Interesting thread on GT about bullet performance in actual shootings

[WS6]

Well, for all of you here who have not seen my posts of GT, let me go ahead and make you mad to! (LOL)

First off, I had heard and believed all of my life that if big bullets hit people (specifically .45ACP), the fight is over... with little insignificant bullets like 9mm, you can only hope to cause enough pain to discourage your attacker...

Nearly every gun writer, certainly they are experts, had espoused this as have nearly every trainer and LE instructor I have heard.

As a police officer in a large, urban city I began to see shootings, lots of shootings. The first thing that shocked me was that very few of these people died. As a matter of fact, very few of them even appeared to have been measurably slowed down.

It began to dawn on me that maybe there was more to it than just making a bullet break the skin.

I began to learn that just being hit by a bullet alone only insured a wound... but nothing else. The bullets actually had to do something, damage something more than just skin, fat, and muscle to be quickly effective.

Most of the ER personel I have spoken with explained to me that unless major structures of the heart were destroyed, the CNS was destroyed/injured severely, they would almost assuredly be able to save a GSW victim, provided that they presented in time.

I guess if a lot of lung-tissue was damaged, that too, but that would almost take a shotgun blast to both lungs or something. Just a puncture won't do it. People suffer pneumothoraxes all the time, and some people have them spontaniously (risk factor for that, in the absence of underlying pathology, is being very tall, in case you were wondering.).

We can fix most anything now days, if we get to it soon enough.

[Lookin4U]

Most of the mystery of gun performance has been cleared up for me since I began working as a Crime Scene Investigator, both reconstructing shooting scenes and documenting medical follow-ups and/or autopsies.

Many of my observations very much challenged what I believed, and I decided to post some of these observations with my opinions on GT. As those who followed the thread know, this was met with very mixed reviews.

Though different rounds do pop up from time to time, we have very little diversity in the calibers we see... our local miscreants only use what is cheaply and commonly available in cheaply and commonly available guns (if we see anything else, we're pretty sure it's stolen! LOL)

First off, the only rifle shootings we see are with .223 (5.56mm) and 7.62x39mm. These are pretty popular, and I have estimated that they are involved in perhaps 25% or so of our shootings.
The rounds we see, however, are only the 'surplus' or 'bulk' FMJ variety, with Wolf being the most popular brand followed by an assortment of the various Asian/former Soviet Union steel cased imports. This, of course, is what is cheapest and most commonly available. Our miscreants do very well to figure out what rounds even fit in their guns, most have no concept that the more expensive stuff might actually cost more for a reason...
These bullets do not fragment, deform, or yaw and generally cause minimum soft tissue upset that is indistinguishable from handgun wounds. When bone is struck they can cause dramatic fragmentation.

-These rounds are not, I'm sure, indicative of what the better, higher performance rounds will do but then I'm not supplying the thugs with better stuff to find out!
-I have never seen an M193, M855, SS109, Hornady, etc. round used so cannot comment on their performance.

That being said, the remainder of my comments will be specifically about handgun rounds used against humans....

[Lookin4U]

After seeing a number of autopsies, I have come to have a better understanding of what the inside of the human body is actually like, what actually has to be done to shut the body down, and what damage bullets actually do.

To simplify things, handgun bullets poke holes in you. How effective these bullets are is more dependent on where and how deep these holes are than anything else.

To save your life in an SD shooting, you want to incapacitate your opponent as quickly as possible. Death is, in and of itself unimportant when trying to stop your opponent from fatally wounding YOU! It does no good to score a fatal hit that will eventually kill your opponent 5 minutes after he beheaded you with a machete...

To rapidly incapacitate (more like hope to rapidly incapacitate) an opponent certain vital structures inside of your opponent must be damaged or destroyed.

The surest way to incapacitate an opponent is to severely damage/destroy the brain and/or top quarter of the spinal cord... A much harder task when the SHTF than many misguided trainers would ever believe.
Next down (and more realistically) is to pick, as close as you can, what is (or should be) the midline of the Center Of Mass and put as many bullets there as you can as fast as you can, only stopping when the opponent has collapsed motionless or you have to reload.... Reload quickly, if necessary, and repeat.

[Lookin4U]

Handguns are compromise weapons. They are comparatively small and easy to carry, but give up the many terminal ballistic advantages of rifle rounds.

