Just for comparison, here’s an Israeli house under construction.
Walking through Old Mesilla makes me feel as if I’ve walked into a Sergio Leone film and I forgot to put on my spurs and gun belt.
Stranger
Yeah, we had the usual giant squid chute in front of the front door, but the upkeep was huge. We had it drained and just threw rattlesnakes and scorpions down there.
If you already had a chute you could have simply put a large spherical rock up there and an invisible tripwire to release it.
Nah. Ever since Sisyphus retired the thing’s a bitch to reset every time some intruder strolls by.
Intruder? I was just ringing the doorbell to see if you wanted to subscribe to my newsletter.
Stranger
Here in Calgary residential construction is 99 percent wood frame. They even allow wood frame condos up to 5 stories now.
Had a claim in a rough part of town last month where a pipe burst on the top floor. Nice clean hole in the pipe. Turns out there was a shooting outside, they traced the bullet through a 2nd level balcony, third level suite and through the fourth level bathroom. Not sure if it went through the roof.
Apparently there were a lot of casings so I assume an automatic weapon. F****** gangsters.
OTOH if any supervillain could be counted on to take over from Elon to make himself a succesful space rocket (how come unlike Jeff and Rich we’ve never seen Elon himself take the ride? …hmmm… ) , our friend here Stranger would be the man. Except he knows better how much of a money sink it would be.
Heh. My current apartment building inside the DC Beltway is a circa-1960 construction and it’s VERY concretey. Not looking forward to a possible move if the rent goes up, that may put me in one of those stack-of-matchsticks new constructions.
The family home back in San Juan has the core house pre-expansions be c. 1950 construction and during some of the renovations we saw proof that the main roof-bearing then-exterior walls are poured reinforced concrete, as are the roof slabs themselves. But of course, like your Florida high-rise the point was “this here thing is NOT going to blow over in any hurricane” (and well, “this here thing is NOT going to burn to the ground if there’s a short in the wiring”). Ballistic protection is an accidental benefit.
How does a [potential] gun owner go about deciding which gun+bullet size is the best for their needs? Like, is bigger always better? I presume that bigger bullets pack more whack, and so are more likely to kill/destroy their target - arguably the point of shooting anything, no? So why would anyone ever bother with a small-calibre weapon?
Is it to do with weight? I also presume that large bullets require larger guns and clips, which means more metal to carry around (as well as a gun which is more difficult to conceal).
Or are there some scenarios in which having a ‘pea-shooter’ might be operationally advantageous? Like if you are not shooting to kill; rather, shooting to disable, demoralise, frighten, etc.? I can’t think of many situations which might call for that, though.
Is it money? Are smaller firearms and ammunitions appreciably cheaper?
Finally, is it to do with skill and/or physical strength? I gather that guns recoil a lot more than Hollywood would have you believe, and that keeping one steady while firing - especially multiple times - requires training and physicality (i.e. correct posture, technique, etc…). It would make sense, therefore, that bigger guns & bullets are simply more difficult to fire accurately - especially for those with little training or less upper body strength. Am I on the mark?
Thanks, also, in advance.
The number of pages on this debate online is more heated than most Fanwanks about Star Wars and Star Trek canon. Suffice to say, every singe issue you mentioned has proponents and detractors - caliber, velocity, mass, magazine capacity, strength of user, concealability, per round (also including practice costs), accuracy, and on and on and on.
First though, let me address a point from the middle -
This almost never comes up, because 99.9% of the defensive training you should take before ever carrying says if the situation isn’t dangerous enough to kill, you DO NOT SHOOT. I cannot be more clear on this. If you think a warning is enough, you just rabbit, or warn, you do not draw or fire in any way, it’ll just make it worse.
So, having said that it would take books to address each and every point, so I’ll just give a general rule of thumb - unless concealability is an issue (carry gun) you shoot the largest caliber, with the best defensive ammo you can, that you can fire ACCURATELY in a controlled manner. Everything else is up to you, your proficiency, and your budget.
