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I don't think the 9mm is ineffective. I just think that fatter Bullets are more effective.

I've seen a lot of people shot with 9mm, and I have yet to hear even one of them say it was a walk in the park. Some them had already spoken their last words in this world. If a 9mm were all I had access to, then that's what I'd carry.

gigag04 wrote:I'm probably in the minority but I hate the .40. It's so snappy that it annoys me. When we were issued G22s, fast, surgical strings of fire were possible but troublesome. As soon as we got our 21sf guns (.45acp) in and qual'ed, almost everyone shot better (...except those that already maxed out even on the .40s ;)....)

I don't buy the grip size argument because of what I've seen. A girl on my team is barely 5-00 100lbs. She has tiny hands and shoots the bulky G21sf better than the G22. And likes shooting it better too. Smaller grip size in theory would be better, but the gains are ofset by firing the snappy cartridge.

I don't think you're in the minority. I don't like the cartridge either, and I'm worth any 10 men.

Seriously though, I had a USP Compact .40, and it was a good pistol, but I hated the cartridge. I owned that gun for almost 2 years, and I didn't begin to settle down and shoot it reasonably well until just before I sold it. I'm not recoil sensitive. I enjoy shooting my .44 magnum revolver, which has olympian recoil by any rational measure. It was the character of the .40 cal recoil that put me off, which is real snappy recoil. I shoot my wife's G19 very well, and it has snappy recoil too; but the recoil from a snappy 120 grain 9mm load is not nearly as disconcerting as the recoil from a snappy 180 grain .40 cal load.

I understand the value of capacity and I don't mind having it, but a lot of small caliber shooters claim that shot placement is more important than hitting power. But if that is true, then why is 15 rounds of a smaller caliber better than 9 of a larger caliber in a world where the number of shots exchanged by both parties in the vast majority of gunfights is less than one 8 round magazine? That is why I don't particularly feel under-armed with a single stack .45. In fact, that is why I don't feel particularly under-armed with a 5 shot .357 snubbie (which lends a whole new meaning to "snappy").