Caliber wars redux

[JLL101]

It's all about shot placement and an effective weapon/ammo combination. My first preference would always be my shotgun or AR in 6.8 but the guns will not fit in my pocket. Thus I have to rely on handguns when out and about. I was required to carry the 1911 in the early 70s in the military but fortunately was not assigned a post in harms way. If such an assignment had been made, I would have also kept a M16 handy. The 1911 was a bit big for my smallish hands but I had no difficulty qualifying with the weapon. With the continual improvement of ammo, I am much more comfortable with calibers of smaller stature that the 45 acp., when one compares contemporary stopping power of the various calibers of modern ammo.

 

[JLL101]

Documents such as Handgun Stopping Power by Marshall and Sanow use real case studies cherry picked by the authors and result in pseudoscientic crap being passed off as something that is meaningful for purposes of evaluating terminal ballistics.

"No one who seriously studies wound ballistics gives any merit at all to Marshall and Sanow. No one at IWBA. No one at FBI. Fackler doesn't. Roberts doesn't. You're free to believe what you wish, but M&S are not respected in their field."

That statement is not quite true. While the M&S study has many distractors, there are others who site their work. The work certainly has flaws but there is a good amount of data that is reasonably accurate in it. One needs to read it for themselves and decide. I certainly do not agree with several of their conclusions but their "cherry picked" statistics still are valid enough to show that there is no significant difference in stopping power in the higher caliber rounds. I have seen the book cited in American Rifleman and Guns and Ammo over the years for very specific subjects.

 

[chezuki]

Clearly those who discount stopping power in the evaluation of ammo have not done their homework. All serious studies using real life shootings as the basis for their stopping power effectiveness define stopping power as one of the critical gauges of the effectiveness of a round. The goal in a shooting event is to stop the bad guy from continuing the fight. You may kill a bad guy but if he lives long enough, he may be able to kill you too. Stopping power is a simple concept to understand. The verbiage is exactly the meaning of the term. To restate - you want to stop the bad guy as quickly and timely as possible before they can do harm to you.

Wait, so you're saying that the term "stopping power" refers to how powerful something's ability is to stop?!?
mind=blow

Short of a complete disruption of the central nervous system, instant physical incapacitation(aka "stopping power) from a handgun in typical handgun calibers is a myth, plain and simple. A "psychological stop" may occur, but it also may not. A mortally wounded attacker may continue an attack until he is physically incapable of doing so due to loss of blood or oxygen. This process is accelerated by putting multiple rounds of adequate penetration on target, not by putting one round of slightly increased diameter on target.

 

[Hohn]

That statement is not quite true. While the M&S study has many distractors, there are others who site their work. The work certainly has flaws but there is a good amount of data that is reasonably accurate in it. One needs to read it for themselves and decide. I certainly do not agree with several of their conclusions but their "cherry picked" statistics still are valid enough to show that there is no significant difference in stopping power in the higher caliber rounds. I have seen the book cited in American Rifleman and Guns and Ammo over the years for very specific subjects.

Perhaps. I don't dispute that they have accurately cataloged the data they chose to document. It's not their accuracy that is a problem.

It's the inference from their data that is deeply flawed. It's the omitted samples. It's the idea that there is such a thing as a "typical" shoot.

Maybe my beef isn't so much with M&S so much was what people have done with their book(s).

 

[Hohn]

How a 9mm stops the same as a.45 ? Bullet designs have improved over the years. A well placed high quality 9mm will kill the bad guy just as dead a well placed high quality .45,.40, 10mm or even a700 nitro express. With the newer bullet designs a .45 may be just so much overkill. FMJ is another story. The bigger bullet making a bigger hole will be the winner of the fight more often than not.

You had me until Nitro Express.

 

[esrice]

I thought Que and I had solved this once and for all.

Ya'll are too math-y.

