# 45 ACP Round



## Teuthis (Apr 9, 2008)

The 45 ACP round made its reputation as an effective man-stopper as a military round; hence a "ball" or FMJ round. Hollow point rounds were not a factor then, and have never been so in military usage. Considering the sub-sonic speeds of the 45 ACP round, it is problematic as to whether expansion of hollow point rounds is even a factor to be considered in 45 ACP performance on living targets. 

I am inclined to use FMJ rounds for self defense in my .45 ACP firearms. They function flawlessly in any quality .45 pistol, and they have a proven military record that has endeared the round and the 1911 pistol to generations. 

I am also disinclined to use +P rounds, as I do not think they make enough, or perhaps any significant difference in performance. They also tend to beat up the weapon over time much more than the design really allows. 

After years of experimenting and loading various rounds, I have returned to the basics; military ball.


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## Mike Barham (Mar 30, 2006)

.45 hardball works okay for defense.

.45ACP expansion is no longer problematic. That's old school thinking that doesn't take modern bullet design into account. Modern premium HPs expand at very sedate speeds.

Modern pistols feed HPs fine, and are designed to do so. Glocks, SIGs, S&Ws, etc., all work perfectly fine with .45 HPs. Some 1911s do not work well with HPs, however.

Hardball digs deep, 27+" in gelatin. Perforation of human targets is a serious concern.


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## jeb21 (Jun 10, 2008)

You sound like you have put a lot of thought behind your decision. A couple of points to consider: (a) hollow points are less likely to richochete or over penetrate; (b) most modern firearms feed hollow points very reliably; finally, (c) several studies have shown that hollow points out perform FMJ when it come to one shot stops.


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## popa cap (Jan 18, 2007)

*For your consideration*

Federal's .45 cal 200 gr. Expanding Full Metal Jacket offers the best of both worlds, in my never humble opinion.


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## gmaske (Jan 7, 2008)

I chose the 45ACP as a defense round because of it's reputation. I use HP's but if they don't expand it still leaves a large wound channel. Like the post above says though, modern HP's are a diffrent horse all together than even ten years ago.


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## Baldy (Jun 21, 2006)

I use Speer's Gold Dots 200gr for self defense. It meets my needs just fine.


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## Teuthis (Apr 9, 2008)

Penetration in gelatin posits not striking bone. One of the principle successes in stopping a target is striking bone and breaking it. I remember how the 5.56 round shattered bone; pulverized it. The 45 ACP round will not do that, but it can break bone and penetrate, carrying damaging fragments with it; ala hollowpoints. 

I often wonder how many of the "one-shot stops" have been the effect of the bullet striking bone?

There can be venues in which one might use highly frangible rounds to prevent penetration through walls and such. But those same rounds in 45 ACP, and perhaps other calibers, will possibly fail to penetrate heavy clothing. In combat, the 45 ACP FMJ consistently failed to penetrate military body armor. 

I still maintain that the overall, historical success of the 45 ACP round is the combination of weight, caliber and inertia that ball ammunitions provide. Hollow point rounds can certainly be effective, but I believe ball can be equally effective. 

I believe that the original, designed round for the 45 ACP 1911 was 200 grains. I would love to be able to obtain 200 grain FMJ rounds for self defense but they seem rare. When I handloaded, I made those rounds, but I have not seen them often commercially.


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## Mike Barham (Mar 30, 2006)

Teuthis said:


> Penetration in gelatin posits not striking bone.


I think you're misunderstanding gelatin. It is a compromise medium that attempts to replicate the totality of a a living being, not just the soft tissue. Dr. Martin Fackler helped us standardize on 10% (as opposed to 20%) gelatin for this very reason. San Diego PD, for example, found a close correlation between penetration in 10% gelatin and penetration in people in actual shootings.



> One of the principle successes in stopping a target is striking bone and breaking it.


But in no way can you rely on striking heavy bone. In the main, it's the relatively light rib bones that get hit, and they seem to have little or no effect on bullet performance in actual fights.



> I often wonder how many of the "one-shot stops" have been the effect of the bullet striking bone?


Many, probably. But a HP that penetrates 14" or so will also strike and break bone. It is actually more likely to break bones, because it does not have a rounded nose, which promotes deflection.



> There can be venues in which one might use highly frangible rounds to prevent penetration through walls and such.


No. HPs sail through typical walls just as well as FMJ. Often the nose cavity plugs up and the HP bullet doesn't deform. Glasers and other such gimmick bullets also go through walls and only disintegrate in people.



> But those same rounds in 45 ACP, and perhaps other calibers, will possibly fail to penetrate heavy clothing.


No. All modern service HPs are designed to meet or exceed the FBI ammo testing protocols, which emphasize penetration in gelatin "clothed" in four layers of denim, a tough material that tends to retard penetration.



