Does Velocity Offer Advantage?

New 147 and old 147 aren't the same animal. Comparing +P or +P+ 124 or 127 to old 147... the 147 lags very, very badly in performance.

Comparing it to the new 147.... it's nearly as effective on people (although the hot 124s and 127s have a slight advantage), and the 147 is better at barrier penetration.

Depends on what you want.

Or, it may depend on point of aim vs point of impact. One of my 9's pretty much requires 147, because it throws everything else low.
 
1. You haVe to look beyond the numbers - some makers use real guns, some use test barrels locked in a non-recoiling fixture, some use 4" 9mm (to pick a caliber), some use 5", and I'll bet some maker uses a 6" - or longer. Plus, the bullet design these days has, as previously noted, a particular velocity window.
I can take a .38Spl 125g bullet and push it fast enough out of a 6" or 8" .357 to make it overexpand and not penetrate much. Or I can take the same makers .357 125g and download it to where it rarely expands. (NO, they are NOT always the same bullet.)
Bullet design has become much more of a science that it was in the 1970's & 80's.

2. Most folks who actually shoot people with handguns are cops (the military being generally limited to non-expanding FMJ). Cops don't really get to choose what gun or ammo they carry. Usually the range staff makes a reccomendation, then the bean counters look for the cheapest ammo.
Example: My agency at one time required .38 Spl 110g +P+. But a bean counter saw that .38 Spl 110g was cheaper, so that what he ordered. We used that for training, and had to re-order the +P+.

A useful tool for thinking about this stuff is called the Reducto ad absurdum (my Latin spelling stinks) - reduce it to the absurd. So, I loaded some wax bullets over max loads in .357 Mag. Great velocities, but zero penetration. There must be greater mass to get the energy inside the body where it can do some damage. The trick is finding that "right" balance of mass, velocity, AND bullet design.

My perfect SD bullet? Has a flat trjectory to 25 yards, where it falls to the ground; discriminates between bad guys and good guys; penetrates both sides of an M1A1 tank; expands to 500X it's diameter; and always stops just inside the off side skin. Too bad I can't find any.
 
You can die in a fender bender, but usually don't. Speed kills.
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Got hit by a light beam today, it was going at the speed of light. Can't go any faster than that.

I seem to be doing OK.
 
Does velocity offer advantage? I've given this some thought and the only thing I am certain of is this: The faster bullet gets to the target first. For what that's worth at close range.

Other than that, there doesn't appear to be much that is certain.

John
 
Oversimplified,not perfectly true,but close:

Frontal area transfers the energy/destruction.Penetration must be adequate.

If we are talking a 230 gr roundball at 800 fps vs 925 fps,probably does not make much difference.

If we are talking hard cast 44 spl vs 44 mag,and both pass through,probably some difference,but not a lot.

A 38/9 mm light hi vel,or a 185 45 hi-vel radidly expanding bullet might not penetrate adequately.

I would avoid pushing the extremes.

I have no science or experience to base it on,but I suspect a cast 200 gr H+G type semi wadcutter at 800-900 fps would work pretty good.
 
I never bought into the hyper velocity light weight argument either. I know the hyper ammo can be shown to be very impressive, buts it's always on ideal shots which isn't real world.

I also don't buy into the tactically under-powered ammo either. :D

As with most things, the sweet spot is in the middle. Penetration is your friend. Penetration comes with weight and velocity most easily. In any given weight, you can increase penetration more easily by going to a heavier bullet, rather than just increasing the velocity. This allows you to keep the pressure of the load down also.

Velocity does give you an advantage, increased momentum and penetration. It is not the end all be all of the load though. If you keep going lighter and faster you hit a point of diminishing returns and are then just running fringe hi pressure loads for no good reason.
 
Biggest advantage? super light Xtra HiSpeed ammo sells like hotcakes. It's like if you stamped the word "digital" on it. One of my older instructors used to ask "Do you want to hit'em with a Ferrari or a Peterbilt?"
 
"people who shoot people"...

I'm thinking if you want to interview "people who shoot people" you'd need to go to a corrections complex? ;)

Really, I agree with part of We's post.
Speed(vel) has merit to insure a bullet performs the way it's R&Ed to perform.
A .44spl or a .45acp makes more sense to me because, while slower(by vel) than a .38spl +P or a .40S&W defense round, these larger handgun bullets can create a wider impact or trauma when it strikes a person.
It's like a hammer & a baseball bat. A bat would move slower but have a larger, wider wound. With a large caliber handgun round, more blood loss or a faster shock-trauma response would be ideal too(unless the violent subject is on drugs, alcohol, etc).
 
