vba
Member
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2008
- Messages
- 345
It's really not that deep. The FBI determined the range of penetration and the ammo designers tailored bullets to expand at this depth. So they all basically work the same, more or less, within a bullet design.
Sure, in gel, a .40 might go a little deeper or expand a few hundreths more but they are all effectively equal by design (again, within brand/bullet type, there are outliers and oddballs).
Of course, things like shooting through barriers and/or accuracy at range are factors not mentioned.
It's not that bullet design only brought up the 9mm, changes in effective stop philosophy just put them all on the same field
The .45 ACP is already a large bullet with lots of momentum. The best of the .45's expand larger and give more chance to cut through vessels and organs. Because of it's greater momentum the .45 has a better chance of breaking bone.
For deer sized game and larger (say a horse) a .45 Colt (loaded to less than 1000 fps) would do a much better job than say .38 or 9mm. I know as I've hunted larger deer with .45 Colt.