Unlike rifle rounds, in actual flesh handgun rounds are limited to simple tissue crush/laceration damage either physically in or immediately proximal to their path.
The only way to significantly damage vital structures is to have the bullet travel into and preferably completely pass through that structure.

Handgun round ballistic performance is limited by three factors. The size of a realistic usable platform, current technology in propellants and recoil management, and a .500" limit placed on handgun bullet diameter by Federal Law.

It can generally be said about anything in life that in actual performance there is a point of diminishing return. A point where improvement ceases and addition becomes counter productive.

The two performance criteria in selecting caliber is optimum diameter and optimum penetration.
Optimum is the point beyond which no additional benefit is received, but begins to become counter productive.

This is where the controversy begins - GET READY TO GET MAD AT ME - from my observations it is my opinion that 9x19mm is the optimum self defense handgun round.

Standard, off the Walmart shelf 9mm LUGER rounds will generally consistently fully penetrate fully clothed adult male COM unless they first strike an intermediate barrier, or multiple bones, or are especially designed not to over-penetrate.

Once a bullet fully penetrates, what good is additional bullet weight and/or velocity?
As this additional power increases, so does recoil, length of recovery time, difficulty in maintaining shooter accuracy, etc. for absolutely no additional benefit.

Certainly a little extra is not detrimental, and may have negligible performance decline in exchange for extra insurance - this is a personal compromise.


In real world, flesh and blood, elastic tissue, the permanent wound channel made by 9mm's are indistinguishable from their big competitor - .45 ACP.
As elastic tissue recoils, the true measure of actual damage has been repeatedly observed to be less than the actual nominal 0.097" diameter difference between these rounds.
Also, it has not been observed that this measurably increases the rate of internal bleeding when vital structures are hit.

What an increase in bullet diameter actually does is increase recoil (gun is pushing more mass), diminishes magazine capacity as you can not fit as many larger bullets in the same size space as smaller, increases drag which lessens penetration, and generally creates a larger and heavier gun for a given, comparable, configuration.

There is some logic to the larger diameter possibly hitting something a narrower diameter bullet missed, but in practice this is more theoretical than realistic.
If you keep missing that Coke can with your 9mm, you're probably still going to miss it with the .45ACP.

What is more realistic is having more chances, i.e. shots, to score a hit than hoping a 0.05" (the approx. radius difference) extra shoulder room will work in your favor.

Personally I prefer .40S&W, as to me the additional recoil is indistinguishable, and I'm willing to sacrifice 2 rounds of capacity for what I perceive to be superior intermediate barrier penetration - a similar logic to those who prefer .357Sig.

To each his own. This is just how I see it.

[Burt Gummer]

Lookin4U: One of your observations that seemed to get a great deal of controversy over at GT, is that .45 rounds manage to penetrate intermediate barriers where 9mm fail to do so:

From my personal observations, I have witnessed that the .40S&W out penetrates commonly encountered cover better than both .45ACP and 9mm... With the 9mm be significantly poorer in this respect than the other two.

Keep in mind, this is what I have observed on the streets. I have not carefully tested multiple loads and bullet weights to validate this. Possibly there are better penetrating 9mm rounds - but I have yet to see it…

…Basically for me it's simple:
Against a 9mm more things become cover.
With a 40S&W or .45ACP some of them turn into concealment only...

Since “miscreants” using whatever ammo they can beg, borrow, or steal. My local Wal-Mart (a source you mention in them acquiring ammo) only carries 9mm in 115 grain and .45 in 230 grain. Those respective bullet weights are the most common. Although several factors are involved in barrier penetration such as bullet shape, bullet construction, and velocity, sectional density is a constant.

From deeper to shallower penetration relevant to Sectional Density:

9mm 147 gr. = .167 SD
.45 Auto 230 gr. = .162 SD
9mm 115 gr. = .130 SD

Could this be the reason why .45 ACP (230 gr.) is exhibiting greater intermediate barrier penetration than 9mm (115 gr.)? I realize that the real world has too many variables to account for, but I’m just trying to wrap my head around what you’re witnessing out in the streets.

DocGKR: You’ve stated in the same thread that documented findings show 9mm performs better on steel (which on the surface, does seem to contradict Lookin4U’s observations) while .45 is better on windshield. What about plywood and drywall (9 or 45)?

