The more penetration the better?

In being gifted a 3/4 size human, male torso mannequin. It came originally from a clothing outlet? It lasted quite a while before it fell apart.

Using a steel knitting needle, (Fred) I called him, you could guestimate the organs hit, by pushing the needle in from different hit angles.

My classes were for Armed Security, mostly. Some Police, some military.

Fred had no arms, so again, guesses. Even in the 80s, in Canada, lots of discussion on shots in the back!
 
Over penetration CAN be a bad thing. It is rarely a problem with handgun rounds. Generally speaking the more the better. Heavy hardcast bullets fired from large bore magnum revolvers are one of the few exceptions where you could see too much penetration.
 
Within reason more penetration is better. In pistols there is no reason to limit penetration for any reason. With all the misses in actual shootings by the police it seems difficult to hit the intended target much less a bystander. It does happen but not very often. Choosing a round with too little penetration can get you killed. You need enough penetration to go through the bad guys arm, breaking the bone and still penetrate into his chest to destroy his heart or central nervous system.
If we always had perfect frontal shots with a BG standing still while we aimed and fired you could possibly get away with less penetration but they tend to try their hardest to avoid getting shot. You need your gun and ammo to get to the vitals regardless of the angle and after going through whatever might be between you and those vitals. You need to stop him as fast as possible.
I have never heard anyone say that they wished they had less penetration or less ammo after a gun fight.
 
Over penetration ?? Check data for hit probability . Even for "trained Police" it's not a good picture ! Missing the perp and hitting a bystander is much harder to defend in court than hitting the perp and penetrating through to hit a bystander.
Success is penetrating into and damaging vital organs . Big holes from large caliber is better than HPs that 'might 'expand.
 
44 AMP wrote:
Despite "wasted" energy and possible risk to bystanders, having too much penetration is better than not having ENOUGH!
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I made that point BEFORE discussing over-penetration.

Any way you want to frame it, any energy that the bullet possesses after it has passed through the target it wasted as it no longer has any ability to contribute to the bullet's ability to incapacitate the target.
 
I considered inanimate objects getting in the way when I chose to get a .357 round for self defense that still had some pretty good penetration. I never considered the arm of a perp getting in the way of the vital torso. Thank you for that perspective and bringing it up.
 
"any energy the bullet has when it exits the target is wasted energy"

The problem is that you have no idea of how much energy you need to have until after the bullet exits. I would much rather have too much penetration than too little. The latter can cost you your life.
 
I'm comfortable carrying fmj, jsp, or jhp. Currently its jhp's in my xds. It's all about shot placement and environment(heavily populated area or not).

Overseas, we were clearing a large building. We breached a room on the third floor occupied by 2 insurgents. One immediately dropped to the floor and surrendered, the other went for a rifle leaning against his opposite wall. My buddy shot him twice in the upper torso with his M9. 2 rounds of FMJ barely slowed him down. 1 more to the head and it was lights out.

People will all react differently when getting shot. Some just slump down defeated, others hit the adrenaline button like nothing phases them.
 
Two bleeding holes are better than one?
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This is probably true in hunting as it facilitates tracking, however I haven't seen any data that suggests that having the blood exit the body (as opposed to merely leaking into an internal reservoir such as a lung or the abdominal cavity) speeds incapacitation.

In other words, one can bleed to death just as fast without any blood at all leaving the body as when massive amounts of blood are exiting the body. It's not really a matter of the blood actually getting past the skin, it's just a matter of the blood getting out of the circulatory system.

In addition, one need not even bleed to death to cause rapid incapacitation. A shot that ruins the heart or the large blood vessels above the heart will lead to rapid incapacitation due to rapid blood pressure drop even though very little blood may actually have a chance to leak out into the chest cavity. And, of course, CNS hits don't need any blood loss at all to be effective.
Why does everyone think clothing matters?
Unless they are wearing 3 heavy leather jackets, it doesn't.
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Have to agree. Premium self defense ammo will be tested against a target with heavy clothing. From reading through this thread, it seems that many people have the impression that ammunition design and testing is done by people who have no concept at all of how the real world works. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
 
I think the point being missed is that having an exit wound doesn't hurt your odds. Yes, blood leaving the circulatory system is key, and it doesn't matter where it goes, as long as it goes. My point is that having another hole does not reduce the paths available for the blood to take.

It isn't a really quantifiable increase in the odds (I believe it is an increase) but even if it isn't, it doesn't decrease anything by being there.

"Bleeding out" is one method, another is shut down the pump or the major pipes from the pump (bleeding in?) what ever results in the fastest route to 0/0 blood pressure is the most effective.

The "failed" 9mm in the Miami shootout got TO the major pipes above the heart, but didn't any further. It was a fatal wound, but didn't do enough damage to put the shooter down fast enough. Because it didn't penetrate any further. I don't fault the round, there is no magic bullet. That load met all the required specs and had proven itself effective many times before.

As to clothes, and worrying about them, I think its a "they can have an effect" thing, but again not anything quantifiable. I'm not talking about trying to shoot through a Chinese winter coat at 200yds with a .30 carbine, but close range with common pistol calibers.

During the early development period of the modern JHP pistol bullet there were numerous examples of the JHP opening too early and being stopped by clothing, and there were also many times when they didn't open and acted just like FMJ.

Today, everyone says that problem is pretty much solved, and it seems so.

BUT, there are still reported cases where heavy coats seem to affect penetration. Not too many months back a guy in NYC took several 9mm hits that were reported to have been stopped by his Carhartt coat (and some hits the coat did not stop, as well)

Probably a freak thing, if what was reported was accurate, but something to consider if you are choosing a round on the lower end of penetrating power.
 
I think the point being missed is that having an exit wound doesn't hurt your odds.
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It doesn't improve them either, as far as I can tell.

Which puts an exit wound into the category of "if you can get it for free it's probably not a bad thing."

Of course, penetration isn't free, as I pointed out in my first post on this thread. In other words, if it takes bumping up the momentum (and therefore recoil) by 10% to insure that you always get an exit wound, that definitely wouldn't be worthwhile. But if you can up the momentum by 1% and always get an exit, then I guess it's probably not an issue.

Of course, if the round is already penetrating 12" to 18" in a proper test protocol (involving intermediate barriers, clothed/unclothed/heavy clothing/sheet metal/glass/plywood) then you're already getting everything you need and upping the penetration even further is just costing you recoil with no demonstrable return.
 
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