Pistol Caliber Effectiveness from a Medical Point of View

[OldMarksman]

Posted by Mavracer:

...they've (FBI and LEO) lied to you before to get what they want.

Do you have a basis for that accusation?

...remember when they wanted to use hollow points and made up the whole overpenatration thing. 70-80% of their shots miss and they're worried about one of the 20-30% going thru. lol

You are confusing things. The FBI has long said that there is no such thing as too much penetration.

I believe you must be referring to one of the arguments that some people have used to counter public activist outcry about the use of expanding bullets by local police departments.

Can you give me a quantifiable difference between ... a .16 second split vs a .17 second split?

It's 0.01 seconds.

If you meant to ask about the advantage of the additional rapidity of controlled fire with combat accuracy, ask Rob Pincus what he and his instructors have observed. Do you really contend that the difference is 0.01 seconds between controlled shots? Really?

 

[manta49]

So why draw the line at 9mm? Why is it the baseline? If this is the case, then there are several other common calibers which should be considered superior to 9mm due to their reduced recoil

Probably because the 9MM is the must used handgun calibers ever used, and has proved over 100 years when used by numerous agencies and armies to be effective.

 

[Tin Foil]

@manta49,

There is a problem with that in that it was NATO who standardized on that round and all NATO players including the U.S.A. went to that because of the ability to interchange with forces around the world. In other words share the ammo.

That's only one part. The second equation is because the 9mm can be handled by just about anyone.
And is suitable just barely but suitable in war arenas.
However while the FBI may be going back to the 9mm the United States Army has just put a bid out to get away from the 9mm because of complaints from Afgan and Iraqi veterans that it simply took too many rounds to stop the threat.

Me thinks Uncle Sam may be going back to the .45.

 

[Sharkbite]

@manta49,

There is a problem with that in that it was NATO who standardized on that round and all NATO players including the U.S.A. went to that because of the ability to interchange with forces around the world. In other words share the ammo.

That's only one part. The second equation is because the 9mm can be handled by just about anyone.
And is suitable just barely but suitable in war arenas.
However while the FBI may be going back to the 9mm the United States Army has just put a bid out to get away from the 9mm because of complaints from Afgan and Iraqi veterans that it simply took too many rounds to stop the threat.

Me thinks Uncle Sam may be going back to the .45.

The problem with this comparison is that the US Military is forced to use FMJ bullets.
The discussion above is comparing the effectiveness of current JHP defensive ammo. The majority of which has come a long way in narrowing the gap between 9 and 45.

 

[Tin Foil]

You'd like to think it has right. In the civilian world who cares right.
I carry a .38, given the choice I ain't going into battle with one. But for the street thugs out here it's good enough.

 

[manta49]

There is a problem with that in that it was NATO who standardized on that round and all NATO players including the U.S.A. went to that because of the ability to interchange with forces around the world. In other words share the ammo.

The 9MM was the most used tried and trusted handgun calibre even before NATO standardisation.

However while the FBI may be going back to the 9mm the United States Army has just put a bid out to get away from the 9mm because of complaints from Afgan and Iraqi veterans that it simply took too many rounds to stop the threat.

How do they know the results in Afghanistan and Iraq would have being any different if they used .45. ? There are plenty of examples of people taking multiple hits from .45 and it not stopping them. In that case is the answer to go to .50 caliber. It only seems to be America that has a fascination with .45 and would think of going back to it. Any thoughts on why that is. ?

 

[mavracer]

You are confusing things. The FBI has long said that there is no such thing as too much penetration.

I'm not confused and I'm not the one with my eyes closed. Just go to the link I provided earlier on FBI agent Uray's notes all I've said is right there if you look.
And actually .01 is generous as to the difference between my splits going from major to minor power factor on similar duty size weapons and I might point out my major load is much closer to actual 40 and 45 SD ammo #s than my minor 9mm load is.

 

[manta49]

I got as much evidence as you have.

