Is Big Bullet Technology Dead?

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but the entire jacket was intact and a tiny hole was formed while swaging. The jacket was heavy.
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I have some original CDM .44 AMP ammo with bullets like that! 240gr, and on the mild side for the caliber, only clocking a bit over 1200fps...

Won't expand on anything, but will punch through some impressive thickness of steel. :D Like the rear differential of a 65 Ford Galaxy. Fired into the rear face of the differential, it almost exited the front of the housing! :eek:

I do remember the factory JHPs of yesteryear! They were awesome! Worked every bit as good as full metal jacket ammo!!! :rolleyes:

Then they got improved, and only worked as good as FMJ part of the time, the rest of the time they would open up really well, in clothes, on a watch, or a lighter or belt buckle, before entering a body...and usually stopping short of the vitals if they made it into the body...

Bullets for handloading were a better, at least by the early 70s. I remember loading some Hornady 115 JHP in my Dad's .38 Super (we didn't have a 9mm in the house, ;)), and while I never shot a person with any of them, I did shoot some other things and they worked fairly well. They had about a 1/4' or so exposed lead "ring" above the jacket around the hollow point, and while expansion wasn't huge, there was some...

And then there came the Speer 200gr "flying ashtray" .45 slug. Damn if that wasn't the bee's knees, hehehe...

Especially if you pushed it hard, like 1000fps. A little beyond what the book listed, even in those days, but you could do it, and it was impressive.

Murphy is still out there, and everything can fail, including the "best" JHP ammo (in any caliber). So, my "default setting" is in my signature line...
 
44 AMP said:
They said that in 1985, too. After 1986, they STOPPED staying that for a number of years. Now, they are saying it, again.

Note that the 9mm, which failed in the Miami shootout met every spec the FBI had at the time, including gel test penetration.

And, it still got the blame for "failing".

As far as I'm concerned, the FBI's recommendation(s) mean nothing to me, and should be looked at carefully by any and everyone outside the FBI, to see how well they apply to what you are doing, not just blindly adopted on faith because the FBI is "infallible". They aren't.
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The 9mm failed because the agents were incapable of placing the shots effectively.
The caliber/ammunition was the scapegoat to take the blame for insufficient training and ineffective tactics.
Near misses and peripheral hits with a .500 S&W wouldn't wouldn't have scared the bad guys to death either.
 
Do note that while there were a handful of exceptions, our LEOs didn't adopt the 9mm round until AFTER it was adopted by the military.
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Many So Cal LE agencies were carrying the Model 59 long before the military switch. It had a mediocre rap sheet at best, and I'm being generous here.
 
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The 9mm failed because the agents were incapable of placing the shots effectively.
The caliber/ammunition was the scapegoat to take the blame for insufficient training and ineffective tactics.
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Yup, what should have been a learning moment became a blame game on the only thing they could. Consider that the fight was finally stopped by a 38 Special 158 grain LSCWCHP fired from a snubby, properly placed. the 9mm load totally outclassed it.
 
1911_Hardball

The 9mm failed because the agents were incapable of placing the shots effectively.
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And you think you could've done better?

The outcome would have been different had the FBI has asked Miami PD to do a felony car stop. Miami PD probably had a hundred cops on duty and a helicopter, not to mention that they have far more experience with felony car stops.

The FBI's biggest mistake was cops set themselves up for failure by not controlling when they should have initiated a felony car stop, by not asking Miami PD to do the felony car stop, and not involving Miami PD before its cops went hunting the bad guys.

That tragic incident could have been avoided; its outcome was more a product of poor decisions than weapons.

Cops will live if the can immediately gain control and retain it.
 
Nanuk,

Those cops weren't thinking proper shot placement. They were thinking survival.

Proper shot placement is lexicon of fools. Survival is the objective of professionals.

When bullets are headin' your way, are you gonna hop into a ridiculous Weaver stance, get your arms in a perfect Isosceles triangle, properly align sights for precise shot placement? That how you'd wind up supine on a fiberglass pathologst's table, while he's sawing your corpse open, and a tag affixed to you toe is dancing to fan oscillation.

If you find yourself with bullets headin' your way, my advise is to get the hell outta a bad guy's sight picture yesterday, unless, of course, you're tired of bill payin'. Then stand there and take rounds. That's what a dead fool would do.
 
No

My 44 and 45 Colt hard cast loads at 1000fps penetrate in feet. The SWC design is very disruptive and doesn't need to expand to be very effective. Mine have shot vertically through a 150# Hog and the same 45 load went through a Black Bear at 40 yards, six times, leaving fist sized holes in the back (Brian Pearce). I don't use them for personal defense, but I do use an ACP with 185gr Golden Saber.
 