And if concealability is an issue, you use the same requirements but in a form factor suited to your planned method of carry (which is another huge mass of variables).
I’m more of a collector than a shooter, so I tend to get the most-common calibre as an exemplar.
.22LR is awfully fun to shoot…
… and cheap. .22LR is cheap fun. Military calibres such as .556, 6.62 NATO, 9 mm, (and years ago, 8 mm Mauser) can be bought surplus for much less than commercial ammunition.
I can tell you a .30-30 Winchester Model 94 kicks like a mule. Ditto a Gew-98/Kar-98. I fired a 12 ga Magnum round out of a single-shot shotgun once, and it was almost painful. More weight equals less felt recoil.
‘Needs’ are variable. Do you need something for defence? For hunting? For historical appreciation? For poking holes in paper, cans, bottles, etc.?
In general smaller caliber pistols were the most common self-defense guns used for people carrying every single day up until fairly recently, .22LR, .25ACP, .32ACP and .380ACP were all carried by people because they were much lighter than the other common self-defense gun calbers, the 9mm and .38 special. It wasn’t until the 2000’s that we’ve really seem ultra compact 9mm and .357 Magnum self-defense guns which pack a significantly bigger punch than those previous smaller calibers. The downside is, 9mm and .357 Magnum HURT LIKE HELL when firing from such small guns due to the immense recoil, which during a life or death situation isn’t too big of a problem but it’s a pretty big problem when you’re out practicing with said gun at a gun range. In general you want to use for self-defense something you’re going to shoot in training a lot with since that helps you with both accuracy and control and if you can’t fire your 9mm self-defense gun because it hurts your hands that’s a pretty big thing to consider when choosing a self-defense gun.
Studies out there show that there really isn’t THAT big of a leap from .380ACP to 9mm or .38 Special which is why you will still see people rely on .380ACP self-defense pistols as they’re the perfect combination of size, recoil, and power. However .32ACP and lower have largely been made obsolete due to how relatively little power they have now.
Smaller firearms in general are cheaper, but smaller ammunition in general isn’t, the cheapest ammo is the ones that are mass produced so for self-defense calibers it’s going to be .22LR and 9mm which are the cheapest.
ISTM that .32ACP was the handgun cartridge for gangsters and others prior to and through WWII. In the movies, everyone with a gun had a .32 Colt pistol if they didn’t have a .38 revolver. Hitler croaked himself with a .32 Walter PPK. Walther PPs were, as the name implies, widely used by police (in Europe). I think even James Bond used a .32 Walther PPK. I’d say .32ACP has enough power to get the job done.
And that was an upgrade from a Beretta .25 (which had been Fleming’s own carry gun in wartime Intelligence)
Forgive the snip, just wanted to address this point in answering @MrLee’s question, although honestly, if you want a detailed answer, it’s probably it’s own thread rather than a sidetrack in the ammo/caliber thread. But it’s pertinent, so not much of a sidetrack.
So first, I will allow that .380, with proper defensive ammunition is viable for a defensive carry round, but (like most) would say it’s suboptimal based on FBI expectations of penetration and expansion. Still, it’s not a HUGE jump from the performance of 9mm, it just lacks a lot of the custom ammo options that the more popular rounds do, and in general, much weaker platforms to shoot it out of.
But, @Asuka is completely correct, depending on the size of the platform, some of the concealable mini-9s are absolutely no fun to shoot. Fundamentally, carry guns normally go with much smaller grips, shorter barrels, and less overall mass, all of which combine to make the felt recoil much worse. And if you go for the micro or super compact options, it’s worse. As said upthread, my M&P 9c is on the larger side of carry pistols, but much more comfortable to fire than S&W’s more compact Shield series by comparison.
But nothing in my personal experience was worse than my friends super lightweight scandium/titanium .357 snubby. Holy crap, but that thing kicked like a mule and threatened to tear itself out of my hand, and it’s smaller grips made it a nightmare to control and quickly get back on target.