> In combat, the 45 ACP FMJ consistently failed to penetrate military body armor.


Yes. But how relevant is that? How many street criminals and home invaders are walking around in body armor? FMJ .45 will still sail through an unarmored opponent in many cases.

Massad Ayoob, for example, says that in the actual shooting cases he's reviewed, .45 hardball perforates (overpenetrates) a human target seven times in ten. One incident happened here in my home state of Arizona. Two cops were in a trailer home making an arrest. Crazy offender gets between the two cops, and comes at one cop with a knife. Cops blasts knife wielder at close range with 1911 loaded with hardball. Ball round goes through offender and hits other cop in abdomen. Luckily, both cops survive.



> I still maintain that the overall, historical success of the 45 ACP round is the combination of weight, caliber and inertia that ball ammunitions provide. Hollow point rounds can certainly be effective, but I believe ball can be equally effective.


I don't dispute that .45 ball has been putting bad guys in the ground for a century, and will continue to do so. However, to state that a non-expanding round that is likely to perforate a living target is _just as effective _as a round that stays inside the opponent while expanding to .70+" - thus making a bigger hole and damaging more tissue - is to ignore reality.


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## submoa (Dec 16, 2007)

Gee.... Another magic bullet debate.. again...

First, no level of equipment will compensate for not developing your skills. A .22LR can be lethal in the right hands.



Teuthis said:


> I often wonder how many of the "one-shot stops" have been the effect of the bullet striking bone?


While a bone shot will cause trauma, there is no guarantee of 'stopping' your target, nor that bone will break if hit. Many factors come into play in the real world, the least of which is the bullet's angle of incidence relative to the plane of the bone that defines the amount of energy transfer to the bone.

In the real world, the only true guarantee of stopping your target is to insert bullets until the target stops, either from trauma or an inability to carry the weight of lead lodged in its body.

A handgun is not a sniper rifle. Belief in one shot handgun stopping power will get you killed.



Teuthis said:


> I still maintain that the overall, historical success of the 45 ACP round is the combination of weight, caliber and inertia that ball ammunitions provide.


Ahem... Hollow points are banned from military use. Not being French has more to do with military success than handgun rounds. Furthermore, the primary infantry weapon is a battle rifle. Handguns are last ditch weapons.



Teuthis said:


> Hollow point rounds can certainly be effective, but I believe ball can be equally effective.


HP rounds are banned from military use because they were determined to cause, "unnecessary suffering." Civilians do not have this restriction (except in certain states). In all this talk about "stopping power," what level of suffering should your attacker endure before reaching unneccessary levels? One theory of self defence is to inflict sufficient "suffering" on your attacker to dissuade him from continuing. HPs will do this more effectively than ball.



Teuthis said:


> I believe that the original, designed round for the 45 ACP 1911 was 200 grains.


Based on the experience with the Moros and extensive testing on animals and human cadavers, an Army Ordnance Board headed by Col. John T. Thompson (inventor of the Thompson sub-machine-gun) and Col. Louis A. La Garde, determined that the Army needed a .45 caliber cartridge to provide adequate stopping power. In the mean time, Browning who was working for Colt, had already designed an autoloader pistol, around a cartridge similar in dimension to the .38 Super. When the Army requested designs for a new handgun, Browning re-engineered this .38 autoloader to accommodate a .45" diameter cartridge of his own design with a 230 gr. FMJ bullet, and submitted the pistol to the Army for evaluation. Browning's gun evolved to become the 1911.


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## Teuthis (Apr 9, 2008)

Mike your point about hollow point and frangible rounds penetrating walls is well taken. There is then no real difference in the function of them and ball in that respect. 

I have not denegrated hollow points at all. I have merely proposed that ball can be just as effective in incapacitating a target. 

The bone I was speaking of previously is almost any bone, including enough ribs to penetrate with the rounds; and the spinal column, which ball is more likely to reach. 

I personally think the concept of the one shot stop is so fraught with variables that it is not really a good indicator of what would happen in any specific situation. Ballistic gelatin is also variable and the, algorythms used to account for bone are too averaged for it to be predictive in my opinion. 

I simply do not think that overall, the hollowpoints are going to make as much difference as people assume. Placement is considerably more important than caliber or bullet type.


