Which is more important in ballistics?

Velocity and bullet construction - ft lbs are meaningful and once you are north of 400 ft lbs then more is not necessarily better
 
481 hit the nail on the head~momentum is what gets the bullet to where it'll do the most harm.

Very high velocity bullets often blow up before reaching home, expanding too much too soon.

That's why the old .45 Colt remained so popular for so many years, as did the .45 ACP hardball round.

Bob Wright
 
Both are of use in evaluating potential performance but, if you have to pick one, I'd say muzzle energy is more important than velocity. Which would you rather get shot with, a .22LR at 1300 feet-per-second or a .45 ACP at 850 feet-per-second?
 
Reliability, then accuracy, then adequate penetration, then shootability, and last expansion as I see it.

I like Federal HST standard pressure at the heaviest weight per caliber: 230 for .45, 180 for .40, and 147 for 9mm. All are subsonic, but all move at good velocity (850 .45, 1000 for .40, 990ish for 9mm). All get around 12-12.5" in gelatin, do well (for caliber) with barriers, and offer reliable expansion.
 
Energy is more important than velocity when comparing possible SD rounds but there are things more important than energy. Accuracy and reliability should also be considered.
 
With an adequate sized bullet, more muzzle velocity generally gives you more energy, the more energy you have the more you have to work with. With modern bonded hollow points, you can move lighter bullets faster, mushrooming them to make a bigger hole and the energy allows them to penetrate deeper. 2 excellent examples of this are the 125 Grain Bonded gold dot loaded in the 357 Sig which gives you 1450 FPS from a Glock 31, and the 155 Grain gold dot 10 MM load moving at 1500 FPS.
 
Aguila Blanca: said:
Both are of use in evaluating potential performance but, if you have to pick one, I'd say muzzle energy is more important than velocity.
Click to expand...

Y'know, muzzle energy is dependent upon the bullet's velocity so if you find velocity to be less important than muzzle energy, you are saying that you find muzzle energy to be less important.

Aguila Blanca: said:
Which would you rather get shot with, a .22LR at 1300 feet-per-second or a .45 ACP at 850 feet-per-second?
Click to expand...

Neither. I also wouldn't want to be hit with a BB at 300 fps, a large stone, or a piece of doggie-poo, but that doesn't mean that they'd make a good choices for self-defense either.
 
Neither accuracy nor reliability fall under ballistics.

Initial muzzle velocity is of importance for long range shots. The quicker a bullet gets to its target, the less time gravity and wind have to act on that bullet. Gravity is constant, wind isn't.

Bob Wright
 
The most important consideration of a self defense round is hitting the target with it.
The gun and ammo choices are the least of it.
 
Bob Wright: said:
Neither accuracy nor reliability fall under ballistics.
Click to expand...

Good point, Bob. The only thing that matters is that the bullet hits something important and that it has the momentum to get there.
 
I can cite a good example of bullet failure. An acquaintance of mine took his 6" Colt Python on a hog hunt. His first shot was an easy broadside shot, maybe thirty to fifty yards. The boar was pretty big, around 350 lbs. His ammunition? Remington factory load .357 Magnum 125 gr. Semi-jacketed Hollow points. When hit, the porker turned and looked at the man, and another shot was fired, the pig ran, changing directions with each shot. This man emptied his Python, reloaded and fired three more shots before somebody put a 12 ga. slug into the boar and the animal "passed."

An autopsy revealed all nine perfectly expanded bullets just under the skin in the top layer of fat. None had penetrated to reach vital organs.

I shot one hefty ground hog hitting just above the rectum and the bullet exited just under his chin, pulling most of his intestines out through the exit hole. This with a .44 Magnum using a 245 gr. Keith cast bullet.

Bob Wright
 
SD .38 loads are DEWC 148 gr over +P doses of Unique. Matter of fact, I shoot anything with them. It isn't anything but sectional density at that range. 900 plus fps is a pretty mild load, after all.
 
In a defensive rd for a handgun which is more important to consider....muzzle velocity or muzzle energy?
Click to expand...
Excellent question,,,
I must have typed and then changed my answer a dozen times.

In all honesty - I'm stumped on this.