 

[worddoer]

Keep in mind that a 9mm in the chest is still better than a S&W .500 Magnum in the arm. Shot placement is key. Sure there might be exceptions where someone died later on from a shot in the arm, or butt, or where ever. But did the shot immediately incapacitate them and remove their ability to immediately fight. People often remind us how more individuals were killed with the lowly .22lr than any other round on earth. Which is a true statement. But most of those individuals died some time after being shot and were not immediately incapacitated. And if you feel the need to shoot someone because they are threating your life or someone else's life, do you want to stop them several hours from now...or immediately during the threat?

Most of the time, the higher power the round, the more difficult it is to handle the recoil and make good shot placement on follow up shots.

If you can handle the super killer magnum blower-upper round just as easily as the lower power round...then take the extra power. If recoil, magazine capacity and firearm size were all equal...then the higher power round would and should always win.

But in real life, the more powerful the round, the more difficult it is to handle due to recoil physics. And the larger the round, the less rounds your gun will carry or the gun will need to be larger to carry the same number of rounds again due to physics.

The size and capacity issues affect concealed carriers much more than they affect those who open carry. But everyone is affected by the recoil attributes of each round.

Just my thoughts and ​

 

[hrearden]

How a 9mm stops the same as a.45 ? Bullet designs have improved over the years. A well placed high quality 9mm will kill the bad guy just as dead a well placed high quality .45,.40, 10mm or even a700 nitro express. With the newer bullet designs a .45 may be just so much overkill. FMJ is another story. The bigger bullet making a bigger hole will be the winner of the fight more often than not.

I want to see the 9mm or 45 or even 10mm that will transfer as much energy to any impact as a safari rifle.

 

[Wysko]

The point i'm trying to make is the energy that goes out the other side of the bad guy after he has been 'stopped' is extra unnecessary wasted energy. If one can stops with a 9mm the .45 will not make him more stopped. Dead is dead, stopped is stopped. The bullets of today are so very much better than the 9mm of years back. Modern high quality 9mm ammo and a well place shot will stop the bad guy. Over powered rounds is just that much exrta weight and recoil for no benefit.

 

[AngryRooster]

I feel compelled to correct the repetition of the great "high pressure" myth about the .40. The full SAAMI pressure is 35000 psi for BOTH the 9mm (non +p) and the .40.

The .40 IS NOT A HIGHER PRESSURE LOADING THAN THE 9mm. 9mm +p is higher pressure than .40, since there's no such thing as a +p .40 round.

Both are much higher pressure than a .45.


Even "full pressure" 10mm at 37,500psi is less than +p 9mm at 38,500 psi.

Compared to a +p 9mm, there's only a single "high pressure' autoloading pistol caliber, and that's a .357 SIG at 40,000 psi.

I think you misunderstood what I was meaning with the pressure. I wasn't comparing the 40 to other calibers, I was comparing it to itself. Several manufacturers load the 40 to 2 distinct pressure levels.

 

[Hohn]

One thing I've really been focusing on lately is the idea that bullet/ cartridge, and weapon are a complete system and ALL have to work together.

I've run into this problem with my G20. There are *NO* factory loads for 10mm that use modern bullets designed for 10mm loaded to full 10mm power. NONE. Zero.

All of the factory 10mm loads use .40SW bullets stuffed into a longer case and speed them up a tiny bit

Sure, you can find 180gr Gold Dots loaded to 1300+ all day long from Underwood and the other niche ammo guys. But the loads don't work as the Gold Dot design intends. The speed is too fast and the wound cavity volume is actually SMALLER than a .40 cal version. Why? The excessive speed actually turns the bullet inside out, and instead of a parachute-like deceleration, you end up with a torpedo.

I'm not a fan of loading a more powerful round and having all that extra recoil only to get WORSE ballistic performance. Yet this is what happens when the different design elements don't work together.

Ever notice how the "cavity" on a 125gr Gold Dot in .357 sig is radically shallower than a 125gr Gold Dot for a 9x19, even though they are the same weight and diameter? It's because they are actually designed for the speed range in which they are expected to operate.

