Are fast hollowpoints really the answer?

S

SG12

New member
I have just purchased a new P32 and have found myself in a dilemma as to the correct ammunition. I have long studied Marshall & Sanow's tables and have believed most everything I read. I have now found information released by the International Wound Ballistics Association that basically says their work (Marshall & Sanow) is fraudulent and dangerous. According to the IWBA, most hollowpoints, including ALL those made for the 32 Auto have far too shallow penetration to be effective in the least. None penetrate far enough to reliably hit vital cardiovascular structures. As we all have read, Silvertips in 32 are supposed to be quite effective (according to M&S and the collective wisdom of most gunwriters). I am now beginning to rethink my choice of the light, fast HP cartridges on the market (most notably Cor-Bon). If, indeed, these HP designs are REALLY NOT penetrating to vital organs, we should all use FMJ and rely on precise shot placement (we should do this anyway). Does anyone have an opinion here? If anyone replies, I will post the URL for the IWBA so you can read for yourself about their findings.

[This message has been edited by SG12 (edited July 14, 2000).]
 
i don't think the answer is FMJ ammo but i don't use really fast light bullets either. for example i'll talk about 9mm. i used to think that 115gr was the best but then i heard about how many people think it doesn't penetrate enough. i did some reaserch and have come to my own conclusion that i like medium weight bullets such as the 124gr+P. I also like the Gold Dot bullet since it has good penetration and expansion and its jacket doesn't fragment off.

i think you need good enough penetration to reach vital organs but you also need expansion to do some damage. also over penetration is bad and FMJ will do that all the time.

[This message has been edited by Russell92 (edited July 14, 2000).]
 
According to the IWBA, most hollowpoints, ... have far too shallow penetration to be effective in the least.

I tested a 9mm 124-grain jacketed standard-velocity nothing-special hollowpoint on a cow. The bullet expanded and penetrated FIVE INCHES OF SKULL BONE.

A fellow cohort tested a .45 hollowpoint on another cow in the same session. The round went completely thru the cow's skull and continued THREE FEET down the neck.

Other cohorts tested .32 hollowpoints on pigs, all with satisfactorally terminal results.

While I'll certainly admit that a half-dozen cases do not constitute a scientific survey, this testing had been done over a period of time with a wide variety of calibers and other factors on a several common slaughterhouse targets. Nothing indicated that hollowpoints "have far too shallow penetration to be effective in the least" - to the contrary, a frequent problem was TOO MUCH penetration.

Kindly post the relevant URL. IIRC, M&S and IWBA have been feuding for a long time. Limited personal experience leads me to side with M&S.
 
SG12, the fact of the matter is that nobody really knows for sure -- at least with any degree of certainity that I would be willing to bet my life on. I would recommend that you do what I do ...

Pick a round that is considered by Marshall & Sanow to be one of the top stoppers. Then pick another round that is considered by The Fackerites to be one of the top stoppers. Then alternate every other round in your gun between these two bullets.

If Marshall & Sanow are ultimately correct and you follow the advise of The Fackerites, you will be at a disadvantage. Consequently, if The Fackerites are correct and you follow the beliefs offered by Marshall & Sanow, you will also be at a disadvantage. Either way you are taking a 50-50 chance. By alternating the ammo with every other round, you are ensuring that you are at least half right. While it's true that if you go one way or the other, you could be 100% right but you could also be 100% wrong.

Additionally, two solid hits with this alternated ammo combo of 1 lite & fast (as recommended by Marshall & Sanow) and 1 heavy & solid (as recommended by The Fackerites) would be more effective in stopping someone than two hits with either lite & fast or two hits with heavy & slow by themselves.

Share what you know, learn what you don't -- FUD
fud-nra.gif


[This message has been edited by FUD (edited July 15, 2000).]
 
The IWBA is the fradulant group. I have chatted with Evan Marshall and he is a respectable man and I trust him far more than I do Dr. Fake I mean Fackler. In 32 I would use a good jhp that feeds reliably.
The IWBA is good for bashing others and denying the truth but not much else.
PAT

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I intend to go into harms way.
 
Independent reviews of M&S published data have brought to light SERIOUS procedural questions, which call their conclusions into doubt.

I find it VERY troubling that M&S refuse to release their raw collected data for independent review or discuss how their criteria were derived. That leads to the question of what do they have to hide?

