Like many of you, I went round and round in my head about whether to go 9mm or .40 for my carry caliber. At the range, I always love seeing the larger holes the .40 makes... call me a simpleton.
The main argument I hear for choosing 9mm is...
"Shot placement is everything. The caliber doesn't matter, where you put it does."
Well, I think that argument does as much to defeat choosing 9mm as it may help it. Very, very few of us are going to get enough training and/or practice to be sure that our shot placement will be spot on. In fact, the statistic for *cops* is 20% accuracy or less. So since we know that placement is important but not something we can 100% count on, why not choose the largest caliber you can handle to cause mondo damage on the shots you *can* connect?
This is precisely why I chose the .40 cal round. Yes it's more expensive. My life is worth it. Besides, I can drop a 9mm conversion barrell in my G23, buy a couple 9mm mags, and start shooting all I want. I'll still carry .40 for daily carry. You can't go up to .40 from a G17/19.