Such "caliber debates" were much more interesting before I'd spent a lot of years in LE, including working as a firearms instructor & armorer.
Nowadays? Not so much.
Got a favorite? Suit yourself.
Kind of like debating cars, computers, shoes, boots, jackets, belts, screwdrivers, hammers or other tools.
Pick whatever you like for whatever reason(s) seem practical & necessary to you.
For
me, it's just a handgun being employed in a dedicated defensive role.
I remember when we were changing issued weapons and calibers a few years prior to my retirement, and people of all levels were asking for my opinion about make, model, caliber, etc. I refrained from making comments indicating what I personally thought about any of the potential gun/caliber combinations. I told anyone who asked that they'd all work, were all being successfully used by LE agencies all over the country, and I couldn't care less as long as I received the support for training, parts, maintenance, ammunition, etc after the choice had been made.
Apparently, any number of folks asking me that question seemed to have expected me to have some definitive opinion or answer about what I thought was
best. :rofl:
It's a handgun.
I changed model & caliber 3 times, I think, once new guns were selected. That was because inevitably somebody else wanted whatever I was carrying at any particular time, and when the new inventory was limited, I simply offered to turn in the gun/caliber someone else really wanted, and I took something else. The last time I took someone else's compact .45 because they
really wanted my compact .40 ... and I didn't care one way or the other.
Did I mention it's just a handgun?
I own and carry revolvers & pistols consisting of .38 Spl, .380, 9, .40 & .45, and every once in a while I might carry one of my .357 Magnum revolvers loaded with Magnum ammo, but not all that often ... and I used to carry revolvers chambered in .44 Spl, .44 Magnum & .45Colt.
If I were really concerned about "sheer muzzle energy" and "ballistic capability", I'd return to carrying .357 Magnum & .44 Magnum on a daily basis, and carefully select the ammunition for the envisioned task or anticipated circumstances ... but I'm not.
I'd have carried a .41 Magnum before I'd have carried a 10mm, but that's because of ammunition development and availability during the early years of 10mm. Limited choices in guns, too. I didn't really care for the early G20 I had a chance to use in the Fall of 1990 (instructor class and a visiting Glock rep), although the introduction of the 1006 sort of interested me.
I was more eager to see the Ruger P90 10mm introduced, but Ruger changed his mind at the last moment and released it in .45 ACP (which was still okay with me, being a longtime .45 shooter
).
Not being either a handloader anymore, nor a hunter, the 10mm has little interest to me nowadays, other than a certain amount of nostalgia for the premise of its creation. I was an avid shooter & reloader with real Magnum capability revolvers for many years, so the current tend of hot-rodding the 10mm is something I got out of my system many years ago.
When it comes right down to it, what's to "debate" about these low-powered handgun calibers, anyway?
