• We are now running on a new, and hopefully much-improved, server. In addition we are also on new forum software. Any move entails a lot of technical details and I suspect we will encounter a few issues as the new server goes live. Please be patient with us. It will be worth it! :) Please help by posting all issues here.
  • The forum will be down for about an hour this weekend for maintenance. I apologize for the inconvenience.
  • If you are having trouble seeing the forum then you may need to clear your browser's DNS cache. Click here for instructions on how to do that
  • Please review the Forum Rules frequently as we are constantly trying to improve the forum for our members and visitors.

A Study of Handgun Stopping Power

Merlin

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 31, 2008
Messages
487
Location
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
If you have time to load your rifle the jury will most likely believe that you had time to retreat. Pulling a loaded handgun on the bad guy is going to much quicker than trying to load your rifle while being threaten with great bodily harm. (carrying a loaded, (chambered) long gun in your car is illegal in NV)

Yep, point taken. For me, I wasn't so much thinking of the shotgun as a quick response thing. More of a "I like the idea of the extra firepower, should the situation ever call for it, it won't do me any good locked up at home."

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 2
 

Nevada carrier

Regular Member
Joined
Mar 30, 2010
Messages
1,293
Location
The Epicenter of Freedom
I say, carry the largest caliber you can safely and accurately handle. Many times people believe that the larger the caliber the more difficult they can be to manage. this is not the case at all. There are many more factors at play. people say .40 S&W has a lot of "snap" and they do not enjoy shooting it. Well from a very compact, low capacity pistol like a Kahr, this might be true, but a much heavier, larger, high capacity firearm, like a Taurus 24/7 OSS, you will find the recoil to be very easy to manage.

.380 Auto is a pretty tiny round, but most of the pistols that fire it are very small, and very light and have a lot of muzzle flip. I personally hate shooting this round and only shoot it often enough to be confident I can hit my target consistently. Nevertheless, there are times that the limitations of what I can Conceal dictate that I can only carry this weapon, so I have it if I need it.

Ammunition, like make and model is a very personal choice. Never let someone else choose your defensive carry weapon based on their personal bias. Carry what feels good in your hand and will allow you to put a round where you intend it to go. If your friend hates revolvers, don't him limit you to semi autos. You might love revolvers. For that matter, some people have issues operating semi autos for one reason or another. If you're 75 years old and have arthritis, a semi auto might not be for you.
 

cshoff

Regular Member
Joined
May 20, 2010
Messages
687
Location
, Missouri, USA
Frankly, the entire idea of "knock down power" or "stopping power", is just such an over-used cliche that has been so misrepresented and perverted over the years, that it's almost laughable when somebody brings it up. And it seems like some "new and improved" article comes out about once a year that, if you read between the lines, supports the notion that it isn't, nor will it ever be, an exact science.

Handgun cartridges simply aren't very powerful, regardless of what caliber you choose. Clearly you need a cartridge that has enough power to reliably penetrate deep enough into an attacker so it can disrupt vital organs and/or the CNS, and we generally get consistent and reliable penetration in handgun calibers from 9X19mm on up. On the other hand, when you go smaller than the 9X19, power drops off DRAMATICALLY as the smaller cartridges develop much less pressure and adequate penetration becomes much less consistent.

With the above as a known, if we stick with more powerful loadings such as 9X19mm, .38spl +P, .357 SIG, .357 Mag., .40S&W, and .45ACP, the concept of "best" as it relates to "knock down power" is barely (if at all) quantifiable. Shot placement is King, penetration is Queen, and everything else is just icing on the cake.

Shot placement is 90% of the equation, and sufficient penetration is 9.5%. The other 0.5% is made up of the 0.10" difference in diameter between the 9mm and .45ACP bullets and the minor differences between one type of premium defense hollow point over the other, in addition to the debatable relevance either of them would have on the outcome of a given defensive shooting encounter anyway. On top of that, we can wrap the whole package up in a heavy layer of luck and take into consideration the possible psychological/physiological state of our adversary, and we can see that the marginal differences from one higher-powered cartridge to the next is of very little significance in the overall scheme of things.

I think a MUCH more relevant discussion to have is shootability of the various more-powerful cartridges, ie: recoil management - how quickly are you able to deliver combat-accurate hits with a given handgun using a specific cartridge. If, for example, you are 1.5 times more efficient with a 9X19mm as you are with the .45ACP from the same handgun platform, then the 9X19mm is the better choice. The same consideration can be made when comparing revolvers to semi-autos, low-capacity semi-autos to high-capacity semi autos, and so on and so forth. Placing a higher number of more accurate hits on the target will nearly always end the hostilities quicker than placing a lower number of less accurate hits on the target, once we get into 9X19mm caliber (or larger) handguns.
 
Last edited:

jdholmes

Regular Member
Joined
Jan 27, 2011
Messages
488
Location
Henderson, Nevada
I say, carry the largest caliber you can safely and accurately handle.