[DocGKR]

I believe Lookin4U's comments are in concordance with our findings regarding penetration of common intermediate barriers--look around your house, work, vehicles, and other settings and assess how much steel you would potentially have to shoot through to disable an armed attacker vs. glass, dry wall, wood, fabric, plastic, etc...

My comments regarding duty handguns are well known:

"I most recently qual'd on 9 mm Glocks and the .45 ACP 1911.

Unless your department picks your caliber for you, pick the platform you shoot best, then decide on caliber from there. Currently the best duty pistols going right out of the box are probably the 9 mm Glocks, any caliber S&W M&P, as well as the HK P30 and HK45. X300’s are a good duty pistol light. A J-frame w/o lock using a CTC Lasergrip is a great BUG.

For CCW and most urban LE duty, there are a lot of advantages in carrying a 9mm--easy to shoot one handed, relatively inexpensive to practice with, lots of bullets. When I injured my strong hand a few years ago and lost its use for several months, I found out how much more effective I was using a G19 weak handed compared to a 1911...

If I was in a department that issued .40 or was doing a lot of LE work around vehicles, I'd be strongly tempted to carry a M&P40. Lots of 180 gr JHP's that do well against intermediate barriers is a nice thing. In addition, I really like having a manual safety on a pistol that is used for uniformed LE use; I have twice seen officers' lives potentially saved when another person gained control of an officer's pistol, but the engaged manual safety prevented the weapon from firing--I don't like to think about the outcome if the pistols involved had been a Glock, Sig, XD, revolver, etc... If I ever go back on uniformed Patrol duties, I'll likely carry a .40 M&P w/manual safety.

The nice aspects of .45 ACP is that it makes large holes, can be very accurate, and offers good penetration of some intermediate barriers. Unfortunately, magazine capacity is less than ideal, .45 ACP is more expensive to practice with, and in general is harder to shoot well compared with 9 mm. .45 ACP makes the most sense in states with idiotic 10 rd magazine restrictions or in departments that give you lots of free .45 ACP ammo. While a properly customized 5" steel-frame single-stack 1911 in .45 ACP is a superb, unparalleled choice for the dedicated user willing to spend a significant amount of money to get it properly initially set-up and considerable time to maintain it, in this day and age both the M&P45 and HK45 are superior duty pistols.

Whatever you choose, make sure you fire at least 500 and preferably 1000 failure free shots through your pistol prior to using it for duty. If your pistol cannot fire at least 1000 consecutive shots without a malfunction, something is wrong and it is not suitable for duty/self-defense."

[Glock17JHP]

Really interesting thread, guys!!!

I especially like your input, Lookin4U... it is a bit different from the norm here, but not contradictory... sort of like a new set of eyes on an old issue... very good!!!

My experiences lead me to the 1911 .45 ACP back when I bought my first handgun... the gun store owner lead me that way, as well as all the gun magazines of that day (1979). For years a bought into the 'energy transfer' thought, and that the bigger caliber was the way to go. In those days I honestly believed that a solid hit with the .45 ACP would knock a man down.

As I kept learning, I eventually experimented with other calibers: .357 Magnum, .44 Magnum, .38 Special+P, .38 Special, etc. The only caliber I told all my friends I would never own was a 9mm... I had bought into the idea expoused by many that you could survive multiple hits with a 9mm and keep fighting. We used to call the 9mm a 'wimp caliber'.

Then I discovered Dr. Martin L. Fackler... this was before the IWBA, when he was still at the Letterman Army Hospital/Institute at the Presidio in San Francisco, CA. I searched until I got a phone number, and gave him a call. I was a novice, but I was also eager to learn. He was willing to give me the time of day.

Later, the IWBA began, and I was able to join. I bought Duncan MacPherson's book: 'Bullet Penetration', and struggled through it... two times!!! I figured out how to test my own bullets, and eventually contacted Duncan to tell him what I was doing after learning some things about penetration and expansion from his book. He encouraged me to write a paper and submit it for publication in the WBR, the IWBA's journal. I went on to author 3 papers, and was helped and encouraged along the way by Duncan and Dr. Fackler.

