Just some simple ballistic facts to share.

[HisSoldier]

Basically if you believe a 9X19 is equal to a .45 ACP then you have to accept the probability that a .22 is equal to a 9MM, or that a .45 ACP is equal to a .50 AE or even a theoretical 1" bore handgun.

A fast moving grain of salt is deadly to a fly, a BB is way way overkill, bigger is better.
And expansion is not a given, it is a likely perhaps, but a large diameter 230 grain bullet expanded to .600 is greatly more damaging than a 120 grain bullet expanded to .600", it's just logical, and if a 230 grain .45 ACP doesn't expand it is, again, greatly more deadly than a 120 grain 9MM that doesn't expand.

I really believe people choose what they want to believe for whatever reasons they have, cost of surplus ammo is the main thing for those who don't reload. If I wasn't going to use a .45 ACP I wouldn't carry a 9, I'd choose a 10 MM magnum. No one's trying to keep the next guy from believing his .25 ACP is a manstopper if he insists it is.

 

[TunnelRat]

While I don't mean to disparage anyone, this is one man with a post from 11 years ago. Heck, I'm just one guy on a forum so I don't matter much either, and I'm admittedly not a ME. However the author at times talks about the wildly differing effectiveness of handgun rounds, then proceeds to announce anything less than 40SW as inadequate:

As for handguns, the name of the game is not only shot placement but how a properly-placed bullet acts once it gets there. I've seen folks killed by a bb to the eye and others survive after being hit by several well-placed rounds with a 9mm.

I've seen a guy killed by a .416 Rigby, as well as a suicide to the head with a .44 Mag that didn't penetrate the skull on the other side.

First, as you've pretty well guessed by now, I'm a big fan of the .40 and .45 for personal defense, and for the same reasons. They're both big, slow-moving bullets. Of the two, I think big is more important. As I've said before, I want something that will plow through bone and keep going, not skip off of it.

It seems to me the author contradicts himself mutliple times.

He repeats a number of cliches from days past, such as:

What I want is a round that plows through bone and tissue and expends ALL of its energy in the body.

Yes, the .380 and 9mm will do the job, but usually multiple hits are required as opposed to single hits with a .40 or .45.

Still, in its most lethal form, it's a 125-grain bullet, the same as a 9mm in many cases, and the 9mm has a horrible reputation as a reliable man-stopper.

First, Houston is mostly right in assuming that multiple rounds seen from the 9mm and .380 are from the higher magazine capacity and contollability of the two calibers. Again, however, much of it is due to the fact that these two calibers just aren't getting the job done before the other BG returns fire and sends our BG to gangbanger heaven.

And then I question his understanding of physics when he states

The husband reached down, grabbed the Glock, pushed his wife aside, and fired one shot at the BG, striking him dead center in the middle of the chest. Although knocked to the floor,

Skip a bullet off a support bone, such as the leg, and the BG will keep shooting. Break it, like you generally do with a .40 or .45, and the BG is going to hit the pavement and your chances of survival increase dramatically. It's the same with a shot to the chest. Skip a 9mm off the sternum (breastbone) and the fight continues; plow through the sternum with a .45 and, trust me, the fight is over.

And, yes, they CAN BE an effective weapon IF placed in a lethal area and IF the bullet gets the job done once it gets there instead of skipping off in a non-lethal direction.

That last statement is true of any handgun round. A hit to a non vital area with a 40SW or a 45ACP doesn't magically stop a fight. There are any number of documented cases of this being true, some of which were brought up here. And honestly the differences in energy between these cartridges isn't enough to unilaterally state that one will break bone while the other will bounce off bone. They just aren't.

Then on to the gelatin comments:

First, ballistic gelatin, being all that's available for most bullet testing, is good as far as it goes but it's often far different from what we see in the morgue. A far more realistic scenario would be to dress up ballistic gelatin with a heavy coat of denim to mimic blue jeans, embed some bones obtained from a butcher shop, and throw in a few objects of varying densities to mimic organs. Try it again, and I think you'll see that this impressive wound cavity that's so often seen in ballistic gelatin goes down the tubes. The human body isn't just composed of one density as ballistic gelatin is, and the bullet does various things to various parts of the body as it passes through.

