Caliber Of Argument

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

When President Obama and Candidate Hillary succeed in imposing their Australian plans to confiscate pistols and ban ammunition, dealers in banned substances will have an easier time supplying their customers: everyone will use the same caliber ammunition.  “Hey man, I’ll take some weed, a couple hits of coke and throw in a box of nines.”   One stop shopping, like having a Wal-Mart in the trunk of a tricked-out Buick.  Handy.

Let’s not kid ourselves, we know what’s at work here and it has nothing to do with ballistic science.

John Browning gave the world true pistol stopping power when he invented the .45 ACP and nothing invented since is as effective at delivering raw knock-down power in a controllable low maintenance hand-held package.

But it takes a big hand to wrap around the .45, a strong grip to control it, and strong will to calmly place 7 shots in vital spots rather than spray-and-pray in a panic.  The .45 is fine for well-trained soldiers which is why special forces love it; not so good for small FBI chicks which is why the feds first adopted the watered-down .40 S&W and now are going to the even softer 9mm.

I don’t dispute that modern 9mm home defense hollow points work better than 9mm military ball ammo.  They should: they’re designed for a different purpose.  The military round wounds a guy so his buddies must carry him to the field medics, taking three soldiers out of a battle that my soldiers then win by attrition.  The home-defense round puts a guy on the floor now, because I have no soldiers and can’t afford to suffer any attrition.  So sure, the modern 9mm self-defense round works better than the old 9mm military round.  But is it better enough to switch down from the .40 S&W, must less the venerable .45 ACP?

Let the argument begin.

Joe Doakes

The amount of training it takes to overcome the natural human response to an adrenaline dump is amazing – and they’re finding out that people who get through selection for units like the SEALs, Delta, the SAS and the like are born with a biochemical trait that allows them to drive, rather than be driven by, adrenaline.

All by way of saying – being a regular schlub who is most definitely driven by adrenaline, I’ll take a big magazine over big caliber.

If I have to choose.

Which, currently I do not.

And let’s us good guys and gals all bear down and keep it that way.

6 thoughts on “Caliber Of Argument

  1. I love my wife’s 1911. I got it for her one Mother’s Day in honor of the Million Mom March.

  2. I will simply observe that I can put more hits into center of mass from my G17 than I can from my buddy’s G23. And it costs MUCH less to practice. YMMV.

  3. an ex-navy buddy has a M1911 that is great fun to shoot and surprisingly accurate at 30 yrds (5″ grouping – good for me, I’ve seen others do better ) but was always a bruiser on the hand. He mentioned it to a mutual gunsmith friend who said “let me have it for a couple weeks, I bet I can fix that” – sure enough he disassembled it , fully deburred and polished it, lowered the ejection port, polished the throat and feed ramp (better for hollow points), made some slight mods to the lower barrel lugs and to the recoil spring, added a full length guide rod, and its a dream to shoot. Still has strong recoil but doesn’t pound your had the way it used to

  4. For off body carry – Glock model 17.
    For on-body carry – Glock model 42, in .380 Auto. Really! Awesome for on-body carry; you can actually, well, conceal it.

  5. Word of caution to everyone – do not, absolutely do not modify action of a gun you intend to carry. No matter how right you may be during an altercation, you will be thrown in jail and the key will be fed to a Chihuahua. Sights, grips, accessories are OK, but never action. Don’t test the cops on this one, you won’t win.

  6. I have a perfect compromise for carry, my .45 Boberg. Small, yet accurate and very manageable (actually more so than my .45 Kimber Carry Pro), and yes, expensive, and yes, made in White Bear. I have a 9mm Boberg as well and actually like shooting .45 better. And yes, I can shoot my G21 with a 9mm barrel much more accurately at the range, but for SD, I don’t need to worry about grouping at 5 yards.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.