True stopping power of a .380

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brandon_h3

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I spoke with a cop that lives in my apartment complex, and he told me that I need to get a larger gun than my .380, saying that I could shoot a criminal repeatedly and he still be on his feet and coming at me. Is this true? Does this gun truely have no stopping power? Can someone give me some kind of information or opinions on this? I shot my little gun, and I feel it has plenty of power, but I was only shooting at Coke cans. I appreciate any feedback anybody can give me. I love my little gun, I don't want to hear that it is too weak to do its intended job. Thanks!
 
It can kill a person just as dead as anything bigger. Just make sure that you can put your bullets where they need to go.
 
I carry one. I wouldn't go smaller, and it's always nice to have larger, but I believe that the analysis of the .380 is that it's in the general effectiveness range of a .38 (not .38 Special).

Will a bigger, hotter round have more stopping power given identical shot placement? Yeah. Will a .380 give the majority of predators a pause if they are on the receiving end of a Mozambique from one? Yeah. There will always be stories of the guy who shrugged off seven rounds of .45 ACP and kept coming. But for the most part, people who aren't blitzed out their skulls on drugs will a) not react well to having ragged .38" holes drilled into them and b) will start to go into shock fairly quickly.

And btw, many foreign police departments use the .380.
 
I know that my 380 is dead nuts accurate. It wouldn't be my first choice, as a self defence weapon, but I'd have confidence that all nine rounds would hit the target.
That's about 850gr of lead.
 
Brandon as long as you can hit what you shoot at you're ahead of most police officers who carry more powerfull sidearms (no offense to any officers here who can shoot).

As they say better a hit with a 22 than a miss with a 44. The 380 is at the bottem end of the power scale when talking about defensive handguns but its been used in Europe for decades, in fact many police agencies there used to (still perhaps?) carry 32's. As long as you're confident in your gun you should be Ok.

Which 380 do you have by the way?
 
Although the newer compact 9x19mm's, 40S&W's and 45ACP's seem to be taking popularity away from the 380ACP, it will still get the job done. Next time someone in your complex tells you your gun is too small, pose them a question:

"If I buy a 44 Magnum and shoot at a burglar in my apartment, I may miss. How many cheap walls will that 240 grain ball of copper wrapped lead pass through before it lands where you sleep?"
 
I would argue that the .380 is just not enough. The .380 is an underpowered 9mm, and the 9mm is just barely enough. Why? Because the 9mm is just barely powerful enough to expand and penetrate reliably. The .380 is known to under penetrate a bit, especially if it expands. So with the .380 you have a bullet that may expand and underpenetrate which means that even if you make accurate hits, it may not penetrate through the vitals. The 9mm is the bare minimum to reliably expand and penetrate, and even then it sometimes doesn't if you pick a bad load.
If you like your .380 and shoot it well and don't want to go with anything else, it is a pretty darn good load, almost a standard 9mm in power and it will probably get the job done %99 of the time (being that %95 of the time you don't even need to fire a shot, and most of the time when you fire a shot the bad guy will not keep coming no matter what you hit him with). But a 9mm really does perform a fair amount better, and I would never carry anything less than a 9mm +P just because it is the bare minimum load that you can get that will reliably expand and still penetrate.
 
I wouldn't go any lower than a 380, but I do believe it will do the job if you do yours. Just the other day I was talking with a cop who had just purchased a 10mm Glock (G29) for personal carry. One of his "superiors" told him the 10mm is weak, thats why the FBI got rid of them.
 
The .380 is a little small but I still don't think anyone wants to get shot, so for regular business I really think it is fine.

I'm glad I don't work for the crack-pipe hitter that thinks the FBI got rid of the 10mm because it was weak! The S&W and their agents may have had problems but the round is great!
 
I would argue that you are fine, the majority of defensive handgun uses result in no shots being fired. If you brandish in a sticky situation, that should be enough. But since we never pull without the intent of stopping the threat, you should be versed in hitting what you want.

Seems like we are all wrapped up in the myth that if the gun is of the bigger bores, one bullet is going to make the bad guy dissappear in a red mist cloud, if that were true, none of us would know what a double tap was. Unless you have a twelve gage, or a 308, I would not expect one shot stops; some rounds have demonstrated that they can, but non are a 100 percent.

If the 380 is going to let you act on your naturally derived right of self defense, then do it. Just be more responsible than the next guy who is carrying a smaller gun in his pocket, pressed between his belt and body, etc. Use a holster or a secure method of making sure the gun does fall to the ground and shoot the lady sitting in front of you at the movies.
 
