Went to the range today (a lot of weekend entries seem to start that way, these days) – I shot the H&K .45 ACP again, while SNO went with his old stand-by. We had time and scratch left over for some riflery, and pulled down a CAR-15, just for the accuracy that was in it.
Couldn’t help noticing how small a 5.56mm round is, sitting in your hand. Nor how small the holes were in the target, no matter how tightly grouped. Especially as contrasted with the .45 rounds we’d only just been putting down range, or the 7.62mm rounds we’d fired through an M-14 two weeks ago. I’m only a sailor, so the fine points of the velocity/mass equation vs. how many rounds you can fit in your backpack are beyond me, perhaps.
But then the Salamander noted much the same thing as did your humble scribe.
Sort of makes you go, “hmm.”
Same thoughts here. If the tradeoff with the smaller ammo is that it requires at least two shots to stop your enemy but that you can carry more rounds, the reductio absurdum is to issue the troops air guns. Sure, the blast of air from the muzzle won’t stop anybody, but you have unlimited ammo!
Hmm…
Hard to beat a 1911 .45 ACP but .357 Sig comes close and won’t jam an autoloader due to bottleneck case. Don’t leave home without (either) one. Pls check ballistics before you diss me on this.
Springfield XD .357 Sig is a cost effective social gun – 12 ga excepted for close quarters.
Funny, I’d think “fine points of velocity/mass equations vs. how many rounds you can fit in your backpack” would be all in a day’s work for a Hornet Driver. :=)
That’s why we refer to it as the “mouse gun,” and why a lot of M-14s are being issued to Designated Marksmen. Of course, if you put one in the brain housing group, the 5.56mm is adequate.
If bigger is always better, let’s take a lesson from the War of Northern Aggression and issue our troops the 1861 Springfield rifle,(.69 cal).
One shot – one kill, still depends on placement of the shot; in hunting and in combat.
I’ve seen a lot of victims killed with guns that cost about the same as a decent meal at an L.A. restaurant.
Reminds me of the time I helped my then POSSLQ to arm herself. She’d suffered a rather brutal strong-arm robbery that put her into the hospital. When she got out, we went and bought her a piece. I was consultant and designated shooter until her arms healed enough to hold a piece, wipe bottom, etc. The clerk at the gun shop asked what kind of ammo she wanted.
In her ignorance, and her naive, perfectly intuitively correct notion of wound ballistics, she asked him right back:
“What kind makes the biggest holes?