9mm Luger via a LEO's perspective

[gottabkiddin]

Thank you for the time and effort to post this very informative information... It's always nice to hear from the experts in the field.. IMO, you guys are worth your weight in gold...

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[TonyDTrigger]

Vey comprehensive review.. I use the 9mm and the 10mm. I never liked the .40. Of couse I understand everyone's skill level with different calibers is different.

[Lyndo]

I spend probably too much time on the range, if there is such a thing. I have found that I can hit quickly and accurately with my rounds of choice, .357 SIG and .45 ACP, so that is what I carry. I carried a 9mm for several years and would have no problem doing it again, I just feel like the rounds I chose give me a slight advantage.

[Archie]

Officer Wolfe, I appreciate your efforts as a police officer. I’m retired from federal law enforcement and I honor all those who stand between chaos and civilization. I will pray for you and your work.
Having said that, if I were your superior, you’d re-write this report from the beginning.

I have no videos, pdf links, official sounding documents, or a doctor on standby to support what I am about to say.

That I believe without question.

I … have 8 years as a police officer … 5 years of patrol, for the past 3 years I have been assigned to the crime scene unit (CSI) and have real world experience with seeing people who are DRT (dead right there) from gunshot wounds.

So, your experience is with people who are already dead. Not living, fighting, hostile people, but corpses. Okay, nothing new yet. Nearly all the self-appointed ‘experts’ in the field deal with dead bodies.

1. I used to be a diehard .45 ACP fanboy…

Translated into the common tongue, you never were much of a shooter and you bought a .45 ACP pistol thinking it was magical and would make up for your inadequacy. You admit this inadequacy when you later in this paragraph decline to practice more in order to learn to shoot properly.
You are correct in that the .45 ACP cartridge is magical. It isn’t. It is merely the best of all the semi-automatic self-defense rounds available.

… until we started training "realistically."

Lord preserve us from ‘realistic’ training.

We are now required to shoot in various positions, which include 2 handed isosceles stance, 1 hand-strong hand shooting, and 1 hand-weak hand (I am right handed so forced to shoot with left only). We shoot straight on target, from behind cover such as the patrol car's engine block, and from prone behind a curb.

Yeah, I especially like the ‘prone behind a curb’ position. So realistic.

Ranges are anywhere from 25 yards out to point blank.

I wonder if you have any clue what the term ‘point blank’ means? Your statement here means you do not shoot at any range LESS than 25 yards.

I can't hit crap beyond 7 yards with 1 hand-weak hand, shooting a .45 ACP.

Which confirms my earlier comment about you not being much of a shooter.

It feels heavy, wobbly, and awkward.

To be honest, it did to me too. Until I started working at it.

I can get better with practice but why risk my life to this phenomenon.

Yeah. Sure.

2. A .40 S&W has more recoil thus slower, ACCURATE follow-ups than the 9mm or .45 ACP.

Nope. I have two handguns in 9x19 caliber, two in .40 S&W and – hmmm – several more in .45 ACP. The statement you make is untrue. Not just untrue, but nonsense.

This is a fact and why I do not like .40 S&W.

It is a fallacy based on the inadequate opinion of an inadequate shooter. At this point, your opinion is pretty much drawn from your imagination.

3. In "Top Cop" competitions hosted by my dept., it's ALWAYS the 9mm LEOs that win those things. Better control, faster follow-up shots, more accurate "high stress" bullet placement.

One wonders how the competitions are designed. If the shooting problems all require multiple shot bursts for winning scores, I can see why the 9x19 shooters win. I’ve shot in many competitions that were designed around a high capacity, low recoil pistol rather than actual situations.

Having said all this, I recently sold my SF XD 45 and bought a GLOCK 17 Gen4 9mm.

Oh, my stars and garters! He’s gone from a“.45 fanboy’ to a ‘Glock fanboy’! Gads.

He talks about how a .45 HP failed to penetrate heavy clothing and reach the heart of a shooting recipient. So? There are cases of criminals being shot in the chest with a load of 00 buckshot and outrunning the officer who shot them. Sooner or later, everything happens; meaning, everything fails.
The man shot fifteen or more times with various calibers and finally stopped with a shot from a .38 Special? So? There are instances of the same thing happening and the shootee finally being dispatched with a single round from a .32 ACP pistol. Without context, the full story of the incident, the information is meaningless. To explain, the circumstance I cited happened in the Second World War; a French resistance fighter was cornered by a German infantry squad and shot multiple times. He was finished off by the officer accompanying the squad shooting the Frenchman in the back of the head.
I’ve heard the fifteen shots or more story several times with the final ‘stopping’ shot being delivered by a .45 ACP, a .38 Special, a 9x19 and several others. It’s probably been true in most of those cases. But the reality is, a person who has been shot multiple times is fading by any standard.

Here’s another good, meaningless bit of ‘evidence’:

I have seen some cheap 9mm ammo that was a 1 hit stop after Joe-Thug shot John-Thug in the heart...DRT.

Yup. No doubt Joe-Thug obtained some 9x19 FMJ ammo from somewhere, approached John-Thug and shot him center chest at cussing distance without warning. No doubt John-Thug died from the interference caused to the heart.
Does this recommend the 9x19 round as a manstopper? No, it doesn’t. How long did John-Thug cling to life after being shot? Did he knife Joe-Thug as the final item on his bucket list? Is this a ‘self-defense’ shooting in the legitimate sense of the word? (“He’d have killed me if he had the chance!” is not normally considered legitimate self defense.)

