All,
raimius
Now, there are a lot of variables that the site cannot account for. What if you hit a stud? What will the book case, lamp, couch, etc do? We simply don't know.
Agreed. Definitely over-thinking this -- but it's in my nature.
Double Naught Spy
Sorry, but this conclusion is bogus given that you assume the rifle round to be frangible ammo. If you used frangible pistol ammo, the pistol round very well could be safer.
Good point -- however, I was going with three rounds that the Box O' Truth used, and I was trying to level the playing field by using the "best" home-defense round of each type of home-defense weapon (shotgun, pistol and rifle). To my knowledge, most on TFL advocate against using frangible pistol rounds (though the jury is out on frangible rifle rounds).
Bartholomew Roberts
I'm not sure what your point is; but the chances of a 5.56mm round travelling 100m AFTER it has fragmented are pretty much zero.
Ah, good point. Yes, the original intent of the post was simply to discuss ranges (10, 25 and 100 meters) as factors in the discussion about the "best" home-defense round. After reading the story about the kids who (accidentally) shot their neighbors at the local high school football game (I think it was over a kilometer away), and after witnessing the damage that rifle rounds can do to steel targets (as opposed to pistol rounds), I wanted to mix it up and challenge the conventional wisdom which states that pistol rounds are superior to rifle rounds for home-defense. I hoped to demonstrate/suggest that at a certain rangers, and in certain situations, an errant rifle round can pose a greater danger to innocents in the next room/home than an errant pistol round.
Bartholomew Roberts
Well, although not a revelation, this part is certain true.
Haha, yes. The more time I've spent on TFL, the more I've begun to learn/realize that all these debates/arguments can be rather pointless. Given that there are so many variables and factors at play, there's never really one "perfect" or "right" answer -- even though as Type A personalities, we always seek 'em.
And yet I just added fuel to the fire...!
MTT TL
Mathematically the odds of shooting in a random direction and hitting a person after going through walls are so low as to be almost daunting. The odds really drop after traveling 10 meters (due to the huge rapidly expanding area) unless you live in an apartment building. Of course if you live in an apartment building it should have firewalls that will be highly bullet resistant.
Point taken -- but a lot of our discussions on this forum concern this or that hypothetical situation that are highly unlikely to begin with. I mean, just how likely are you to ever need a firearm? And if you need one, actually fire it in anger? And if you fire it, actually hit (which is the only time that caliber matters)? As I stated in a previous thread,
just 0.03% of all Americans fired (and hit) an attacker in 2009. The average TFL member is FAR more likely to get into a car accident tonight than get into a firefight, yet fails to take highly stringent/annoying (removing loose objects in the car, staying below the maximum illumination distance of headlights, etc) or sometimes even "normal" safeguards (seatbelts, staying below the speed limit, refraining from using a cell phone, etc). Yet we talk about tactics ad nauseum.
There seems to be no shortage of anecdotes/scary stories of bullets traveling in unintended directions...I figure for the same reason I carry a firearm (never know when the odds will catch up with you), it would be helpful to have a discussion about the pros/cons of various home-defense rounds, especially since the odds -- while small -- will eventually catch-up to someone, somewhere.
I mean, even the lowly 9x19mm FMJ -- as MikeNice81 wrote,
I've seen the actual police report of a 124gr 9mm fmj that went through a windshield, the driver seat head rest, the back window, and travelled over 80 feet before going through the exterior wall of a strip club.
That's crazy to me, and I think it's something that many who own firearms for home-defense fail to adequately think through.
I may come to the wrong conclusions, and I may make the wrong choices -- but goodness, for my family's sake, and that of my neighbors/fellow Americans, I want to know that I
at least gave it some thought (and discussed it with people who have more experience, knowledge and expertise).
C0untZer0
Last time I checked rooms are separated by 2 sheets of drywall.
Not sure where the logic is here.
Apologies -- what I should've said was, "For the shotgun advocates, the fact that 00 or #1 Buck only penetrated 6-8 sheets is proof positive that a good pump-action is
most likely to fire (out of the three most common types of home-defense weapons) the best type of home-defense round that will devastate the bad guy without...."
Thanks all, for the discussion.
respectfully,
Moose