The Verminator
Moderator
What gives it away as fake?
Video, 1911 ball ammo for defensive use?
- Thread starter Shadow9mm
- Start date
The Verminator
Moderator
When we talk about shooting things we talk about live weight, not slaughter weight.
I'm surprised that this has become such a BONE of contention.
Jim Watson
New member
Not every “solid” is GI roundnose.
Jeff Cooper liked the Adams bullet, a roundnose with shoulder like a SWC and also favored the Hornady jacketed flat nose.
John Lawson rearmed campus cops whose faculty were frightened by the sight of hollow points with SWCs.
Jeff Cooper liked the Adams bullet, a roundnose with shoulder like a SWC and also favored the Hornady jacketed flat nose.
John Lawson rearmed campus cops whose faculty were frightened by the sight of hollow points with SWCs.
With all due respect to those who have used deadly force to remain among the living, I'm quite happy I have never shot anyone.
Which means ,like most folks, all I have to offer to this discussion is opinion.
I won't let that stop me!. No,I don't want to cause collateral damage among the innocent. That matters.
High cap double stack mag dumps seem to be what often happens,real life.
After action reports of number of rounds fired by good guys or bad guys seem to bear that out. Shooting 45 or 60 rounds,IMO,ups the possibility of collateral damage.
If I,as bystander, catch a 9mm or .40 Gold Dot miss, its going to leave a mark.
I'd probably prefer a 45 ACP hardball pass through,ignoring biohazards.
When I was sticking a 45 1911 in my Milt Sparks holster for carry,often as not it had home cast 200 gr SWC bullets in the mag.
First rule of a gunfight is "Have a Gun" Have ammo,too. Yes,HSTs or Gold Dots,etc come highly recommended.
I'm not advocating for carrying hardball. But if you have hardball in the gun when you need it, it will do! The 1911 with hardball has been reasonably effective through a lot of wars.
Talk is cheap,but I like to think in most situations I might find my sights. Hits count. My 1911 is a single stack.
It MIGHT be,sometimes, single stack shooters and wheel gunners more often place a few shots rather than spew. (Nothing wrong with more is better,but knowing you only have 7 or 8 might mean you make them count)
Wound channel? A 45 ACP at 800 to 900 fps makes a wound channel a lot like a piece of pipe. Its not a 3000 fps rifle round. I punches a hole.
If that hole cuts arteries/veins, they will bleed. It might take a while to disable. True,an expanded .750 dia hollow point likely will bleed more,faster.
Hit bones? I don't know that hardball/ penetration is a bad thing. Lets call it case by case. Bone trauma may translate to nerve trauma/bleeding.
Orthopedic hits with hardball may disable pretty well. Its case by case if a hollow point is better. Sometimes they break up or stop.
The Central Nervous System is THE stopper. A 25 ACP hardball that gets through the skull to an important part of the brain will drop anyone.
45ACP hardball place center of mass torso has a decent chance of hitting spine or ribs near the spine. Knockdown! Lets not forget the abdominal Aorta and Vena Cava. Big blood pipes!
If I have 45 ACP hardball,I'm armed! Might it be better to have expanding ammo? Sure. But 45 ACP hardball will do. I have a gun.
Collateral damage?? In a true,gravest extreme deadly force crisis ....Yes,the 4 rules apply,tempered by the deadly threat. Hit the bad guy! Don't miss!
Fewer shots fired,and the bad guy will at least slow the 850 fps bullet down.
In the end,its more about "How you use it" Than "How big it is" That includes expansion.
If the "Bad Guy" is a Cape Buffalo, it might be a 375 H+H loaded with SOLIDS and a person who can place a shot with a 375 H+H will have a good outcome. A Ballistic Tip? Not so much.
Which means ,like most folks, all I have to offer to this discussion is opinion.
I won't let that stop me!. No,I don't want to cause collateral damage among the innocent. That matters.
High cap double stack mag dumps seem to be what often happens,real life.
After action reports of number of rounds fired by good guys or bad guys seem to bear that out. Shooting 45 or 60 rounds,IMO,ups the possibility of collateral damage.
If I,as bystander, catch a 9mm or .40 Gold Dot miss, its going to leave a mark.
