Turning money into not-noise

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The .45 AARP, I mean .45 ACP, is an okay cartridge. Dogmatic chest-pounders will shrilly clamor about ‘back to back world wars’ and make some comment about “…beginning with .4” Comparing apples to apples…..FMJ to FMJ….JHP to JHP….there’s not more than a couple points of delta between the two in terms of ‘stopping power’. Everyone has anecdotes about the guy shot in the head nine times with a 9mm and the guy kept coming, but some other baddood caught an FMJ pumpkin in his thigh and his head ‘sploded right off his body. Have a quality pistol, be proficient with it, have the mindset to use it well, and you’ll be just fine regardless of caliber.

I am quite happy with the 9mm cartridge in my pistols. I like capacity. Modern hollowpoints seem to do a good job of getting the task done, so I carry a Glock of some flavor (usually a 17, rarely a 19, and only in my John Woo LARPing do I carry a 34) in 9mm. But, I’ve started to add suppressors to my collection of toys and 9mm is supersonic. I can buy subsonic 9mm, of course, but .45 AARP is native subsonic. So, I’m currently putting together a nice Glock 21 to go with the Gemtech that I have on the way. Which leads me to these:

Police trade-in G21’s w/ night sights and two magazines. Price? $299 each. Considering I’m going to have to buy new threaded barrels, and new suppressor-height night sights, it didn’t make sense to buy one brand new. Fourtunately the /gundeals section on Reddit pointed me to a vendor with these.

A good question might be ‘why do I need a suppressed .45 pistol’ and the answer is … well, I suppose its not about need but about want. And  because I can. Also at some point I will live somewhere where I can just step out the door of my abode and do some shooting and it would be nice to not telegraph my activities to the neighbors, even if they are half a mile away.

Anyway, thats the next little gun project I’m working on. Also doing the same in 9mm.

28 thoughts on “Turning money into not-noise”

  1. Let’s face it. There will never be a total agreement on which pistol cartridge is best. I’ve carried both 9mm and 45acp. At the time I chose the 45acp it was long before some of ballistic testing and refinements we have now existed.
    I’ve also carried a Smith and Wesson model 57 in 41 magnum. That round when it debuted was said to be the cop round of the future. It was designed to mitigate the nasty habits of the 357 magnum. Primarily the tendency to over penetrate and hit innocent bystanders. I used mine primarily for hunting deer.
    I do like the heavier cartridges. And I have been thinking that with the resurgence of the 10mm cartridge I might try one of those. Ruger, S&W and Springfield Armory all have new offerings in that caliber.
    Bottom line is there will never be the perfect knife. Nor the perfect rifle or handgun. I tell folks who come seeking my opinion to use what is comfortable. Fits your hand and is something that you can get the job done with. There are so many choices because not every situation is suited to the “one gun” idea. Just look at the options available to our spec ops warfighters. Define the mission then equip accordingly.
    I just turned 70 years old. Been shooting since the age of 2. In that time I’ve read at least 1000 articles about the one gun this or that. People are different. They have different tastes. But in the long run. The rifle, shotgun, pistol idea is get what works. What you like and what you can learn to hit with consistently. If you can equip to suit the job. Your not going to hunt buffalo with a Ruger 1022. And your not going to hunt squirrels with a 45/70. So adding in a bit of common sense will help. That comes with experience. If people are new to the shooting game seek out those who have a great deal of experience. They won’t bite and you might be surprised at how willing they are to offer their opinion and help derived from years of experience.

  2. It is my view that people tend to stay with opinions they formed early in life. Not always but, again, “tend to.”

    You nailed it when you called the cartridge .45 AARP. “Back in the day,” the .45 ACP was king. Soldiers and Marines trained on it. Men took it to war with them. The dearth of handguns in competition with the M1911 and its clones kept the .45 in the No. 1 spot. Jeff Cooper, the Headmaster of the School of M1911, had a loyal following in the pistolero community, His dissing of the 9 mm as being a “minor caliber” that deserved to be treated as second class carried considerable weight.

    In the 1980s, more 9 mm pistols were introduced. What really changed the status quo, however, was the arrival of cartridges that represented considerable advances in bullet technology. That aspect, matched with higher capacity magazines changed everything.

