A lot has been said, and argued about, the Thompson-LaGarde tests over the years.
As noted, the information, such as it was, was largely worthless given its statistical irrelevancy.
But, at least it was an attempt to see what the effects might be, so it was a step in the right direction.
However, I do have some issues with some of the assessments...
"AS YOU CAN SEE THE EXPERIMENTERS WERE ALREADY DESPERATE TO STACK THE TEST RESULTS IN FAVOR OF THE BIGGER CARTRIDGES."
Nothing of the sort, and to claim such completely ignores the statements by Thompson and LaGarde.
The reason they shot so many more steers with the larger calibers is the simple fact that the larger bullets caused incapacitate a LOT faster than the smaller, less powerful, rounds.
Even T&L recognized that continuing to shoot at an animal that has collapsed with a different round would be absolutely meaningless.
Then there's the simple fact that T&L were apparently trying to conduct this testing with virtually no money behind them, and they apparently had to pay for the critters that they shot.
If a steer didn't go down with one cartridge, use the next one on it as well, that way you don't have to pay for an extra steer.
"The .45 calibers were also given the advantage of using expanding bullets as well as solid bullets(the smaller bullets were not tested with expanding bullets just solid ones (ARE YOU READING THIS CAREFULLY: IF YOU THINK THAT OLD STYLE EXPANING BULLETS WERE SO INFERIOR TO WHAT WE HAVE TODAY!)"
Yeah.... Wrong.
Thompson and LaGarde used COMMERCIALLY OR MILITARILY AVAILABLE ammunition of the type typical to that particular cartridge.
For the revolver rounds, that meant lead bullets. For the semi-autos, that meant, universally, jacketed rounds. In 1904, jacketed bullets for revolver rounds were pretty much unheard of. Every military that used revolvers still used lead bullets; every military that was using semi-autos at that time was using jacketed bullets.
It also didn't mean hollow points vs solids. Hollow point bullets were still exceptionally uncommon in handgun rounds at the time, and for the most part would remain so until well after both Thompson and LaGarde were dead.
"THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I PREVIOUSLY POSTED IN REGARDS TO THE SHOOTING THAT WAS TOLD TO ME BY THE POLICE OFFICER THAT WAS THERE. NAMELY THAT AS THE RANGES INCREASE THE LETHALITY OF THE .45 CALIBER GOES DOWN BECAUSE OF A SLOWING DOWN OF THE BULLET THAT MAY NOT ENABLE IT TO ADEQUATELY PENETRATE. ALSO THAT AS THE DIAMETER OF THE BULLET INCREASES ITS ABILITY TO PENETRATE GOES DOWN AS COMPARED TO THE SMALLER CALIBERS IF VELOCITIES ARE NEARLY EQUAL BETWEEN THE TWO ROUNDS. AS THE VELOCITY GOES UP AND THE CALIBER GOES DOWN THE PENETRATION GOES DRAMITACALLY UP AS WAS PROVEN WAY BACK IN 1945 IN THE U.S. MILITARY TEST TRIAL OF THE 9MM V/S THE .45ACP."
Yes, and.....
SO WHAT?
We're talking about HANDGUNS. Short range weapons. We're not talking about taking 500 yard sniper shots with a 1911.
Even the military in 1904 recognized that simple fact. The US military had pretty much given up on the concept of the "handgun carbine" after 1855, recognizing that attaching a fragile stock to a pistol does NOT make it a carbine.
It took the Germans, British, Poles, Chinese, etc., a lot longer to figure that out.
