Caliber wars won: 9mm vs 10mm

TexDefender said:

I find these things more humorous than anything. If you like a 9mm, use it. If you like 10mm use it. If you like a .45 use it. If you fire something and don't like it, then the odds are you will not use it. If you don't use it, how will you become proficient with it?

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TexDefender said:

I find these things more humorous than anything. If you like a 9mm, use it. If you like 10mm use it. If you like a .45 use it. If you fire something and don't like it, then the odds are you will not use it. If you don't use it, how will you become proficient with it?

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Biggfoot44 said:

Never Mind 9 vs 10 , go up to 11 ! ( Firearms humor, combined with movie reference )


Once a floor of * Reasonably Adaquate * is reached , incremental improvements in more better- er caliber/ ammunition become just one factor in a multitude of factors .

Single incidents can be highly influential , if that single data point happens to be you , but one incident by itself is not statistically significant . That said , another takeaway from that situation would be a desire to go even bigger , not smaller .

The round involved in the influencial failures to stop with drugged up Moros was the .38 Long Colt, not the .38 Special . S&W developed the .38 Special in response to the shortcomings of the .38LC . The original loading of the Special was nominal 21.5gr of BP , vs the nominal 18gr of the Long Colt .

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Cold Steel said:

Like lightsabers. Never did understand why they were so popular. "An elegant weapon for a more civilized age!"

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Cold Steel said:

Like lightsabers. Never did understand why they were so popular. "An elegant weapon for a more civilized age!"

Yeah, right!

I'm with Han. "I'll take a good blaster, any day, kid!" The key word was good. Those Imperial blasters missed a lot, didn't they? It took the Force to make the lightsabers work like they did and it took CGI via Industrial Light and Magic to make the blasters not work.

With the technology it took to run those magnificent cities in STAR WARS and they couldn't even come up with a decent phaser! Imagine. They could do ballistics gel with it all day long and never once hit it!

Seriously, though, the faith one has in one's weapon has a great deal to do with it, I think. I had a friend who came ashore on the same beach in the Philippines that General MacArthur did, and only a few days later. Sadly, there were no photographers there when he came ashore, and as he did so, this wirey little Moro came charging out of the jungle waving a machete over his head and hollering as he came. My friend pulled his .45 automatic from his holster and shot that Moro full in the chest.

Now the .45 was specifically designed to stop those little guys because the .38 Specials weren't getting the job done, and according to the press release it supposedly dropped anything on two legs. Only this diminutive Moro didn't get his copy, because he kept right on coming! My friend never got a chance to fire a second shot because he either didn't have the time or his gun jammed. At any rate, he brought the gun's muzzle down on the native's head and dropped him in the water. "Not only that," my friend told me, "the little bastard lived to make a full recovery!"

My friend was no worse for wear, but he never put any faith in the .45 auto from then on. And though I'm no fan of the .45, not by a long shot, I wouldn't exactly feel naked wearing one. Yes, I reminded him that the .38 that the .45 replaced was far worse, but he was willing to use logic to assess that. Technology had made the .38 better by making it faster, lighter and more efficient. He was not willing to give those same points to the .45 because, as he saw it, the .45's chief claim to fame was it's diameter. And making it lighter end faster just didn't much matter with a big, fat, stupid bullet. It would always be bigger and slower than the .38 Spc and its glorious big brother, the Brilliant .357 Magnificent Magnum. And that was that, now and forever, amen.

So no one was ever able to change his mind, nor would I try. He was convinced the .45, with its number one claim to fame, its girth, had let him down when he needed it the most. So if he subsequently felt the 9mm, .38 and .357s were all he needed, then I'm sure that worked for him the rest of his life.

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