Some have accused M&S of creating their data and of outright fraud in an effort to sell books. I'm not going to go quite that far. I believe many of their conclusions are wrong.

Neither M&S are scientists, and their scientific approach is seriously lacking. Fackler is a scientist. M&S write books and magazine articles with an eye toward sales figures, Fackler doesn't. He does have at least one book out, and number of magazine articles, but these are invariably published in peer journals, NOT gunrags. M&S, to the best of my knowledge, trade their data with no one, Fackler is a member of an international community of wound and ballistics experts who regularly review the data derived by others in their group.

I also find it very telling that Evan Marshall recommends 1 type of handgun ammunition, based on his studies, and then, in another publication, admitted to carrying an ammo that was, according to his figures, MUCH less effective. What's up with that? Doesn't he believe his own data?

Fackler, while a pretty abrasive personality, has never claimed to have all the answers, and has a much more scientific bent to his approach. As with any scientist, he is attempting to correct what he feels is seriously flaws information that is being spread as gospel. I think if you go back in time to the beginning of the M&S/Fackler debates, it was M&S who really cast the first stones when Fackler wrote a letter questioning some of their conclusions. To put it mildly, they reacted badly, and the entire situation has spiraled out of control since then.

I think there are good aspects to each group, and neither approach is without flaws. But what it really comes down to is that with Fackler's data, you know exactly what is going on. With M&S, you don't.

I do FIRMLY believe, however, that to rely on what basically constitutes flesh wounds to stop a determined attacker is foolish to the extreme, and that factor alone rules out all of the .32 ACP hollowpoints.

If you want to carry the .32, use FMJ. See if you can get some of the Hirtenburg flatpoint .32, if they still make/import it.

Barring that, and if you choose to carry hollowpoints, practice a lot and get REALLY GOOD at headshots.

I'll put the majority of my faith in a man who is a physician/surgeon and was for a number of years director of the Army's Wound Ballistics Research Lab.



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Beware the man with the S&W .357 Mag.
Chances are he knows how to use it.
 
When it comes to these ammo selection problems, I like the idea a smith down in San Antonio told me is how he solved the issue for himself. He hunted with various brands of ammo from his pistol. Mostly, he hunted deer and then compared the tissue damage done by each. For .45 caliber, his best results came from Hydrashoks. I think reading all the information you can is great to narrow the selection process, but I don't think you can beat hands-on testing you do yourself. It may not be totally scientific, but at least you do know what the results actually look like - especially when terms get tossed around like "produced a large cavity." You actually get to see what a "large cavity" is.
 
Schlick,

It is my belief that the "Straussborg Tests" are science fiction, fantasy, utter bullcrud, whatever...

But I do NOT believe that such tests EVER occurred.

Ever notice something about these tests? It's always "someone who was there," or "a reliable source said..."

It is NEVER "I was there, and I witnessed..."

To the best of my knowledge, not a single person has ever come forward to state, in writing, that they were at and witnessed these tests.

And, even if they did take place, which I doubt, what would they really tell us? That X bullets are GREAT for stopping a marauding goat. Goats and humans aren't, well, all that closely related physiologically.

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Beware the man with the S&W .357 Mag.
Chances are he knows how to use it.
 
Marshall and Evans deal with information derived from actual shootings. Fackler's information comes from the aftermath of actual shootings. Strousberg has wired pigs, if I recall correctly. From my self defense standpoint, what happens at the moment of the shooting is far more important than the condition of the corpse later.
I threw a brick into a guy's middle once. He went down like a sack of sand. There was no internal cavity of any type. There probably was internal distortion.
Many of the old timers prefered, and still prefer larger caliber, heavier bullets. That was based on their subjective personal experience.

Are any of these better than others? As the debate continues, obviously no one has the certain answer. If any one did, they could predict results with boring certainty. No one seems to be able to so do.

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Archie
 
I really don't think a .32 is a good defensive round. I carry hollow points in my 1911 .45 ACP. I chose defense over comfort. My 1911 is a full size Wilson CQB. With the 5" barrel, I should get good expansion at a good velocity.

There's only so much you can expect from a mouse gun like the P32. I have one also but I'd never consider it my primary CCW piece.

I would believe M&S over the IWBA any day of the week.
 
