.38 spl for self defence? man shot 5 times in face lives

Status
Not open for further replies.
9

9mm

New member
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/01/0...kids-shoots-ex-con-intruder/ ?test=latestnews

He opens the closet door and finds himself staring down the barrel of a .38 revolver,” Walton County Sheriff Joe Chapman told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The woman fired six bullets, five of which hit Paul Ali Slater in the face and neck area, Chapman said. But Slater, who has arrests dating to 2008 and was released from jail in August, was still conscious.


Slater was transported to Gwinnett Medical Center and is expected to survive, the sheriff said.
Click to expand...

How do you live with 5 gun shot wounds to the face and neck area by a 38 ? is a 38 not good for self defence now? maybe she used the j frame up close and low fps? It makes me rethink carrying a 38 for a bug...

What are the FPS ratings from a 1-3/8 barrel from standard fmj rounds at 10 feet?
 
The 38 special has always been a marginal self defense round. The 38, 380 and 9mm have been notoriously unpredictable. There is a picture of a felon in the old calibre press book "Street Survival" who took 33 hits to the face, neck, upper chest to stop.

Police departments that were using 38 Special +P's and switched to the same companies magnum load went from having to shoot bad-guys 5-6 times to 1-2 times.

In my experience you want a moderate to heavy bullet at a hefty velocity (above 1100 FPS).

I am glad here and her children are ok, that was some fine shooting. Irregardless of anything, her shots stopped the attack and allowed her and hers to escape, so in reality her 38 did fine. It would have been nice to have a reload available though.
 
Lol. She was probably using anemic target rounds or the like. It's all In the dynamics and details of the shooting. I like to carry heavy lead hollow points or premium ammo in my .38. In my area not too long ago their was a situation where the police had to shoot an armed suspect multiple times with their issue .40 calibers. The perp survived. Some one wrote to the paper in regards to this wanting to know if the cops were issued BB guns, lol. All hand gun shootings are unpredictable and have their unique dynamics. A good hit with a .22 has dropped people.
 
Always an exception to the rules. I remember seeing a photo during the Vietnam war era of a doctor standing behind sandbags trying to remove a mortal shell lodged between the skin and ribcage.
 
Who said it was .38 Special? It could have been .38 S&W or (given the usual accuracy of the press) a .32, .22 BB Cap, or about anything.

Nor is it really indicated where the bullets hit. A shot in the cheek or ear lobe won't be fatal with any caliber.

I agree that a .38 Special is not an especially powerful cartridge, even with the hotter loads, but a .500 S&W is not the ideal home defense firearm either, especially for a woman.

Jim
 
From the limited amount of information in the news article, IMHO it's not reasonable to draw any conclusions regarding the efficacy (or lack thereof) of the .38Spl round.
  • The article doesn't actually say that the round was indeed .38Spl; it could be one of the older and more anemic .38-caliber rounds like .38 S&W or even .38 Short Colt!
  • As MKII correctly points out, not every head shot is fatal or even incapacitating. People need to forget all of those Hollywood head shots that result in a fountain of blood and instant incapacitation. :rolleyes: How do we know that the BG wasn't barely grazed by the shots?
  • The victim/shooter stopped the attack. The BG ran away. Sounds like successful home defense to me! Perhaps the brave lady is lucky that the man didn't press the attack, but she's better off lucky than dead. :)
 
You've been on this Forum for two years. You should have read about larger calibers not stopping a person on occasion.

Why aren't you questioning their ability to work?:rolleyes:
 
carguychris: said:
From the limited amount of information in the news article, IMHO it's not reasonable to draw any conclusions regarding the efficacy (or lack thereof) of the .38Spl round.

The article doesn't actually say that the round was indeed .38Spl; it could be one of the older and more anemic .38-caliber rounds like .38 S&W or even .38 Short Colt!
As MKII correctly points out, not every head shot is fatal or even incapacitating. People need to forget all of those Hollywood head shots that result in a fountain of blood and instant incapacitation. How do we know that the BG wasn't barely grazed by the shots?
The victim/shooter stopped the attack. The BG ran away. Sounds like successful home defense to me! Perhaps the brave lady is lucky that the man didn't press the attack, but she's better off lucky than dead.
Click to expand...

Of course, you are right.

It is the responsibility of the shooter to put the rounds where they will have the desired effect and in this case the lady got it (the assailant ran away). With a premium JHP, the .38 Special is just fine for SD.

Not every successful self-defense shooting ends with the death of the offender.
 
I once saw a post saying, in effect, that to stop an attacker, don't shoot at the head or center of mass, shoot at the top of the leg. His point was that even a head shot won't always stop an attack, but no one can continue coming with a broken thigh bone or a smashed hip socket.

Jim
 
She stopped the attack, she and her children are safe, she does not have to live with the fact that she killed a man, it was a good outcome. She did everything right, got her twins to safety and defended them with what she had. Does anybody really think this dummy is ever going to break into another occupied house?
 
9mm: said:
What are the FPS ratings from a 1-3/8 barrel from standard fmj rounds at 10 feet?
Click to expand...

Looking at .38 Special JHPs in that weight class here:

http://ballisticsbytheinch.com/38special.html

It looks like out of a S&W 642 with a 1.875 barrel velocities range from 900 fps to 700 fps. Assuming that they don't expand, over that range of velocities you can expect .38 Special 130 gr FMJs to penetrate between 21 and 25 inches in soft tissue (according to the Schwartz bullet penetration model) if they don't hit bone.
 
News people are wrong so frequently. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a 380 auto. I'd be curious to hear the specifics on where the bullets hit. Regardless, a 38 special is more than enought 99% of the time.
 
That's it.

I'm switching to the .50 AE.
Click to expand...
Good idea, maybe the fire ring wave will kill em. :confused:
images
 
Did he stop what he was doing? If he did, the rounds did their job.

For all we know, they may have been glancing blows and simply ripped open bloody head wounds. There have been cases of people who shot themselves in the head and survived. That's why hunters are urged not to take head shots, or at least one reason.
 
OK, I'll state the obvious. NO ONE here KNOWS exactly the nature of the perps wounds. If he was hit only on the fleshy parts of the face.....and the neck wound(s) did not involve major arteries or the spinal column....then, yes, one could certainly survive 5 such wounds.

So, all the "experts" here now jumping on the bandwagon to say that the 38 spl. is dead as a SD round.....whoa Nelly ! You guys DON'T have enough info to make that judgement - except for your OWN carry/ use purposes. Please don't make grandiose declarations without enough facts !

A 38 spl, using virtually ANY bullet, which penetrates the brain of someone in such a scenario as the one here (and they certainly CAN do so at such distances) - is a certain man stopper and more often than not, a killing round.

I can only assume that the perp, in this circumstance, was not hit in the brain.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top