Rifleman 173
New member
There is a huge difference between the .357 magnum (revolver round) and the .357 Sig (an autoloader pistol round). To add the 2 together kind of distorts the .357 data a bit.
Firearm Stopping Power…a different perspective.
- Thread starter IanS
- Start date
What might add to the discussion is a look at what MILITARY organizations have chosen as their caliber for sidearms. The US used 38 caliber revolvers and then switched to 45 acp and then to 9 mm. Should we assume that based upon the years and years of military experience that the 9mm is the best all-around caliber? Add to this the fact that many European military forces have chosen the 9mm as well. I am not promoting the 9mm myself, and in fact it is one of the few calibers that I do not own at all. It is interesting to me that to my knowledge NO military forces have chosen the 22, 32 or even 380 for their sidearm, and I also have never heard of a police force choosing 22, 25acp or 32 caliber for their weapons. I live in a no-carry state (Illinois) but I do keep a 38+p revolver ready as my home defense weapon, occasionally switching to my 45 acp. Both of these calibers give me a sense of confidence and I shoot both equally well (or poorly). I do shoot my 22 caliber semi-auto or revolvers with greater accuracy, but I never think of them for anything but target shooting at the range. I guess if anyone ever really came out with a definitive study it would end up devastating the handgun industry overnight.
I think it's pretty obvious that all of the statistics are well within the experimental error, look at the differences between 44 and 357, there is no reason why the 357 would perform better (I'm not saying it would perform worse). So that's a pretty good indicator that ultimately, when the rounds are comparable, it doesn't matter.
Also:
shot with pistol, you live
shot with rifle, you die
Heard it so many times, but this confirms it.
Also:
shot with pistol, you live
shot with rifle, you die
Heard it so many times, but this confirms it.
With so many variables such as suspect size, weight, sobriety and mind set the best we can hope for is a round that penetrates enough to reach a vital organ and the bigger the better. But how big is enough. How much of a difference is there between a 40 S&W expanding to .64 and a 45 auto expanding to .72 (I'm not talking about .08.) Is there a magic diameter some where over .50 where people immediately fall down and can't move. Or is hydro shock the remedy. If the shock and temp wound cavity is all we care about then how does a .45 auto work. Or is that is it some combination where high speed .355 works and slow big rounds also work but on different theories. Adds two hundred feet per second to a 9mm and we have the 357 sig wonder round that will stop a charging rhino. Does this really make sense. The 125 grain 357 Magnum seems to work better then the 158 grain or 180 grain on people, but deer and other game are the opposite. The 41 magnum is far superior to the 357 magnum for hunting, but not on suspects. Ever see the SAS or SEAL operators interviewed about carrying a 9mm, they both same about the same thing about ability to shoot quickly and accurately.
OldMarksman
Staff
Doc Intrepid
New member
There are a number of characteristics that are used to judge the validity of academic research (or the design of an academic study).
Among these are that the research should be:
Consistent - the research team should be able to perform the experiment more than once time and receive consistent results each time it is performed in terms of quantifiable outcomes, magnitude of measurements, and other variables;
Reliable - each time the experiment is performed it should produce the same results;
Replicable - another research team should be able to take your experiment, and using your data and citations should be able to produce the same results that you did.
(I'm speaking in the broadest of terms, there is much more to it than this, but this serves to make the point...)
Whether research is declared "valid" or not is a function of whether the data used is verifiable, and whether the outcomes have been examined and found to be valid in terms of how well they meet the above criteria (among others).
My point is that, in keeping with the report cited by OldMarksman (above), there will never be a "valid" academic research study that is significantly more credible with respect to the effects of handguns during shootings.
This is because, as noted in the citation, each shooting is an N of 1 study. Shootings are not consistent. Small variances in 'where the bullet struck' can be determinative to outcomes. Shootings are not replicable. When struck in the torso, one shooting results in death, another does not. Clearly there are variables at work that impact the outcome which are not attributable to the round used. Two humans, shot with the same round in the same spot, are not always going to react in the same way. It is an inescapable fact that dooms quite a bit of "rigorous academic research" into what happens when people get shot with handguns.
The bottom line is that research of the type being presented is valuable, even if it is flawed or does not meet the rigorous standards of "academic" research, because such data will never meet the standards of a laboratory experiment. Street shootings are too varied, in terms of both the physiology of the subjects shot as well as the environmental parameters of the shootings to be able to draw definitive conclusions (beyond those of the nature being drawn here.) Every study (involving humans as opposed to something more artificially consistent such as ballistic gelatin) of handgun effectiveness is at some level going to need to account for or assume away the wild variability resulting from the human component.
