Best caliber for Concealed Carry.
What is the best caliber to carry for personal defense?
This is a question that has no correct answer. But there are wrong answers.
Once again, this is my opinion. And any gun is better than no gun.
The logic I am applying to this is if you have to pick 1 gun for an all around defense round. Obviously you don’t need a huge caliber if you are being charged by a coyote, or a super small caliber for a bear. Every caliber has a role, I’m helping you decide what the best all around and most practical caliber is.
I’m going to be comparing calibers that are most common for CCW pistols. If you carry a 44mag, 50 AE, 7.62×25….what the fuck is wrong with you??? Your choices are dumb.
Let’s talk about Energy, joules, ft/lbs. This is arguably the most important
You can skip some calibers if you don’t care. You can also skip to the bottom to see my final thoughts if you don’t want the specs to all the info.
We are going to be using Speer ammo for this testing. All info has been pulled off Speers website. Muzzle energy was converted using the following equation:
velocity x velocity x bullet mass / 450,240
Why 450,240? Someone math wiz in sweden figured this out and its the something or something that makes something….i don’t know, fucking google it if you care that much. But everyone uses this number.
| Caliber | Bullet type | Barrel length In inches | Velocity fps | Energy ft/lbs |
| .22 magnum | 40g Gold dot | 2 | 1050 | 97.94 |
| .32 acp(for all you annoying james bonds fans) | 60g Gold dot | 4 | 960 | 122.81 |
| .380 | 90g gold dot | 3.75 | 1040 | 216.20 |
| 9mm | 124g +P Gold dot | 3.5 | 1150 | 364.22 |
| .40 S&W | 165g Gold Dot | 3.5 | 1150 | 484.65 |
| .38 | 135g +P Gold dot | 2 | 860 | 221.76 |
| .357 | 158g Gold Dot | 4 | 1235 | 535.23 |
| .45 acp | 230g +P Gold Dot | 5 | 950 | 461.03 |
| 10mm | 200g Gold Dot | 5 | 1100 | 537.49 |
Now that you have facts in front of you, let’s break down each caliber above.
22 magnum.
As the name implies, this is the magnum version of 22LR.
I bet you’re asking why I didn’t include 22LR in my chart above.
22lr is good for 2 things, plinking and killing small game. It’s not good for self defense whatsoever. But fuck it. Here are some numbers Federal Punch 22LR 29g 1080 FPS 75 FT/LBS
75 FT/LBS is nothing. There is no exact number of what it takes to kill a man…I mean stop the treat. But it’s estimated to be around 55 FT/LBS. Making 22LR but barely enough to do the job.
So back to 22 magnum. This has almost 100 ft/lbs of energy not a ton of energy.
And it’s going to lose that energy pretty quickly
On top of that, its a fucking rimfire cartridge, rimfire round are notorious for jamming and miss feeding. This is one of the worst things to happen in a gunfight, if you are using a rimfire you are giving yourself a major disadvantage with feeding and low energy.
But Alex, there are a lot of 22 magnum pistols that carry 30 rnds. That’s a lot more than a 9mm.
While you are correct about that. Think of it this way.
If you are standing 10ft away from me, and I throw a marble at your chest as hard as I can. It’s going to hurt, sting a bit. Probably leave a bruise the size of a quarter. Right? We’ll call that a 22 magnum marble.
Now this time. You’re still 10ft away from me, but I throw baseball at your chest as hard as I can. What happens? The wind gets knocked out of you and you are probably struggling to breathe on the ground, I possibly broke or fractured a rib or two, there’s a bruise the size of a grapefruit on your chest and you in extreme pain. We’ll call this a 9mm baseball.
What caliber would you want? 22 mag marble or 9mm baseball?
You’ll need 30 rounds of weak, prone to jam 22 mag to really stop a guy.
Now
.32 ACP
I added this one kind of as a joke. .32 acp was the caliber of the walther PPK james bond used in the novels. In the movies he used a .380. But hard core james bond fans want the .32 acp because “if it’s good enough for james, it’s good enough for me”
.32 acp is a joke. Its 122 ft/lbs of power. It’s expensive to shoot which means you’re not going to train with it as much, it’s also somewhat hard to find. James bond may have used it but james bond also did some other crazy near super human shit in the books and movies as well.
People survive 9mm gunshots, you think this little shit bullet that is ⅔ weaker than 9mm is going to be a good choice???? Next!
.380
380 is the first real caliber on this list, and it just barely makes the list imo.
I rag on .380 a lot. The bullet itself is basically the same size as 9mm but the casing is shorter and it’s a hell of a lot weaker. However there are some benefits to 380.
It’s going to recoil a lot less then other calibers while still pushing out 216 ft/lbs of energy. 380 is pushed really hard on women or people with weak hands.