Proper shot placement is lexicon of fools. Survival is the objective of professionals.
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No, proper shot placement is the objective of trained professionals and citizens alike. That is what determines surviving the encounter.

The idea that training to shoot properly is how one ends up dead is nonsense. Yes, being able to perform under fire requires more than mastering the fundamentals of grip, stance and sight picture. Yes, there are many variables in a deadly encounter and success doesn't always go to the best trained. And yes, moving and taking cover when under fire is good practice :rolleyes: Being able to hit your target center mass most often gives the best chance of stopping the threat when hiding or running isn't enough. To dismiss talk of "shot placement" as foolish seems foolish to me...
 
And you think you could've done better?
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That's not the point. Even if nobody here could do better, shot placement issues still aren't going to be solved with a caliber change.
Those cops weren't thinking proper shot placement. They were thinking survival.
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When survival is the uppermost issue in one's mind (as it likely is in any self-defense situation) it's probable that the defender is not thinking about much of anything else.

At that time, one had better have trained to the point of being able to make good hits in spite of not consciously thinking about shot placement.

Shot placement is what you think about in training. The skills you acquire from training are what help you survive when all you can think about is survival.
Proper shot placement is lexicon of fools. Survival is the objective of professionals.
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Catchy but incorrect.

Survival is the objective of anyone in a self-defense situation regardless of whether they're professionals or amateurs.

Shot placement is how you survive a gunfight against determined opponents. Not necessarily by "thinking" about it (although there are cases where survivors have recalled consciously focusing on their sight alignment) but because you have trained to perform even when you can't dedicate conscious thought to things like trigger press and sight alignment.

https://www.trainingindustry.com/wiki/the-four-stages-of-competence/

1. Unconscious Incompetence (Incompetent and unaware of the need for training)
2. Conscious Incompetence (Incompetent but aware of the need for skills development)
3. Conscious Competence (Able to perform competently when consciously concentrating at the task at hand)
4. Unconscious Competence (Able to perform competently even when severely distracted or heavily stressed.)
 
I’ve done force on force in the past and hope to do more next year. In most of that I never remember seeing a front sight, except one time when I remember vividly seeing a front sight. In the scenario an assailant was executing hostages (you were placed into the scenario with no prior knowledge and had been brought in with a bag over your head). I had to decide when to engage from concealment. After I made my choice the hostage taker and I shot it out at maybe 20 ft, maybe more like 15 ft. Both of us fired multiple times. The assailant went down and pulled a hostage with him while I had backed away to create distance and feebly try to get to cover. At this point I had fired completely reflexively and thought I had shot him and that he had gone down from hits. As I approached to assess his condition he started to lean up and bring his pistol to bear. He was covered mostly by the hostage and the only target truly available was his head. I fired one shot right in between his eyes. I distinctly remember seeing a front sight and making the trigger press. The entire scenario was a matter of seconds. After talking to the instructor he had fallen as he had gotten tripped up with the hostage and then had played possum when he hit the ground. If my shot placement on approach had failed I would have been shot and in real life dead.

What I learned after 8 hrs of force on force that day is in as close to reality as I could get you often miss and it’s often hard even with UTM to know when you got hits on your target. Having more capacity and more shot opportunities was vital as even reloads don’t always go like you’d hope. Shot placement as the day wore on was critical. The longer the fights went the worse the shooters looked afterwards both in exhaustion and hits. In cases where it's not just you and the assailant then missed hits often meant more casualties from people in the area. In many cases even the winner would have needed immediate medical care. The people that had the skills to where they could implement their training without deliberate thought were those that did well.


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This whole discussion reminds me of one my wife and I had the other day...

She worked with clients in the whole county & the powers to be determined that she should have plenty of time to work with everyone, if she would just schedule all the clients by location. "A","B" and "C" - all live in one part of one city, so, she should schedule "A" for 9:00, "B" for 10:00 & "C" for 11:00 on Tuesdays,

Everything was based on - best case scenario.

Then reality set in - when "A" had to work on Tuesdays, "B" liked to sleep in until noon and "C" would forget about the appointment more often than not.

These "caliber wars" - along with all the "studies" and tests and whatever, all at some point boil down to - -best case scenario.
Then along comes a Hollywood shootout, a "sniper" in Dixieland, a Philippians insurrection, an FBI shootout,,,,,etc,etc,etc...to throw cold water on things - - and - - voila' - the caliber increases! Imagine that!

IMSHO -the 9mm is popular now for the same reason the ,357 magnum won out over the .41 magnum & the ,44 magnum.
Both the .41 and the .44 require - a good sized gun & they are just over the edge of what most people can shoot.

The 9mm is tame compared to the .45 acp, the .40 S&W and the 10 mm.
Thats all.
It's what the majority of people can handle

So - "facts" and "statistics" are manufactured or tailored to paint it in the best possible light.
& it will stay there right up until the next **failure**....
 