At the core of his desperate firefight was a murderous attacker who simply would not go down, even though he was shot 14 times with .45-cal. ammunition — six of those hits in supposedly fatal locations. I thought I was hitting him, but with shots going through his clothing it was hard to tell for sure. This much was certain: he kept moving and kept shooting, trying his damnedest to kill me.”
In this free-for-all, the assailant had, in fact, been struck 14 times. Any one of six of these wounds — in the heart, right lung, left lung, liver, diaphragm, and right kidney.

 

[manta49]

That reads like a Hollywood scrip.

No real life not hearsay or myth.

Why one cop carries 145 rounds of ammo on the job

Before the call that changed Sergeant Timothy Gramins’ life forever, he typically carried 47 rounds of handgun ammunition on his person while on duty He detailed the gunfight that caused the difference in a gripping presentation at the annual conference of the Assn. of SWAT Personnel-Wisconsin.

 

[Tin Foil]

I tried to open that link but my antivirus blocked it.

 

[manta49]

I tried to open that link but my antivirus blocked it.

Yeah.

 

[Tin Foil]

It's all good. Carry what you feel comfortable with. Very hard to put anyone down under the influence of drugs especially if it's PCP or Bath Salts.
Aim for the gonads and hope you at least hit their head.

 

[manta49]

Carry what you feel comfortable with.

We agree on that.

 

[OldMarksman]

Posted by mavracer:

I'm not confused and I'm not the one with my eyes closed. Just go to the link I provided earlier on FBI agent Uray's notes all I've said is right there if you look.

Special Agent Urey Patrick said precisely what I said: that the fear of over penetration is a misconception, created when law enforcement was trying to overcome resistance to the use of hollow point ammunition.

Patrick said "too little penetration will get you killed". He also said that a larger bullet was more effective than a smaller one--but that was in the context of a discussion about the necessity to hit and damage critical parts of the body. And that requires fast on-target repeat shooting, for which recoil is not an advantage.

Eyes closed? Although it didn't happen immediately, I looked at enough information and informed opionion over time to finally realize that all of the arguments supporting my very long-time bias in favor of the .45 over the 9mm had been, if not poorly founded, overcome by events. As a matter of fact, my thoughts had ben formulated before hollow point bullets were available for semi-automatic pistols.

The FBI Executive Summary mentions technological advances that have occurred since 2007--twenty years after Patrick started work his first well-known report.

The ammo I use was introduced at the Shot Show in 2012.

It seems that you are still sticking with analyses based on technology that is now a quarter century old.

And actually .01 is generous as to the difference between my splits going from major to minor power factor on similar duty size weapons and I might point out my major load is much closer to actual 40 and 45 SD ammo #s than my minor 9mm load is.

The vast majority of experts seem to doubt your conclusion on that.

That's a rate of combat accurate fire that is only 0.6 rounds per minute slower than the 9mm. If that were a reliable number, there would be no effectiveness argument.

I do note that Massad Ayoob likes the flat shooting .357 SIG. Most other well-regarded instructors and experts seem to be recommending the 9mm these days.

I note that you have not yet provided any evidence in support of your accusation that the FBI is lying to us.

 

[mavracer]

Special Agent Urey Patrick said precisely what I said: that the fear of over penetration is a misconception, created when law enforcement was trying to overcome resistance to the use of hollow point ammunition.

if you intentionally mislead the public it's a lie unless you want to claim they were just ignorant and wrong either way it doesn't help your position.

It seems that you are still sticking with analyses based on technology that is now a quarter century old.

It seams you think only 9mm has been affected by these technological advances. doesn't matter if it's 2015, 1988 or 1873 larger and more powerful calibers make bigger and deeper holes.

The vast majority of experts seem to doubt your conclusion on that.

My shot timer doesn't lie, I'm not talking about anyone but myself, just because you can't control anything bigger than a 9mm doesn't make it true for everyone.