There's just simply too many ways it can be answered.

Y'know, muzzle energy is dependent upon the bullet's velocity so if you find velocity to be less important than muzzle energy, you are saying that you find muzzle energy to be less important.
Click to expand...
True - very true... I typed something like that also, then got to thinking about it and erased the whole thing.

Just for conversation's sake,,
Let's say you were handed a round of ammunition.
You look at the base and see that it's a .357Mag case.

Other than what a visual inspection shows, you can't have any other information about that round - except -
It's muzzle energy
or
It's muzzle velocity.

Armed with that number, and, based on your experience usinng the caliber in question,,,

Which would you choose to make the most educated guess as to how effective that round would be?

I started to say, ME since if I knew the ME, and based on the thousands of .357" bullets I've loaded/shot over the years, if I knew the ME I could back out the MV.
Then the more I thought about it, the more I thought if I knew the MV, I could make a pretty accurate stab at the ME..that would be easier and quicker..

Then, the more I thought about it, the more I started to wonder,,,
 
Hal: said:
Just for conversation's sake,,
Let's say you were handed a round of ammunition.
You look at the base and see that it's a .357Mag case.

Other than what a visual inspection shows, you can't have any other information about that round - except -
It's muzzle energy
or
It's muzzle velocity.

Armed with that number, and, based on your experience usinng the caliber in question,,,

Which would you choose to make the most educated guess as to how effective that round would be?
Click to expand...

That's an interesting question- I don't know that I could since it is not possible to determine the KE of either round without knowing the bullet's weight or velocity.

For instance, both of the .357 Mag rounds could be marked as having a KE of 583 fpe which means that one could be a 125 gr. bullet at 1450 fps and the other a 158 gr. JHP at 1290 fps- or they could be of other weights at other muzzle velocities that's give me that number. Both would have 583 fpe of KE, but not knowing the weights or the velocities of each, I'd be making the choice in a relative vacuum.

Forced to decide, I'd heft them separately and go with the heaviest of the two since momentum is the best measure of a bullet's ability to penetrate soft tissue.

Conversely, if I were selecting a round to defeat a thin, hard barrier like a sheet of mild steel, I'd opt for the lighter, faster one since kinetic energy is the best measure of a bullet's ability to penetrate/defeat those types of barriers.
 
Last edited:
In a defensive rd for a handgun which is more important to consider....muzzle velocity or muzzle energy?
Click to expand...

481 above made a correct point, seems to me.

Velocity and energy are directly related and can't be separated.

A bullet in the chamber has potential energy. Once the primer is struck that becomes kinetic energy. Kinetic energy (K) is measured in foot pounds of energy (ft.pds). This is a unit that measures the ability of a round to do work. The work of overcoming the friction of the barrel, bucking the wind, some is lost to noise, penetrating the target, expanding, etc.

As velocity increases so does the kinetic energy available to a round. This is why a .357 Magnum round is more powerful than a 38 Spl. and why a 44 Mag. is more powerful than a 44 spl.

But it's only one part of the picture. The type of bullet chosen is critical. This includes the construction of the bullet as well as it's weight. The bullet should be matched to the task.

A 230 gr. 45. acp bullet at 475 fps has about 390 ft lbs of energy available to it to work with. This is more than enough for self defense and deer or hog at reasonable distances provided the right type bullets are selected.

The weight of the heavier bullet allows momentum to work in it's favor. But here also bullet construction matters. If a jhp bullet designed for self defense against humans is used to hunt hog the bullet may expand too rapidly and decrease momentum and hinder penetration. A round needs both the proper construction and enough energy to expand and penetrate.

Penetration requires adequate energy. Energy is expended in penetration.

Energy figures tend to be more useful to the shooter with long guns than short in my opinion.

tipoc
 
Last edited:
One of the best way to test is to get some medium such as ballistic gelatin or Duxseal, even clay, and fire bullets into it.

The best load will produce a large cavity midway in the medium. Some will produce no cavity, other bullets will produce a large surface cavity.

Try your bullets on crows, groundhog, deer and other animate crtiiers as the law allows. Autopsy what you've shot.

Bob Wright
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top