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I have used the 45 in combat, and during my one opportunity for glory during an up close and personal event, the weapon jammed by closing on an ejecting brass shell casing and functioned no more. (I didn't "notice" it had stopped going off, and proceeded to get myself laced with 29 holes until someone with a real gun showed up to save me!)

I do agree that the pistol has more impact than one of those pretty pistols like the walther, barreta, etc. but it is easy to jam up, especially when the spring in the magazine clip is weakened my constant compression as you carry it in the feild.

Besides which, you can't hit a damn thing with it unless you are really expert and constantly on the range, and no one in combat has the itme for that stuff.

The opportunities to use a pistol in combat are very few. When it gets that "close" you are already is serious doodoo one way or another.

So, if I had it to do over again (and I wouldn't go there knowing what I know about that stuff!) I would carry a revolver. You really only need a shot or two when you need to pop your sidearm, and the revolver is easier to maintain and much easier to shoot accurately.

I think a new "US ARMY 45 cal revolver" would be just about right about 90% of the time.

Speaking from a gunsmithing viewpoint, a revolver is generally less sturdy than an automatic. I am not sure that you could not make a sturdy one, but most aren't.

The problems incude the frame shape, the necessity for a pawl to move the cylinder, some pretty significant considerations of headspace, and firing pin design.

Of course there are hermaphrodites....
I once had the pleasure of shooting a Webley .455 automatic revolver. One pulled the trigger it shot, then there were all kinds of noises and different forces on your wrist before it returned "to battery". I would seriously dounbt the accuracy of anyone's second shot.

The entire upper frame and barrel slides back in recoil, a stub rides in an angled groove on the cylinder to rotate it, and from the sounds a pair of gnomes come out and ring the clock tower bell on the hour.

RISU: "I think a new "US ARMY 45 cal revolver" would be just about right about 90% of the time."

Funny you should say that. I've read that the .45 Colt (Long Colt) Revolver is what was pressed into service against the Moros and that the .45 ACP didn't get into that fight until near the end. Some say it is the Long Colt that is the stopper.

"Another bit of interesting historical trivia is that it was the .45 Colt/SAA that was brought out of retirement when the Moro insurrection in the Philippines started to get out of hand and the .38 Long Colt service revolvers used by the U. S. Army at the turn of the Century proved inadequate to the task of stopping the fanatical knife wielding natives. The .45 ACP/1911 auto pistol is generally credited with solving the problem, but that is not the case. It was the old .45 Colt SAA revolver that was brought out of storage and issued to desperate troops in the Philippines. This is easily verified by old photos of U.S. troops in the Phillippines that show their sidearms, as well as by the dates involved. Consider that the Philippines became a U.S. colony at the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898, which marks the beginning of the U.S. involvement in the Phillippines (long before the invention of the .45 Auto). The last battle of the Moro Insurrection took place in 1912 (this was the only battle in which any .45 Autos were used). The M1911 .45 Auto was not even adopted until 1911, when the war in the Philippines was almost over. So it was the .45 Colt revolver that provided the legendary "knock-down" power later (incorrectly) credited to the .45 Auto."

http://www.chuckhawks.com/45Colt.htm