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## gmaske (Jan 7, 2008)

It would seem that we are starting to get in to splitting hairs here. I think this would be a good place to insert this link as it is good information and maybe some have not read it.
http://www.firearmstactical.com/hwfe.htm
In a gun battle your are going to try as quickly as possible to hit your attacker in the heart lung area as that is what we are all taught to think and do. Realisticly we hope we hit what we intend to. You aren't going to have time to get that perfect sight picture of the third button from the top of the shirt. This is were point shooting comes in to play. I practice a type of point shooting were as soon a the sights are in the black of a target at aproximately 15 yards the gun goes off. If I'm hitting on the 8.5"x11" paper that's good. If I'm hitting in the black that's great. My personal belief is that you make the largest hole in your attacker that you can comfortably shoot and you use a bullet (hollow point) that will hopeful cause the most damage. I have no real problem with .45ACP FMJ hard ball as a defensive round as it will do the job in a pinch. Given a choice I will pick a hollow point that is moving quick enough that it has enough energy to expand and hopefully do its work. If not then we still have a .451 hole for our BG to leak his "Life Juices" from. With handgun ammo you aren't going to have enough energy available to really cause any real hydostatic shock damage like you would get from a rifle. Hopefully you have hit an organ such as the lungs, heart, or major vessals that will cause enough pain and damage to stop your attacker. A lot of the stopping power really comes down to how crazed your attacker is and how much he does or doesn't fear being shot. Blind rage is only stopped when there isn't any energy left in the attacker or you have shorted out his computer.
That's my $0.02 anyway. :watching:


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## Mike Barham (Mar 30, 2006)

Teuthis said:


> I have not denegrated hollow points at all. I have merely proposed that ball can be just as effective in incapacitating a target.


It can be "just as effective" by making a _smaller_ hole that inflicts _less_ damage? 



> I personally think the concept of the one shot stop is so fraught with variables that it is not really a good indicator of what would happen in any specific situation.


Agreed, which is why we shoot multiple times if we can. However, every shot fired with .45 hardball, and its 27+ inches of penetration, increases the chance of perforating the opponent and endangering bystanders on the street or family members in the house. Recall Ayoob's statement about hardball going through-and-through seven times in ten. Even if you get lucky and one shot stays inside the bad guy (perhaps by hitting heavy bone and fortunately not getting deflected), the odds of subsequent shot(s) staying inside are small.



> Ballistic gelatin is also variable and the, algorythms used to account for bone are too averaged for it to be predictive in my opinion.


As I mentioned previously, San Diego PD, among others, has found gelatin very predictive in terms of penetration levels. This isn't opinion, it's empirically observed fact based on many shootings of human beings.



> I simply do not think that overall, the hollowpoints are going to make as much difference as people assume. Placement is considerably more important than caliber or bullet type.


Will HPs make a night-and-day difference in "stopping power" with .45ACP? Maybe not. It may be a marginal difference in many cases, but in other cases the difference between .45-caliber holes (which actually won't even be that wide with a RN bullet) and 70+ caliber holes may make a substantial difference.

More importantly, we can't just be concerned with stopping the bad guys. We have to do our best to ensure the safety of bystanders and family members. Using bullets repeately shown - in both gelatin and in real life shootings - to penetrate excessively is not the best way to ensure that safety.

Shooting people on an old-style battlefield - with their clearly-delinated lines - using penetrative ammo was no big deal. If a bullet sailed through Herr Nazi, great. Maybe it hit his buddy behind him - bonus! But this has little application in crowded modern America, where the unseen person behind your opponent is probably not a combatant. Hitting such a person will not be considered a bonus, unless you define "bonus" as a prison term or a life-ruining lawsuit.


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## DevilsJohnson (Oct 21, 2007)

Baldy said:


> I use Speer's Gold Dots 200gr for self defense. It meets my needs just fine.


+1

Really good round


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## JeffWard (Aug 24, 2007)

No insult... but using hardball for defensive purposes, sounds like an excuse to use a defensive weapon that prefers hardball, and regularly pukes on JHPs.

Teuthis is a huge fan of 1911s right?

I want a 1911... badly. I will own one in a few weeks... But for defensive purposes... Give me a 45ACP XD, Glock, or Sig.

Don't chose your ammo based on your prefered platform. Chose your ammo for it's effectiveness, then chose a weapon that feeds it perfectly, and shoots it accurately.

Yes, .380 or 9mm, or .40 is "sufficient" with modern ammo for defense.
Yes, a FMJ bullet is "sufficient" for defensive purposes, though often dangerously "over-effective" in penetration, regardless of caliber.

But no one has shown me a better handgun round for self defense than a quality, modern, 45ACP JHP. So that's what I carry. I can afford to shoot 45ACP for practice, and I've chosen a gun that nobody would dispute as a first class reliable platform, and I'm very accurate, and reasonably fast with it.

I will no doubt love the accuracy and "romance" of my 1911... but no matter how much I like it... I'll carry a modern, striker-fired, 45ACP, high-capacity handgun as a defensive weapon. Mine happens to be a XD45C.

My 2 cents.

JeffWard


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## submoa (Dec 16, 2007)

JeffWard said:


> I'll carry a modern, striker-fired, 45ACP, high-capacity handgun as a defensive weapon.


Hey Jeff,

I agree with you on what you've said with the possible exception of "striker fired."