I'd probably prefer a 45 ACP hardball pass through,ignoring biohazards.
When I was sticking a 45 1911 in my Milt Sparks holster for carry,often as not it had home cast 200 gr SWC bullets in the mag.
First rule of a gunfight is "Have a Gun" Have ammo,too. Yes,HSTs or Gold Dots,etc come highly recommended.
I'm not advocating for carrying hardball. But if you have hardball in the gun when you need it, it will do! The 1911 with hardball has been reasonably effective through a lot of wars.
Talk is cheap,but I like to think in most situations I might find my sights. Hits count. My 1911 is a single stack.
It MIGHT be,sometimes, single stack shooters and wheel gunners more often place a few shots rather than spew. (Nothing wrong with more is better,but knowing you only have 7 or 8 might mean you make them count)
Wound channel? A 45 ACP at 800 to 900 fps makes a wound channel a lot like a piece of pipe. Its not a 3000 fps rifle round. I punches a hole.
If that hole cuts arteries/veins, they will bleed. It might take a while to disable. True,an expanded .750 dia hollow point likely will bleed more,faster.
Hit bones? I don't know that hardball/ penetration is a bad thing. Lets call it case by case. Bone trauma may translate to nerve trauma/bleeding.
Orthopedic hits with hardball may disable pretty well. Its case by case if a hollow point is better. Sometimes they break up or stop.
The Central Nervous System is THE stopper. A 25 ACP hardball that gets through the skull to an important part of the brain will drop anyone.
45ACP hardball place center of mass torso has a decent chance of hitting spine or ribs near the spine. Knockdown! Lets not forget the abdominal Aorta and Vena Cava. Big blood pipes!
If I have 45 ACP hardball,I'm armed! Might it be better to have expanding ammo? Sure. But 45 ACP hardball will do. I have a gun.
Collateral damage?? In a true,gravest extreme deadly force crisis ....Yes,the 4 rules apply,tempered by the deadly threat. Hit the bad guy! Don't miss!
Fewer shots fired,and the bad guy will at least slow the 850 fps bullet down.
In the end,its more about "How you use it" Than "How big it is" That includes expansion.
If the "Bad Guy" is a Cape Buffalo, it might be a 375 H+H loaded with SOLIDS and a person who can place a shot with a 375 H+H will have a good outcome. A Ballistic Tip? Not so much.
Jim Watson
New member
Yes, but I figure that if you shoot a horse about anywhere, it will convert a cavalryman into a pedestrian. Or maybe a greasy spot.
The Verminator
Moderator
Well.........
I have to laugh at the whole (popular but apocryphal) mythology of the army choosing the .45 because it could reliably "put down" a horse.
That bullcrap has never been proven.
You are correct that shooting the horse (or chopping off a foreleg ala Mel Gibson in the movie Braveheart) has always been an effective strategy--but it became most effective when machine guns were invented.
The army DID test handguns on animals but no horses were harmed in the process.
It's way easier to test on cows. The testing was messy and cruel. The cows died slowly. Humans have an emotional attachment to horses........cows--not so much.
And after the shooting.......we like eating cows far more than we like eating horses.
Laugh all you want, its good for the soul. But do consider that there is a huge part of history, mostly about the "whys" of the "whats" that never got written down, never put into official documents, and so today there is little or no "proof" to be found, other than the stories of the past.
Even SNOPES cannot find what is not there to be found.
Consider that it was an era when often things that "everyone knew" and things that were "common sense" were rarely written into rules or laws or histories, simply because since everyone knew it, there was no point in writing it down.
Remember that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, it is only absence of evidence.
For example, a few years back a researcher determined that firearms were rare and uncommon, and only owned by a very few people in Colonial America. He drew this conclusion from an absence of evidence in the records he studied. He studied the (surviving)wills and property bequests of Colonial era. Found that firearms were mentioned only extremely rarely, and so based his conclusion on that (and that alone, apparently).
ONE of the many points he missed taking into account was simply that, in those days, firearms and most other personal property simply wasn't specifically put into wills. Land, yes, that was formal and legal, but nearly everything else was much more informal, and things like firearms, household goods, and such simply weren't written into the wills. But since that guy didn't find evidence, he decided there was absence.
He was proven wrong, of course.
