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I will admit I'd never heard of the .45 Super. It sounds to me like a problem in search of a solution.

There is a plethora of modern, reliable, rugged, and accurate .45 ACP platforms out there. It's a proven man-stopping cartridge, even in hardball. It works. The US Military should never have bowed to NATO political pressure and changed to the hardball 9mm.

While 9mm with modern hollow point ammo is a reliable fight stopper, the hard ball can't say the same.

And I can't agree more with the poster who said that the criteria for a new cartridge shouldn't be that they fit in the M-16 platform magazines.

Go all new or not at all........new designs, new concepts , new calibers that STOP an aggressor vs wound politics.

I like the magazine styles of the FN P90. I am wary of the materials used in that magazine. The clean and cool chambers of the HK416 etc .....What ever the design ......make it valid , vs a PC based budget buy forced upon the DOD. Any weapon we obtain must be able to adapt to the war we are going to fight AND the wars we have already fought. Consider ALL environments. Consider all past present and future problems. Incorporate all the ergonomics into the weapons furniture and accessories. Materials should be ultralight and durable in either saltwater or sand, frozen or not.

Above all else ........GI Proof, deadly and very accurate out too 800 meters, day or night. But do right by those that go in harms way to preserve our republic and freedom.

I will admit I'd never heard of the .45 Super. It sounds to me like a problem in search of a solution.

At the time [early 1970s] a couple of pals of mine were big-time experimenters with the .45-plus concept, which to my mind mostly resulted in a .45ACP that recoiled more, had more muzzle blast, and was harder on brass. I got to do a good bit of the testfiring, using both handloads made from 7.62 Nato brass and factory experimental loaded ammo from Shelbyville, IN coincidental to Lee Jurras' .44 Auto Mag development.

Upon being asked what I thought of the hotrodded .45 round, I admitted that it worked to a reasonable degree of reliability, but the only serious use I could think of for it was as a carry handgun in bear country for someone who preferred a semiauto to a revolver or [better!] shorty shotgun.

On being asked *if you could have anything you wanted chambered in this caliber, what would it be* [they were pushing for a factory .45 Super chambering of the Ruger Blackhawk at the time] I thought a bit and came up with two picks: the 1950's.45 NAACO Brigadeer pistol design, which was a sort of 4-pound .45 version of the Browning Hi-Power, and for a bottom-barrel chambering of the old .22 Hornet/.410 shotgun Ithaca M6 survival rifle/shotgun combo, now made by Springfield.

I really couldn't come up with a third choice in which the cartridge would be a particular asset, though a .45 Sooper Luger and the .44 Auto-Mag actions were kicked around. I went back to work in bear country, armed as the law required, and my answers for bear problems varied from 83/8- barrelled S&W .44 magnum M29 revolvers, the 4-inch barrelled M57 or M58 in .41 Mag, or a short 12-gauge shotgun, usually a Remington 870. In 1988 gun writer Dean Grennell did a couple of articles on his own .45 Super, [he used .451 Detonics brass] and around 1994 Ace Custom .45’s in Cleveland, Texas filed to trademark the .45 Super as a brand name designation.

Flash forward to the mid-1990s, and Indiana okayed deer hunting with handguns IF the weapons had a 4-inch barrel AND used a cartridge over .357 diameter and longer than 1.6 inches in length. .45 Super didn't make it, but .45 Win Mag did, and .45 Win Mag cases cut down to 1.1635 were both legal and were short enough to feed in a M1911 pistol magazine- now known to Hoosier handgunners as the *.45 Whitetail.*