Gun power

In the USA there are lots of .500 S&W revolvers going for sale second-hand which have only been fired a few times. The recoil is so heavy that few people can tolerate it, especially with the heavier-bullet loads.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

 

There are a couple of these hand cannons at the local gun shop. "Only fired once or twice" says the salesman.....wonder why LOL

People buy them to use as a casual shooter, the quickly learn thats not their purpose, one or two shots and they have had enough.

 

This and few other threads here and other forums have made me think about what would be the best choice for military handgun and calibre for me.

There are ofcourse many conflicting requirements and finding best compromise is always hard.

Reliable, high capacity, ergonomical to use, powerful and manageable recoil to name few requirements.

Unfortunatelly I dont have enough information about reliability and ergonomy of various guns (and ergonomy depends on user too) so I'll pass it here.
High capacity excludes revolvers and some magnum automatic pistols.
Powerful excludes just about everything below 9x19mm.
Which calibres fulfill those requirements left?
Well, 9x19mm definitely fulfills high capacity as there are several pistols available with magazines over 15 rounds. Curiously enough, there are also .45 ACP calibre pistols with nearly 15 round magazine. And I believe both of these fulfill requirements of having manageable recoil.
How about more powerful calibres? I have three different calibres in my mind; .357 SIG, .40 S&W and 10mm Auto.
There are many pistols available with these calibres and magazine sizes are all the way up to 15 or even more. Of these three, 10mm Auto is most tempting as it boasts hefty amount of power but it comes with a price of hefty amount of recoil.
With enough practise, I might be able to manage that recoil. Its all about choice of a right gun and thousands of fired rounds.
If that doesn't work, then .357 SIG or .40 S&W should do it.

No matter what gun and which calibre anyone chooses, practice and training is must. But then again, all that time and energy used on training for pistol shooting and handling could have been used better, namely training for assault rifle/mg/or group served weapon. And instead of hauling 1kg pistol and spare magazines, soldier could carry one or two extra magazines for his main gun.

 

An interesting alternative is of course the FN 5.7x28 as used in the P90 and the Five-seveN pistol (or its HK rival, the 4.6x30 as used in the MP7 and, er, sometime, a pistol).

These were designed to inflict a disabling wound after penetrating a level of body armour which an ordinary pistol bullet could not penetrate. This is an obvious issue in military service (and in fact some criminals in some countries have taken to wearing it as well).

Another alternative is the Russian 9x19 and 9x21 loadings which feature special high-velocity armour-piercing ammunition.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

 

A good read on bullet ballistics and power:
http://savageshooters.net/Pages/EnergyT ... _Page.html

 

i agree notmi ,a pistole is really quite usless on a real battlefeild ..i would carrie the weight in rifle ammo or grenades were i a grunt...in fact i dont think there is one recorded instance of the famous 1911 colt in us military service actually killing an enemy soldier in combat..from the argonne to bagdad ...belive it ...or not ..btw i own a browning hi power which i also would not want to hump arround all day on my hip unless i was on that island wher king kong lives with the really big bugs....i did borrow my brothers .44 s an w for a few weeks ..i did not find it hard to shoot or punishing in recoil as i was led to belive...

 

Yes, those are ofcourse a bit different kind of guns comparing to my suggestions. I left both Five-seveN and HK UCP out only because of their a bit dubious wounding abilities.

 

But they will wound someone wearing armour a lot more than conventional pistol ammo

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

 

If I were marooned on King Kong's island and I could have any weapons I wanted, I'd probably equip myself with an MP5, AK47, Desert Eagle, and some RPGs complete with the launcher. Either that, or extreme smarts and all the good luck this side of the universe.

 

blaster your thinking of computer gamers combat loads ...in real life you woud only be able to carrie one rifle or one rpg a hundred rounds of ammo is heavy , how bout a canteen ,you gonna want a drink sometime,some food ,spare socks ,a flashlight ,binoculars ,a tarp ,a sweater ? the list goes on ...60 -70lbs plus a rifle ...try a 5 mile walk with 50 lbs and no gun sometime..on level terrain on a cool day..then tell me how many guns you want to carrie...

 

It'd still be sweet if a person could actually carry that much. But, I think I'lk stick with extreme smarts, ultra-pro keeping-a-cool-head skills and all the good luck this side of the universe.

 

Try that over really hilly terrain even without all the equpiment...

 

Lucky those who haven't been in a mountain infantry unit :roll:

I like the 10mm Auto, pity it was not a "comercial success".
But the pistol in this calibre I like, the MegaStar (somewhat heavy, but not much compared to our issue Llama 82 in 9mm, and with similar mag capacity), is almost out of the question since the company closed a few years ago. It was also available in .45ACP.
For what I know, most of the production ended in the US.




http://star-firearms.com/firearms/guns/ ... ndex.shtml
http://world.guns.ru/handguns/hg116-e.htm





Of course, our old 9mm Largo, could be reborn, but don't count on it

 

an aside

from talking to a few NYS troopers i know they are looking at dumping their "9s" in favor of either .40s or .45s. they've had too many shootings where the 9 just didn't cut it including one where the trooper hit the shooter 3 or 4 times center of mass. the trooper was killed by one .357 round while the shooter drove away. they all love the glock and claim its an easy gun to use and hit with but they hate the 9mm. one told me he expects the end result may be a choice of either .40 or .45 as the user wishes with 9mm reserved for those with very small hands since the grip is smaller. [ maybe woman troopers that cannot handle a larger weapon] the union is pushing this one hard as a safety issue.

 

That's interesting. Most law enforcement agencies around here made the switch to the .40S&W several years ago. I wonder why it has taken NYS so long to do so.

 

A- Politics?
B- Money?
C- .......don't know





Here we have 9 Para for a long time.

 

It is many diferent factors about choose off gun.For military purpose probably is betther one with higher penetration power (like old rusian TT http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot29.htm )for personal protection is betther one with more stoping powerd,coz ur probably shoot werry close range.Deagle dont hawe any decent thing,hes 2 bigg,2 heawy with huge recoil,bad choice anyway.Personaly best one is in 9mm r cal 40,not 2 bigg,compact ,enought power.
On that link u got alot neat stuffs