I have also been confused in the past...but I think I have a pretty good solution, at least for my G27.
I have 135 grain HydraShok in the pipe and as the first round in the mag. Next in the mag is a 180 grain Sabre. After that, 185 grain FMJ. Go back to 135 grain and repeat to end of mag.
Only caveat - make sure all three types of ammo fire will in your pistol. I have fired about 40 magazines with this configuration and had no misfeeds, so I feel relatively confident with it.

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"Freedom is that instant between when someone tells you to do something and when you decide how to respond."
-Dr. Jeffrey Borenstein

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
-Martin Luther King Jr.
 
Evan was a cop and he has seen what works and what doesn't. Fakler is a doctor who theorizes after the shootings over. I would take another cops opinion over a so called scientist theory.
PAT

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I intend to go into harms way.
 
Whew! I'm glad we're finally going to resolve this issue! (sarcasm mode off).

Seriously, regarding the goat tests: who cares if it happened or not? I've never heard of any serious goat attacks in a good while, have you? Goats are not people, they weren't high on crack or have adrenalin pumping through them when shot, they don't have as complex of a nervous system as humans do and the bottom line is, NO 2 GOATS ARE THE SAME! They will not react uniformly to being shot so the test was VERY scientifically invalid.

My .02: in a .32 you'll probably want all the penetration you can get, which means a FMJ round.
 
355Sig,

That's basically saying that Fackler's never seen a bullet wound, which you and I both know isn't the case.

How many has M&S seen during the course of their career? Probably not as many as Fackler.

M&S have developed most of their data using documentation provided well after the fact, not based on their own first-hand testing.

I THINK, but I'm not certain, that Marshall was involved in 1 shooting in his career, and found himself facing two guys armed with shotguns against his 5-shot .38 when he was off-duty.

If you like second hand interpretation, their information is great, I suppose.

Here are some interesting reads about the statistical problems with the M&S data... Reading this information made me begin to doubt the "absolute gospel" that is accorded to M&S.

BTW, when I was Associate Editor of American Rifleman magazine, from 1990 to 1994, I was one of M&S' biggest supporters on staff, and edited several articles that appeared in that magazine. I spoke with Marshall a number of times.

Since then, though, as I've become more and more familiar with more material on this subject, my believe in the infallability of M&S work has begun to drop quite a bit.

I STILL say, however, that useful information can be obtained from M&S. But NOT the only information.
http://www.greent.com/40Page/general/oss.htm
http://www.recguns.com/IVF1.html

Finally, there's Maarten van Maanen's analysis. I'm not going to post the link to this, as it was originally published in the IWBA newsletter.

Maanen used to be on Compuserve's Firearms Forum back when that was still around, and discussed a lot of his analysis with us when he was finalizing his study. Very nice guy, very informative, and, I believe, a statistician by profession.

Of all of the people involved, I probably put the MOST faith in Maarten's analysis. Why? Because at the time of the writing, he had no formal connection to IWBA, only becoming a member after he completed his analysis. Thus, I don't believe that he had any axes to grind, no personal agendas to fulfill, and, other than the article in the IWBA newsletter, to the best of my knowledge has not published anything else on this subject.

For what it's worth.

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Beware the man with the S&W .357 Mag.
Chances are he knows how to use it.
 
SG 12,

Regardless of 'test' results, you should consider getting a round that: is 100% reliable FROM YOUR GUN, is accurate FROM YOUR GUN, and is 100% reliable FROM YOUR GUN.

If it's a hollowpoint bullet, great. If not, great. At least it will 100% reliable and accurate FROM YOUR GUN.



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"All my ammo is factory ammo"
 
WESHOOT2

I agree that reliability comes before stopping power but if my gun won't feed at least one type of desent JHP its time to get a new gun not carry the vastly ineffective ball ammo.
PAT

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I intend to go into harms way.
 
As Mike Irwin pointed out, I think both Marshall & Sanow and The Fackerites have merit but neither side should be trusted 100% because the truth lies somewhere in the middle -- and not necessarily right in the middle. That's why I go both ways and alternate every other round. However, when you get into the small calibers (and I consider a .32 to be "small" and a .380 can go either way as some consider it to be the minimum for self defense while others start with a .38 special), I think you need to use FMJs to get the pentration that you need from the small round. Just my $0.02 worth.
smilefud.gif
FUD
 
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