Depth of Penetration

Derbel,

You're making my point. The majority of shootings with JHPs behave pretty much as designed. Coming up with counterexamples is fine, but those counterexamples are at the ends of the bell curve.

Wadcutters may be more consistent in some ways. But they will consistently wound less than HPs, on average. That's why everyone uses HPs.
 
I remember back in the 80s when I asked a friend who has a gun shop what's a good SD round for a 38 special. He grabbed a box of wadcutters and said that these will stay in the body.

I assumed that they are wadcutters. It's a round that has no head on it, completely flat.
 
Wadcutters are flat, semi-wads look like a lemon juicer.

.38s are often so anemic that even a solid won't go through. Most .38 defense ammo is +P JHP.
 
That's interesting but I did remember that we couldn't get HPs because they were dangerous to cops thus only the cops have 'em. They were called cop killers in the hands of a civilian.

I guess it depended on where you live and what law applied then.
 
In the 1980s there were bans (or banning discussions) of "cop killer bullets". They weren't HPs, but pointed penetrators designed to go through bullet proof vests.
 
The "cop killer" bullet frenzy did result in laws banning "armor piercing" handgun ammo.

The rounds that began the frenzy were developed and sold during the 70s by a company called KTW. They were tungsten, with a needle point and a Teflon coating. They were designed to penetrate cars, vests and light armor plate. They were ONLY sold to law enforcement agencies.

When the anti gun press "discovered" them (around a decade or so after they appeared in the Law Enforcement market) they fixated on the fact that they were Teflon coated (slippery, to penetrate cop's vests) and dubbed them "cop killers".

Despite the fact that no cop had ever been killed with one, despite the fact that they were never sold to private citizens, or the fact that the Teflon coating was NOT for penetration, but to protect the gun barrel steel from the tungsten, "cop killer bullets" became part of the American gun control rhetoric.
 
JohnKSa

In a worst case scenario, a single non-expanding handgun round that misses its initial target has enough penetration to cause 2-3 bystander fatalities and perhaps even a fourth injury.
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Jeez Man, "worst case", I think that you forgot the moving tank and lining them all up in a row... wasn't Indie's hat was held on by double sided tape; most of the time!

When in the real world has a single handgun round missing its intended target gone through three to four people, dropping three dead in their tracks, and sending the fourth to the hospital? (I am glad that I don't live where live bodies are stacked quite that close in a row.)

This is just not something that I am going to stay awake tossing and turning over at night.

I would imagine that there are far more misses in the world compared to over penetrations that this is really a mute point; it being an anomaly in the real world (definitely in my world.)

Where I live penetration is the name of the game, Brown, Grizzly, and Black being some of the reason. Moose being another. Yes, in handguns rounds too.

So, I guess depending on where you live... you pays your money and take your chances.
 
I'm forced to use lead free bullets for hunting when I'm in certain parts of Cali. In these parts of the state the 140 grain Buffalo Bore Barnes bullet (1550 ft/sec out of my gun) is what I have my 357 stoked with. My sights are adjusted to this round, so it's what I keep in it for self defense too.

On my friends farm, I punched it through a fresh killed hog he was about to butcher and the round blew through the shoulder and exited the off side ribs and into the berm. If you want expansion and penetration this is a round worth considering, as it's very accurate and had a 10 shot extreme spread of only 12 ft/sec variation in velocity.
 
Jeez Man, "worst case", I think that you forgot the moving tank and lining them all up in a row... wasn't Indie's hat was held on by double sided tape; most of the time!
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Worst case means exactly that. Worst case. It doesn't mean the most likely outcome, or even a particularly likely outcome, in fact it makes no claim at all about the probability of such an outcome occurring.

The point is that the lethal potential of a non-expanding round from a miss or pass-through is significantly more than a similar miss or pass-through from an expanding round.
I would imagine that there are far more misses in the world compared to over penetrations...
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Whether considering misses or pass-throughs, a non-expanding round is going to have a lot more lethal potential than an expanding round because it has so much more penetration potential.
Where I live penetration is the name of the game, Brown, Grizzly, and Black being some of the reason. Moose being another.
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You know, it's an odd thing, but for some strange reason it seems that in situations where people carry handguns primarily for bear and moose defense, the odds of an innocent bystander being injured by a miss or pass-through are much reduced compared to what might be expected in areas where people carry handguns primarily for defense against criminals. ;)
This is just not something that I am going to stay awake tossing and turning over at night.
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That's wise. I wouldn't either. But I have thought about it, as I have thought about many other self-defense/firearm related topics. Thinking through topics is constructive and can be informative. Can't say the same for lying awake tossing and turning.

Here's an interesting self-defense story that highlights some of the issues associated with this topic. A neighbor's house accumulated 9 or 10 bullet holes during the encounter that took place inside the victim's home.

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=549273
 
Penetration is small diameter + large amount of powder + a hard bullet material. What such a cartridge would be good for is debatable. Long distance shots are not the self defense norm, so having a flat trajectory is a moot point.

357 Sig is the FBI's answer to car doors and such. It has the powder of a 40 S&W and about the diameter of a 9mm.

5.7 x 28mm was made to go through body armor according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_5.7×28mm
That is pretty good penetration.
 
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