With a striker, you are relying on the potential energy of a small spring contained within the slide to drive the firing pin. Almost all hammer fired pistols will hit the primer with greater force than a striker. Therefore between the two, hammers provide more reliable primer hits.


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## TOF (Sep 7, 2006)

submoa said:


> Hey Jeff,
> 
> I agree with you on what you've said with the possible exception of "striker fired."
> 
> With a striker, you are relying on the potential energy of a small spring contained within the slide to drive the firing pin. Almost all hammer fired pistols will hit the primer with greater force than a striker. Therefore between the two, hammers provide more reliable primer hits.


I have fired somewhere in the vicinity of 20,000 rounds of 9MM and .40S&W over the past 2 years. They were fired from XD's and M&P's, both striker fired weapons. I have yet to encounter a light primer hit. They all go boom. Most were Winchester and many CCI primers. None the easy to light Federals.

What will a hammer fired weapon do for me that the XD's and M&P's wont?

Does not a spring provide the energy storage that propells the hammer forward?

Think a moment about how you increase strike force with Hammer Weapons.

Three methods are available.

1. Reduce friction loads on the hammer.
2. Increase spring force (energy storage)
3. Lighten the hammer.

Reducing hammer weight is usualy the easiest method of increasing impact forceas as hammer velocity increase has greater effect on the impact force than increased weight at the original velocity.

Striker fired systems produce High Velocity primer impacts utilizing spring energy storage just as do hammers.

:smt1099


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## submoa (Dec 16, 2007)

http://www.defense-training.com/quips/2006/04Sept06.html said:


> A traditional, arcing hammer will predictably deliver a heaver blow to the chambered cartridge's primer than will a "striker", which is little more than a spring-loaded firing pin. *Many design engineers thus insist that hammer-fired pistols provide inherently more reliable ignition than do striker-fired ones.* However, many trainers insist that a pistol with a hammer that visibly moves as the trigger is pressed is distracting to beginning students who should be learning to watch the front sight.


Differences in primer strike force between hammer and strikers is easily demonstrated with the pencil test.

One fellow years ago tried an simple experiment (that naturally got cat-calls thrown at him by the children in the peanut gallery but he did prove a point with his somewhat simple experiment. He took a Glock and "he claims" dropped a pencil down the barrel and then shot the pencil out of the barrel by pulling the trigger with the pencil resting against the breach face. The firing pin propelled the pencil with a very weak force. He then tried the same thing with a Colt 1911 and Browning High Power. The distance travelled by the pencil was significantly farther.​
When using quality commerical ammunition, differences in performance between striker and hammer primer strikes are negligible. However when using ammo with harder primers (such as military rounds), hammer fired is the way to go. Consequently hammers provide more reliable primer ignition.


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## TOF (Sep 7, 2006)

The difference in energy is a function of the spring force (energy) vs. weight used in a particular mechanism. 2 different hammer designs will also exhibit different strike energy levels.

Hammer or "striker" are both spring driven metallic objects. Either style mechanism can be can be designed to produce more or less energy at end of stroke. They both work well if designed well and that is all that matters.

The only Gun (all inclusive) that I have had soft primer hits with in recent years has been my 6 month old Ruger GP 100, a hammer fired weapon. It required a fair amount of filing and polishing to remove burrs and other friction problems and after 2,000 to 3,000 rounds I consider it reliable with Federal or Remington primers. I still don't trust it with Winchester or CCI primers.

Of course it is not a 1911 either so may not count.

:smt1099


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## submoa (Dec 16, 2007)

Strikers are basically spring-loaded firing pins, generally of a one or two piece construction. In the one piece striker, the striker is turned on a lathe out of a round bar of metal, much larger in diameter than a firing pin, to provide the mass required to detonate the primer. Two piece strikers generally consist of a firing pin attached to a heavier rear section--in essence a hammer attached to the base of a firing pin. Two piece strikers are commonly found on bolt action rifles, while single piece strikers are found on pistols, such as those made by Glock.

I agree with TOF's methods for increasing firing pin energy by lightening the hammer and firing pin to achieve greater velocity. However in striker designs, the mass required by the striker to detonate the primer establishes a lower limit on weight reduction, often spring rate change is the only mod available with a subsequent effect on the trigger.

Furthermore, velocity is the result of acceleration over a distance. Given the shorter distance a striker must operate, strikers are more sensitive to changes in friction and spring weight than hammers.

By extension, the tight tolerances of striker fired designs makes them very sensitive to variations in ammuntion. Get a primer seated high in the case and a striker may FTF where a hammer would have ignition.

Again, with regular maintenance and quality commercial ammunition most folks would never see a difference between the two. But hammer fired pistols are more tolerant of dirt and poor quality ammo.

FWIW, my vote goes to subsonic 230gr JHPs and 1911 w/o FPB for SD.


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