9mm vs .45 ACP: Which Is Better? (Rob Leatham Settles the Debate)

65 Comments

1. Lefties strike again You tube account terminated

2. No I think a better analogy would be, comparing a golf ball and a regulation baseball. Besides, penetration is overrated. The bullet only has to travel 5 to 6 inches into center mass before it hits something that keeps you alive. A bullet that is much lighter traveling marginally faster when it meets resistance is going to slow down much faster than a larger bullet traveling marginally slower.

3. 9mm is more comfortable to shoot, but .45 is much more powerful and yet still comfortable to shoot. Speed of the bullet is an irrelevant argument because the time it takes a 9mm bullet to travel the same distance as a .45 bullet 30 feet is only infinitesimally quicker. There is no argument between the merits of 9 mm versus 45 caliber. 45 caliber is superior, but only marginally. Comparing 9mm to .380 cal would also apply in this scenario, It’s all about who gets off the first shot and who’s better at bullet placement. That’s all that matters. Anything else is just hyperbole and theory, and justification for why you bought the caliber of gun you did.

4. I wonder how many people Mr Nibs has actually shot.? You know paper and steel and watermelons and rocks and squirrels DON”T shoot back. The answer to the question lives in cadavers, not on paper targets.. World wide the 9mm has killed lots of people. Part of that is due to a lack of 45’s. It was an interesting read. just don’t take it seriously cause the writer expertise is faulty. As for me I’ve shot a lot of paper and steel, and a few people along the way too.

5. Momentum and power are very different. It doesn’t take magic to figure it out.
   Momentum, as stated, is mass times velocity.
   Power is measured in joules per second and tells how quickly work was done. The joule is a measure of energy – the ability to do work. One way to calculate energy is (mass times velocity times velocity) divided by 2, which called kinetic energy – the ability to do work in the form of motion.

   Also, “best” is too general a term to try to prove or settle. Best in what circumstance? Steel targets? Paper targets? Human threats? What matters for human threats is what happens after impact. Does it make an entry hole, neat little tunnel, and exit hole? Or does it transfer all its kinetic energy to the threat? Human are not made of steel.

   1. I don’t know about you but when I buy a gun for self defense I’m not thinking about paper targets and metal gongs. .45 cal is superior but only marginally superior.

6. Sr Rob has carefully constructed a paper dragon with a tattoo of a red herring on it. People want to inflict their opinion on others in the macho shooting world because they seek validation for their personal choices of equipment, caliber, holster and so on. Switch worlds to say, skiing. An Olympic skier on crappy narrow 20 year old skis wrapped in a bear skin rug will destroy an intermediate skier on the best set ups wearing a Prado racing suit. Right? So unless your a super fancy pistolario / operator dude (tet) get training regularly, shoot whatever caliber you shoot best, in a holster that is so comfortable you just want to carry every day every where.

7. will need tougher bad guys,,, Both bullets go right through,,, Shot placement,, is the answer

8. To get back to the baseball analogy… The bat exchanges energy with the ball. Not all of its energy, granted, because the bat doesn’t stop dead in its tracks upon hitting, but approximately 50% of it. The ball leaves faster than the bat because it already had velocity on its own before impact.

   Would you rather be hit by two fast travelling ball, or by the slower bat? Same energy…. Pick one.

   Not saying that one caliber is better than the other, just saying that “energy” in bullets is vastly overrated. I’m in the business of killing dangerous things, and in the hunting world the debate “fast/light vs. big/slow” is even older than both the 9mm and the .45. Yet, when it comes to the truly dangerous large animals (elephant, hippo, buffalo), every single professional I know choses a big, relatively slow caliber.

   These are people who put their life on the line hundreds of times every year, who get to actually kill things that want to kill them, and to autopsy them, with figures in the high double-digits every year. They make their choices based on what they see in real life, not based on paper ballistics and Internet wisdom.

   Now, I personally carry a 9mm, even though I love the .45. Simple factors: I can get ammo easily, I can afford to shoot a lot with it, and I can get more proficient with my gun in 9mm. But still… I’d rather hear the “Thud!” from a .45 hitting home the day I really need that…

9. My Rebuttal Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWnd3QsChrY

10. I don’t want to be shot with either

11. When I’m bowling my bowling ball makes 2600 power factor. That way more powerful than a 45.

12. forget them both, .357! Long ago remember seeing a comparison done with ballistics gel. The 9mm went further than the .45. The “damage” done to the gel was greater with the .45. The .357 was about equal to the .45, although it had a little more momentum. BUT, it still comes down to carrying the gun that you will use and the .45 is just too big for some people.

