Is muzzle energy a pointless descriptor for handgun rounds?

I don't think it's pointless. That's far too broad a statement.

It's not, however, a good criteria for choosing a defensive handgun load.
 
To the OP it is so much more about shot placement rather than kinetic energy. I really don't bother with it.

I carry .45 because I shoot it more accurately/ I have the most trigger time with it. But 9mm is plenty. In sheer numbers, yes a 45 is more powerful but the truth is unless you hit the central nervous system (brain or spinal cord) or directly in the heart. Nothing you can carry on your hip will completely knock them over in one shot.


Would you rather take a .50 BMG to the leg or a .22LR to the head?

-DBLAction454
 
Shot placement is highly overrated. If it can hit an 8in pattern at 10 yards I can put down a threat with it. You would have a better chance of surviving a 22 to the skull then a 50cal to the leg.

Hydrostatic shock is different then a wound cavity and does little to stop an attacker but will give a nasty bruise. It would be similar to the damage you take while wearing a vest.

Big and slow is better then small and fast you want to drive the bullet through your attacker. Bleeding from entrance and exit wounds will stop an attacker more quickly. Over penetration with any defensive handgun is NEVER going to be an issue. You watch to many movies. If you get up into the heavy mags with hardcast bullets you maybe able to penetrate enough to go through a badguy and into an innocent but even then I would not concern myself much with it.

So no ME is not a great indicator of stopping an attacker neither is velocity. Manufacturers will give you a lot of reasons to buy their ammo reality is fmj medium loaded rounds have killed more people then the latest and greatest hps ever will.
 
Not pointless, but maybe a little misleading. Kinetic energy strongly emphasizes velocity over mass, giving light fast rounds a considerably greater total than slower, heavy rounds. As a basis for comparison between similar loadings of the same caliber, it has some merit. But I doubt its utility for indicating effectiveness in a critical situation.

Just my two cents: momentum seems to me to be a much better measurement for determining effectiveness. But manufacturers probably prefer to use the much larger numbers you get by calculating energy.
 
"Shot placement is highly overrated. If it can hit an 8in pattern at 10 yards I can put down a threat with it."

Uhm...

In other words, you're saying that shot placement IS important.

Shot placement isn't just the gun's inherent accuracy potential, it's the shooter's ability to regularly put shots where they will do the most to end an encounter, and that takes, above, all, practice in putting shots where you intend them to go.

So, no, shot placement isn't overrated.



"Big and slow is better then small and fast you want to drive the bullet through your attacker."

Actually, with today's modern bullets, big and slow vs small and fast has really become increasingly irrelevant.

Many modern 9mm rounds can penetrate as deeply, or even deeper, as a .45.

Given the state of modern, scientifically designed and tested bullets, it's increasingly today a matter of personal preference rather than differences in terminal performance.
 
Mine in red

Shot placement is highly overrated. If it can hit an 8in pattern at 10 yards I can put down a threat with it. You would have a better chance of surviving a 22 to the skull then a 50cal to the leg.

Really? Why is that? A .22 that penetrates the skull and destroys the medulla oblongata and shuts down all autonomic functions will be less devatasting to a target than a .50 round that nicks a calf muscle? But wait you say, you meant that a .22 that misses important parts of the brain versus a .50 round hits mid thigh and severs the femoral artery and shatter the leg bone. But doesn't that mean that shot placement is the key?;)

Hydrostatic shock is different then a wound cavity and does little to stop an attacker but will give a nasty bruise. It would be similar to the damage you take while wearing a vest. Correct, unless that energy is dumped next to an inelastic organ. It may destroy the organ, but people can live a while with those organs destroyed. Long enough to inflict damage in return.

Big and slow is better then small and fast you want to drive the bullet through your attacker. Why do you say that? Does that mean a baseball will shoot right thorugh a person while a .308 FMJ will stop inside the body? The baseball weighs much more and travels much slower than a .308. (This is why sectional density and velocity are MORE important than inertia/energy for penetration)

Bleeding from entrance and exit wounds will stop an attacker more quickly.

So a through and through shot in the lower leg will stop an attacker more quickly than a round that cuts the heart in two but doesn't exit the skin on the other side? We are back to shot placement again.;)

Over penetration with any defensive handgun is NEVER going to be an issue.So how are you going to get an entrance and an exit wound? You watch to many movies. If you get up into the heavy mags with hardcast bullets you maybe able to penetrate enough to go through a badguy and into an innocent but even then I would not concern myself much with it. There are multiple documented instances in police work where a perp was shot and an officer behind was hit with a shoot through round. However, I agree with you about worrying about endangering a bystander. A hostile person with a gun is much more of a threat to life and limb than a through shot. I would rather be hit by a through shot that took out an attacker than have that person turn and shoot me without a body between us.:D

So no ME is not a great indicator of stopping an attacker neither is velocity. Manufacturers will give you a lot of reasons to buy their ammo reality is fmj medium loaded rounds have killed more people then the latest and greatest hps ever will. There are no indicators of "stopping power". It in itself is a myth.
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So, back to the original question -
Is muzzle energy a pointless descriptor for handgun rounds?
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No, it gives the numbers-guys something to argue about. It's one descriptor to which some folks assign too much importance.
 