However, lots of 380’s are in smaller frame guns with shorter barrels and can be fairly snappy guns, these can actually in some cases generate more recoil then other pistols.
The size of 380 guns was also a big selling point back in the day because they were noticeably smaller then 9, 40, 45 however in the last few years they have been able to really shrink down higher caliber rounds.
If you cannot handle higher caliber rounds, 380 is the lowest caliber you should go with. But I STRONGLY encourage you to use the next bullet.
9mm
9mm is the golden child, the big cheese, the grand puba, the Brad Patt of calibers. It is the most commonly used caliber for self defense, police, the FBI, the CIA, all branches of the military the list goes on and on and on. 9mm is my number 1 choice.
9mm pushes out 364 ft/lbs of energy, most of the guns being made can hold 10-20 rounds depending on the size. It’s the most common ammo out there. It’s the cheapest full power caliber you can get, so you can buy ammo and shoot this often.
With the invention of +P ammo, 9mm is now also just as strong or stronger than higher calibers then it.
A well placed shot from 9mm will turn the lights out on a human permanently. It has very manageable recoil. There are some crazy rounds out there too. When you are looking for a personal defense pistol, you should be looking at 9mm first.
40 S&W
What does the S&W stand for in 40 S&W? It stands for short and weak……ok not really but i’ll touch on that more later. It really stands for 40 Smith and wesson. The history of 40 is pretty interesting, give it a google if you are interested. But long story short the FBI wanted to replace their .38 caliber revolvers and after a bunch of trials they went with 40 s&w. It does provide a lot of power. 484 to 9mm’s 364. It’s a decent amount more. However, much like VCR’s and landline phones, times have changed and there are better options. 40 is bigger than 9mm and with the right ammo you can get 9mm that are pretty close to the same performance as 40 but with less recoil and more rounds.
40 is still a pretty good round for defense, I have a 40 cal gun that I use for a home defense gun, but i would never carry it as an everyday kind of thing.
.38 Special
Once upon a time ago in a world where police thought using revolvers was a good idea even though .45 acp 1911’s existed. .38 was used by so many law enforcement agencies and civilians all over. And don’t get me wrong, .38 can fuck your day up pretty good. Except 38 is rimmed cartridge, not rimfire like the 22 magnum, rimmed meaning it needs to be fired out of a revolver. Just like our 40 s&w there are better things out there then 38 in today’s modern age. But even by looking at the ballistics above, .38 is very, almost comically weak when compared to 9mm. .38 is certified bitch caliber.
.357
357 is the big brother to .357 is a funny round to me. Because it was developed in 1934 and at the time .45 acp and 9mm were both around for 30+ years. But they wanted to stick with .38 but they wanted it to have some ass to it. So taking the same bullet but shoving it into a longer casing with more gun powder and boom, you have the 357 magnum. Very powerful caliber. 537 ft/lbs of force is no joke. You get hit with this and the lights are most likely going out. However , just like the .38, is a rimmed cartridge that is most commonly shot in 6 shot revolvers and there are other wounds that outperform it.
.45 acp
45 acp, colt 45, 45 auto, the bullet that “won” 2 world wars, blah blah blah. .45 acp was once one of the most calibers in America for the longest time. Before the creation of 45 acp in 1904 we were using 45 long colt as early as 1873. However, created 3 years before .45 was 9mm. And with the development of better ammo, I still think 9mm beats the shit out of 45 acp. I think 40 S&W beats out 45 acp due 40 be able to usually cram a few more rounds in the mag vs similar size 45 guns.
There are hundreds of articles that pair up 9mm and 45 acp in a fight to what’s better.
I’m going to sound like a broken record, but there are +P 9mm rounds that can produce just as much energy as 45 acp, while having more capacity and less recoil than the 45 acp. Listen 45 is a cool caliber, and there are really cool guns that fire it, but it’s outdated, there’s better shit. Deal with it.
10mm
Saving the best for last. The worst nightmare to almost any caliber bigger than 9mm mentioned below. I give you the 10mm. Remember when I called 40 S&W short and weak? That he because the FBI originally switched to 10mm however due to the guns designed back then and the little bitch hands the FBI had, they needed somewith with less recoil and choose to switch to 40. But things have changed, ammunition manufactures have figured how to design the bullet better, gun manufactures have made better guns that absorb recoil better and 10mm is fucking up all the other competition. Look at the ballistics. 537 ft/lbs of energy! Stronger than anything else we talked about! On top of that, most of the 10mm guns on the market carry more ammo than 40s, 45s, 38s & 357s! More ammo, more power, better ballistics at range? This is a no brainer caliber. I talk a lot more about 10mm and shit talk some revolvers in this article here.