Only minutes ago I posted this in another location.

Choose your facts carefully and don't let them interfere with all of those things that you have to believe in in order to remain comfortable with your own thoughts.
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Nanuk,

Those cops weren't thinking proper shot placement. They were thinking survival.

Proper shot placement is lexicon of fools. Survival is the objective of professionals.

When bullets are headin' your way, are you gonna hop into a ridiculous Weaver stance, get your arms in a perfect Isosceles triangle, properly align sights for precise shot placement? That how you'd wind up supine on a fiberglass pathologst's table, while he's sawing your corpse open, and a tag affixed to you toe is dancing to fan oscillation.

If you find yourself with bullets headin' your way, my advise is to get the hell outta a bad guy's sight picture yesterday, unless, of course, you're tired of bill payin'. Then stand there and take rounds. That's what a dead fool would do.
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Well,

I have been LE/Military for close to 40 years and a competitive shooter before that. I was a trainer as well. I think I have a pretty good idea how to win and survive on the two way range.
 
These "caliber wars" - along with all the "studies" and tests and whatever, all at some point boil down to - -best case scenario.
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Why wouldanyone on Earth come to that conclusion?

So - "facts" and "statistics" are manufactured or tailored to paint it in the best possible light.
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That would be expected from someone trying to market it, by that's not the way that crucial decision-making with a lot at stake is approached.
 
that's not the way that crucial decision-making with a lot at stake is approached.
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I agree that's the way it SHOULD be approached. And, I think a lot of us do that, when we get to make our own decisions. But we don't always get to make our own decisions. In fact, the portions of our lives where we DO get to make our own decisions has been shrinking, and rapidly in recent years.

The 9mm is tame compared to the .45 acp, the .40 S&W and the 10 mm.
Thats all.
It's what the majority of people can handle
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First, I'll say that I don't have much personal experience shooting the .40 or the 10mm, but I do have a bit of experience shooting the .45acp and the 9mm Luger. (and also the one no one ever seems to mention anymore, the .38 Super)

In MY hands, I don't find any significant difference in recoil between the .45 and the 9mm. All of the guns I've had in both calibers seem to have the same amount of recoil to me. Yes, it varies due to size and weight of the gun, but in guns of similar size and weight, to me, the recoil is about the same. Meaning I get the same amount of muzzle rise from both the 9mm and the .45. The 9mm feels like it gets there faster, seems "snappier", but the amount of muzzle rise for me is the same.

I'll accept the fact that most people find the 9mm to have less recoil, and yes, I've seen the math that explains how, despite having the same amount of energy (ft/lbs) the .45 has more momentum and therefor more recoil.

But the math doesn't change what I feel when I shoot, and so, for me, the argument that the 9mm is better, because it recoils less, simply doesn't matter.

I guess I'm not "most people".

And, that IS an important point, I think. I understand the logic in choosing what "most people" can manage, when you are choosing arms for a group of people such as a police dept. But is that choice the best choice for you, or I, as the individuals we are???

Maybe, but maybe not.
 
OldMarksman said:
If and only if "we" are limiting our metrics to certain aspects of terminal ballistics.

And "measurably" dos not mean "significant".
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That was pretty much my point, we can't define significant but the only meteics we have say what they say.

That will vary according to situation. But consider this:
  • An attacker moving at an average "Tueller" pace can move about three feet in two tenths or a second.
  • A timely physical stop will depend upon hitting key, hidden, and small internal body parts that are moving quickly in six degrees of freedom; hitting them will be much a matter of serendipity than design, and the likelihood wis increased by hitting with more shots more quickly.
  • In a close encounter (ten or twelve feet), a defender will have very little time to effect the stop.
.
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Again, not sure if you are refuting my post or agreeing. In the above list those few tenths might get an extra round into the bad guy (and hopefully stop him)... or it might not.

So the debate remains, possibly more smaller holes or fewer possibly bigger holes.
 
SA1911 said:
1911_Hardball



And you think you could've done better?

The outcome would have been different had the FBI has asked Miami PD to do a felony car stop. Miami PD probably had a hundred cops on duty and a helicopter, not to mention that they have far more experience with felony car stops.

The FBI's biggest mistake was cops set themselves up for failure by not controlling when they should have initiated a felony car stop, by not asking Miami PD to do the felony car stop, and not involving Miami PD before its cops went hunting the bad guys.

That tragic incident could have been avoided; its outcome was more a product of poor decisions than weapons.

Cops will live if the can immediately gain control and retain it.
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I neither said nor implied that I could have done better, so I don't know what the point of the question was.
Thanks though, for the rest of your post as it supports my contention that it was a tactical failure, not an equipment failure.
 
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