Plain and simple... both the 9mm and .45 ACP have been around for over 100 years and they've both killed thousands of people...

So pick your poison and be confident with it.

Shutting up now...

-DBLAction454
 
The Canadian military tested the 9mm para Hi-Power vs the 45 ACP 1911. It was found that the 45 ACP would penetrate a standard steel helmet out to 30 yards, the 9mm out to 100 yards. Going back to WW1 the 9mm para has always been an excellent penetrator.

In general the smaller the bullet, the deeper the penetration, ie, the Tokarev will out-penetrate just about any cartridge/bullet out of a handgun barrel, yet the Tokarev is a tiny 85 gr 32 cal bullet pushed out of a 9mm case.

“Is muzzle energy a pointless descriptor for handgun rounds? “

I purchase and/or handload just about every caliber there is and test in various media, and all I can tell yah is the higher the ME number, the deeper the penetration and the heavier the recoil. You get to a point where heavy recoil defeats effective tactical shooting…there is a happy medium tho, and in general, this is what many manufacturers use.
 
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I have coded/written an external ballistics calculator.

The formula is very simple:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muzzle_energy

ME = 1/2 * mass * velocity * velocity

There are an infinite number of combinations of mass and velocity that give the exact same energy.

The ballistic coefficient, the value used to look up the amount of wind resistance / drag, is allows the calculation of how efficiently the projectile travels.

It might be interesting to come up with a new ballistic coefficient table for bullet drag through ballistics gel.

It would be great if manufacturers of ammo, specifically self defense ammo, would put the depth of penetration into ballistics gel maybe the volume of the channel. In other words, the bullet went so deep and made a hole big enough to hold this much.

On a side note on shot placement. My brother has a friend in a Police Department who was on scene for an attempted suicide. .357 Magnum Revolver (don't know if it was shooting 38's or what in it). Right between the eyes. The bullet entered, after passing through the skull the bullet turned, followed the edge of the inside of the skull, and exited the same whole it entered. Didn't kill the person, didn't even cause permanent damage as far as we know. Knocked them cold, blacked their eyes, etc. This person's intent was to kill, not to stop, but to kill their self, and it didn't. This is a rare event. I doubt it could be reproduced in a lab. The point is, anything could happen when there are nearly an infinite number of agents acting in the determination of the trajectory and behavior of a projectile.

My Uncle picked up a stone / rock, about the size of a golf ball and under handed lobbed it at a cow to get her to moving. It hit the cow in the back of the head near the ear. She dropped and never even flinched.
 
Again, thanks for all the responses everybody.

While ME may not be "pointless" it certainly does seem to be less than useful as an indicator for the effectiveness of a round (at least for a handgun).

I think I'll use these 147 gr. rounds since the lower recoil should allow for faster follow-ups and I'm not concerned with over penetration in my rural part of the country.
 
First off you said 22 to the head or 50cal to the leg you did not say how it hit. You have a much better chance of the 22 sliding off the skull then the 50cal sliding off the skin of your leg. A 50cal hit to the femur and you are done. My point is shot placement means little the point is to stop an attack. I can put 45 slugs in a 3x5 note card at 50 yards all day long but when bullets are flying back at me I don't care so much about head shots as I do the high percentage shots aka center mass which is a huge area on a human. Anywhere from groin to neck and you're going to do some serious damage.

Hydrostatic shock can lacerate an organ but not from any handgun round. Its just going to be surface bruising.

When I say over penetration is never an issue with a defensive handgun round I mean there is not enough force to go through a human body and do enough damage to a bystander to be of any concern to me. Sure freak things happen but if you hesitate to worry about stuff like that you are not going to survive. If you follow your basic rules "know what is beyond your target" its not an issue.

Yes a baseball sized object made of lead going 800ft per second is going to go right through a human body. If you mean a regular baseball thrown by a major league pitcher your argument is absurd.

You are correct there is no statistic that will determine stopping power. Handgun rounds simply do not have the energy to physically knock someone down. Which is why energy transfer is another bs term.
 