Specifically regarding .45s the Army had several decades of experience using .45 caliber pistols, knew what they did, and didn't do. "Horse down, man down" was a proven thing, and after they had a less than happy experience with the .38 revolvers of the day, they wanted the proven performance of a .45 in their new semi auto pistol round. And, they got it.
The Verminator
Moderator
And........
..."faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
--Paul the Apostle of Jesus
Have faith, my children.
The Loch Ness Monster DOES exist.
If consideration of horse put-down seems to you to be an improbable gratuitous assertion, I have to point out that in an age when mounted cavalry was still used in combat, it seems equally gratuitous to assert that nobody thought to ask if the new pistol cartridge under consideration would reliably dispatch a wounded loyal steed humanely.
According to LaGarde, the second day of livestock shooting at the Nelson Morris Company Union Stockyards in 1904 included sixteen cattle and two horses. So, there seems to have been some interest in the effectiveness of cartridges under consideration on horses (though the shooting was through lungs and intestines and not a normal dispatching mode that a cavalry trooper might employ if his mount was irrecoverably wounded).
It is unfortunate that much of history seems to require some form of retroactive mind reading over a century later, but I would not dismiss out of hand any theory that includes considerations germane to the tactics of the period.
According to LaGarde, the second day of livestock shooting at the Nelson Morris Company Union Stockyards in 1904 included sixteen cattle and two horses. So, there seems to have been some interest in the effectiveness of cartridges under consideration on horses (though the shooting was through lungs and intestines and not a normal dispatching mode that a cavalry trooper might employ if his mount was irrecoverably wounded).
It is unfortunate that much of history seems to require some form of retroactive mind reading over a century later, but I would not dismiss out of hand any theory that includes considerations germane to the tactics of the period.
The Verminator
Moderator
Oh Gosh!!!
LaGarde!
LOL!
If you have a copy of the 1983 Gun Digest (I do, since I'm a really old guy with a really good library) you can see LaGarde's "tests" ripped to shreds and learn just how flawed all of LaGarde's work was.
The two horses existed only in old LeGarde's confused memories of that time period and he twisted and lied about the results of the few stupid and ridiculous tests that he actually did.
Amazon has available the '83 Gun Digest with the article "The Holes in Stopping Power Theory" and it's worth buying for the educational value (and the sheer joy of reading articles by the old masters). You can probably get it for less than ten bucks.
Buy it. It's worth it.
Jim Watson
New member
I figure Thompson and LaGarde were not so much testing as confirming the determination of the Old Indian Fighters and Philippine veterans to get back to a .45.
A shot through the intestines, makes you wonder about the brain power involved in these tests. I read about these years ago, wasn’t a 30 Luger credited with One of the best results?
Thanks for the info about the Gun Digest, I have a couple of old ones but not this particular one.
Old writers, I totally agree. This was when guns functioned, fired or shot instead of running as they do today.
Thanks for the info about the Gun Digest, I have a couple of old ones but not this particular one.
Old writers, I totally agree. This was when guns functioned, fired or shot instead of running as they do today.
Here's a link to a pdf of the Thompson LaGarde report from March of 1904. The actual tests took place in October of 1903.
This is a link to a public dropbox upload that does not require a password. It is not my dropbox.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/34b6...port-1904?rlkey=wjgkoe9wsnvar1spke6a4ad8l&e=1
The report does state that living horses were shot with Colt .45 revolvers, but a quick skim of the document does not indicate how many were shot, only that there were "horses" plural involved. The living horses were shot in the brain and the report states that each one collapsed immediately. I'm not sure exactly what kind of information that provides given that there's not much doubt that a .45 revolver bullet will penetrate a horse's skull nor that once it does, it will kill the animal if it hits the brain.