Most ammunition makers these days do use denim in their testing and show results in bare gel and with denim. I'm not sure if that wasn't the standard practice 10 years ago.

As to why there isn't bone in ballistic gel, that's because the gel is an averaged medium. There are cavities in the chest between bones and major organs as well as some softer tissue that offer little resistance to bullets, certainly less than ballistic gel. Then we also have bone and tough sinewy tissues that would offer more resistance. What ballistic gel attempts to do is average the different levels of resistance that might be encountered on the path of that bullet. It's not as resistant as bone, but it's not as easy to pass through as other areas of the body.

The point of using this as a testing material is that it can produce replicable results, whereas tissue with bone can have widely varying results depending on where and at what exact angle the bullet struck. Using gel makes comparing the effectiveness of one loading versus another or between different cartridges much easier and increases the confidence that the results were less due to a random interation. If something will really smash through bone with no problem then it will plow through that gel block and if something would be completely deflected by it than the gel will slow it down dramatically and it won't penetrate nearly as deeply.

The author seems to argue that the physical results seen in gel can't match real world results, and it leads me to believe he doesn't understand the purpose of gel, my interpretation of which I offered above. He also seems to argue that a cartridge that will smash bone will somehow underperform in gel against a cartridge that bounces off bone. This doesn't make sense to me from a physics standpoint. Again I'm in no way shape or form a ME, but when I see someone making questionable statements in their argument it does make me question the argument overall.

 

[TunnelRat]

Basically if you believe a 9X19 is equal to a .45 ACP then you have to accept the probability that a .22 is equal to a 9MM, or that a .45 ACP is equal to a .50 AE or even a theoretical 1" bore handgun.

No one said exactly equal. What they said is that the differences aren't nearly as dramatic as people make them about to be. And while we're at it the notion that difference between 45ACP and 9mm is as dramatic as the difference between 9mm and 22LR is one of the biggest straw man fallacies I see on gun forums.

And expansion is not a given, it is a likely perhaps, but a large diameter 230 grain bullet expanded to .600 is greatly more damaging than a 120 grain bullet expanded to .600", it's just logical, and if a 230 grain .45 ACP doesn't expand it is, again, greatly more deadly than a 120 grain 9MM that doesn't expand.

Initially there is 0.1" difference in diameter before expansion. That's 0.05" on either side assuming both traveled the same trajectory. Is it possible that that's enough to be the difference between a fight stopping injury or not? Yes, but I'd argue it's an exceptional rarity especially when you consider the handgun accuracy of those under fire.

No one's trying to keep the next guy from believing his .25 ACP is a manstopper if he insists it is.

Again if you want to use examples, try to use ones where the relative differences are actually of the same level as those being discussed.

 

[dahermit]

1) Virtually NO handgun round can cause an immediate incapacitation UNLESS the central nervous system is hit in a critical area.

But then Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald through several organs, but did not hit the central nervous system (according to the autopsy), and he seemed to drop right there.

 

[walks with gun]

Many of us carry a handgun for different reasons, I live out in the boondocks and usually carry a 1911 in .45acp. I'm much more likely to run into feral dogs, coyotes, wolves, cougars or even a black bear. I carry my 45 loaded with cast 230gr trunce cone bullets moving at about 850fps. If I had to use my handgun against such animal, I'd much rather have the 45 than a 9mm. I know it.s not a very scientific test but shooting steel plates at various ranges the 9mm's seem to ting the heavy plates where the 45's seem to really thunk them good. Shooting blocks of wood, the 9's will sometimes knock them down or move them around but when shot with the bigger 45's blocks are tipped or thrown back much more often. I like the 9mm and carry one sometimes, but I can't be convinced that there on the same scale stopping power wise.

