# US Army readopts the .45 ACP



## Remington 7400 (Dec 14, 2005)

*What rifle do you think the US Military should use?*​
M-16 or variant1676.19%Mini-14 or variant419.05%Some other .223 semi-auto14.76%


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## Remington 7400 (Dec 14, 2005)

How do you feel about the readoption of the .45? Personally I always felt the army made a mistake replacing it with the 9mm and are glad to see that the .45 is defending America again.

I also have heard rumors that RUGER is shipping large numbers of Mini-14's to both the Marines and the Army, what are the chances of rearming with the Mini-14? I've heard bad stories from Iraq, seems to me a replacement for the M-16 is long overdue.


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## Gohon (Feb 14, 2005)

You have a cite for either one of these or are both just something you heard?

last I heard/read, the Army about a year ago shipped several thousand prototype of the new XM8 5.56mm assault rifles to Iraq for field testing. If the new rifles prove as reliable as expected the Army will start a new issue (about 1 million) to it's people in 2007 but in the new XM8 and new 6.8mm caliber which is presently in test stages, doing away with the 5.56mm for combat use. That doesn't mean the M-16 is going anywhere soon. After all we still have and use the M-14.


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## Remington 7400 (Dec 14, 2005)

I read an article in shotgun news that the US had in fact dropped the 9mm and readopted the .45, they still havent settled on a gun. it seems to be between the Ruger P-97, Ruger P-345, and the tried and true 1911. Personally i hope they reissue the 1911, best gun ever made, i don't care if it is a 100 year old design!

As for the M-16, I'm not a fan of it, nor am i a fan of the .223 cartridge, but from what I've read and heard from friends coming back, the M-16 just isn't cutting it.

I had 2 buddies come back from iraq, one told me that the M-4 he was issued jammed so badly he only carried it when the head brass was around. All other times, especially while on patrol he carried a captured AK-47.

My other friend was an MP, inmstead of carrying the Beretta he was issued, he wrote home and requested his personal Sig P-220 be sent to him. he said that the 9mm was so ineffective against the enemy personell that it was not uncommon to empty an entire magazine of 9mm and still not penetrate their armor. Apparently the terrorists over there wear kevlar, however the 230 grain US GI .45 ball seems to penetrate quite well. Or so my friend said. Must be nice to carry your own gun and get your ammo provided by uncle sam!

As for the Mini-14, I read on another forum, so it may not be true,(it was suppost to be a ruger employee talking) that both the marines and Army were buying Mini-14's from ruger. To date, according to him, 250,000 units have been shipped to the Army, 150,000 to the marines, with an additional 200,000 on order by the marines. He also said that 50,000 P-97's had been contracted for shipment to Iraq by May 2006, the British Royal Air Force had requested 10,000 P-95 9mms, and 10,000 PC9 carbines for carry in their planes and the Austrilian Army, had requested 5,000 M77 sniper rigs in .338 Lapua. According to this guy, Ruger was about to win contracts for the largest rearment since the introduction of the AK-47.

If this is true, it would probably be a good time to buy a new .45 because the cheap ammo is back. Same goes for the Mini-14, magazines and accessories should get as cheap as the AR and variants.


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## NDTerminator (Aug 20, 2003)

I would be extremely surprised if the military bought that large of number of firearms without going through the procurement process.

Earlier this year the Army was on the verge of beginning the switch to the XM8 and 6.8SPC round. The rifle and round had been extensively tested, including use in Tango-Land by SF. The plant was up and ready to crank out the weapons (I believe it is in Virginia, but I could be wrong), but apparently the procurement process had not been followed, and the change over was stopped in it's tracks.

As my son is career Army with a tour in Afghanastan under his belt, and having used the M-16/5.56MM when I was in the Army, as well as now on the High Risk Entry/SWAT Team I lead, I was very disappointed with this decision.