In using .44 special ammo in a .44 magum for vermin control (armadillos), my finding is that the lighter and faster 180 grain bullets stop them in their tracks while the slow 240 grain bullets have them running off to die eventually in their burrows. They penetrate but the hydraulic shock is so low that you might as well just impale them with a target arrow.

You really need both but I favor the somewhat lighter and faster bullets myself.

You can also apply "reducto ad absurdum" to slow but heavy bullets. If you get hit by an automobile that's going about 5 mph, you will likely only be pushed out of the car's way with no serious injury, yet that car has more momentum and possibly more energy than nearly any handgun bullet you can name.
 
I'll keep that in mind if I'm ever attacked by very small, armored people scurrying low to the gound. :D

Re: "you'd need to go to a corrections complex?"
But there aren't any guilty people there. Ask them. Nobody did anything. Somebody else did it.
 
I read a post recently that (paraphrased) amounted to this:
"If I feel the need to supercharge a round, I generally just move to a larger caliber." I'll try to find the post and give credit to the poster. He is a very credible source, IMHO.
Edited to add: Here it is.
It's long been my belief that if you need more lethality, what you need is more bullet rather than more speed...and practical experience bears this out.
Click to expand...
By 1911Tuner on THR. And I will stand by what he says.

Velocity offers one indisputable advantage--a flatter trajectory. If you are shooting at a distance, this will provide an advantage. For typical pistol shooting distances, this advantage is negligible.

Now I'm going to move "off the ranch" and provide my totally unresearched and unsupported opinion, which may be totally wrong.
I use +p ammo in my short barrelled semi autos for one reason. The short barrel robs velocity. If the velocity drops too far, expansion suffers. Ergo, I use +p ammo to regain some of that lost velocity in an attempt to get that expansion.

Again, I do not have access to ballistic Jell-O to test my theory, and I am fully aware of the fact that my choice of lightweight pistols with short barrels using +p ammo compromises quick follow-up shots. I make that compromise willingly, with eyes wide open.

You may agree or disagree with this choice. IMHO, everything is a trade-off, and as long as you understand and accept the compromises, all is well.

And having said all that, my EDC is a .45 caliber, either a 4" 1911 or an S&W 4" N-frame. Note that each is a "short barrel", and in those, I still use +P in both the .45acp and the .45LC.
 
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I'm thinking if you want to interview "people who shoot people" you'd need to go to a corrections complex?
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Well, from Police Reports or ME Reports some ammo works better than others. Some you'd think would be good aren't and some you'd question work just fine. Evan Marshall still posts data on as many shootings as he can get data on. I tend to go by what works in real life.
BTW, if I shoot anyone else it will be with a handgun caliber that starts with a '4'.
 
To the OP question on the influence on velocity, I'd suggest pitting the 124 grain @ 1100fps against the Buffalo Bore +p+ loading at 1300fps. I'm presently testing a hunting bullet design in 45 LC (Linebaugh/Colt for those who will point out there is no "long colt") to find out how soft I want to cast the bullets for the desired envelope on likely impact velocity.

A 200fps difference in impact velocity, as the picture below shows, can be profound at the receiving end. The top row, I will be softening the bullet by switching to air cooled...but notice that driving the solid design increased penetration and expansion, without increasing the amount of mass the bullet shed.

The hollow point version of the same bullet had the bullet increase expansion (to the point of shedding its petals) and penetration decreased with the increase in impact velocity. At 1300fps, it also shed about 1/3 of its mass. For perspective, the bullet lower left is a 158 grain sjhp impacted at 1250 into the same rubber mulch media and penetrated 16 to 18" expanding to .5"

Huntingammotests.jpg


though the lower right bullet looks as if it didn't expand from the top view, from the side view, one can see that it expanded violently. Added velocity can make that happen...at the cost of penetration.

IMG_7085.jpg


Get some test media and start shooting....even if you don't get data, it still beats the hell out of a day at work.
 
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Within normal handgun velocity ranges, bullet construction has much more to do with penetration.

The difference between 1100fps and 1300fps is nothing compared to the difference between 1300fps and 2500-3000fps. Rifles are a whole different ballgame.

Of course, even with rifles, bullet construction and sectional density are big factors in penetration.

+P just means higher pressure, therefore higher velocity. Rounds not designed to perform at the higher velocity may actually perform worse than they would have at their planned, lower v. As the pictures in Sheikyourbootie's post show, the bullet pushed to higher velocity started to come apart, and its loss of mass actually caused reduced penetration.

So, +P can help penetration, if it uses a round that was designed to work in the speed envelope of the cartridge, but otherwise all bets are off.
 
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