9mm vs 45 ACP, WE END THE DEBATE. The Human Torso Test.

[Applause] grantham has been lauded multiple times for its science and today we're going to be tackling the most controversial topic known to gun kind nine millimeter versus 45. the question is which will do better which will do worse are we gonna break hearts today probably so i hope you'll enjoy your time with grantham science as we compare nine millimeter verse 45. [Music] now before we get started we want to give a thank you to our biggest sponsor brownells thank you brandon's very base we of course have hunting clash somewhere out there there's a ether 84 and you're sitting there at the rail yard getting ready for ntc or jrtc and you need a quick game to play well lucky for you hunting clash is a sponsor of this particular video big thank you to them sponsors like them keep our videos free so the question is why is that awesome well you can hunt in a variety of locations anywhere from the mountains of montana to the deserts and a variety of animals anything from your typical little varmints all the way up to bear's deer it's more exotic animals now if you're a gun guy like me there of course a variety of weapons to choose from anything from your bolt guns to 22 lever actions for your smaller game including larger bore lever action rifles and of course semi-automatic rifles crossbows everything you could ever want is in this game and it's pretty damn fun so you know what if you're looking to play a game think about playing hunting clash because it's pretty dang fun as you can see right here it is a good time now when you use discount code hunt with grantham you get 100 gold coins 70 skill tokens and of course two mythical make sure you go redeem that code to give them a big thank you for sponsoring this channel check out the link in the description in the pin comment and go and download this game thank you for watching let's get back to the video and finally let's get into it so today we have a bunch of different ammunition that we'll be testing out so to start off with our ammunition sponsor norma has of course provided a lot of the ammunition a big thank you to them so we're gonna be starting with our full metal jacket round so we have spear lawmen that is 230 grain and then we of course have 124 grain both uh military spec ammunition um we'll be testing these to see how a fmj performs in both a nine millimeter and a 45. now going on from there we're going to be using some proven performers we have spear gold dot which as you know from our previous test proved to be very very good we have that right there we'll also be using in conjunction with that remington gold golden saber a good performer when it comes to 45 and then we have our norma with our mhps proven performers we have nine millimeters 108 grains at 1300 feet per second approximately and then we have the 45 which is 175 grains at 1050 for feet per second which is pretty fast for 45. then we're going to be finishing with the most interesting ammunition buffalo borer strong like buffalo so what we have here is nine millimeter plus p plus that is 124 grains traveling at 1300 feet per second at approximately 461 foot pounds compare that to the 45 plus p that is 230 grains traveling at 950 feet per second with again 461 foot-pounds i think that's going to be the most interesting test as far as showing the differences between a larger and a smaller round now if you don't know anything about nine millimeter verse 45 a nine millimeter typically sits at about subsonic around 900 a little bit less feet per second and about 230 grains our nine millimeter is typically about half that weight 115 grains traveling much faster anywhere from 100 to 1200 and in certain cases 1300 feet per second the question is which is better people have been arguing about it for centuries a lot of people have talked about the performance of nine millimeter the performance of 45 and hell i think 45 is so endearing because it's been used by our military for so long hell some units still use it now with that being said we're going to be talking about our ballistic dummies right here charlie you want to get up here so we have charlie our medical squire he has finally earned his uh white lab coat we hoped he'd be in medical school by now uh however we had an incident so he is still working the range with us today i was i was trying to get uh lessons on anatomy but i'm not allowed back at the library once the permanent suspension is up i'm really hoping to be able to go back well we're glad to have you here charlie in any case we've seen a lot of ballistic gel test videos but cool you can go watch those lucky gunner has some really good ones today we're going to be doing is human body analogs so we have both bone we have organs in here we have blood we get to have the hydrostatic effect we get to have the gel which simulates fat and muscle tissue and this guy's pretty built so it's going to be a good time i'm really really interested to see how these are going to perform i think they're going to do i think the 45 is going to win i mean history has proven that it's pretty good charlie thank you we'll be using a glock 17 gen 3 because this is this gun i use all the time and then we'll be using a nighthawk custom enforcer 1911. super nice 1911. um i love this thing so we'll be starting with the glock 17 right here yeah norma thank you charlie okay thank you charlie all right go ahead and go okay let's go ahead and do the 45 okay next up we have 45 what do we have right here uh this is spear yep thank you charlie thank you spirit loving 230 grain okay we've shot both the 9mm 45 full metal jacket the question is how do they do let's go check it out what i think is really interesting and mike i'm going to let you get to the side right here and take a look at it is there is really not that much difference between the 9 millimeter and the 45 in terms of their ballistic capability when it comes to full metal jacket round let's take a look at this one right here obviously the 45 is a larger diameter that's going to be good for hitting the correct structures but both didn't really tumble both didn't fragment because they're pistol rounds they're just they just don't do well both had complete through and through so let's check check it out the back right here so if you look the exit on the nine millimeter is actually a little bit more gnarly it looks like the round tumbled a little bit which i don't think is specifically indicative of it being a better round and then we have the 45 exit wound as you can see both are very underwhelming and based on those exit wounds that is why it is so important to have what charlie so not have that round use hollow point yes use hollow points your round selection compared to a rifle really matters so with that being said let's go check out some proven performers