 

[Tin Foil]

originally posted by mavracer

if you intentionally mislead the public it's a lie unless you want to claim they were just ignorant and wrong either way it doesn't help your position.

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it"

- Joseph Goebbels

 

[mavracer]

Funniest part is you can tell them sorry you lied and tell them another and they'll eventually start to buy that one too.

 

[Webleymkv]

Originally posted by Old Marksman
Quote:
One can find any number of cases where just about any caliber from .22 Short up to .44 Magnum incapacitated someone immediately and numerous cases where the same cartridges failed to incapacitate someone quite spectacularly.

Maybe. I can't find too many of the former, but then, I'm not looking.

Well, the well-known murder of Mark Coates would be one example, Coates shot Blackburn five times with a .357 Magnum and failed to stop him before Blackburn was able to kill Coates with a single round of .22LR (Blackburn actually fired three rounds, but two were stopped by Coates' body armor).

Another that I know the details of (a family member of mine worked in the ER when the victim was brought in) involved a man who was murdered by his roommate from roughly 25 yards away with a Raven .25 Auto. He took five rounds in the upper chest and, according to the Paramedics and Police that responded, dropped dead where he stood.

Despite these two cases and others like them, I still don't see anyone credible recommending a .22 LR or .25 Auto outside of very limited circumstances.

Quote:
If all the methods for measuring cartridge effectiveness (energy, diameter, momentum, etc.) are meaningless next to shot placement and penetration, then why is a 9mm "adequate" while everything bigger/more powerful is "overkill"? Afterall, with the right bullet selection, nearly every common handgun cartridge from .22 LR up can be made to penetrate adequately, ...?

Where did you get that idea?

Well, let's review some of what you've posted so far:

But given adequate penetration, the bullets must hit something vital, and that's where speed of fire becomes important.

Since smaller calibers than 9mm can be made to penetrate accurately, would not they be preferable since their reduced recoil allows the speed of fire to be increased? Afterall, if the measurable increase in energy, penetration, dimeter, momentum, or whatever other yardstick you'd like to use to measure terminal performance of larger calibers like .40, .45, and 10mm does not outweigh the the increased speed of fire allowed by the 9mm's reduced recoil, would not the measurable increase of those parameters of the 9mm over smaller calibers be outweighed by the smaller calibers' further increased speed of fire?

Quote:
There are two issues with that. First, it is supposedly from the FBI who is apparently trying to justify their choice to switch back to the 9mm.

"Trying to justify", or explaining the basis for a decision?

Well, to be honest, I personally suspect that there was a lot of factors outside of terminal ballistics that went into the FBI's initial move away from 9mm. I've always found it curious that they chose to focus on a single bullet fired by Agent Dove and blame it as a failure while ignoring dozens of other bullets which either hit non-vital areas or missed all together. Simply put, the manner in which the FBI went about examining the 1986 Miami-Dade shootout and their subsequent re-evaluation of handgun has jaded me on their opinions. I always got the impression that it was easier, less embarrassing, and more politically expedient to blame their guns and ammunition than their tactics and training.

Honestly, I find it somewhat humorous that after pronouncing that the 9mm was "as good as it was ever going to be" in the late 80's (at best a very short-sighted statement and at worst a thin excuse to get shiny new guns) that now, 20+ years later (and no doubt hoping that everyone had forgotten Agent Urey's innacurate statements) they're quietly going back to the very caliber that they found inadequate. Because of this, I really don't trust the objectivity of the FBI when it comes to terminal ballistics.

Quote:
Also, they specified "premium line law Auto enforcement projectiles". ... None of these premium law enforcement lines of ammo include 10mm...
Don't you think there's a reason for that?

Probably because other police departments followed the FBI like lemmings when the bureau decided that the .40 was the greatest thing since sliced bread (only a few short years after deciding that the 10mm was the greatest thing since sliced bread).

Quote:
However, you've still failed to explain why, if 9mm is better than .40 S&W due to it being "more manageable," an even smaller, lighter recoiling caliber wouldn't be better still.

