About "Stopping Power"

[drt4lfe]

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Stats...stats and more stats....I have seen bad guy's in Astan hit with everything from 9mm to 50 cal......and seen whole belts shot from M240 and no hits.....does not matter what size the round is....lead in flesh is what stops confrontations....sometimes it takes one round....sometimes many.....no two situations are or will ever be the same....you can stat this to death and it makes no difference in a gun fight....the person holding the gun does.....

[myakka]

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the FBI published a study years ago, tracking various calibers of handguns. The study didn't look at projectile types, but only incorporated data where a subject had received a gunshot wound(s) to center mass (not including head).

You know, that's the kind of data that I like to see. I hope you find the report. I have helped work on lab experiments that were supposed to be mimicking real life, but the factors are just too varied and uncontrollable. So pack up the gel, shut off the velocometer, just read the coroner's reports and let me know which calibers were used on the corpse and which ones were used BY the corpse!!!!

[Big Guy]

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I totally agree with you on this one, all it takes is one hit in the right spot or many hits in the wring spots. It's all about getting the hits on target. .22 or .45 it don't matter, dead is still dead.

Stats...stats and more stats....I have seen bad guy's in Astan hit with everything from 9mm to 50 cal......and seen whole belts shot from M240 and no hits.....does not matter what size the round is....lead in flesh is what stops confrontations....sometimes it takes one round....sometimes many.....no two situations are or will ever be the same....you can stat this to death and it makes no difference in a gun fight....the person holding the gun does.....

[Buggyout]

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Stats...stats and more stats....I have seen bad guy's in Astan hit with everything from 9mm to 50 cal......and seen whole belts shot from M240 and no hits.....does not matter what size the round is....lead in flesh is what stops confrontations....sometimes it takes one round....sometimes many.....no two situations are or will ever be the same....you can stat this to death and it makes no difference in a gun fight....the person holding the gun does.....

This may be the truest post about "stopping power" I have ever read. I to, have seen lots of injury and death due to firearms and explosives of all kinds. (Iraq) As a Cop, I witnessed two suicides with .22 caliber handguns in two parts of the city on the same day. the first shot herself in the nose, and the bullet indeed bounced around her cranium turning her brain to mush. The second guy shot himself through the roof of his mouth and the bullet went clean through, up his nasal canal and out the top of his head. he is still alive, today.

[lalakai]

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The second guy shot himself through the roof of his mouth and the bullet went clean through, up his nasal canal and out the top of his head. he is still alive, today.

Ouch. Usually if a person really wants to commit suicide, they will succeed. The failed attempts are normally the people who are looking for attention. For this person.....they were definitely committed. Lol karma. I can only imagine what they had done, to be rejected at threshold of death, then returned to the living. some bad juju there

[Hummer]

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The orginal poster is to be commended for grasping facets that are often overlooked and has an excellent understanding of the bigger picture so to speak.

For those wishing to learn more of the FBI studies you can get tons of it on internet and more. After the FBI shootings in Miami circa 85 time frame they wanted answers and they utilized the most knowledgeable source on the subject Colonel/Dr. Martin Fackler of the Army Wound Ballistics Lab who is a long time friend and now retired in Florida.

To save lots of writing here google Martin Fackler wound ballistics and you will have at your fingertips everything the FBI had access to. If you have the NATO handbook on war surgery you might read the chapter on bullet wounds as it was written by Marty.

His articles will clearly define the mechanics of why hollow points do not work well in a variety of calibers and you will learn more about wound lethality than you ever thought to ask.

If anyone should happen to run up on any of the issues of the Journal of the International Wound Ballistics Association hold on to them as they are gems. Fackler started the association in the late 80s and lots of good work was produced by the association.

I would have to agree that the 9MM is not the round of choice especially with US commercial loadings. Be assured I either now own or have owned handguns from 22 LR to 45 Long Colt and have loaded all except 22LR. I was on the first 9MM Test at Aberdeen Proving Ground and know the testing conducted by the Air Force at Eglin Field Florida was thrown in the trash can when the Army rep from our office who observed the testing made his report.

On the other hand I worked with a officer who put seven from a 1911A1 into a 3" ground dead center of chest and he kept coming so he put eigth round in forehead which got his attention quickly.

The US Border Patrol had three officers empty three hi cap mags of 9MM into a guy who was never knocked off his feet taking the rounds and as they were reloading the bad guy dropped his weapon and screamed "I give up." They got him to the hospital where he received surgery to remove the lead mine in his body and replace lots of blood due to leakage from small wounds and he survived to be tried.

In reading Facklers works you will quickly learn the only reliable way to stop someone quickly with a handgun is to crush or sever the spinal cord or evacuate the cranial vault.
We both lectured to a large law enforcement agency in Florida who requested a presentation after they shot about five and had to run them down and tackle them after shooting them two and three times with HPs. The audience included the local medical examiner and he got an education on wounds better than he got in medical school.

[lalakai]

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something else we are starting to see especially in combat style shooting training; we don't try for the nice tight compact groups. You have more effect if the rounds are spread throughout center mass. Another officer who is on the SWAT unit for his department talks about the "T" zone, where they are taking head shots resulting in minimal muscle response, ie........not reflexively squeezing a trigger on a firearm they may be holding

[Hummer]

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There is another way to look at it. If in applying your weapon/ammo system/delivery to a bad guy and a solid center hit doesn't take him down immediately on first shot and he continues to stand and act you have your first clue that your selection/issue is not in your best interest.