Read any academic studies, and they are heavily caveated in terms of ensuring the reader understand the limits of the findings with respect to their applicability more broadly.
I'm not saying that efforts to conduct studies are meaningless and thus studies ought not to be done - quite the opposite. But I am saying that if you are looking for perfect, rigorous, academic-laboratory-worthy studies of handgun shootings, you'd better pack a lunch. Until they come along, I think its worth taking a look at the data that are available and trying to draw such reasonable conclusions as may be drawn from the admittedly less-than-laboratory-worthy data that exists. Even large samples from huge populations are not helpful - they are so broad and absorb so many anomalies that they are essentially meaningless in terms of predicting outcomes in any specific circumstances.
The fact is that street shootings are not going to be consistent, reliable, or replicable, the data are going to illustrate extreme variability - to include contradictory outcomes, and no study is going to be able to internally or externally control for every nuance unique to the data sets. At best, the outcomes you receive are going to depend on which questions you ask.
Among these are that the research should be:
Consistent - the research team should be able to perform the experiment more than once time and receive consistent results each time it is performed in terms of quantifiable outcomes, magnitude of measurements, and other variables;
Reliable - each time the experiment is performed it should produce the same results;
Replicable - another research team should be able to take your experiment, and using your data and citations should be able to produce the same results that you did.
(I'm speaking in the broadest of terms, there is much more to it than this, but this serves to make the point...)
Whether research is declared "valid" or not is a function of whether the data used is verifiable, and whether the outcomes have been examined and found to be valid in terms of how well they meet the above criteria (among others).
My point is that, in keeping with the report cited by OldMarksman (above), there will never be a "valid" academic research study that is significantly more credible with respect to the effects of handguns during shootings.
This is because, as noted in the citation, each shooting is an N of 1 study. Shootings are not consistent. Small variances in 'where the bullet struck' can be determinative to outcomes. Shootings are not replicable. When struck in the torso, one shooting results in death, another does not. Clearly there are variables at work that impact the outcome which are not attributable to the round used. Two humans, shot with the same round in the same spot, are not always going to react in the same way. It is an inescapable fact that dooms quite a bit of "rigorous academic research" into what happens when people get shot with handguns.
The bottom line is that research of the type being presented is valuable, even if it is flawed or does not meet the rigorous standards of "academic" research, because such data will never meet the standards of a laboratory experiment. Street shootings are too varied, in terms of both the physiology of the subjects shot as well as the environmental parameters of the shootings to be able to draw definitive conclusions (beyond those of the nature being drawn here.) Every study (involving humans as opposed to something more artificially consistent such as ballistic gelatin) of handgun effectiveness is at some level going to need to account for or assume away the wild variability resulting from the human component.
Read any academic studies, and they are heavily caveated in terms of ensuring the reader understand the limits of the findings with respect to their applicability more broadly.
I'm not saying that efforts to conduct studies are meaningless and thus studies ought not to be done - quite the opposite. But I am saying that if you are looking for perfect, rigorous, academic-laboratory-worthy studies of handgun shootings, you'd better pack a lunch. Until they come along, I think its worth taking a look at the data that are available and trying to draw such reasonable conclusions as may be drawn from the admittedly less-than-laboratory-worthy data that exists. Even large samples from huge populations are not helpful - they are so broad and absorb so many anomalies that they are essentially meaningless in terms of predicting outcomes in any specific circumstances.
The fact is that street shootings are not going to be consistent, reliable, or replicable, the data are going to illustrate extreme variability - to include contradictory outcomes, and no study is going to be able to internally or externally control for every nuance unique to the data sets. At best, the outcomes you receive are going to depend on which questions you ask.
Interesting data, and you should be complimented for your work.
However, while the data is, I'm sure, statistically correct, the conclusions drawn (indicated by percentages of stops) are flawed. Because the concept of a "one shot stop" as a valid, reliable way to measure handgun cartridge effectiveness is a flawed premise.
Colllecting data from many individual shootings is useful to indicate general trends, but boiling the data down into statistical percentages is essentially, meaningless, other than as a basis for argument.
There are two "off switches" that apply to stopping attacking humans. The first is physical damage. The second is a mental decision. Any round that does enough physical damage shuts a person down. That stops them. Any round that causes a person to decide to stop attacking also stops them.
How do you decide which is which and which was the deciding factor when you crunch numbers?
Every shooting is an individual occurrence, because different individuals and situations are involved. Dozens of individual factors, for each round that hits, multiplied by hundreds of shootings creates a distorted picture.
It has long been proven that a hit to the CNS shuts a person off. Frequently it kills. And it has been proven that ANY bullet that hits the CNS will do this. And the results are beyond the target's control.