As time passed, I started viewing wound ballistics differently. With my encouragement, my wife went from a .357 Magnum to a .38 Special+P, and then a .38 Special (the firearm is a S&W Model 64 M&P, 3 inch heavy barrel, round butt, w/Hogue rubber combat grips). I went from a .45 ACP to a .357 Magnum, then a .38 Special+P, and then to the dreaded 'wimp caliber': 9mm!!! My friends thought we had both gone insane!!!

For many of the reasons others have already given, I am a 9mm fan now. I had a Glock 17 originally, but went to a Glock 19 about a year ago. Why? Because I shoot better with it that a Glock 17. Not sure why, but I do. I load it with Winchester Ranger 147 grain JHP (RA9T). Why that load? Two reasons: 1) I like the penetration and expansion characteristics better than any other 9mm load I have tried, and 2) My Glock 19 shoots better (accuracy-wise) with this load than it does with the Federal HST or Speer GDHP in that same bullet weight. These were the 3 loads I narrowed everything down to. All 3 are 100% reliable, so accuracy was the deciding factor.

Lookin4U,

You are like a breath of fresh air here... thank you for joining us.

-Ron.

[gan1hck]

great thread....

as a ex military critical care doc and anesthesiologist.....this concurs with what I see in the operating room and icu.

but then...what I see is skewed....ie they survived long enough to get to the operating room and icu.

[Marcus L.]

Personally I prefer .40S&W, as to me the additional recoil is indistinguishable, and I'm willing to sacrifice 2 rounds of capacity for what I perceive to be superior intermediate barrier penetration - a similar logic to those who prefer .357Sig.

To each his own. This is just how I see it.

I came to the same conclusion regarding the .40S&W. For me, it was a question of penetration in FBI protocols. Out of all the service calibers, the .40S&W in a 180gr JHP was the most consistant penetrator and often exceeded the 12" penetration minimum through all testing barriers. The .40 can do this in virtually all JHP bullet types.....cheap, or expensive. I like to think of it as the 6.8 SPC(versus 5.56/9mm) of the handgun cartridges. The 9mm on the other hand cannot do this unless using more expensive bonded bullet technology which in recent testing is not quite as reliable at opening up as classic Ranger Talons or HSTs.

However, I still toy with the idea of just going back to 9mm and using good ammunition. Single hand shooting is easier with 9mm, and should I be forced to shoot weak hand I'm sure that the additional capacity of the 9mm will count for a lot.

After reading your posts Lookin4U, I must say that you know what you are talking about. I hope that you stick around here and continue to post. Good luck over at GT.......the Michael Courtney acolytes are thick as thieves over there and will get rather obnoxious in trying to twist your posts.

[SecretNY]

Lookin4u, first of all, welcome to m4c.net. I'd also like to commend you on being brave enough to publish online who you work for (I wouldn't because I fear some admin figuring out who I am and flipping out..). Anyway, you brought up some excellent points on GT, unfortunately that place is filled with erronet computer commandos. Did you happen to notice most of your "critics" all hailed from Arizona? I bet they all got together with the big guns, a jar of peanut butter and five way keyboard and sat up all night discussing how to combat your blasphome(sp?)

Seriously I work in a major metropolitan area and have been on numerous shooting calls. Recently we had a robber taken down as he walked out of the stop and rob armed with a handgun. The team opened up on him with 9mm, 40 and .45 PLUS two hits of .223 at approximately 30 ft. He took seven hits, five in the torso and then RAN away only to be caught ten minutes later...he lived (and will face trial). The .223 were both COM shots.

Your real world posting jives with what we do for a living. That plus the fact that I've followed the writings and advise of Dr. Roberts on m4c, Lightfighter and 10-8 and if he agrees with you, then you are on to something.

Please keep posting your findings. I recently switched from 9mm to .45. I shoot the .45 better but find my duty belt heavier with all the extra mags I carry to have a equal (to 9mm) round count.

Many police officers look at the size of the tiny 9mm compared to the BIG .45 and believe that one shot will do the trick. It is an uphill battle to try and change their minds just as it's an uphill battle to get them to train more (why train when my big round will "drop" the attacker with one shot).

I've started to get into training and need more information like this to help officers make a realistic decision on what to carry vs. hype they see in the movies, print, internet, etc.

Thanks and stay safe,
SNY