I used to teach CWP and our law requires 8 hours of instruction. Fortunatley in South Carolina you can tailor your instruction as you see fit, write it up and present it to the reviewing officer who either approves or makes recommendations of what to add/delete. Mine was approved without modification.

My sessions were broken up into lecture, written test, and range training and qualification.

The opening sentence in my lecture series was: "Handguns are not very good choices for self defense." From there I went on to explain how ineffective most handguns are in bad situations and review a number of shootings I am aware of, what was used and how well/poorly the scene developed.

When Fackler gave his lecture at the Florida LE agency ( if I remember correctly) said 85% of folks that take a round anywhere will lay down immediately. These are the ones that are not high on something. 10% are going to take multiple rounds to achieve the same effect and 5% are going to require precise shot placement from a handgun with enough energy/penetration to crush or sever the spinal cord or evacuate the cranial vault.

It can therefore be concluded your selection should be based on energy and penetration and terminal ballistic performance or you may be swinging and not even in the batter's box.

I was once asked by a Commissioner of whether we really needed 357 Magnum over a 9MM Para and the thought popped up. "If they need shooting they need killing." He liked that.

Fackler said if the oppositon is high on drugs or highly agitated and he has just taken a large breath that they can operate upwards of three minutes with the heart gone. He said he attended two autopsies where guys were hit at close range with 12 Gage shotguns completely obliterating the heart and both went over 50 yards before collapsing. Think about it, you hit a guy with a shotgun point blank with your last round and he has a machete and is highly agitated.........you better have your running shoes on?

Some of you may be familiar with the name Jim Cirillo. (google him). We worked for the same agency and we rode to IPSC matches together. Jimmy had been in five shootings while with NYPD and he was a piece of work and a great guy. I miss him. Well there were more but five were on the books. He told me of some more activities he participated in not on the books so to speak.

He told me most of the guys in the unit were handloaders and they used their handloads on the stakeout squad to judge effectiveness. He said they knew they were in trouble with handguns the very first day the squad rolled on the street they got a silent alarm at a liquor store in NY City.

Their initial tactic they developed as they were working them out was for the unmarked unit to arrive at scene with rear doors and passenger doors open and as the unit stopped they would be dismounting while it moved and everyone would bail with right front guy holding a 870 w/ 1oz slugs.

They rolled up on this store and everyone was out (as planned) and two guys were backing out of the liquor store and turned around and saw the cavalry and both turned to fire. The 870 shooter centered bad guy 1, touched it off and was swinging on bad guy 2 and on the way to second guy he noticed bad guy 1 was still on his feet so he tagged bad buy 2 who went down immediatley and swung back on bad guy 1 and gave him the good news again.

After it was determined the scene was secure he approached bad guy one and to his surprise there was two large holes 2" apart dead center in this guy's chest.

Think about it, if a 1 oz 12 gage slug which delivers massive energy at moderate velocity was not able to drop a guy at ten yards you know immediatley that your little handgun is not likely to be anywhere near as effective and it takes time to keep adding more and more shots. If you have multiple targets then your odds of success are dropping sharply.

Fackler says a 12 gage cannot be beat in the home for massive devastation but you must be prepared for the bad guy not recognizing the good news when it is delivered.

Fackler also made an amazing statement that cops die more quickly from wounds be they fatal or non fatal and he attributes this to their training wherein on the range if a bullet is placed anywhere in this circle the shootee is dead and this has been programed. Thus when police take a hit they SCORE the shot placement, tell themselves they have received a hit in the INNER circle and they cease to continue to operate. Thusly a little knowledge can be detrimental to your own survivability.

Think about it this way. You can find lots of stories about bad guys taking multiple hits from handguns but how many have heard of cops doing the same?

I am aware of one. I got a call from Arvada, Colorado which a police LT who wanted some answers to his ordnance questions. He told me one of their units stopped a car and witnesses said when officer walked up one shot was fired into officer and driver slid across seat, opened the passenger door and took off running.

They found the bad guy under the officer, both dead, both had weapons with one shot fired. They measured the distance with a rolling wheel ruler and from the first shooting to the end scene was one mile apart. The officer had taken one shot through the heart to start this event and he stopped it with one shot to bad guys head while he was on top of him.

They had another shooting and they rolled up on a residence and this guy opened fire from a screen porch. The range was fifty yards and they kept shooting this guy and he would not fall. Finally he went down and when they got to the house they found him and a large number of their bullets had been stopped by the screen wire enclosing the porch.

Don't be a victim to what I call the D9 Syndrome which is you have this new shoot all day weapon and from the articles you have read it is likely to knock the tracks off a D9 Catapillar dozer. I learned long ago that gun writers jobs are to promote sales.

My job was to promote effectiveness and reliability. At the Army Small Cal Lab our unofficial job description was we made the most effective systems we could for the least amount of money that would kill the most people = or more bang for the buck.

At Aberdeen our motto was "You make'em we break'em." and that we did.

[slowz1k]

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Nice write up! Thanks Hummer.
I think too many of us (gun enthusiasts) get caught up in the weapon and the round, and negliect knowledge of the physiological aspects of the human body. We need to remember that our firearms are only doing what the spears and arrows did a couple hundred years ago, just with greater accuracy, faster rate of fire, and longer distances (in most cases). They had the same issues back then. We'll have the same issues in the future, (until someone perfects the "DeathRay").
Time marches on and weaponology progresses, but mans basic physiology remains the same.

[hagfan72]

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google terminal ballistics as viewed in a morgue on gunthorp dot com. Long but interesting read.