However, a bullet that fails to strike the CNS (and do enough damage), even if the miss is only by a few millimeters or fractions of an inch can have an effect ranging from sufficient to virtually negligable. A small caliber hit might have virtually no effect when a large caliber hit in precisely the same place could have significant effect, simply because the periphery of the larger bullet impinges on a critical area.
Any shooting where more than one round hits is extremely difficult of classify as a one shot stop. Defensive shooting often involver multiple hits impacting within a second or two. Which round was the one that stopped the attack?
Or did none of them physicaly stop the attacker, but the attack was stopped because the attacker had more important things on their mind after being shot?
There are a lot more things involved, but my point is that a round that has a 1.7 round average to stop an attack isn't necessarily a better or worse round than the one that needed 1.4 rounds as shown by the rendered data.
There are just too many things involved that cannot be entered into a database to make such conclusions valid.
The devil is in the details, and every round made has produced both a one shot stop and a compete failure in different shootings.
You may be using the round that has the best numbers and still find yourself in that small failure percentage. Each shooting is unique. We can see general trends, and use what usually works best, but there is no magic bullet.
and...
However, while the data is, I'm sure, statistically correct, the conclusions drawn (indicated by percentages of stops) are flawed. Because the concept of a "one shot stop" as a valid, reliable way to measure handgun cartridge effectiveness is a flawed premise.
Colllecting data from many individual shootings is useful to indicate general trends, but boiling the data down into statistical percentages is essentially, meaningless, other than as a basis for argument.
There are two "off switches" that apply to stopping attacking humans. The first is physical damage. The second is a mental decision. Any round that does enough physical damage shuts a person down. That stops them. Any round that causes a person to decide to stop attacking also stops them.
How do you decide which is which and which was the deciding factor when you crunch numbers?
Every shooting is an individual occurrence, because different individuals and situations are involved. Dozens of individual factors, for each round that hits, multiplied by hundreds of shootings creates a distorted picture.
It has long been proven that a hit to the CNS shuts a person off. Frequently it kills. And it has been proven that ANY bullet that hits the CNS will do this. And the results are beyond the target's control.
However, a bullet that fails to strike the CNS (and do enough damage), even if the miss is only by a few millimeters or fractions of an inch can have an effect ranging from sufficient to virtually negligable. A small caliber hit might have virtually no effect when a large caliber hit in precisely the same place could have significant effect, simply because the periphery of the larger bullet impinges on a critical area.
Any shooting where more than one round hits is extremely difficult of classify as a one shot stop. Defensive shooting often involver multiple hits impacting within a second or two. Which round was the one that stopped the attack?
Or did none of them physicaly stop the attacker, but the attack was stopped because the attacker had more important things on their mind after being shot?
There are a lot more things involved, but my point is that a round that has a 1.7 round average to stop an attack isn't necessarily a better or worse round than the one that needed 1.4 rounds as shown by the rendered data.
There are just too many things involved that cannot be entered into a database to make such conclusions valid.
The devil is in the details, and every round made has produced both a one shot stop and a compete failure in different shootings.
You may be using the round that has the best numbers and still find yourself in that small failure percentage. Each shooting is unique. We can see general trends, and use what usually works best, but there is no magic bullet.
and...
If there was a significant bias to the study one would expect to see that in the results -- like wow .22 LR is the Death Ray of them all; not everything is about equal.
What we can probably conclude is that while there may be a small difference that a very large well designed study could detect -- say if we had 40,000 .45 acp shootings compared to 38,000 .380 shootings -- we might be able to detect a difference. But we are looking at a very small difference in stopping power that in the real world is not that significant. The signal to noise ratio is very small.
In medicine it is what we call the number needed to treat (NNT) which is the inverse of the absolute risk reduction (or increase) to achieve an effect. So you might have to shoot several hundred (or several thousand) people to see a difference in calibers. So bottom line, aim and training is important; flavor is personal preference.
What we can probably conclude is that while there may be a small difference that a very large well designed study could detect -- say if we had 40,000 .45 acp shootings compared to 38,000 .380 shootings -- we might be able to detect a difference. But we are looking at a very small difference in stopping power that in the real world is not that significant. The signal to noise ratio is very small.
In medicine it is what we call the number needed to treat (NNT) which is the inverse of the absolute risk reduction (or increase) to achieve an effect. So you might have to shoot several hundred (or several thousand) people to see a difference in calibers. So bottom line, aim and training is important; flavor is personal preference.
Vito,
WWII Germany used several .32 caliber autos as sidearms, including the Mauser HSc, Walther PPK, and Walther PP. They also used 9mm pistols such as the Luger P08 and Walther P38.