    My son returned from Iraq with a low opinion of the 9 mm. The Army was, of course, limited to using FMJ there. In civilian life, however, only an ignoramus or an impoverished CCW holder would choose FMJ today for self-defense. The firearms world has change dramatically.

    My retired deputy friend was the last one in his large department to be authorized to carry his Smith & Wesson .357 revolver. He claimed that its superior stopping power could not be matched by a 9 mm. True. He never did show me, however, just how fast he could reload that revolver in total darkness while pumped up on adrenaline, much less how many rounds he could dump into a target in ten seconds in a tense situation where bullet placement trumped every other factor.

    P.S. About using FMJ in the military, it is a fallacy that the Geneva Convention bans expanding bullets, something I have heard all my life.

    To begin with, the Hague Convention was the international agreement that banned so-called “dum-dum” bullets. Second, the US never signed that part of the Hague Convention. And, third, the Hague Convention only banned the use of “dum-dum” bullets against the military forces of nations that had actually signed the agreement.

    Therefore, the Iraqi insurgents and the Taliban, being upstart guerilla forces, would not have been covered by the agreement even if the US had been a signatory of it.

  3. an old poacher told me one time: “if you shoot in the eyeball it don’t matter what you shoot them with.”

  5. In before the “you should’ve put that money towards land” or “don’t you think you have enough firearms already” crowd comes around.

  6. first glock i owned was a 21…for work…still have it…blue label glocks sold to officers and pd’s all come with 3 mags…they are shorting you a mag…if you are buying all 3, turn one of them in to this … https://460rowland.com/

  7. I’ve talked to cops who said they could have the best race gun on the planet with super duper black talon hydra shoks and a phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range with green laser sights that can melt steel and still be taken out by a 15 year old gang banger with a rusty 22 short.

    Just be able to pull your weapon fast and get rounds on target.

    Here’s an incredible story of a perp that took 17 rounds of 45
    before finally going down, and was still alive at the hospital. The cop now carries 144 rounds in mags on him. There is a story out there of a black bear put down with one round of 9mm so pick your poison.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdjcYjSsIok

    • Adrenaline is a powerful drug and when combined with other drugs can make a body do amazing things. I saw footage of a perp that was shot point blank in the face with a Highway Patrol officers .44 Mag and ran away several hundred feet… with half of his head missing.

  8. Have you tried a silencer on 45?
    In .y experience, 45 is still pretty loud with a silencer – I am found MUCH quieter performance in 22, 9, or 300 Blackout subsonic.
    I have a 45 silencer but almost never use it with 45.

  9. 147 GR 9mm is subsonic. While I have a 45ACP with Silencerco suppressor the bulk of my pistol/ suppressor combinations are 9mm and they work very well. Really no need to go 45 just as a suppressor host.

    • I find 158 gr 9mm are more consistently subsonic than 147, especially in rifle length firearms.
      Fiocchi 9APE is a great load ; with a silencer on my Ruger PC Carbine it isn’t much louder than a silenced 22.

      • The 158 gr Fiocchi won’t always function in a pistol in my experience . I’ve never tried it in a longer carbine as I don’t own one.. It runs very well in my select fire M11.

  11. Your projects: Good on ya.
    (Envy meter needle straining at the peg.)

    Caliber Q.: .45 or 9mm?
    Caliber A.: Yes.

    Just like the correct answer to steak or lobster, chocolate or vanilla, and blondes or brunettes.
    Carry on.

  12. What it all comes down to – ” I suppose its not about need but about want. And because I can.”

  16. Where are you getting the police trade-ins from? I was looking at King Firearms but their site went away and are now on Gunbrokers with most everything being auction. I prefer to buy it now.

  17. A little known, little explored sub-culture of .45ACP pistols involves caliber conversions. 460 Rowland and 45 Super being the most common. I have a Gen 1 M&P45 with a Wolff 24lb recoil spring. Now I can shoot 255gr hard cast bullets at +P velocities, fed by a 10rd mag. It is my trail gun. We have bears and moose around here. The HK45 is said to be able to handle this cartridge with no recoil spring swap necessary. Here is an ancient link if anyone is interested:
    http://www.45super.com/smith.html
    I do love multi-caliber guns.

    • I guess I should have mentioned I’m using 45 Super. I will add that this has been a satisfactory substitute for 10mm, which every guy around here but me seems to own.

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