45 makes a bigger entrance hole than a 44, barely, but that's it. The 44's speed will cause more tissue damage and "blow your head clean off your shoulders"
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45 makes a bigger entrance hole than a 44, barely, but that's it. The 44's speed will cause more tissue damage and "blow your head clean off your shoulders"
The 45 acp is a much lower velocity than the 44 magnum, so you have virtually the same size projectile, at much different speeds.
You can shoot a 44 mag 100 yards. You can't do that with a .45 acp.
With newer guns and smokeless powder you can get a 45 long colt up there, but at the time the 44 mag was developed, I don't think it could.
Oh, and case length doesn't really mean anything.
.357 mag is the same diameter as a .38 special. There is enough room in a .38 case for a magnum load. For safety, the .357 case is 1/8 longer to prevent it being chambered in a 38 pistol, which isn't built for that much pressure.
A nominal 9mm is only about .002" smaller than a .357/.38 and it is ballistically similar to the .38 despite a much shorter case.
Absolutely, is not the .45 the Holy Grail of calibers. :shrug:
I'm actually partial to .40 S&W myself... I know, I know... muzzle flip, yadda, yadda.
Really, though, my Springfield XD subcompact doesn't have too much flip. I'm actually waiting for them to finally release the XDs in .40 so I don't have to change calibers.
OT: Speaking of muzzle flip (and perceived recoil in general) I've been reading Alan Eguza's (sp?) book on the turnipseed technique (as in Ken Turnipseed), and there's some pretty interesting theory in there.
BUT and this is actually a small but hehehe
The rifle and cartridge that sling a .223 bullet vary greatly, also the bullet and composition of that bullet can change it from an Explosive impact to a Penetrator that barely displaces any tissue at all this is also true of most all cartridges...
Just take Bruno's question of .44 vs .45 and trying to simplify the difference to just the Diameter which also varies within each caliber
There is a multitude of both and that is without going to the older outdated rounds..
There are .45 caliber handgun rounds that make a .44 rem mag look wimpy in comparison
It just isn't that easy a .44 mag loaded with a +280 gr full jacketed say a 300 gr Barnes Buster will punch a neat clean .429 hole through somebody without much Tissue damage at all, so unless it is a fatal organ shot it will probably not kill.. Where you take the same gun and load it with a 210 gr High Expansion petal style HP and that same non-fatal shot might very well kill or seriously maim, it is just not that simple when you start discussing Terminal Impact ballistics ..
Huge amounts of money in testing and development has gone into finding the best designs for each use of each caliber and cartridge... so ammo and bullet selection can become as important as weapon selection :)