I don't need to explain it. Others already have.

They did? Who explained it? Someone else in this thread? Rob Pincus? Please humor me and tell me why you think that the 9mm is the minimum adequate caliber.

There you go again. Doesn't the statement "There is little to no noticeable difference in the wound tracks between premium line law Auto enforcement projectiles from 9mm Luger through the .45 Auto" imply that tree might be a noticeable difference in smaller rounds?

It could imply a lot of things. It could imply that there is a noticeable difference in smaller rounds, it could imply that there is a noticeable difference in larger rounds, it could imply that there is a noticeable difference in ammunition which doesn't fit into the definition of "premium line law Auto enforcement projectiles" whatever that may be. I'm not interested in implications, allusions, or hints. Please tell us all what, if any, difference there is in the wound track of a caliber smaller/less powerful than 9mm and why that difference outweighs the increased fire rate afforded by those smaller calibers' reduced recoil.

 

[JohnKSa]

So why draw the line at 9mm?

It's very simple. Below 9mm it's difficult to reliably achieve sufficient penetration with expanding ammunition.

So what evidence is there that the extra power of a 9mm provides a practical benefit over a 9x18 Makarov, .380 Auto, .32 Auto, .25 Auto...?

It's very simple to demonstrate whether or not sufficient penetration can be achieved with expanding ammo.

For what it's worth, I did a good deal of work with some publicly published wound volume results from FBI testing and it was interesting to note that there was a clear break in the wound volume results between the typical service pistol calibers and .380ACP. But explaining all that gets complicated. The bottom line is that you can't reliably get sufficient penetration without going to non-expanding ammo with pocket pistol calibers.

It's also worth noting that virtually any argument, even one that is very reasonable can be taken to an extreme at which point it breaks down. If you keep stepping down in caliber, or up in caliber, even if the steps are very small, after enough small steps you will find that performance has changed a lot. The fact that the calibers in the performance class of the service pistol calibers all perform very similarly in practice and therefore moving from one to another (small steps) doesn't change practical performance significantly, doesn't imply that you can keep taking small steps indefinitely and never move to another performance class.

You keep repeating this statement as if it were fact when it's very easy to demonstrate the larger calibers larger wound track.

It's key to note the context of the OP's statement. What he's very clearly saying is that when looking at wound tracks in a real-world context there is "little to no noticeable difference".

As you say, one can, with gel testing demonstrate that one track is measurably larger than another using expansion and penetration figures but if that measured difference doesn't make a noticeable difference to someone looking at the wound, it's hard to make the case that it makes a practical difference in terms of incapacitation.

It's important to understand that the demonstratedly larger wound track amounts to fractions of an ounce of difference in the total amount of tissue destroyed over the entire length of the wound channel. Let's say we have a 12" wound track that has a total volume of 0.5 ounces greater than the wound track of another wound track from a different caliber that is roughly the same length. A little thought will reveal that at any given point along that wound track, the difference in actual tissue destruction is miniscule. It's not at all hard to understand why there would be "little to no noticeable difference" between the two tracks.

Can you give me a quantifiable difference between survival rate of a 17 round capacity over a 14 round capacity?
or of a .16 second split vs a .17 second split?

I fully realize that this question is constructed as a strawman, but I'll provide a "straight" answer anyway.

It is possible to work out success probabilities for a given round count given certain assumptions about hit rates and the number of shots required for incapacitation. More shots increase the chances of being able to make the requisite number of hits given that there is a probability of missing. Of course, one won't necessarily get to shoot all his shots if he doesn't shoot fast enough--he may be killed before he gets to take advantage of his ammunition load. In other words, there is also a significant benefit in being able to make accurate shots in a shorter amount of time.

The specific success probabilities vary based on the starting assumptions, and realistically, if one is actually trying to learn something useful, one doesn't start by looking for the differences due to a hundredth of a second in splits or due to comparing two relatively large capacities.