The XM8/6.8MMSPC far superior to the M-16/variants in 5.56MM, has passed all tests, and has proven itself superior in battle. It's an utter crying shame our troops are denied it because of red tape & politics.

There was an article about this fiasco a couple months ago in the American Rifleman.

On the subject of the 1911 45ACP: I carried a 1911 45ACP for my entire tour in the Army, and for about half of my 25+ years as a LEO. IMO and that of a lot of other soldiers, it was a sad day when the 1911 45ACP was dropped in favor of the M-9 9MM. Nowadays I carry a department issued Glock in 40 S&W because I have to. If I had a choice, I'd still be carrying the best fighting handgun ever made, the 1911 45ACP...


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## Gohon (Feb 14, 2005)

Without question, at least to me the 45ACP is a much better round than the 9MM could ever be but your friend was mistaken if he thought the 45 was penetrating kevlar vests, especially with military hardball. Richard Davis, the inventor of Second Chance body armor use to give live demonstrations by placing the muzzle of a gun to his chest while wearing Kevlar and pulling the trigger. It takes a pointed bullet to penetrate body armor and when ceramic plates are inserted even most rifle bullets are stopped.......... the cops in the LA shoot out proved that.

Army Times had a write up about the XM8 awhile back where a few Army personnel who had been using the prototype in 5.56 version and they had nothing but praise for the gun. Some of the comments were that no matter what they did they could not get the gun to jam, even after sticking it into sand then firing it. The gun is compact at only 33 inches in length and using the 6.8 it sounds like the ideal combat weapon the military was looking for when the 5.56 was adopted.


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## Alaskan Brown Bear Killer (Feb 22, 2005)

It would be nice to give our troops something to get the job done with.
Perfer something that will KILL a human and is accurate out to 75 yards
or so.
It wouldn't be a GOV 45, but something else.


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## Alaskan Brown Bear Killer (Feb 22, 2005)

delete


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## Rick Fode (Sep 26, 2004)

I think I can clear some of the confusion up, since I am in Iraq right now and a Combat Engineer Gunnery Sergeant in the Marine Corps. The last two major offensives over here "Steel Curtain" and "Iron Fist" you may have heard of them, which my platoon and I were in, none of the Marines on the "tip of the spear" had anything but M-16 A-2's or M-4's as their personal weapons. There are no variants to speak of and there are no other calibers other than 5.56 (223) besides crew served weapons. As for the 9mm vs. .45, the Marine Corps used to use the 45 and switched to the 9mm about 15 years ago, there is nothing wrong with the Beretta M-9, those of us that are blowing down doors don't use a pistol anyway, we carry enough gear the way it is, if you have to use a pistol in a combat situation you screwed up really bad. As for the post that an M-4 is junk, whoever told you that is lost, and the reason for remedial action is purely operator error. The M-4 is relatively new to the USMC arsenal and functions flawlessly when used by a competent individual. I could go on for a while on this subject, my only complaint is the current caliber we use is too small compared to what an enemy 7.62 does to a human.


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## FLASH5 (Jan 25, 2006)

hey remember a war called viet nam, and a weapon called the m16, i do, we figured it took three rds to kill a **** it would not kill, the m14 did the 45 did but we are polictly correct now, that damn weapon never worked right do you hunt deer with a 22 no i belive the m16 killed more of us than the enemy and the 45 just look at history the army always came back to a 45 but we had to kiss nato s ar-- so we took the 9mm its only our tax money,. so vote for the demo" they know about everthing just ask clinton


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## Alaskan Brown Bear Killer (Feb 22, 2005)

:beer:


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## Bore.224 (Mar 23, 2005)

I have been hearing nothing but bad things about the M-16 and the 5.56 mm cartridge. But this is what I like about it, low recoil, flat shooting, accurate, can carry more ammo and the #1 reason is its light. The m-16 a1's only weigh in at around 6.5 lbs now i know the A2 are heavier. I would rather have an M-16 with 30 rounds than an m-14 with 20.