 

[OldMarksman]

...I would make the point that, everything else being equal (for argument's sake-I know it can't be in reality), the question boils down to which is most important in terms of surviving a gun fight: a bigger bullet vs less recoil and more capacity.

Since less recoil can enable more rapid firing of aimed shots, and since that is likely to increase the chances of hitting something important, and since the difference in terminal ballistics is really very small, the answer has to be the latter--most of the time.

Which is what I said to begin with: "...more control when firing repeat shots quickly."

I missed your point. It seemed to me that you had simply posed the question " which is most important in terms of surviving a gun fight: a bigger bullet vs less recoil and more capacity".

 

[Walt Sherrill]

I apparently missed the SOURCE of the following comment -- and couldn't find it by going back through prior comments, but...

What I want is a round that plows through bone and tissue and expends ALL of its energy in the body.

Energy transfer isn't really discussed much, nowadays. It was a matter of popular interest maybe 20 years ago, but it's seldom mentioned, nowadays. Why is that? Because it doesn't seem to matter that much.

I'd argue that the only energy transfer worth discussing is whether the energy created by a given load/round has enough force/energy to push the bullet through enough tissue (be it bone, organ, sinew, or central nervous system components) to affect and, hopefully, disable the target/bad guy.

A rifle's much-faster round can transfers more energy, and that can cause debilitating damage by creating a much larger secondary wound cavity, with related tissue and organ damage. But that almost never happens with even the hottest, heaviest handgun rounds. A round has to be moving at more than 2000 fps to cause that sort of secondary damage and most handgun rounds just can't do it.

 

[roarshock]

Not many columns of detailed incidents with corresponding numbers that correlate to this author's pronouncements - The - Final - Word. "Atlanta" supposedly underscores such definitive proof, ie opinion in bold type. There is another (better?) "study" out there, however, wherein actual police department/FBI records list the round used etc. The weapons in use as well are somehow mentioned: NYC Glock 17 or 19. LA Beretta. Etc. All these villains never got that 45 memo, apparently, and in their universal ignorance dropped dead. Pick your morgue; pick your poison....

 

[mavracer]

A round has to be moving at more than 2000 fps to cause that sort of secondary damage and most handgun rounds just can't do it.

BS I've seen secondary wounding at 1200 FPS first hand, what HWFE actually says is it can't be relied on below 2000 of course the stark reality is it can't really be relied on above 2000 either.

http://www.brassfetcher.com/Wounding Theories/Velocity of Radial Expansion.html

 

[pblanc]

A high velocity rifle cartridge can cause injury remote to the projectile path due to cavitation, but it is certainly not a given, and may turn out to be the exception rather than the rule.

I have personally seen ruptured loops of intestine and fractures of the capsule of the liver and spleen that resulted from the concussion of a high speed rifle wound with the abdominal wall without direct injury from the projectile.

Back in the mid to late 1970s, after the end of the Vietnam conflict, high velocity M 16 and AK 47 rifles started to find their way onto the streets of major metropolitan areas. Civilian surgeons, based on information obtained from military surgeons, anticipated extensive soft tissue necrosis due to the "secondary" wound cavities of these injuries and sometimes did extensive debridements of muscle tissue that were unnecessary. As time went on and experience was gained, the new dictum was "treat the wound, not the weapon".

