Is the caliber I'm using enough stopper?

[DaleA]

Uhmmm...okay.

 

[Butzbach]

What if a bear is driving away in your car?

Those dang circus trained bears are a menace . . .

 

[CDW4ME]

Caliber:
22/25/32 - its all you have, or are physically limited (can't tolerate more recoil), otherwise do better.
380 - its all you have. or are physically limited, couple HP bullet offerings penetrate at least 12'' and consistently expand - pick one of those. 380 FMJ can be over penetrative, fact not feels.
9mm/357Sig/40/45 - one of these with a good HP is preferred. 45 with FMJ can be overpenetrative (fact) so 45 FMJ doesn't get a pass unless you run out of HP.

 

[TunnelRat]

There's a wealth of information out there about shooting thru glass and particularly windshields. If I remember correctly there's even a law enforcement round that is designed to minimize deflection when shot through glass...Federal I think.

Here's a few links I found.
https://zerocant.com/?p=503
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVx5uYYIBy4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0l9QRyoRgI
https://www.tactical-life.com/lifestyle/tactics/science-shooting-through-glass/
https://www.hornadyle.com/resources/le-faq/what-can-i-expect-when-shooting-through-glass
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS9918S5pHw

With reference to the last video, I’ve taken two vehicle courses with Kyle Lamb now and shot through a half dozen or more windshields between those and other courses. The only consistent thing I’ve seen is inconsistency. The deviation on bullets fired to even the front of the hood can be as little as inches or measured in feet. What Lamb and us as a class could tell is that the more rounds you fire the larger the hole you open in the windshield. As this hole gets bigger the chances of successive shots hitting that glass and deviating from the point of aim continues to go down. Those first few shots are practically anyone’s guess. Be prepared to need to fire a number of shots (we seemed to settle on 5 shots as being enough for some rounds to actually get on target). This was with FMJ and HP. Lamb liked Hornady Critical Duty, though we saw good performance with Speer Gold Dot. We actually did see jacket separation on non-bonded HP.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Is the caliber I'm using enough stopper?

Are ballistic gel tests really enough to better understand this ?

Nope. Ballistics gel is nothing better than an idealized and hypothetical best case scenario using a tissue simulant that is actually nothing like the tissue it simulates except in basic overall average non-bone density. It tells you most about how well the bullet is apt to expand in a perfect sort of situation. Depending on the particular gel, it may or may not accurately represent the correct amount of penetration that may be attained in an ideal situation. With enough tests, it should tell you how stable the bullet is passing through the medium, whether it flies straight or is apt to veer off course, but again, this is in an ideal situation that does not actually mimic living tissue.

Ballistics gel is meant to be a consistent and uniform medium, a control standard by which evaluations can be made that throws out all of the nasty real world variables like whether or not your target is moving, different tissue densities, amorphous versus fibrous tissues, bone (thick bone, thin bone, deflection from bone, damage to bullets striking bone at various angles, etc. Yeah, I know some folks will buy a side of ribs an place it just so in front of the gel, or place a random bone or two inside the gel and see what happens for what is usually a singular example, but these are limited tests only. Sometimes, they use a simulated bone material inside a simulated tissue gel to up the reality of the simulation, LOL. These tests with bones that brought me the most laughter is when I see these guys using obviously sun bleached or boiled bone they have found somewhere out on the ground, which isn't a good choice because sun bleached or boiled bone is actually structurally different from living bone. This altered bone is actually much more brittle, less elastic, and less dense than living bone.

Also, gel tests tell you nothing about actual "stopping power" (if this concept is acceptable as a real thing) as the power of stopping reside not in the bullet or the gel, but in the living creature being shot that is to be stopped. While the gel gives you some idea of how well the bullet may expand or penetrate in an ideal situation, it does not tell you whether or not that expansion or penetration will necessarily produce the desired stop in real life. The general consensus is that expanding bullets tend to do more damage than non expanding bullets and more damage tends to equate with and increased ability to produce a stop more quickly, but these are nothing but generalities and not any sort of hard and fast laws of nature.

Gel tests will not tell you if the hydraulic shock produced is enough to produce a stop with a given shot.

Gel tests will not tell you if there is hydrostatic shock and if that shock will produce a stop in a given shot. Hydrostatic shock, in and of itself, it not even consistently produced in a manner to produce a stop in people/animals that have been shot. We know it is not likely to be produced with most pistol shots and that with rifle shots, that it is at best, is inconsistent, even with calibers such as .308

Gel tests will not tell you if your given shot will create enough expansion for a bullet to clip the aorta as is passes just missing the heart or not.

Gel tests will not tell you how fast the lungs will collapse or fill with blood.

Gel tests don't take into account whether or not the person you are shooting is adrenalized or stoned beyond the point of even realizing s/he has been shot.

Gel tests do not tell you how long it will take for a person to bleed out.

Again, all of this stuff happens inside a living animal inside of a real situation for which gel tests are NOT a simulant.

Bottom line, if you are a subscriber to the notion of "stopping power," there is not gel test that will actually serve as a reliable predictor for stopping power. Despite the dramatic slow motion videos of temporary wound cavities produced in fairly small blocks of gelatin that look absolutely horrifically devastating, the gel block expanding very briefly by as much as a factor of 2, you pretty much never see that same result in the shooting of real animal tissue unless you are shooting tiny animals.

 

[cuha375]

Damn somebody close this before some FBI guys come to my home.

 

[44 AMP]

per the OP's request..

Closed.