and see how we look this is remington gold's beer this stupid name no golden saber it's not a stupid name lightning strikes twice okay here we go 185 grains try it out okay next up we have our proven performer 124 grains thank you the stuff does pretty well interesting let's review the high speed so we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna take a look and get due to support gun control have wives that have boyfriends here's my dad advice we have the nine millimeter reverse 45 so we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna take a look at the nine millimeter for first um it should be noted that we know that spear gold dot is a great round if you want to come and take a look here close you can see how large the pedals are yeah and what we're trying to show here with this test is that although both are good rounds it's been known how well the sphere gold dot is loaded and you'll see here when we compare it to the 45 that it performed just a little bit better like that that smacks harder than a harry potter movie it does if you come to the back here um we can see that deflected through the spine and through the support pillar that we have right there that just has to be there due to to make these but it certainly had a lot of power you can see that it fractured that if that were the spine that lights out right there that's you're going down at that point so we compare that to the 45 which also performed very well but is loaded not quite as well as that round this isn't so much a comparison of which one is better but rather to show you that nine millimeter can perform really well compared to i see no point at the like to for that 40 for me to use that 45 at this point now to be clear if you're using a really good round which we'll show later you might see a point to do it but we can say look how large that hole is so the 45 is just a larger caliber so we do have a larger overall hole the pedals didn't expand yeah as large as the sphere gold dot just not quite as good as a round but if you come around to the back it had enough force to not only break the spine but to also push it out of the dummy right there so we do have a lot of power out of that round i don't know if we can completely rule out that this is a pre-existing torque injury though that's a good point right there actually i also have a question do you think the speed of the round uh affects how it pedals like is that maybe why it doesn't pedal is good that's i would say that makes a lot of sense i mean that's all i can really see you know and that's why i see nine millimeter uh having a little bit going for it so although a large heavy round is good um as we know like faster rounds like five five six especially at closer distances perform really well so we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna compare the mhps now especially since they're the same ammunition manufacturer and i'm interested to see which of those performs better so now we're gonna be testing rounds of the same manufacturer so right here we have norma mhp made by the same company of course the speeds and range between the two are different but i'm interested to see when we have rounds of the same make and manufacture how those perform and perhaps we'll see a better differentiation between my nine millimeter and 45 let's get into it norma this is norma nine mil it's a 108 grains and 1300 feet per second norma 45 is 175 grain at 10 53 fps what's also interesting is that it's 413 foot pounds between the 9 mil and the 45. interesting note try to hit roughly the same spot now it should be noted that if you can take a look here at the right side the mhp performed very well um it actually ended up flowering and pedaling out pretty good very similar to the spear gold dot so i'm very happy at this performance if you look at the back here it did once again strike the spine and shatter it even more so great performance from it a really great showing from that particular round now when it comes to the 45 it pedaled out pretty similarly actually um however of course as you can see it had a little bit more behind it because the entrance wound is just quite large as we've seen here from all these that it there's just more you know size and diameter of the actual slug which could be good as far as incapacitating somebody now if you look at the back very similar performance it struck that support structure slash the spine and shattered it so just like the nine millimeter so right now i'm not really seeing much of a difference between these two rounds charlie no no really not much of a difference i think if that support structure is there you can even dare to say that you only need one bullet for two bad guys possibly right now i'm still trying to rack my brain around uh like it's so marginal yeah i mean pistols are just kind of marginal that's what a lot of people don't understand is like they just aren't that great like they they will 100 they'll kill people obviously they've killed a lot but like as far as like compared to a rifle or a shotgun like not a whole lot of power behind them so you really have to hit those structures that need to be hit whether it be a major blood vessel or something in the central nervous system otherwise you're staying up dude buffalo bore very hot 45. this is buffalo borer 45 acp plus b 230 grain 950 fps these are it's hot yeah that's really hot loads [Applause] all right center of the chest here we go ready bro how did that feel a little bit more stout than i thought it would be buffalo boar nine millimeter so the 45 performed very well how will the nine millimeter do buffalo board nine millimeter plus p plus 124 grain okay 1300 feet per second it's smaller but i think the loads are just as hot oh dude i just creamed my adult diaper bro okay so we're gonna do this one more time but let's take a look at what we have right here so the 45 we're just shooting so of course i nailed the rib i'm too good of a shot i'm sorry now it did absolutely shatter the rib as you can see right here now it shattered the rib completely and that took away a lot of the ass behind it i believe now it sheared off the petals right there and it stopped just short of the back rib right there but it looked like it would have made it to the spine on the nine mil of course we missed the rib and look at that those petals like pretty pretty intense right there this is plus p plus is plus p plus now holy sh okay that actually went straight through i did not i did not think that it would do that okay that's a lot of power that's a lot of power so what we're gonna do is we're gonna do this one more time we're gonna do two more shots we're to do one on the other side to see if we can hit the sternum with that plus p and then we're also going to do a diaphragm shot i just want to see how these perform especially