I have to respectfully disagree, unless you are talking about FMJ, and even then, I'm not sure I'm buying it. When you are talking apples to apples, such as comparing hollow point pistol rounds to hollow point rifle rounds, your chances of surviving a hit with a rifle round are significantly lower than with a hit from a pistol round. Plus, you'll be bleeding out of two holes instead of just one with a .308 round. I don't want to be shot, but if I had to choose one or the other, I'd take getting hit by a .45 ACP over a .308 any day of the week. Ask any thin-skinned game animal like a white tail (or a human). Pistols just aren't in the same league. I've seen a lot of shot people in my time, and the ones hit with rifle bullets were always hit harder than the ones hit with pistol bullets.Stupid wrote:The thing is with small calibers including even .223 and the mighty .308 are poor man-stoppers. Shot placement is the key.
As to the subject of the thread, I don't own a 9mm, but I do own a .40 in a compact pistol, and I have fired other folks' 9mm's a few times. I'm not a huge fan of the .40, based only on my own ownership experience. I am a huge fan of the .45, and I find it much easier to shoot than a .40, even when fired from a small pistol (3" Kimber), but you didn't indicate that you would be interested in that caliber. In retrospect, I think I might have preferred a 9mm over the .40 - partly for the ammunition cost which others have mentioned, and partly because it seems to be an easy shooting round. If you are still a relatively novice shooter, you'll probably develop better shooting habits with the 9mm than with the .40. You can always step up to a larger caliber later if you want to; and as a lot of 9mm owners on this board will tell you, you're probably just as well armed with a 9mm as with any other caliber; and as KRM45 said, the .380 in your pocket is better than the .45 you left at home.
All of that was a rambling way of saying "welcome to the world of buying multiple guns!"