 

[Webleymkv]

Originally posted by JohnKSa
Quote:
So why draw the line at 9mm?

It's very simple. Below 9mm it's difficult to reliably achieve sufficient penetration with expanding ammunition.

OK, that's fine. However, you previously pointed out that there is no consensus as to why, or even if, one caliber is more effective than another. The supposed benefits of expanding ammunition are, as I understand them, reduced risk of overpenetration, more rapid transfer of energy, and/or increasing wound volume by increasing the diameter of the bullet.

Now, non-expanding bullets in small calibers such as .25 ACP 50 gr FMJ frequently penetrate to depths within the FBI's 12-18" window (Brassfetcher's testing shows .25 ACP FMJ's penetrating anywhere from 14.0-15.2" in 10% ballistic gelatin) so that would seem to address the overpenetration issue. As to the smaller diameter and lesser energy of a small caliber like .25 ACP, those are both attributes of which the effects cannot be measured or predicted as you yourself pointed out. So, by your own line of logic, would it not be wiser to select a smaller caliber since the increase in controllability is readily quantifiable while the decrease in terminal effect (if any) is not?

Quote:
So what evidence is there that the extra power of a 9mm provides a practical benefit over a 9x18 Makarov, .380 Auto, .32 Auto, .25 Auto...?

It's very simple to demonstrate whether or not sufficient penetration can be achieved with expanding ammo.

For what it's worth, I did a good deal of work with some publicly published wound volume results from FBI testing and it was interesting to note that there was a clear break in the wound volume results between the typical service pistol calibers and .380ACP. But explaining all that gets complicated. The bottom line is that you can't reliably get sufficient penetration without going to non-expanding ammo with pocket pistol calibers.

But if a difference in energy, diameter, penetration, momentum, wound volume, etc. cannot be used as a reliable predictor of terminal effectiveness between calibers, would the same unreliability not apply to predicting the terminal effectiveness of expanding vs. non-expanding bullets?

Even if we use wound volume as our yardstick (which you yourself pointed out is not a reliable predictor of stopping power/incapacitation speed/incapacitation probability/etc. in post #95), would not a caliber which offers a substantially larger wound volume be considered superior just as a caliber which offers a substantially smaller wound volume is considered inferior?

The point that I'm trying to make is that while we cannot agree on which measure of terminal effectiveness is best, we do seem to be able to come to a consensus that, at some point, energy/diameter/momentum/wound volume/etc. does indeed outweigh controllability. That being said, since we cannot come to a consensus on which of those methods of measure is best, then I cannot see how we can come to a consensus on where exactly the best balance between caliber size/power vs. controllability is. How can we agree that a 9mm is the minimum adequate caliber because it meets the FBI standards when we cannot even agree if the FBI standard is the best way to measure cartridge effectiveness?

It's also worth noting that virtually any argument, even one that is very reasonable can be taken to an extreme at which point it breaks down. If you keep stepping down in caliber, or up in caliber, even if the steps are very small, after enough small steps you will find that performance has changed a lot. The fact that the calibers in the performance class of the service pistol calibers all perform very similarly in practice and therefore moving from one to another (small steps) doesn't change practical performance significantly, doesn't imply that you can keep taking small steps indefinitely and never move to another performance class.

OK, I can understand that. However, could it not be argued that, in a full power loading, a 10mm is more than one or two steps up and thus in a different performance class than a 9mm is? Most of the common service pistol calibers offer 300-500 ft. lbs. of energy depending on the caliber and loading, but a 10mm in a full power loading can fairly easily offer over 700 ft. lbs. of energy. Likewise, depending on the bullet design and weight, a full power 10mm can offer significantly more aggressive expansion and/or significantly deeper penetration. I would argue that a full power 10mm loading belongs in the same performance class as Magnum cartridges like .41 and .44 Magnum rather than service pistol class cartridges like 9mm, .40 S&W, and .45 ACP.