This is a link to a public dropbox upload that does not require a password. It is not my dropbox.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/34b6...port-1904?rlkey=wjgkoe9wsnvar1spke6a4ad8l&e=1
The report does state that living horses were shot with Colt .45 revolvers, but a quick skim of the document does not indicate how many were shot, only that there were "horses" plural involved. The living horses were shot in the brain and the report states that each one collapsed immediately. I'm not sure exactly what kind of information that provides given that there's not much doubt that a .45 revolver bullet will penetrate a horse's skull nor that once it does, it will kill the animal if it hits the brain.
bamaranger
New member
got
Went down to my library and dusted off my copy of the '83 Gun Digest. The stopping power article was written by a fellow named Leon Day. Hmm.....never heard of him, so a brief internet search. Turns out he's a "talented amateur historian" (self described) who has at least one book, "Warrior's Promise" published, of which I could not locate any commentary. Sifting through old documents and records to establish facts apparently is Day's specialty.
Day does a good job, (along with editing by the Digest and Ken Warner) of describing the Thompson/Lagarde tests on cattle. Days commentary does not mention horses. I can't say he "shreds" LaGarde's work so much as he points out the inconclusiveness. A good many of the critters ended up being killed with a hammer, regardless of what cartridge with which they were shot.
Day closes the article by asking the question " Why did LaGarde make recommendations (concerning caliber) that his tests would not sustain? He then goes on to comment that the 9mm flat point of 1904 was likely the equal of the 9mm flat point adopted by the US Airforce at that point in time (1983) and it had taken 75 yrs to come full circle. Well.........
Firstly I would suggest that the cattle tests were intended to explore the potential of smaller, higher velocity 9mm and 7.62/7.65 auto pistol ammo in use in Europe with the new semiauto systems versus big bore cartridges in use WITH KNOWN EFFECTIVENESS. That last bit is important. The US Army had been fighting with the .45 cal and 230-255 gr slugs for 20 yrs. When the high vel .30 and 9mm ctgs did not outperform the results of the in use .45 ctgs (NONE of the cattle shooting was all that impressive and a bit peculiar) Thompson/LaGarde did not so much recommend a .45 as they did discount the small bores and go to a default setting with what was known. I speculate the mind set was ......"given what we have seen, lets stay with the the big bores, whose performance we are familiar with" (my quotes). I really think the Board expected better results from the hi-vel family. Too, the search was ultimately for a new, autoloading pistol, which we got in 1911 in a cartridge that mimicked to some degree, the .45 performance of the revolver (.45 Schofield).
Finally, Days driveby comment about 9mm flatpoint does not pan out. Though Hornady seems to have submitted a 124 gr trucated flat point for consideration, 9mm ball ammo adopted for the new 9mm pistol, the Beretta, was 124 gr RN. Hornady went on to offer this same flat point truncated slug in .45. I wish it was still available. I believe the 9mm version is still in production. The 1904 projectile is likely much more pointed with substantially less of a meplat than the Hornady slug.
Went down to my library and dusted off my copy of the '83 Gun Digest. The stopping power article was written by a fellow named Leon Day. Hmm.....never heard of him, so a brief internet search. Turns out he's a "talented amateur historian" (self described) who has at least one book, "Warrior's Promise" published, of which I could not locate any commentary. Sifting through old documents and records to establish facts apparently is Day's specialty.
Day does a good job, (along with editing by the Digest and Ken Warner) of describing the Thompson/Lagarde tests on cattle. Days commentary does not mention horses. I can't say he "shreds" LaGarde's work so much as he points out the inconclusiveness. A good many of the critters ended up being killed with a hammer, regardless of what cartridge with which they were shot.
Day closes the article by asking the question " Why did LaGarde make recommendations (concerning caliber) that his tests would not sustain? He then goes on to comment that the 9mm flat point of 1904 was likely the equal of the 9mm flat point adopted by the US Airforce at that point in time (1983) and it had taken 75 yrs to come full circle. Well.........
Firstly I would suggest that the cattle tests were intended to explore the potential of smaller, higher velocity 9mm and 7.62/7.65 auto pistol ammo in use in Europe with the new semiauto systems versus big bore cartridges in use WITH KNOWN EFFECTIVENESS. That last bit is important. The US Army had been fighting with the .45 cal and 230-255 gr slugs for 20 yrs. When the high vel .30 and 9mm ctgs did not outperform the results of the in use .45 ctgs (NONE of the cattle shooting was all that impressive and a bit peculiar) Thompson/LaGarde did not so much recommend a .45 as they did discount the small bores and go to a default setting with what was known. I speculate the mind set was ......"given what we have seen, lets stay with the the big bores, whose performance we are familiar with" (my quotes). I really think the Board expected better results from the hi-vel family. Too, the search was ultimately for a new, autoloading pistol, which we got in 1911 in a cartridge that mimicked to some degree, the .45 performance of the revolver (.45 Schofield).