with the fact that the 45 in this one hit the rib dead on him wondering how the 9 mil will perform when we do that okay we have buffalo bore again one in the sternum and then one in the diaphragm buffalo boar it's nine mil it's hot hot hot that recoil is not that bad with that plus p plus i thought it would be more stout less doubt than just just normal plus p yeah i mean it it feels you know a little bit hotter but it's it's not bad 45 buffalo bore we're gonna put one in the lung and we're gonna put one in the diaphragm a little bit opposite the nine mil just so we can get similar shock ammunition buffalo boar 45 extra spicy [Laughter] did you hit the bone every time dude i i'm pretty sure that the the round is just so big it just wants to hit the oh no that's perfect yo this one this good yeah dude that went whoa that exited on both that much holy grace oh my god and then it hit the steel dude once again i'm i'm such a good shot that i hit the steel through a person what a legend man it's hard being as good as i am i actually hate you that's incredible okay let's see the back on these ones over here so no that one that was from the first one yeah that was the first one it didn't go through okay so the one on the sternum we take a look at this the one on the sternum it shattered the sternum uh much like what that did to the rib but it looks like it stopped at the rib yeah you can see at the back here where the round actually stopped if you want to come around here micah it's right next to the first exit wound this is kind of it's just kind of deep um so if you want to come around to this side over here it's just on the inside over there it's kind of hard to see so it definitely slowed down um the one through the through the abdomen that's a ridiculous entrance wound like that has some power behind it that's not what a nine millimeter usually looks like going through uh gelatin like that is quite put your finger in there charlie how easy is it to get in it's pretty easy now compare that with me i'm not gonna do that this is why we have interns uh now put it through the mhp wound [Laughter] okay and on the one through the diaphragm it stopped on the spine again similar results we can definitely say that the 45 with um the heavy drainage definitely had the power to make it completely through the question is that you specifically you can pull your fingers out now i guess the question is is does that you know specifically matter do you want that much power now certainly it has more than enough power to get through clothing and stuff i guess what's what i want to do at this point is should we do a contact shot on the side and try to shoot through with the buffalo bore it's actually harder trying to get my fingers like how far away to go yeah like weird yeah noticeably harder we're at 120 yards we're gonna take a shot with 45 to show you um how slow the round is it's kind of cool it's a little bit harder to lead and hit moving targets with a 45 compared to nine mil so we'll go ahead and start with the nighthawk 45. oh hey there we go so as you can see it's a it's fun because you can usually see the round traveling if the light's correct and it's just a slow round so it's a little bit harder to hit a moving target which is a consideration in certain environments let's go and try the nine mil final thoughts you know seen a lot of stuff happen today i think most interesting is that with the 45 and the 9 mil we weren't seeing a whole lot of differences in terms of ballistics between the two which was surprising to me i really did think charlie did you think that we're gonna see more as far as like the 45 causing more damage yeah i thought the 45 was gonna slay yeah so did i man um so that was really interesting to me that really between the two they had more than enough um you know energy behind them to deliver lethal force and to expand almost very similarly certainly the 45 could be larger with a really good loading but the sphere gold dot did wonderfully um so well-loaded ammunition between the two kind of tended to level the playing field quite a bit and beyond that there's a couple other things to think about you know as far as you know would you pick nine millimeter reverse 45 nothing to think about as well is going to be capacity with a nine millimeter you can just carry more in the same size handgun and for me that's what matters more i like to have more rounds rounds win gunfights so if i can carry more 100 where i'm at so i typically carry my glock 17 with an extra mag am i going to need it maybe not because in a lot of concealed carry scenarios it it's been shown to be pretty close and over pretty quick you can watch active self protection a couple other channels that go over that kind of stuff but we're not just talking about concealed carry now are we so when it comes to that we have to consider how much ammunition it can carry which is why i like the 9mm now that being said i do carry 45 at times because i i do like the 45 but you have to understand that the nighthawk that we have here is a race gun that thing is fast it is a 4 000 gun and it is incredible but for a similar gun to like the 17 like the glock 21 that's just as lightweight um you're gonna have more recoil than a nine millimeter for me what matters the most is being able to deliver as many rounds as i'm able to with as much accuracy as i'm able to and for me the nine millimeter tends to just be better at that i'm sure that's going to anger people but don't get angry at me go out to the range and train more and i don't prove me wrong or something so that's what really matters when we talk to you at the end like training is what's going to get you there right whatever caliber you select make sure that you're shooting if if you're not shooting you're going to be a liability to yourself and others if you get into a situation where you need to use these weapons so as i've always said train make yourself the weapon these are awesome awesome pieces of hardware both nine millimeter and 45 are very effective choose whatever it's not going to hurt my feelings whichever one you choose but what will hurt my feelings is if you don't train get out there get training ladies and gentlemen love you so much thank you so much for watching don't forget to get out there and check out the patreon exclusive content from my camera guy right micah it'll be good times but uh that's about all i got for you guys so we'll uh we'll see you later i mean okay before we close yeah i think the test taught me one thing yo go i'm gonna keep carrying 10 mil 10 millimeter giga chads dude you ain't wrong all right charlie that advice brother hey altoid just thank you that was another one for sure that wasn't gonna go to mouth okay dad advice go we'll walk your dogs and due to sport gun control have lives who have boyfriends wise words