That’s enough. I could dismantle the rest of the silliness in the original post, but why bother? If one looks long enough, one finds all sorts of anomalies in every facet of human conduct; including self-defense shootings.

Take it for what it's worth from a "real world" cop with CSI experience.

Officer Wolfe, I hope you process evidence and write reports better than this posting shows; I truly hope you know more about evidence handling, writing reports and court testimony than you do about handguns and shooting.

[10thmtn]

Popcorn...where is the popcorn?

Ah, here it is!

[RevolvingMag]

ANY bullet, ANY caliber could potentially be a 'one shot kill'. It's all about shot placement. If you're under fire, the only thing you can really do is hope that you make it count.

My 12ga Remington could be the gun that makes a one shot kill on the guy coming in the door unwanted. Or, (in my opinion) it would more likely be from one of my .45ACPs. Or my .357Mag. Or even from my .22lr Savage rifle.

There is one 'magic bullet', or even 'magic caliber' that will make the difference- the caliber that you shoot best.

[gunthorp]

So, let me get this right. If I use a 12 ga w/slugs in the house, an AR10 308 outside, and a 45 on the street, am I a fanboy times three?

[gottabkiddin]

You are correct in that the .45 ACP cartridge is magical. It isn’t. It is merely the best of all the semi-automatic self-defense rounds available.

No, it's second best... The .357 magnum is the best...

[rstanek]

Do you mean I should carry more then one bullet in my shirt pocket? LOL

There are an infinite amount of possibiltys of a bad situation happening, I am far from being an expert, but I will do everything I can to have the edge needed to defend my family. I try to use good coman sense on what it would take to do this, but nothing is fool proof. Just my 2 cents...

practice, practice, practice.

[CDWolfe]

Normally I do not respond to vultures who have nothing better to do than to try and pick someone apart. However, I will do a little follow up regarding "Archie" and his post.

ASSumptions are no way to try and prove a point or win a debate. That usually wind up making you look foolish. Apparently you missed the part where I said these were random thoughts typed out. I was unaware I was back in college taking English 102 and had to have correct grammar and proper format.

I also never said I was a range instructor and came up with the curb cover training exercise. The point behind the exercise was that going prone behind a curb was better than not having any cover at all. Any "former" law enforcement officer should have recognized that instantly.

I also never stated whether or not I was involved with shootings. I was just citing things I have seen. I do not talk about my cases, especially if they are still pending.

To say I am not a shooter is a stretch considering I have won Top Cop competitions, am prior military 11 Bravo (army infantry), reload my own ammo and shoot constantly, and am comfortable shooting any caliber. What I said was that I was not that good shooting 1 handed shots with my weak hand (left hand) as I had never trained that way and it was an eye opener. I learned my limitations and adjusted accordingly. Again, any prior LEO should have recognized that as well.

Realistic training is designed to get you thinking outside of the box. This is why we use simunition now during exercises. I guess you're just a tad too old to have enjoyed modern training techniques.

The 25 yards to point blank might have been missing a comma, but again, I was unaware I was in E 102.

Yes, 9mm have less recoil than a .45 and much less than a .40, and as a result a 9mm has faster, accurate follow up shots...this has been proven numerous times over so I won't even bother trying to explain it to a dinosaur who is dead set in his ways. I am not talking about some expert competition shooter who has a fine tuned pistol.

I chose the GLOCK after firing several different pistols. The GLOCK had the best "feel" to me, which is the main reason I went with it. Ridicule me if you want for choosing what I was the most comfortable with.

I think you missed the main theme behind my original post. It's not about caliber, it's about control and being able to hit the target in order to stop the threat. Don't bother trying to fire back; I'll be ignoring your posts from now on because I have no time for those who try and put others down for no reason other than they are full of ASSumptions and have nothing better to do to make themselves feel high and mighty.

Cheers.

[JaySkiBum]

Sometimes it just doesn't matter what the argument is, some people will do everything in their power to pick it apart. Whether either opinion is right or wrong doesn't really matter to some, and sometimes both opinions can be "correct".


Anyways, I like my 9mm with 147gr rounds. My experience is very limited in handgun calibers so I'll just leave it at that.

[Aiko]

Hold the butter please

Popcorn...where is the popcorn?

Ah, here it is!

[OldVet]

Now we're cooking.... I've got dibs on the front row seat.

[livewire]

Normally I do not respond to vultures who have nothing better to do than to try and pick someone apart. However, I will do a little follow up regarding "Archie" and his post.

And here you are, clicking "post".

Welcome to the forum. Please remember that opinions are like... well you get the picture.

In my case, I have Springfield XDs in .40, one Service (4") and one Subcompact (3"). I take followup shots with it far faster than I think is necessary for defensive purposes... though I did shoot a 9mm version of the subcompact once, and the followups were faster.

I just got my hands on a Kahr 9mm pocket gun. I went with that over .40 because I figured recoil would make a much bigger difference. My LGS owner has a PM40, and confirmed that, he said if he were buying it again, he'd buy a 9mm himself.

The one thing that might get me carrying a full size 9mm in the future is magazine capacity over my .40s. A full size .40 carries between 12 and 14 rounds, and a full size 9mm carries 15-20... that's a lot of extra shots, especially since I carry two mags. Then again, what are the real odds of a civilian getting into a protracted shootout? Pretty slim, AFAIK.

[Super J]

Thanks for sharing your experiences and views. Please do not be deterred by those that disagree with you and attack your viewpoints.

Stay safe and thanks for your service.