Well guys, here we go again
The best way I have found to describe the differnces is to retell
The actual History of how these bullets came in to exisistance
See, .45acp .40S&W and 9MM parabelum are all made by people
And they where selected for specific reasons
These reasons where important to the persons concerned
First
Lets start with the 9mm Parabellum which means[for war]
originally used in the Luger pistol in 1908
The original caliber the Luger was in was .30 luger
This was enlarger to 9mm
The reason that the dimensions are what they are is that the .30 luger cartrige has the same head size and the case was just expanded to 9mm makeing a near straight wall case
.30 luger being bottleneck
This was easier to do since there was less machine tools to change.
The .30 luger is a rather poor performing pistol cartrige
The 9mm performed better.
IMHO
Second
.40 S&W this is a cut down 10mm requested by the FBI
Their Idea was to get better than 9mm performance and higher that .45 acp capacity in a full size duty weapon
So ya go from 15 to 18 rounds with 9mm
To 10 to 14 rounds with 40s&w
as apposed to 7 to 9 rounds of .45 acp [back then with the pistols avalible in that day] The 10mm cartrige was to hard on the guns and hard for new shooters to master
Third
The .45 acp [auto colt pistol]
This cartrige [bullet/velocity/diameter/weight combo was
Tested empirically by U.S. army ordinance engineers at the turn of the century in the slaughterhouses of Chicago Illonois
They would fire different sized bullets of differing weights at differing velocitys into liveing animals then cut open the animals and observe the differences in actual damage to muscle,bone, and softer structures in the bodies of the test subjects.
What they found was that a 230 grain .45 cal bullet traveling at approxamatly 800 fps will consistantly cause the most damage in liveing tissue.
As you can guess a testing regamin such as described would be far to politically sensative in modern times.
Yet we dont have to go back and Re test the results are still the same now as they where a hundred years ago.
even longer if you count the old .45 long colt
see, I guess the cowboys had it right all along
A .45 cal bullet at aproxamatley 800 fps still works best
This of course is all just my humble opinion and recollection of what I have read and my personal experience.
It has taken me a while to realize that perfection in firearms was reached about a century ago.
There really hasnt been anything new other than construction materials in about a hundred years.
When you look at What a firearm actually does nothing has changed
I have a 1903 colt autoloader that works just as good today as it did 99years ago
It also works just as good today as the newest design pocket pistol does.
see there isnt anything new and probably wont be until guns start going ZAP instead of BANG!
IMHO
The best way I have found to describe the differnces is to retell
The actual History of how these bullets came in to exisistance
See, .45acp .40S&W and 9MM parabelum are all made by people
And they where selected for specific reasons
These reasons where important to the persons concerned
First
Lets start with the 9mm Parabellum which means[for war]
originally used in the Luger pistol in 1908
The original caliber the Luger was in was .30 luger
This was enlarger to 9mm
The reason that the dimensions are what they are is that the .30 luger cartrige has the same head size and the case was just expanded to 9mm makeing a near straight wall case
.30 luger being bottleneck
This was easier to do since there was less machine tools to change.
The .30 luger is a rather poor performing pistol cartrige
The 9mm performed better.
IMHO
Second
.40 S&W this is a cut down 10mm requested by the FBI
Their Idea was to get better than 9mm performance and higher that .45 acp capacity in a full size duty weapon
So ya go from 15 to 18 rounds with 9mm
To 10 to 14 rounds with 40s&w
as apposed to 7 to 9 rounds of .45 acp [back then with the pistols avalible in that day] The 10mm cartrige was to hard on the guns and hard for new shooters to master
Third
The .45 acp [auto colt pistol]
This cartrige [bullet/velocity/diameter/weight combo was
Tested empirically by U.S. army ordinance engineers at the turn of the century in the slaughterhouses of Chicago Illonois
They would fire different sized bullets of differing weights at differing velocitys into liveing animals then cut open the animals and observe the differences in actual damage to muscle,bone, and softer structures in the bodies of the test subjects.
What they found was that a 230 grain .45 cal bullet traveling at approxamatly 800 fps will consistantly cause the most damage in liveing tissue.
As you can guess a testing regamin such as described would be far to politically sensative in modern times.
Yet we dont have to go back and Re test the results are still the same now as they where a hundred years ago.
even longer if you count the old .45 long colt
see, I guess the cowboys had it right all along
A .45 cal bullet at aproxamatley 800 fps still works best
This of course is all just my humble opinion and recollection of what I have read and my personal experience.
It has taken me a while to realize that perfection in firearms was reached about a century ago.
There really hasnt been anything new other than construction materials in about a hundred years.
When you look at What a firearm actually does nothing has changed
I have a 1903 colt autoloader that works just as good today as it did 99years ago
It also works just as good today as the newest design pocket pistol does.
see there isnt anything new and probably wont be until guns start going ZAP instead of BANG!
IMHO