Here is a quote from Dr. Martin Fackler regarding the wounding potential of the M193, 55 grain FMJ 5.56 x 45 mm NATO cartridge:

“In 1980, I treated a soldier shot accidentally with an M16 M193 bullet from a distance of about ten feet. The bullet entered his left thigh and traveled obliquely upward. It exited after passing through about 11 inches of muscle. The man walked in to my clinic with no limp whatsoever: the entrance and exit holes were about 4 mm across, and punctate. X-ray films showed intact bones, no bullet fragments, and no evidence of significant tissue disruption caused by the bullet’s temporary cavity. The bullet path passed well lateral to the femoral vessels. He was back on duty in a few days. Devastating? Hardly. The wound profile of the M193 bullet (page 29 of the Emergency War Surgery—NATO Handbook, GPO, Washington, D.C., 1988) shows that most often the bullet travels about five inches through flesh before beginning significant yaw. But about 15% of the time, it travels much farther than that before yawing—in which case it causes even milder wounds, if it missed bones, guts, lung, and major blood vessels. In my experience and research, at least as many M16 users in Vietnam concluded that it produced unacceptably minimal, rather than “massive”, wounds. After viewing the wound profile, recall that the Vietnamese were small people, and generally very slim. Many M16 bullets passed through their torsos traveling mostly point forward, and caused minimal damage. Most shots piercing an extremity, even in the heavier-built Americans, unless they hit bone, caused no more damage than a 22 caliber rimfire bullet.”

Fackler, ML: “Literature Review”. Wound Ballistics Review; 5(2):40, Fall 2001

The wounding potential of the 5.56 x 45 mm cartridge seems to be largely dependent on whether the projectile fragments or yaws upon or after entry, which is unpredicatable.

Remember the recent North Miami police shooting in which Charles Kinsey, an unarmed therapist attending an autistic man was accidentally shot in the leg by a SWAT team member with an AR at a range of 50-75 yards? Mr Kinsey was quoted as saying that the wound "felt like a mosquito bite". Mr Kinsey was discharged from the hospital within 3 days, which would not have been the expected outcome had he sustained extensive soft tissue injury.

The point I am trying to make is that if you are expecting a low mass, high velocity projectile to cause some type of massive injury due to it's kinetic energy, don't count on it.

 

[TunnelRat]

Remember the recent North Miami police shooting in which Charles Kinsey, an unarmed therapist attending an autistic man was accidentally shot in the leg by a SWAT team member with an AR at a range of 50-75 yards? Mr Kinsey was quoted as saying that the wound "felt like a mosquito bite". Mr Kinsey was discharged from the hospital within 3 days, which would not have been the expected outcome had he sustained extensive soft tissue injury.

I wouldn't really have expected any different personally, but if your point is the temporary stretch cavity isn't the end all be all then okay.

I'd also point out that we're in the semiauto handgun forum and I don't think we need to drift into rifles.

 

[5whiskey]

Originally Posted by OldMarksman
However, it (momentum) has nothing to do with wounding effectiveness.

Of course it does, ultimately it's the reason a heavier bullet penetrates deeper than lighter one when they have the same energy.

Yes. For an extreme example, 45-70 and 223 have KE that are in a similar category. Yes, 45-70 can edge it out by a bit... but if you load to the pressures commonly used when it was a black powder round then they are almost identical.

Plenty of folks would consider a 45-70 for bear, elk, bison, and tons of other larger game that 223 would be deemed (correctly) insufficient for. This is because of momentum, specifically since decent .223 ammo can and will expand to approximately .5" (sierra gameking tests). There are other factors involved, such as bullet construction (The smaller a projectile, the more difficult to make it's expansion controlled), but momentum still plays a huge role in this example.

This is an extreme example. It much less applicable than 9mm vs 45. But the overall principle still exists. Just to a much less degree.

 

[OldMarksman]

However, it (momentum) has nothing to do with wounding effectiveness.

Of course it does, ultimately it's the reason a heavier bullet penetrates deeper than lighter one when they have the same energy.

Someone added the word "momentum", but my post left room for misunderstanding.

My point was that how "heavy steel poppers often go down easier, and with more authority" has little direct relationship with wounding effectiveness.

Wounding effectiveness is a function of what is destroyed, and penetration is a major contributor to that.

Penetration is a result of a number of things--bullet shape and construction, sectional density, velocity, mass, and the nature of what is being penetrated.