WWII Japan used the 8mm Nambu.
WWII Italy even used .25 Berettas.
WWII USA issued .32 or .380 pistols to General officers.
WWII UK issued .38S&W revolvers to many of their troops (converted S&W M&P revolvers), although they also issued the HiPower 9mm.
Up until relatively recently, the US issued various .38 revolvers, not only the 1911 and M9. (I qualified on the S&W Model 15 .38 in the Navy in 1990; USAF security units were still using that revolver, too.)
Former USSR issued variants of the Makarov, in 9x18mm, which is an intermediate step between .380 and 9mm (.380 is 9x17mm, "9mm" is 9x19mm).
What militaries issue has more to do with bulk costs, ease of supply, and availability.
WWII Germany used several .32 caliber autos as sidearms, including the Mauser HSc, Walther PPK, and Walther PP. They also used 9mm pistols such as the Luger P08 and Walther P38.
WWII Japan used the 8mm Nambu.
WWII Italy even used .25 Berettas.
WWII USA issued .32 or .380 pistols to General officers.
WWII UK issued .38S&W revolvers to many of their troops (converted S&W M&P revolvers), although they also issued the HiPower 9mm.
Up until relatively recently, the US issued various .38 revolvers, not only the 1911 and M9. (I qualified on the S&W Model 15 .38 in the Navy in 1990; USAF security units were still using that revolver, too.)
Former USSR issued variants of the Makarov, in 9x18mm, which is an intermediate step between .380 and 9mm (.380 is 9x17mm, "9mm" is 9x19mm).
What militaries issue has more to do with bulk costs, ease of supply, and availability.
WolfMacabre
New member
I don't think I can agree with that study too much, there are way too many variables. I think for me I'm going to stick with carrying the largest caliber gun that I can shoot accurately as well as quickly. I agree with a lot of people on here though that location is what's important.
Simplified, ammo and caliber choice comes down to:
1. a gun/caliber I can and will carry
2. a gun/caliber that I can shoot (shot placement)
3. ammo that is reliable in my gun
4. ammo that penetrates adequately
5. bigger holes are better holes (covers both larger caliber and expanding bullets)
Then, hope and pray for luck.
1. a gun/caliber I can and will carry
2. a gun/caliber that I can shoot (shot placement)
3. ammo that is reliable in my gun
4. ammo that penetrates adequately
5. bigger holes are better holes (covers both larger caliber and expanding bullets)
Then, hope and pray for luck.
Double Naught Spy
New member
Sort of reminds me of a study proclaiming which brand of gasoline gave the best mileage out of several brands without stating anything about the cars being driven, topography, type of driving, to of driver, or season.
The results just weren't that meaningful and certainly not insightful enough to help with any sort of actual decision making about them.
The results just weren't that meaningful and certainly not insightful enough to help with any sort of actual decision making about them.
As flawed as it is, there are a few things that make sense here. The 9mm, according to this study, is the least accurate with the exception of the 25. I don't believe this is a knock on the cartridge but rather a result of many people who buy a gun for home defense and stick it in a drawer. This would also explain the relative inaccuracy of the 38. Many of these people buy a "budget" 9mm or 38. The 45 and 44, according to this study, are more accurate. That makes sense since these are not typically beginer guns, especially the 44. Another thing to point out is the average number of shots till incapacitation is lower with the revolvers. I believe this has more to do with mentality than anything else. Whether it is the "spray and pray" mentality or practicing double taps or "empty the magazine". Again, this isn't a knock on the gun or, imo, the effectiveness of the cartridge but the mentality of the shooter. As for the rest of it, ammo type and especially shot placement are huge variables. There is a lot of area on the torso and even the head that isn't vital. Not vital enough to put someone down quickly anyways. There is also a lot of variables to the individual being shot.
Very true. It shows me that about 50% of BGs are gonna stop no matter what pistol round you shoot them with and 10-15% are not going to stop no matter what handgun you shoot them with as long as their CNS is functioning.
Of course I knew that already. Another thing that stands out aall handguns suck compaired to longguns. Of course that I knew too.
And after 30+ years I have come to the conclusion that while a more powerful handgun round does give you a better chance of stopping the BG it is a very small % of the overall factors.
wildangel1955
New member
Mr. IanS...
I was very disappointed that your link to the "best" 1911 article does not work.
I was very disappointed that your link to the "best" 1911 article does not work.
Steel Talon
New member
Research fails, needs .41 magnum data.. The true magical caliber
Double Naught Spy
New member
But this is contrary to the article that does not account for the shooter, only the caliber.