it results in real world failures.

[ericire12]

The idea that velocity is twice as important as mass is udder nonsense!


I don't mean to be to be insulting or anything but too many people spew mathematical formulas without understanding how the math and the matter interact and it results in real world failures.

First of all..... None taken. 

Secondly..... I was talking about hallow points vs hallow point with regards to my comments that you can get just as much stopping power out of a 9mm as you can from a .40 caliber. There certainly is an inflection points where you lose ft lbs of force when you decrease mass to a certain point.  But, if you are look at the ballistics charts there really is not much diff between 9mm and .40 caliber. Thats why I said that if you need more stopping power and need to go up in caliber, then skip the .40 and jump all the way up to .45

Personally, if I can choose between a 115 gr Corbon 9mm +P that delivers 466 ft/lb at 1350fps vs. a 165 gr Corbon .40 that delivers 485 ft/lbs at 1150 fts then I'd be just fine with the 9mm (Gun weighs less, ammo weighs less, entire carry package weighs less, practice ammo is 10%-20% cheaper)


FYI: .45 Corbons are in the 573 ft/lb range (Thats why I say, if 9mm isnt enough then just go all the way up to .45)

[tombogan03884]

Okay, which do you perfer? (another chance to pick one or the other and tell why lol) If you only had two choices only..the 9mm or the .40 and nothing else, no .45, .380's..nothing, just one of the two..... Last night in the live blog the idea of .40 and 9mm came up. The man, Michael Bane, said that he is not a huge fan of the .40 in general and that he would take a 9mm with trick ammo. I've heard him say similar on the weekly podcasts. And I see his points and where he is coming from.

Well, I kinda almost feel the same, just with the two reversed. I'm not a huge 9mm fan in general, when I can have the .40 as a first choice. I do like 9mm's. I just like .40's better. In, fact all my pistols right are either 9mm's, .40's, or .22LR's. I guess for me I can shoot my .40's just as good or almost as good (if not it's super close always) as my 9mm's. Muzzle-flip/recoil for me is not much different. Yes the 9mm is not quite as much. But, if it is so close..then why not shoot a .40 with a bigger bullet and more ummth.. ? How do ya'll feel. If you can only choose one of the two?  I must also say that I do carry 9mm sometimes and I love 9mm's too.   

P.S. I would also like to give a special thanks for Michael Bane shooting his Glock 19 at Gunsite a couple of days ago. Hopefully, the spirit of Jeff Cooper isn't angry and all is fine now. **I am also glad that he didn't explode while shooting his Glock! 

I think it REALLY comes down to personal preference, just like revolver Vs. semi auto.

[ericire12]

I think it REALLY comes down to personal preference, just like revolver Vs. semi auto.

Yeah, we are really splitting hairs