For stuff that behaves more or less like a fluid or gas (lungs, blood, etc), penetration will track reasonably well with momentum. The bullet puts particles into motion, and momentum is conserved.

for stuff that has to be broken such as bone, kinetic energy will correlate better. It's the old force times distance equation.

I think that muscle tissue will behave in a manner somewhere in between.

 

[mavracer]

for stuff that has to be broken such as bone, kinetic energy will correlate better. It's the old force times distance equation.

Again BS, that my friend is a laughably naive concept, if that were the case a 220 swift would be renown as a better round for dangerous game than a standard pressure 45/70.

 

[OldMarksman]

...for stuff that has to be broken such as bone, kinetic energy will correlate better. It's the old force times distance equation.

Again BS, that my friend is a laughably naive concept, if that were the case a 220 swift would be renown as a better round for dangerous game than a standard pressure 45/70.

The force timse distance equation oversimplifies things too much, but when one breaks bone, cuts metal, penetrates armor plate, drills limestone, or saws wood, one does not have a system of particles that move freely and end up with the same total momentum after the action as before. It is not the product of the velocity and mass of the flying metal chip from the milling machine that means anything to us. We do not calculate how much momentum is transferred from the cutter to the work.

In terms of Newtonian physics, we are not dealing with an isolated system.

Rather, the process involves the absorption of energy by the item being worked, and the creation of stress that breaks bonds within the material.

Regarding the comparative penetrations of the .220 vs the .45, might those bullets differ just a bit in terms of attributes other than mass?

 

[5whiskey]

Someone added the word "momentum", but my post left room for misunderstanding.

I added the term momentum. And I stand by the fact that it IS relevant in terms of bullet effectiveness and wounding capacity. I'm not arguing that it causes the 45 or 40 to be vastly, or anything other than a bit, better per round fired than 9mm in regards to terminal ballistics.

My point was that how "heavy steel poppers often go down easier, and with more authority" has little direct relationship with wounding effectiveness.

Again, when comparing 9mm to 45 it will have LITTLE relationship, but there will be a relationship. A better example than my extreme of 45-70 v 223 may be a hot 255 gn 44 magnum round from a carbine. 223 will have more energy, but that 44 round will drop a popper with more authority. It may also rival 223 in terminal ballistics with a good expanding bullet, despite having lower K/E.

Momentum does matter. It is useful because k/e is a exponential equation, and sometimes is skewed toward speed instead of weight. While it is still the most useful simplistic measurement of pure energy, it alone doesn't tell the whole story.


This is still not arguing for 45 being overall more effective than 9mm, when comparing all characteristics such as capacity/recoil/etc. I just like to reinforce that there IS, in fact, a difference in terminal ballistics between the two. You can argue otherwise, but it will not make you correct.

 

[TunnelRat]

You can argue otherwise, but it will not make you correct.

That's a fair point, but my interpretation so far hasn't been that people are arguing that there is no difference, but that the difference that exists isn't significant.

 

[5whiskey]

but that the difference that exists isn't significant.

Significant is a relative term. Is 20% (hypothetical) more effective significant? 10%? Would your turn down a 10% discount? 10% more profit margin can make the difference between a business that flounders or flourishes. 20% much more so.

I cede the fact that 9mm can easily double the capacity of 45, and this makes a much larger difference than any benefit that 45 can have in terminal ballistics. And I understand you are likely factoring this in your "significance." Or lack there of.

 

[TunnelRat]

Exactly. Significance is relative. And people are explaining how it is relative to them.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[OldMarksman]

I added the term momentum. And I stand by the fact that it IS relevant in terms of bullet effectiveness and wounding capacity.

If it means the difference between having sufficient capability for penetration or not having it, yes, it is relevant.

"Sufficient" in this context. pertains to the ability to get to and destroy whatever critical internal body part that is important to the situation.

In wounding effectiveness against a human target, there is just so much penetration that can be useful.

So, more is not necessarily better.

And how quickly steel poppers might go down has no direct relationship to wounding effectiveness.