Mine in red

First off you said 22 to the head or 50cal to the leg you did not say how it hit.I said precisely where it hit. I was using it as an illustration of shot placement. Where it hits is much more important than anything else. You have a much better chance of the 22 sliding off the skull then the 50cal sliding off the skin of your leg. A 50cal hit to the femur and you are done. My point is shot placement means little the point is to stop an attack.I disagree completely. A superficial wound to the fatty tissue around a persons midsection might not even bleed. Even though it is technically within your "COM". You will have to hit something vital to stop someone psysiologically. Now you might have a psychological stop if a person is conditioned correctly. But I wouldn't count on that, particularly if they are hyped up on something/very angry. I can put 45 slugs in a 3x5 note card at 50 yards all day long but when bullets are flying back at me I don't care so much about head shots as I do the high percentage shots aka center mass which is a huge area on a human. Anywhere from groin to neck and you're going to do some serious damage. Maybe, maybe not. Someone can take damage to several organs located in the "COM" and eventually die, but they will still be capable of functioning as long as they still have blood going to the brain and still have glycogen in their muscle tissue. The only way to "stop" someone is to hit something that is about the width of your thumb. (Spinal column) That being said, more shots into the COM give a much higher chance of hitting vital blood bearing organs that will increase the chances of incapacitation. Again, shot placement is the key. Peripheral hits will most likely not be effective.

Hydrostatic shock can lacerate an organ but not from any handgun round. Its just going to be surface bruising.

When I say over penetration is never an issue with a defensive handgun round I mean there is not enough force to go through a human body and do enough damage to a bystander to be of any concern to me. You are correct. They can cause wounds, but usually not enough energy left to penetrate deeply.Sure freak things happen but if you hesitate to worry about stuff like that you are not going to survive. If you follow your basic rules "know what is beyond your target" its not an issue.

Yes a baseball sized object made of lead going 800ft per second is going to go right through a human body. Yep, that significantly more energy than a regular baseball. ;) If you mean a regular baseball thrown by a major league pitcher your argument is absurd. As it was meant to be.;) A baseball isn't going fast enough relative to its construction/weight to do penetrative damage. Hence the blanket statement "Big and slow is better " being superior isn't true. A .45 is "small and fast" compared to a baseball. As an aside, crossectional area and velocity determine penetration. Mass (inertia) has a larger effect on depth of penetration.

You are correct there is no statistic that will determine stopping power. Handgun rounds simply do not have the energy to physically knock someone down. Which is why energy transfer is another bs term.
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I agree with the gist of your comments. Getting as many shots as possible on the COM of a target is the key to winning the "fight". I just don't like blanket statements like:

-Shot placement is highly overrated.
-You would have a better chance of surviving a 22 to the skull then a 50cal to the leg.
-Big and slow is better

This could be taken out of context by people who don't have good training in using a firearm for self defense.

 
Over the years I've heard of a "magic bullet." It was found on a stretcher in Parkland Hospital - in Dallas.:D
 
Someone researching this case fired a round from the same batch (which is remarkable in itself) into the end of a log. It was recovered, with some effort, with no deformation or marking except for the rifling.

But as far as the original issue is concerned, if muzzle energy meant nothing, then creating the .357 would have meant nothing. With two cartridges firing the exact same bullet, in this case a 158-grain SWC swaged lead bullet, the only difference being the velocity of the projectile, one could be forgiven for imaging one just might be a little better than the other. Admittedly, it's hard to find two other cartridges that differ only in the velocity of the bullet but there are many that are close. Would a .30-30 be as good as a .30-06 out to the point where the shape of the bullet made a difference, assuming only the same bullet weight?

Or better yet, would a 200-grain .38 S&W (.38 Regular) be as good as a 200-grain .45 ACP, if both were full-metal jacket? Would a lead bullet be as good as a silver bullet in .45 Colt?
 
Muzzle energy is not a helpful number for picking ammunition.

Energy imparted to the target may be a little helpful. But there is only a loose correlation between kinetic energy and a round's ability to stop, in large part due to the unpredictable and dissimilar nature of shootings. The correlation is positive mostly for large differences in kinetic energy (i.e. 9mm v. .308 Winchester) that you just don't see when comparing most handgun rounds against each other.

Additionally, the handgun rounds with the highest kinetic energy tend to have the lightest bullets driven to high speeds. Gel testing shows that these rounds tend to expand violently but penetrate less than slower, heavier bullets. The real driver of penetration is momentum, which I think is mostly a factor of sectional density. But even there, you're only talking an inch or two difference in penetration (i.e. Winchester Ranger- Winchester's data shows the 147-gr. 9mm Ranger Bonded load penetrating about 14", while the 124-gr. load does about 12").
 
But as far as the original issue is concerned, if muzzle energy meant nothing, then creating the .357 would have meant nothing.
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That's not the point some of us meant to make. The point is that it's not everything.
 
To address the issue of "two holes are better than one," that's just flat-out wrong.

Bleeding is bleeding, whether it's internal or external. A person will not bleed out any faster because a bullet clips his aorta and goes all the way through than he will if a bullet clips his aorta and stays in his body.
 
You're not just letting blood out Madcap; you're letting air in as well. I am soundly in the "two holes are better" camp.
 
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