Aside from the niche guys abusing .40 cal bullets, 10mm guys are stick with Silvertips and Hydrashoks from the big ammo companies. Really only Hornady gives you a chance at a sorta-modern bullet in a warmer-than-.40 for 10mm.


Should I carry my 10mm? Sure! But what would I carry in it? Probably a 200gr Hornady factory load.

..and, the kicker is that it's probably not any more of a "stopper" than a super-modern load like the 147gr HST in 9mm. And I'd be carrying a much heavier gun than I needed with a good bit more recoil with not even more rounds as a benefit.

Hmm...

 

[88E30M50]

How a 9mm stops the same as a.45 ? Bullet designs have improved over the years. A well placed high quality 9mm will kill the bad guy just as dead a well placed high quality .45,.40, 10mm or even a700 nitro express. With the newer bullet designs a .45 may be just so much overkill. FMJ is another story. The bigger bullet making a bigger hole will be the winner of the fight more often than not.

In my opinion, overkill will only happen when the guy that is shot not only no longer exists, but never existed in the first place. If a bullet can erase any trace of a person having ever existed, then that just might qualify for overkill. Anything else is fair game.

 

[45fan]

In my opinion, overkill will only happen when the guy that is shot not only no longer exists, but never existed in the first place. If a bullet can erase any trace of a person having ever existed, then that just might qualify for overkill. Anything else is fair game.

I think a 700 NE loaded with a Glaser Safety Slug would be getting pretty close to that, lol...

 

[hrearden]

I think a 700 NE loaded with a Glaser Safety Slug would be getting pretty close to that, lol...

Rep inbound, sir. Lol.

 

[dmarsh8]

The point is if all you do is stand at a range and slowly bring your weapon up from the bench and get a perfect aim on your target(at whatever distance), do every step right thereafter,then admire your shot,and repeat, you are prob a good shot. The problem is, as others have stated, is that in a real life situation where you need to draw your weapon quickly under stress and with adrenaline,likely surprised, and needing to find cover;
Along with, not hit innocent by-standards,buildings with glass______________ fill in the blank, oh did i mention you would need to move,
then you are probably going to die or be injured. If you don't practice outside of steps 1,2,3......... you can have a .50 cal desert eagle or a freaking bb gun but you have no preparation or muscle memory, so your caliber of ammo is irrelevant. Being over prepared and having a functioning brain will save you and others not your choice of ammunition!

 

[calcot7]

It's just this simple.l With a .45 ......shoot em once. With a 9mm......shoot em twice!

 

[chezuki]

It's just this simple.l With a .45 ......shoot em once. With a 9mm......shoot em twice!

This will get you killed.

RIP.

 

[RMC]

I wouldn't even have to hit the bad guy with my 357 Sig. The noise alone would put him down if not scare him to death.

 

[dmarsh8]

This will get you killed.

RIP.

 

[JLL101]

Documents such as Handgun Stopping Power by Marshall and Sanow use real case studies cherry picked by the authors and result in pseudoscientic crap being passed off as something that is meaningful for purposes of evaluating terminal ballistics.

Mr Expert. How do you know the authors of Handgun Stopping Power by Marshall and Sanow cherry picked the cases? I have read that statement a hundred times but no one commenter has yet chosen to provide documentation of this. Without proof, the comment is just an opinion and not factual. And are you saying all their data used was cherry picked to prove some personal agenda? What your may consider as cherry picked cases may be my selected cases. I have reviewed hundreds of federal case files of federal, non-gun related cases and I can tell you with certainty, the most useful cases were the ones properly written and documented. Just like in the Zimmerman-Martin trial, commentators hearing the same facts came to differing conclusions as whether the shooting was self defense or murder. I watched a Hannity episode about the trial after the conclusion of the trial where he assembled some 30 "experts" and they were split about 1/3 on whether Zimmerman should be convicted of second degree murder, manslaughter or not guilty. All parties were supposedly fully knowledgeable of the known facts of the case. My point is cherry picking is like beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and until I see credible evidence, your comments are just an opinion.