13. A well reasoned lucid presentation. Thank you.

14. You noticed that Rob didn’t mention the 40 cal.
    This is physics, the 45 density and weight and recoil is much more so therefore the weight of the 45 bullet once is reaches a certain velocity will strike with more power.
    The 9x19mm has less weight so the recoil is less but one should consider what power factor is necessary to stop a human. If I’m a soldier that cannot carry more than 3lbs of pistol ammo to remain light so I can run 5miles the 9mm may be better than the 45 simply because of weight.
    Now let’s speed the 9mm billet up just a bit, the 9x21mm pistol Cartridge may have almost the same power factor as 45 with less bullet weight simply because of bullet speed. Which is more powerful 357mag or the 45acp?
    The weight of the 45acp and ammunition hurt this caliber when carrying it for miles or days on in.

15. I agree with him. But shot placement is everything with any caliber.

16. If I smack you with a 3# hammer or a 12# hammer, what hurts more?

    1. Both would hurt equally bad. And depending where you hit the person more than likely fatal. Same thing applys to 9mm-.45cal. It’s much ado about nothing. Placement of your shot and whether who got the first hit is all that counts. If your adversary has a 44 Magnum and he shoots you in the leg and you have a 380 caliber and you shoot him Center Mass or in the Golden Triangle he’s dead and you’re more than likely alive. So size of bullet has little or nothing to do with it.

17. I shoot both , the 9mm , as well as the 45acp , and from my experience , Rob is correct . Already been proven in several tests . Try looking up a video from Iraqi Vet 88 , on YouTube . He has several videos , where he shoots both the 9 , and the 45ACP , at different distances , to show what each caliber can do .

18. Love it!! Completely agree! Great demonstration!

19. Without even watching I say 9mm is better in every way except Fun Factor.
    45 is more fun.

20. You made me a believer!

21. Interesting perspective by someone that shoots paper extremely well.

    Hitting a metal target to knock it over is different than hitting soft tissue.
    Sorry Rob, good perspective, but inaccurate base of information.

22. I agree.

23. I like it. The issue of momentum can be a factor in stopping an attack.

24. The day you can shoot better than him, I might believe you.

25. Great shooter, not a great physicist. And shooting is a matter of physics.

    1. Mike you are so right…. A Ford fiesta going 115 mph hits so much harder than a Ford F150 doing 90 mph… Its all about physics right…

26. The way look at it is like this: 9mm was designed for speed and penetration power, where as .45 was designed for stopping power. It’s like comparing the baseball to the bat, both part of the same game, both effective but very different.

    1. No I think a better analogy would be, comparing a golf ball and a regulation baseball. Besides, penetration is overrated. The bullet only has to travel 5 to 6 inches into center mass before it hits something that keeps you alive. A bullet that is much lighter traveling marginally faster when it meets resistance is going to slow down much faster than a larger bullet traveling marginally slower.

27. Hey G&G. I didn’t hear the word ‘better’ in this cool video.

28. What would be the best buy in a a45 acp pistil.

29. Spot on. Not to mention a lager hole.

30. Such ridiculous fanboyism. It’s not about how steel targets react to different calibers, it’s about wound ballistics.

31. Aged champion does not a terminal ballistics expert make.
    Go home, Rob. There’s a Harvey Fierstein look-alike contest that’s missing you.

32. Only problem with that test, is that I haven’t ever been assaulted by a steel target. I would believe a test with ballistics gel, as being more realistic, when considering a self defense firearm. Which round better penetrates heavy clothing? Which provides the better wound channel? Its obvious that a heavier bullet would knock down a metal target, which is not the same as internal damage.

33. More momentum. If a .45 caliber doesn’t have more momentum than a 9mm I WOULD SAY he was wrong. I watched the video, regarding momentum, he proved his point.

34. a very good explanation!….

35. Spot on , that’s why I carry one ….

36. A thought. Shot placement is critical to stop an assailant. The center line of a human, for most part from the chest and up, is where the shot needs to go to quickly stop an attacker. Most people can shoot a 9×19 faster than a .40 or a .45. Which means that the follow-up shot will be faster with a typical 9. My understanding is that this fact, also adding extra rounds in the magazine with the 9×19 are the main reasons for FBIs change from .40 to 9×19. Cost might be an issue also, I still shoot .40, 2011:s, since 2003, in competitions. But for self defense/carry I will use a 9×19, for reasons stated above. If the gun will be used for larger target, say as a last resort when hunting bear, 10 mm Auto would be my first choice, because of much greater penetration and still rather shootable.

37. 1/2 mass times velocity squared = energy .

38. …capacity.

39. Rob hit the nail on the head!!!! .45 all the way.

40. You are right. The 45 has more momentum. If Im ever in a self defense situation where Im attacked by over sprung steel pop up silhouette targets….. The 45 is my caliber.