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## R y a n (Apr 4, 2005)

Rick Fode said:


> I think I can clear some of the confusion up, since I am in Iraq right now and a Combat Engineer Gunnery Sergeant in the Marine Corps. The last two major offensives over here "Steel Curtain" and "Iron Fist" you may have heard of them, which my platoon and I were in, none of the Marines on the "tip of the spear" had anything but M-16 A-2's or M-4's as their personal weapons. There are no variants to speak of and there are no other calibers other than 5.56 (223) besides crew served weapons. As for the 9mm vs. .45, the Marine Corps used to use the 45 and switched to the 9mm about 15 years ago, there is nothing wrong with the Beretta M-9, those of us that are blowing down doors don't use a pistol anyway, we carry enough gear the way it is, if you have to use a pistol in a combat situation you screwed up really bad. As for the post that an M-4 is junk, whoever told you that is lost, and the reason for remedial action is purely operator error. The M-4 is relatively new to the USMC arsenal and functions flawlessly when used by a competent individual. I could go on for a while on this subject, my only complaint is the current caliber we use is too small compared to what an enemy 7.62 does to a human.


Hey Rick

Long time no talk! Hope you and your squad are doing well in Iraq! I have been trying to get ahold of you since you posted about my father's 18 lb honker awhile back! PM me with your email address! I'd like to catch up and see how you have been! I was out in Hazelton again last fall hunting some geese and pheasants, and ran into your in-laws....

Ryan (aka Ben-elli)


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## Remington 7400 (Dec 14, 2005)

*FLASH5 wrote:*


> hey remember a war called viet nam, and a weapon called the m16, i do, we figured it took three rds to kill a **** it would not kill, the m14 did the 45 did but we are polictly correct now, that damn weapon never worked right do you hunt deer with a 22 no i belive the m16 killed more of us than the enemy and the 45 just look at history the army always came back to a 45 but we had to kiss nato s ar-- so we took the 9mm its only our tax money,. so vote for the demo" they know about everthing just ask clinton


Amen Brother! :beer:

We really do need to stop kissing NATO butt. We are the most powerful country on the face of the Earth, and we should be able to carry any caliber we want, not bow to NATO! :******:

I truely believe that the war in Iraq would be over by now if our troops would have been outfitted with .308 rifles and .45 pistols. Not this low powered .223 ground hog gun and 9mm womans gun. :sniper:


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## Burly1 (Sep 20, 2003)

If I remember correctly, the .45 was dropped in favor of the 9mm due to the inability of the average recruit to master the 1911 platform. Training scores were a great deal better with the 9mm. Now you can poo poo the 9mm all you want, but you have no choice but to admit that a smaller caliber in the hands of a proficient shooter is going to be more effective than a major caliber weapon in the hands of someone who can't hit the broad side of a barn with it. The added capacity, in combat, doesn't hurt either. As for the continued comment that the 9mm is a women's, or pansie's gun......I'll bet if you were hit in the torso with a 147 grain hollowpoint, your views would change in a hurry. My carry gun? Why it's a Colt stainless series 70 combat commander, with tritium sights, beavertail grip safety and a sweet trigger...... .45 ACP of course. :wink: Go armed, or don't go. Burl


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## FLASH5 (Jan 25, 2006)

the reason s nobody can shoot the 45 was first.your always told that the 45 stunk second we never trained with it i spent 24 yrs infintry , armor, and my side arm was the 45 we very seldom practice with it just once a year to qual that is shoot 40 rds and that was it i bought my own colt 45 1911 practiced and guess what it was accurate plus I know WHAT A 45 WILL DO just ask a couple of gooks oh guess what , you cant, gee oh my


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## Remington 7400 (Dec 14, 2005)