Yep. He had to surrender it in Dr. No (the movie).
When I didn’t know anything about ammunition, I thought the .25ACP was cool. But later, I wondered what’s the point? Why not just use .22LR? I was going to ask the question, but I’ve found this article:
Takeaway
This is one of the easiest takeaways we’ve ever written: If you want to carry a subcompact pistol and are deciding between 22 LR and 25 ACP, pick 22 LR. Both rounds are accurate enough to cover short distances without fail, and both produce negligible recoil even when fired from small handguns. But a 22 LR handgun is so much more powerful and so much easier to find ammo for that the 25 ACP just doesn’t compete. So, if we have to pick a “winner” in the 22LR vs 25 ACP debate, we’re going with 22 long rifle, based mostly on ammo availability.
An actual caliber and ammo type issue I want to bring up in regard to the last - I wouldn’t recommend either a 22LR or 25 ACP for defense shooting, but of the two I would have an additional quibble about 22LR that wasn’t mentioned in either the takeaway or super explicitly in the article - misfires.
This was mentioned upthread, but 22LR is a rimfire round, as opposed to centerfire with a distinct separate primer. This makes the round subject to semi-serious risk of misfire/failure-to-fire. Now, to be clear, this is a much larger issue in cheap ‘brick’ ammo rather than the high performance ammo such as being tested in the article and recommended for any defensive use, but especially in a semi-auto platform, used under stressful circumstances, where clearing a jam might be difficult (from the stress, not the actual mechanics) it would not be something I’d take lightly. 22LR in a double action revolver, not so much of an issue though.
But again, going back 2 posts, I would not trust a 22LR (with my accuracy at least) to do the job in a defensive shooting. An ankle gun or the like maybe, maybe makes sense as a backup for a LEO or full time security personnel, but I can’t imagine it being a first choice for anyone else unless they feel like they’re physically incapable of controlling a 380/9mm/etc but still want to have some chance to defend themselves. At which point, there lives (and responsibility too!), their choice.
There is another small caliber round that is not often talked about and that is the 5.7 x 28mm. Until recently the only pistol that shot that ammo was the Belgian FN (Fabrique Nationale). Now Ruger offers the 57 pistol which I bought last year. Very fun to shoot. The green fiber optic front sight is very easy to quickly aquire the target and just amazingly acurate. Adjustable rear sight. Somewhere around 1800 fps fast. 20 rounds in the magazine.
Center fire, bottle necked, very fast and accurate over long distances for a pistol, very little recoil. But you probably won’t find the ammo in stock at your local gun shop and if you do expect to pay at least $1.00 per round, until recently it was over $1.50 US per round but the price is slowly dropping. Not a gun that you want to take out shooting beer cans unless you want to spend $30 every time you refill the magazine. The best handgun I have ever had and out shoots my .22 Ruger Mark III target pistol. If you get a chance to shoot one you will be impressed.
Here is an article that goes in depth about comparing it with a 9mm.
I have a Ruger Mark II non-target pistol (fixed sights, 4-inch barrel), and it’s fun to shoot… when it feeds. I was having feed/extraction issues. I contacted Ruger, and was told the MK. II has a ‘target chamber’, which is tighter than a non-target chamber. They suggested I used a different brand of ammunition than the Remington I was using. I did buy a brick of Winchester 555, which I think Ruger suggested and possibly someone here suggested. But I never tried it, and I haven’t been to the range in 15 years.
Well we are probably drifting out of Factual Questions territory, but I had a Mark II target that I got rid of when I had young boys in the house. I may have, may have, mentioned it a couple times when they were growing up, and they bought me the Mark III when they were old enough.
The Mark II was a better gun, easy to disassemble and put back together. Apparently lawyers got involved and the Mark III disassembly and reassembly procedure involves inserting the magazine (unloaded hopefully), several times. I do not want the magazine, loaded or unloaded, involved when I am taking a gun appart, but that is just me, it is a stupid, unneeded, dangerous, step. Wish I had kept the Mark II.