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Great Post, raygun.

About the .45 not expanding in an enemy..it obviouly doesn't have to, if heavy enough...like 230 grains, to be quite serviceably effective in actual use. Decent body-hits don't get ignored too often, I am told. Mess with any part of a long-winning formula, and you'd better get busy on re-inventing just about everything else to compensate, and throw in hitting the sweet-spot of performance again, just like definitely once some time before 1911, by John M. Browning. Tall order. When it's your life, or that of others, for a long, poorly-supplied time...like a real, lasting war....or a true survival situation, but one where you have to hit and settle larger targets than rabbits, maybe a lot of times...that well-placing big fat slugs at reasonable pressures and fireworks becomes necessary, and survivors choose what their successful predecessors chose before them. Big stuff. Before the M-1911 and its predecessor, the 1873 Peacemaker, and models like the Walker cap and ball, the Government used a .50 single shot, before that percussion and flintlock big-bores...not squirrel rifles, not squirrel pistols. The Navy used the .36 caliber, and long barrels.....supposedly for "reach," but pistols were not a very useful Naval warfare weapon even then. Duh. Wild Bill had nerves of steel, expected trouble at all times, and practiced every day, first thing. He also wore TWO (cavalry-style) twist-draw Navies, and faced down lead to surgically settle the exchange pronto, period. If he lived longer than you could hit and stop him, you're dead. Period. He was dangerous. He lived until the day he didn't face the door, and died with his boots on, playing cards in a saloon. I believe he was shot with a .45 Army, or a Schofield. His .30's would have done the job though, had he faced the danger. Time's up.

I'm not going to argue the issue about the superiority of the 10mm auto and the .45 ACP. Both will do the job. Both rounds are lethal, as is the 9mm.

The issue with regards to the original post has to do with flawed equipment (similiar to the initial release of the M-16), and is something that nobody really discussed. The Glock G20 was designed from scratch in short order (Glock not knowing the difference between a revolver and a semiautomatic at the time) for the Austrian military. Glock came up with something unique, a polymer (plastic) weapon. Since nobody had ever seen anything like that, the Austrians demanded that Glock's prototype shoot 8000 rounds with no more than 5 misfires. Well, it shot 10000 with only 1 misfire (failure to eject, as opposed failure to feed). Furthermore, it can be dropped into the dirt and still keep firing, and dropped for all angles of contact and not misfire. That's not bad in my book. Oh, by the way, the requirememt of 8000 rounds with 5 misfires was waived for any of the other contenders because it was assumed they could match that. Moreover, the very material a Glock is made out of can stand some very hot loads, and the manner how it flexes accomodates recoil rather well. In fact it has been demonstrated to do so better than all steel build weapons.

Anyway, the U.S. military looked into the Glock, but Glock wouldn't release the manufacturing rights, patents, etc. He wanted to reap what he sowed. Can you blame him? So the Beretta that actually is at fault is not the Beretta, but the U.S. production for military use model made by U.S corporations. Heck, we had that same problem back when the M-16 was first release. Colt said, you got to use these rounds (manufactured to these specs). Congress in their infinite wisdom said, we think these cheaper rounds are just as good. Sure they were, except at the cost of so many U.S. service members lives. That's why the M-16 obtained such a miserable reputation, and most likely why the Beretta in question is being maligned also.

While the .45 ACP might be tried and proven, is it the best technology? Well, lets just say the DC-3 is still flying.