*Burly1 Wrote:*


> If I remember correctly, the .45 was dropped in favor of the 9mm due to the inability of the average recruit to master the 1911 platform. Training scores were a great deal better with the 9mm. Now you can poo poo the 9mm all you want, but you have no choice but to admit that a smaller caliber in the hands of a proficient shooter is going to be more effective than a major caliber weapon in the hands of someone who can't hit the broad side of a barn with it. The added capacity, in combat, doesn't hurt either. As for the continued comment that the 9mm is a women's, or pansie's gun......I'll bet if you were hit in the torso with a 147 grain hollowpoint, your views would change in a hurry. My carry gun? Why it's a Colt stainless series 70 combat commander, with tritium sights, beavertail grip safety and a sweet trigger...... .45 ACP of course. Go armed, or don't go. Burl


Yes, I'll be the first to admit that I don't want to suffer a torso hit with a 9mm, or a .32 ACP, or the lowly .22 LR for that matter.

Lets break down the 9mm and the .45.

On a good day if the 9mm bullet does its job perfectly and everything goes good, you will be punching dime sized holes in your advisary. :eyeroll:

However, with a .45 you can load it with anything under the sun and even if it dosen't expand you are still puching dime sized holes in the bad guy, NO MATTER WHAT. And if your bullet does decide to open, WATCH OUT. :wink:

The only thing the 9mm has going for it is the fact that it will defeat kevlar a little better due to the higher muzzle velocity. However, if you are shooting at armored troops, you really should have a rifle. 

I still say .45 ACP all the way. :beer:


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## Burly1 (Sep 20, 2003)

Agreed. IF you can learn to handle it. My wife can not. Her carry gun is a compact five shot revolver in 9mm, stoked with the rare Hydroshock bullet. A potent package within self defense distance in anyone's estimation. Burl


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## Remington 7400 (Dec 14, 2005)

What revolver is she carrying? The only 9mm revolver i have heard of is the Taurus IB.


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## Gohon (Feb 14, 2005)

The above was pulled from the FBI site. Awful lot of women and pansie shooters out ther killing cops. On yeah, the below story was also on the same site.



> In the authors' ongoing study of violence against law enforcement officers, they have examined several cases where officers used large-caliber hand guns with limited effect displayed by the offenders. In one case, the subject attacked the officer with a knife. The officer shot the individual four times in the chest; then, his weapon malfunctioned. The offender continued to walk toward the officer. After the officer cleared his weapon, he fired again and struck the subject in the chest. Only then did the offender drop the knife. This individual was hit five times with 230-grain, .45-caliber hollow-point ammunition and never fell to the ground. The offender later stated, "The wounds felt like bee stings."


Anyone wants the site it is ...............
http://www.fbi.gov/publications/leb/200 ... t04leb.htm

The point of the article was to debunk the super caliber one stop shot myth that seems to fascinate some people.


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## Bert (Sep 11, 2003)

I never could figure out why the US Military settled on .223. Seems awfully small. Is that because of Geneva Convention or somthing?
I always thought that war was a shoot to kill gig most of the time. That being said, what is stopping us from using a .308 or .270?
I sometimes wonder what would happen if they allowed the soldiers who grew up around firearms to tote their own piece.
There are a lot of guys around my neck of the woods who would fare pretty well if mustered tomorrow for combat in the woods of N Mn.

You Vietnam Vets...
Wasnt it semi common during that war for Pa to send the Mod. 12 Winchester over for the boy to use in combat? I thought I read that but maybe it is a wives tale.

Also, do they use scatterguns in todays military?
Boy, Id like OObuck and a shortbarelled pump for close combat if it came to that.


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

If the purpose was to kill they wouldn't have the rule against using soft tipped expanding bullets. Doesn't make any sense to me never did. 
The only logical answer I ever recieved was from one sargent that told me we caused them more trouble just wounding them. Its kind of like a game to the people that make the rules.

I was a medic and I had one of our guys shot in the foot right in front of me with a M-16, it richocheted thru him and came out his shoulder, killed him in his tracks. A soft tipped bullet may not of done that.


