I recommend that people shoot what they can hit with. Thus, I even like the 32 auto. I tried hard to get Mrs Biscuit to hit with 45, and she did good, but only on the rounds where her eyes weren't closed!

My experience with knockdown power was this. Lord have mercy, had a night on Okinawa as duty officer. A perp stabbed one of our sentries who pulled his piece and did what he had to do. The first shot was a chest grazer, as the perp turned to run. The second shot was a chest shot but did not hit the spine. The 3rd shot was a heart shot. He continued to run 50 yards before he collapsed and died. Now, that was a bad night. But I am grateful that his last moments were not spent on doing more damage to the sentry. At no point did the 45 "knock him down." The sentry was hospitalized with a collapsed lung from the knife wound, but recovered.