Well, I was shooting stuff like cars with sabot rounds in the early 80's, with 450-600 grain .45 to .70 caliber area. Testing for cars sheet metal is concealment, not cover. Any of those sabot rounds would go through most cars length ways, as long as they didn't hit the engine block. We also did tests on manhole covers with .308" armour piercing bullets, and, I do remember the thickest part of the manhole cover just barely retaining one of the 'spikes' that was the armour piercing part of the round. Kind of like a tungsten rod, centered in a lead bullet, that falls away, and the rod continues through the target.
Oh yes, my friends' job was to take pictures of armour piercing projectiles hitting armour, for Lockheed, in the S.C. mountains, in Kali. He used the worlds' fastest camera at the time..
What the military uses to defeat stuff is probably not real applicable to a police officer, or civilian, walking the streets in Miami.
I'm familiar with the concept of armour piercing round design, but, shooting hard cast shotgun sabots, I've noticed that against sheetmetal, they blow right through it, due to weight, regardless of frontal area, thought the .45 and .50 caliber sabots were better designed for that sort of job then the full caliber slugs.
As for why the rounds are designed that way, for military targets, they provide maximum penetration, and, having a .308 bullet that will send a tungsten spike through a 2" thick, or more, man hole cover, well, that is a different situation then the gun battles in Miami. Clearly the advantage to such rounds would be to penetrate armoured limos perhaps, breach vests, and stop cars in an urban setting. However, for a police officer, except in an extreme case, ala L.A. and the bodybuilders with multiple vests, they wouldn't go over well.
I watched a documentary recently on the cocaine wars of the 1980s in Miami, FL. Criminals were murdering rival gang members in broad daylight with military weapons. A Miami detective said that they went to a scene of a shooting and recovered an M1 carbine and a few other full auto weapons and he felt under-equipped with his department issued .38 special revolver. He and several other officers went out that day and bought Browning Hi-Power 9mm pistols.
Had you been the detective in question, what pistol would you have chosen with respect to available handguns of the era?
If armour is in the picture, a CZ 52 is one of the best penetrators of any handgun. That said, I would NOT want to be in the vest when it gets hit with 2000-3000 fpe, from either a .308 rifle, or, a .475 Linebaugh. However, Linebaugh had only got as far as the .454 level 6 shots in the early 80's, and the 454 casull was king of the pile at the time.
As the original poster asked, an era handgun to match up against rifles, I'd probably have to go with a .454 Casull, that being if I had to try and engage in a fire fight with gang guys armed with military weapons, at rifle distances. Freedom Arms made the 83 back then.
I would also have carried a Detonics 1911, with their .451 Detonics rounds, 185 grains at about 1350 fps, or, 200 grains at 1200 fps. These rounds were flat shooting, the guns matchgrade accurate.
Another long range choice might be Lee Jurras' 44 magnum, model 29, using 185 grain bullets, jackets tailored to the target, at 1800-1900 fps.
The Model 57 .41 Magnum would also be an excellent choice.
Similar loads could have been loaded in the FA 83, but, it wasn't DA.
All of these would be to fight my way back to the car, and, get in the trunk, where I'd have a M1A, with 20 round magazine...
Tamara: I was hoping you had an actual test to refer to, since my experience is my hazy memory of testing our sabot rounds in a junk yard, on cars.
We also had a gentleman around here that designed a shorter case, .50 BMG, sort of a .308" version of the .50 BMG, and, it would move 750 grain
bullets at around 2600 fps. The rounds were designed to penetrate engine blocks, to stop potential terrorists from getting into places like the Livermore Nuclear Lab. I think the contract finally went to Barrett, but, his round would go through an engine block...
