There is handgun-defense fetish-ing that is the subject of debates the way sports teams are, but the press of life deprives any caliber of its romanticism. Once the sights wobble, hands become greasy and time seems short, a cartridge either provides a sufficient degree of penetration and reliability to land on something essential- or it does not.
Blasting-gel statistics are useful, however, they also lead to a bitter reality: handguns do not provide teatonic, foreseeable effects. It is an easy and inhuman task to shoot a bullet in a vital place and have it go in deep enough. Anything which derails that purpose, be it faulty ignition, marginal penetration, or recoil deceleration of consecutive fire, is an issue in a flash.
1. .22 Long Rifle
22 LR remains in demand due to its ability to shoot easily. The downside is that it has a rimfire ignition system, that has a greater risk of misfire compared with centerfire cartridges. Independent reliability sampling has established rimfire duds are not uncommon, such as a test which measured 9 duds per 3,500 or so rounds, a failure rate that is significant in a test where only a few shots can be fired.
Another constraint is added in terminal performance. Most .22 LR loads generate a modest amount of energy and may not penetrate the popular 12 18 inch window of penetration of duty-ammunition, especially following thick clothing. The outcome is a round that can be put into position, but that fails to provide the depth and dependability required of a primary defensive option.
2. .25 ACP
25 ACP was intended to be similar to the performance of .22 LR with centerfire ignition, and it performs better with paper primers. What it sacrifices to reach there are the very low energy and poor wounding mechanics of normal defensive barrel lengths.
Practically it just tends to act like a weakened middle ground that has been rendered mostly redundant by the modern micro-compact centerfire pistols. When a cartridge is set off behind the curve, real world parameters, angles, arms in the path, thick clothes, etc. have little opportunity to act against it.
3. .32 ACP
32 ACP is known to fire smoothly and deservedly so. Even the standard energy of its rounds still puts it below rimfire performance relative to modern service caliber, and expansion of the round may be unreliable behind clothing barriers.
The trade is evident: controllability is enhanced, but depth and disruption may not be as good as defensive testing seems to encourage. In the case of carriers with the ability to accommodate slightly bigger pistols or a recoil increase, the performance margin usually expands rapidly.
4. .410 Shotshell From Revolvers
Revolvers with 410 chambers sell a cool concept of a defensive handgun projectile thrower. The engineering fact is that short barrels slow down the velocity and rifling can cause an unstable shot spread making the spreads grow swift and harder to consider.
There is some chronograph evidence with a 2-inch revolver indicating that the Winchester PDX1 .410 load is running approximately 610- 650 feet per second, significantly lower than the printed velocity on the box of higher barrel lengths. Although the overall payload energy may appear encouraging, the smaller parts of the projectile may achieve only a shallow, patchy penetration, particularly the smaller elements of the bullet, and the variation of the patterns increases the chances of misses or otherwise during longer ranges.
5. Weak .380 ACP Loads
ACP using 380 is functional, although it is at the limit of acceptable performance with short barrels which are the appeal of the caliber. It happens that some hollow points are forced to grow at an early stage and check themselves; others are forced not to grow at all, but to grow too deep. It is the problem of the inconsistent middle ground rather than the popularity of the cartridge.
Heavy clothing barriers used in gel protocols tend to give the strongest tradeoff between penetration and expansion with .380 relative to service rounds in the 9mm range. At load margins, such minute variations as barrel length, clothing, impact angle, etc. can shift the results between the range of adequate and not enough.
6. 10mm Auto
10mm Auto is an actual powerhouse and where the downs are not secret, the downs are the recoil, blast and inability to make quick accurate shots by many shooters. The deep penetration disposition of the cartridge also requires a careful choice of loads in defensive situations where there are bystanders and thin walls.
Gel tests have solidified one useful observation: when optimized ammunition design is used, certain 10mm loads can achieve similar results as strong .40 S&W-based ammunition without necessarily ensuring superior real-world performance against human threats. It is still a rational option when dealing with roles where penetration is important but the more power approach carries a quantifiable handling fee.
7. .38 Special out of Ultra-Short Barrels
38 Special has half a century of defensive record, yet physics penalizes it in barrels less than two inches. Reduced velocity decreases expansion and may pull penetration beneath the floor which defensive testing takes as a reference point.
Revolver gel work data points to the extent that barrel length counts: the identical load will seem to act differently when shot through a 2-inch versus a 4-inch test barrel, and fabric barriers will plug hollow points and smooth out performance. Snub-nose guns, with loads of grand titles on them, do not necessarily run to good depth and growth in the right places.
Caliber arguments often resemble arguments involving the concept of stopping power, but the real points of failure are more mundane: the consistency of ignition, the ability to penetrate clothes and the body, and the possibility of fired shot being repeatable. The cartridges that are above are not useless. They only require tradeoffs that are more difficult to justify with the stress, and imperfect angles and real-life barriers considered as a normal, but not exceptional.
