I agree that the 1986 FBI-Miami shootout exposed a lot of tactical flaws, marksmanship flaws etc., none of which has anything to do with the question that spawned this thread. However, there was one lesson learned(?) from that shootout that does bear directly on the question that was posed in this thread and that is this: In that Miami shootout a so called "perfectly placed" shot with a 9mm hollowpoint failed to stop the BG because it was slowed down and stopped short of the BG's heart by the energy loss expended in its expansion.
The shot in question was hardly "perfectly placed." Platt was shot at an oblique angle through the arm as he crawled back into his car. The Silvertip bullet actually did not fail as it did exactly what it was designed to do. The point that I'm trying to make is that saying JHP is inadequate because a relatively primative design did not stop an attacker when used under circumstances that it was never designed to is not a very convincing argument.
Just about everybody that I've ever talked to agrees that if that particular bullet had been either a 9mm ball round or a 45ACP ball round, we'd have had a dead bad guy instead of several dead and wounded FBI Agents.
Well, I don't know who you've been talking to, but the one thing almost every expert (Fackler, Marshall, Sanow, Courtney, etc.) seems to agree on is that a shot to the CNS is the only way to
guarantee instantaneous incapacitation. Remember, it was determined during Platt's autopsy that the shot that "failed" to stop him would have still been fatal.
There is no guarantee that Platt would have stopped any faster had the bullet reached his heart.
It may be true that the Miami shootout "exposed" the silvertip, and sent the hollow point designers back to the drawing board, and ushered in a somewhat slower to expand jacketed hollow point, which may have done a better job than a silvertip in that shootout.
The only thing that it exposed was the FBI's poor tactics. The Silvertip performed exactly as advertised and, prior to the shootout, that was what the FBI wanted. The FBI's change in their requirement sent the bullet designers back to the drawing board because no JHP in a semi-auto cartridge could meet them at the time.
But the two most critical issues are bullet placement and bullet penetration, and hollowpoints of whatever description, if they expand at all, are always detrimental to penetration. Period.
Apparently the FBI doesn't feel that it is too detrimental as they, and nearly every other major police department in the country, continue to use JHP ammunition. For the vast majority of applications, the expansion offered by JHP is more beneficial than the extra penetration of FMJ.
If you want to make a big hole, use a 45.
There is more to terminal ballistics than the diameter of the hole.
Interesting for comparisons though.