True stopping power o a .380

Stopping someone with any handgun caliber including the big calibers has always been an iffy thing. The handgun is absolutely the worst weapon to have in a fight. Even trying for head shots is not recomended because of the rounded and sloping shape of the target. Bullets have been know to mearly richochet off.
The metal state of the target must also be taken into consideration. People who are high on drugs, extremely angry or metally disturbed are extremely tenacious of life. No handgun of any caliber can be counted on under such circumstances.
Sorry to be so brutally honest with you but to rely on the handgun is to engage in mere fantasy.
TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION: THE .380 IS PROBABLY AS GOOD AS ANY HANDGUN IN TERMS OF STOPPING POWER BECAUSE NO HANDGUN CALIBER HAS BEEN KNOWN TO BE A COMPLETELY RELIABLE FIGHT STOPPER IN ALL SITUATIONS.
I will admit that larger handgun calibers with heavier bullets do penetrate more deeply but their superiority is often overated to say the least. W.R.
 
The .380 may feel powerful but that is a consequence of the blowback design of the pistols shooting this cartridge. Blowbacks create more felt recoil than the locked breech designs used with 9mms. With the small size of many 9mm pistols, and the fact they are just as controllable as .380s, it is safe to say the .380 is obsolete. Time to upgrade. Yes, many european police use .380s, but aren't they carrying ball ammo? If so, that changes the equation big time.
 
If you shoot him and he doesn't stop, shoot him again...and again and again until he does.
Bigger is better but sometimes bigger doesn't fit in your speedo's.
 
I think (and admit that I'm just conjecturing) that all those stories you hear about crackheads still coming after taking 8 rounds of 9mm are extremely rare. Theyre interesting so we all hear about them a lot. I'd bet that 99% of the time if you rattle off three or four .380s into someone's mid-section, theyre going to go down.
 
You can always start a lively deabte with "is caliber X enough?", and you will always get a variety of opinions. Obviously, more is better, but the .380 has done plenty of damage in its history -- when I lived in El Paso it was the favorite caliber of the pachucos for its concealability and cheapness. The papers had plenty of stories about .380 shootings, some fatal.

OTOH, people have been shot with a .45 and kept coming -- in which case, as some point out, you shoot again and again till they stop coming.

Keep your .380 and practice with it, and when the time and finances are right, maybe you'll want to upgrade to a 9mm or .40 or .45 or whatever takes your fancy.
 
Gee, the only time I ever had to draw a gun to protect my family, it was my .380ACP Makarov. I had no idea that I was so under armed!!! The BG didn't seem to know that, either. He hi-tailed it out of there, pronto. ;)
 
I've seen a couple DRTs from .380acp. Seen a couple from 9mmx19mm that actually argued with EMS about treatment. For defense, a .380acp is good enough if you are comfortable with it, and can hit the target. Too many people believe in the old 'double tap' routine. I always instructed my trainees that, if they had to shoot, shoot until the threat hits the ground. I've seen a gentleman in a chemically altered state walking around with a knife in his hand and a hatchet in his head. They stop being a threat when they hit the ground.

That said, I always go with the biggest stick I can swing.
 
I carry a .32 auto

If you are underpowered, than I am terribly underpowered. I carry a Kel Tec P32. That's a .32 auto, smaller and has less energy than the .380. Do I care? Yes. Can I do anything about it? No, because I have to dress light in the summer because of the heat, and I can't hide what I really want to carry--the .40 S&W.

A single shot with the .380 will, more times than not, bring down your attacker. Several shots will almost certainly kill your attacker. There are stories about crazed, drug-induced maniacs who get shot over and over again, only to keep on fighting the cops. That is rare, but that is the story that everybody hears. It is just not sensational when someone is killed with one shot.

The placement of your shots are all-important. If you are violently attacked by a homocidal maniac, and you have judged in the short time you have that shooting him him is your only means to avoid harm, then you have to keep your cool and be deliberate about where you place your shots. The best place to shoot an attacker who is carrying a contact weapon is in the pelvis. :eek: A .380, even a .32 auto, will bring your attacker down if he is shot in the pelvis. It is mechanically impossible to remain standing with a bullet lodged in, or even near, the bladder--not to mention several bullets. If a kidney stone will bring the biggest man to his knees, imagine what a .380 bullet, or even a .32 auto, would do. A .38 Spl, .357 mag., 9X19, .40 S&W, and especially a .45ACP would be absolutely devastating to the pelvis. And your attacker may come to his senses if he sees you aiming at his groin area. He might think you are trying to shoot his wee wee off. :rolleyes:

If the perp' has a gun, then I'm not going to be the one to tell you want to do. :p
 
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