    All kidding aside… Momentum is not the end all be all for a self defense round. Penetration, barrier performance, wound channel primary and secondary, magazine capacity, exansion reliability, etc, all play a role. To flatly say one cartridge is better in all situtions for all fierarms for all shooters is narrowminded at best.

    I think the main question in 45 vs 9mm debate is the trade off between marginally better energy peformance of 45 versus the higher round count of the 9mm. If your comfortable carrying 10 rounds per mag or less, carry a 45. If you are concerned about multiple armed attackers or just want higher mag capacity, carry the 9mm. But in either cartridge, carry quality SD rounds. Leave the ball ammo for the range.

41. 45 ACP = muzzle energy on target. I’ll take that over capacity any day. And depending on the pistol I can have high capacity in 45 too.

42. He said it at the end…. “cost, ease, capacity, training, balance, shootability…..” Power or stopping power? Doesn’t matter if a .45 “hits harder” if the wound channel and shot placement is what causes a physiological stoppage. If you want to knock down steel in a match, .45acp is fine. If you want to stop a threat by getting rapid accurate hits and having enough left in the gun to deal with multiple adversaries, 9mm is great. I carry a .40 however because it is what I am trained on and I think it has the best of both worlds.

43. Oh man… My Buddy Rob Leatham seems very worked up about this. I may have to do a “rebuttal” video this evening… of course, I would never argue that .45 isn’t more powerful, simply that “momentum” isn’t enough of a factor to justify carrying it for personal defense over 9mm. I didn’t always feel this way and used to be a big fan of the .40S&W. I’ve commented on the “caliber debate” many times in the past… but, since I kinda got called out, I will go through this again.
    #9mmforpersonaldefense #physicsandcontext #worldscollide

44. I posted this reply in Rob’s Facebook update, but I liked it enough to post here.
    Rob, you make a very “powerful” argument, with empirical display, of how the .45 ACP beats the 9 mm in power. Personally I can shoot both and perhaps the .45 more accurately. The compromise is that 9 mm has higher capacity and all those things you mentioned. I carry 147 grn +P HST. I will not carry a Glock 21 as EDC due to its size. I love my Colt 1911 XSE, but weight and capacity, :(. May need to look at Glock 30 Gen4 and carry larger magazines for backup/reloads, All this to say, I hate you (but only because logic and reason may force me to get another gun). Regards!

45. He sure is….wrong. I suppose if you compare a .45 with a 5 inch barrel to a compact 9 mm he has a point. But the .45 is pretty slow even in the better loads…like the .38 it can’t afford to lose the precious small amount of velocity it gets from a service length barrel. The 9mm CAB afford it better because it has sooooo much more to begin with.

46. Spoken like a guy who cant handle the recoil of a 45.

47. Personally, I have more control with the .45 but I do use both for target and carry. Just my .02

48. Rob might be a good shooter but he’s all wrong on the caliber debate.

    1. Nope, he’s dead to rights on this. The .45 is more powerful and it will always be more powerful. If you think that the 9mm is good enough or you can’t handle the momentum on the back end of the 45 (recoil) and want to take your chances with the 9 that’s your choice

    2. Rob is explaining about momentum of the calibers. If you are driving a 3/4 ton truck get hit by a little civic going 25 mph not much damage. Now I’m the same truck get hit by a train an probably not going to walk away. That’s what he means by the difference in heavy an light bullets. What the bullet does after it hits is a totally different subject than what he is talking about.

    3. Haha haha hahahahahahahahahahahaha

    4. He proved that a .45 has more knock down power than a 9mm.

    5. Ok, why?

    6. You took the bait, David…hee!

    7. Agree. He is using Momentum to define knock down power and not Striking force which is Mass X velocity squared. Then also to knock down steel maybe but to disable an attacker with one shot, even the lowly .380 has been shown to our perform bigger calibers. ????

    8. “Wrong on the caliber debate”? Why? Kindly explain what Rob said that is wrong, any of the points he makes.

       That the .45 ACP is more powerful than the9x19 is simple physics, not much to argue about numbers.

       The 9mm offers you higher capacity, lower recoil, better controllability, and cheaper ammo. Hard to argue with that too…

       And that’s what Rob says. So, again, wrong? Where?

    9. No. He’s not.

    10. Well, if you feel he is wrong, please explain why. I happen to agree with Rob

    11. LOL

    12. David, I’ve considered your impeccable logic. (insert toilet flushing sound effect)

    13. Its common sense, that is like saying a 45 is more powerful then a 50 cal. Now dont misunderstand what i am saying because the 9mm is the very best hands down. Power is not everything, give me double stack clips everytime

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