Finally, Days driveby comment about 9mm flatpoint does not pan out. Though Hornady seems to have submitted a 124 gr trucated flat point for consideration, 9mm ball ammo adopted for the new 9mm pistol, the Beretta, was 124 gr RN. Hornady went on to offer this same flat point truncated slug in .45. I wish it was still available. I believe the 9mm version is still in production. The 1904 projectile is likely much more pointed with substantially less of a meplat than the Hornady slug.
micromontenegro
New member
I don't think I had ever read the whole report. I am flabbergasted at how good it is.
The Verminator
Moderator
Leon Day prefaced his destruction of LeGarde's hopelessly unscientific and cruel "tests" with this statement:
"Thanks to the Old Army Branch of the National Archives, I now have a copy of the original Thompson-LeGarde Report. Of the 13 cattle shot not one collapsed from anything resembling our modern conception of stopping power.
Nor did the live animal firings justify that board's recommendation that any new service pistol be at least .45 caliber."
Gun Digest Editor Ken Warner commented within the text: "Note: That's right. The hoopla of the last 75 years has been based on 13 dead beef cattle. Why, I've shot nearly that many myself."
So.......no horses mentioned. That's all I know about that. Maybe he didn't mention them because they were shot in the brain and thus irrelevant? Maybe there are two versions of the report? Who knows?
I do know that Mr. Day was indeed a good historian who had a knack for digging up facts that nobody else had and correcting bad information--mostly about Ambrose Bierce and his mysterious disappearance--which was a lifelong obsession.
I couldn't help but notice that at the end of the LeGarde report that someone linked here there was a recommendation that if a new .45 caliber pistol were adopted that the ammo have a lighter jacket and a softer lead core to make it more effective.
Now THERE was one example of wise advice--that's exactly what I've said here myself about .45 ACP ball ammo.
"Thanks to the Old Army Branch of the National Archives, I now have a copy of the original Thompson-LeGarde Report. Of the 13 cattle shot not one collapsed from anything resembling our modern conception of stopping power.
Nor did the live animal firings justify that board's recommendation that any new service pistol be at least .45 caliber."
Gun Digest Editor Ken Warner commented within the text: "Note: That's right. The hoopla of the last 75 years has been based on 13 dead beef cattle. Why, I've shot nearly that many myself."
So.......no horses mentioned. That's all I know about that. Maybe he didn't mention them because they were shot in the brain and thus irrelevant? Maybe there are two versions of the report? Who knows?
I do know that Mr. Day was indeed a good historian who had a knack for digging up facts that nobody else had and correcting bad information--mostly about Ambrose Bierce and his mysterious disappearance--which was a lifelong obsession.
I couldn't help but notice that at the end of the LeGarde report that someone linked here there was a recommendation that if a new .45 caliber pistol were adopted that the ammo have a lighter jacket and a softer lead core to make it more effective.
Now THERE was one example of wise advice--that's exactly what I've said here myself about .45 ACP ball ammo.
I believe it was "Pistolero" magazine that long ago went into Mexico (issues of "Political Correctness" )
With a substantial number of hogs and a collection of handguns and ammo.
And indeed,they shot all these hogs and reported observations.
This was probably 40 years ago,and the conclusion I remember,:
With the possible exception of the 44 Magnum, any hit that did not destroy central nervous system would allow the bad guy time to shoot you.He might bleed out to dead,but he has time to shoot you.
If you did disrupt the Central Nervous System, even a 25 ACP was a fight stopper.
We can jump to conclusions from there.
With a substantial number of hogs and a collection of handguns and ammo.
And indeed,they shot all these hogs and reported observations.
This was probably 40 years ago,and the conclusion I remember,:
With the possible exception of the 44 Magnum, any hit that did not destroy central nervous system would allow the bad guy time to shoot you.He might bleed out to dead,but he has time to shoot you.
If you did disrupt the Central Nervous System, even a 25 ACP was a fight stopper.
We can jump to conclusions from there.