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## Alaskan Brown Bear Killer (Feb 22, 2005)

You shoot and wound 1 person and that takes 3 people out of the fight.


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## Remington 7400 (Dec 14, 2005)

Yes but those other 2 will come back, and they will be really ****** off!


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## Gohon (Feb 14, 2005)

Bob the FMJ has nothing to do with wounding of personnel or the Geneva Convention as some think. The old military myth of people having to take care of the wounded, thus removing more men from the fight is just that, a myth. The FMJ was adopted by the military for only one reason and that was for the purpose and for reliable rapid loading in automatic and semi-automatic weapons. As a hunter you can well imagine how fast a barrel would lead up using nothing but lead bullets. There was a convention in Hague, somewhere around 1900 I believe where there was adoption of the solid bullet by many countries for warfare, including IIRC Russia, Britain, China and a host of others but the US was not one of them that signed. The resolution called for the use of ball or solid bullet ammunition and the abandonment of hollow points because of the inhumane results of hollow points in wounding soldiers on the battle field. Oddly enough none of this stops the use of jacketed soft points, just hollow points.


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## jimboy (Apr 1, 2003)

I was told by my instructors at Fort Sam Houston that the U.S. adopted solid ball ammunition due to the fact that it would pass through the individual and not fragment thus reducing the amount of damage and subsiquent infection associated with a foriegn object in the body. However, little was understood about velocities and energy absorption until the korean and vietnam war when alot of research went into battle field injuries. it really isn't so much the size of the bullet but the velocity at which the projectile travels. the high velocities of today's firearms causes more damage with smaller projetiles than did the larger caliber projectiles of previous wars. Again this is what I was told. I think Gohon makes more sense. Alot of times the simplest explaination is the correct one. good post Gohon :thumb:

Bobm, I too was a medic and I also have seen the damage inflicted by an M-16 as well as an AK-47. I won't go into details cause I am sure we have plenty of vets out there who don't need educating on this subject. I will just close by saying I am happy to see the 45 back. I carried a 45 when I was in and they just started replacing them with the 9mm. the people I talked to hated them. I did not meet one soldier who liked it. My philosophy being at short range you do not want to chance wounding a threat. the 9mm is notorious for not having enough knock down power. you want to kill and eliminate the threat due to its proximity. the 45 is much more reliable in that department than the 9mm and accuracy is about the same.


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## FLASH5 (Jan 25, 2006)

guess what, as a combat grunt three tours in the nam , when i assault a hill i want the enemy DEAD,DEAD,DEAD I DONT WANT A WOUNDED **** STILL THERE. what would you do if you were wounded. ill tell you, FIGHT!!!!!! and all you it takes four to take a wounded of the field dont worry ill KILL them too. remember the enemy are not human , just targets of oppertunity KILLING IS OUR BUSNESS AND BUSNESS IS GOOD " 101ST AIRBORNE DIV "


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## Gohon (Feb 14, 2005)

There is no need for the racial slurs (****). They were your enemy, you were their enemy, plain and simple. And before you ask, yes I was there. When you use those terms all you really accomplish is to belittle yourself.


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## james s melson (Aug 19, 2003)

FLASH5 said:


> hey remember a war called viet nam, and a weapon called the m16, i do, we figured it took three rds to kill a **** it would not kill, the m14 did the 45 did but we are polictly correct now, that damn weapon never worked right do you hunt deer with a 22 no i belive the m16 killed more of us than the enemy and the 45 just look at history the army always came back to a 45 but we had to kiss nato s ar-- so we took the 9mm its only our tax money,. so vote for the demo" they know about everthing just ask clinton


The M16 that is in the field now is the best combat platform being used by any army. Don't even try to compare todays rifle with what the troops in Viet Nam were issued, much of the problems were ammo related anyway.

There are many states where the .223 is a legal deer cartridge.


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