Channel: Garand Thumb

Views: 4,749,844

Keywords: 9mm vs 45 acp, 9mm vs 45 acp ballistic dummy, 9mm vs 45, 9mm human test, 45 human test, 9mm vs 45 test, 9mm, 45 acp, 45, which caliber should I use?, best pistol, best pistol caliber, is 9mm good, is 45 good?, is 45 acp obsolete, is 45 acp good for self defense, is 45 acp better than 9mm, 9mm vs 45 acp penetration test, 9mm vs 45 acp recoil, 9mm vs 45 acp 1911, 9mm vs 45 guys

Id: mZ4OmUfI4z4

Length: 24min 43sec (1483 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 13 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Historical-Security2]

Is it weird that I've been shooting handguns 4 years now and haven't touched a 9mm at all. All I own is 45 all I've shot is 45 and I've gotten pretty good with it as well. I can't wait to try 9mm after all this time getting good with a 45 but have never had the chance. I could never bring myself to buy one for some reason, idk why.

[u/kelly_borgman]

Cool vid.

[u/Forcrapsake7]

Not what I expected, I have a sig .45 that I love but to large to carry, my wife’s and my ccw’s are both 9mm

[u/RogerVan09]

Where’s the 45 super at, supercharge it to 460 Rowland fuck it. Boomers need their BOOM or it ain’t fair

[u/cnw4747]

For sure very interesting, glad they tried things like range ammo to hollow point to +P

[u/the_life_is_good]

My only gripe with this test is they didn't test any of the commonly used duty / carry ammunition for .45.

Would have loved to see 230 Gr. Gold Dot or 230 Gr. HST, either in standard pressure or +P variety. Winchester PDX / Ranger series, Remington Golden Saber, Hornady Crit Duty / Crit Defense, Sig V Crown, etc. are very popular for carry as well. Just an overall weird test in terms of ammo selection IMO.

[u/Vertisce]

This has always boiled down to circumstance for me. When I am going out and around town, I take my Baretta 92A1 in 9mm. If I need to use it, there is a higher chance that I might need the extra range it provides and the additional rounds per magazine. If I am out in the woods, I take my Rhino because it's a much more powerful .357 Magnum round and I live in Bear country. But...for home defense, if I don't have immediate access to my semi-auto shotgun, I am going to grab my .45 first. It's rounds have less of a chance to go through my walls and my neighbors walls and kill someone in their sleep. I don't want that, I don't think anybody wants that. That would be stupid. And for the maximum of 10 yards needed within my home, .45 does the job and does it great.