People do say this often, but I don't think it is necessarily a true statement...

As others have said and this study points out, bigger doesn't really mean much with hand guns. In fact the 9mm, according to this study, it the worst even falling below the .22 in regards to incapacitating from one shot to the torso or head.
 

jdholmes

Regular Member
Joined
Jan 27, 2011
Messages
488
Location
Henderson, Nevada
People do say this often, but I don't think it is necessarily a true statement...

As others have said and this study points out, bigger doesn't really mean much with hand guns. In fact the 9mm, according to this study, it the worst even falling below the .22 in regards to incapacitating from one shot to the torso or head.

In fact the wee little .22 even appears to best the mighty .45 in a few areas, according to this particular study.

Obviously the .22 has huge drawbacks when it comes to shooting through barriers or if you don't hit the torso or head for some reason, so I am not advocating it over the .45... Just saying that carrying the largest possible calibre isn't necessarily for everyone and even the lil old .22 can stop an average BG in Nevada is you know how to shoot.
 
Last edited:

cshoff

Regular Member
Joined
May 20, 2010
Messages
687
Location
, Missouri, USA
In fact the wee little .22 even appears to best the mighty .45 in a few areas, according to this particular study.

Obviously the .22 has huge drawbacks when it comes to shooting through barriers or if you don't hit the torso or head for some reason, so I am not advocating it over the .45... Just saying that carrying the largest possible calibre isn't necessarily for everyone and even the lil old .22 can stop an average BG in Nevada is you know how to shoot.

This is precisely why these "studies" are hardly worth the paper they are written on. All else being equal, the diminutive .22LR isn't even on the same planet as the 9X19mm as far as combat effectiveness is concerned, yet somehow we think we can look at a bunch of non-descript data that was influenced by an infinite number of variables (to which we are not privy) and arrive at the conclusion that "the .22 is better than the 9mm".

Just to give an example, let's give two brief scenarios:

Scenario #1: "Bad Guy A" is shot by "Good Guy B" who is using a .357 Magnum revolver, and after one shot (that impacts "BG A" in an unknown location), Bad Guy A decides to cease his hostilities.

Scenario #2: "Bad Guy A" is shot by "Good Guy B" who is using a .22 Long Rifle revolver, and after one shot (that impacts "BG A" in an unknown location), Bad Guy A decides to cease his hostilities.

Now using the same model used in this "study", we would have to conclude that the .357 Magnum and .22 LR are equal in the average number of rounds needed until incapacitation, and in one-shot-stop percentage. After all, they performed exactly the same, right?

But here is where the validity of the results starts to fall apart. What the "study" doesn't tell us is that in scenario #1, the bad guy was hyped up on herion, at point-blank range, attempting to slash the good guy with a bowie knife, and a single shot to his pelvic area dropped him to the ground at which time he immediately ceased his hostilities, and has now spent the last 4 days in the ICU being treated for his injuries.

It also doesn't tell us that in scenario #2, the bad guy was some teenage kid attempting to car jack the good guy at a stoplight at knife point. Without ever rolling down his window, the good guy pulled his .22 revolver from his console, discharged it through the glass, striking the bad guy in the left thigh, at which time the good guy drove away to summon the police, and the bad guy ran off the opposite direction and was later apprehended by police at his home, playing video games.

So we can see from just one simple example that there are a lot of different variables that contribute to the outcome of different situations. And while both of the scenarios I gave above were fictional, both could have easily happened in any city in this country on any given day. So given these two scenarios, can we honestly say that the .22LR is equivalent to the .357 Magnum in combat effectiveness? Sure, we can say that they both performed 100% adequately. But when we start analyzing the variables that were in play in each different scenario, we realize that these are very subjective standards we are using and that we are really comparing apples to oranges. Even if the "good guy" would have been using the same exact caliber and same exact cartridge in each of these scenarios, it is still an apples-to-oranges comparison at best. No two defensive shootings are ever the same, despite any similarities in the final outcome of those shootings. The results of these "studies" are inconclusive at best, and nearly meaningless at worst.
 

DVC

Regular Member
Joined
May 12, 2010
Messages
1,185
Location
City? Who wants to live in a CITY?, Nevada, USA
The .22 is responsible for more shootings and more gunshot deaths than any other single caliber, but that's simply because there are so many more .22s that the low percent still equals a higher raw number.

Even the .25 is an effective stopper if the rounds are properly placed in vital soft spots (such as right into the larynx).
 

scott58dh

Regular Member
Joined
Oct 16, 2011
Messages
425
Location
why?
Frankly, the entire idea of "knock down power" or "stopping power", is just such an over-used cliche that has been so misrepresented and perverted over the years, that it's almost laughable when somebody brings it up. And it seems like some "new and improved" article comes out about once a year that, if you read between the lines, supports the notion that it isn't, nor will it ever be, an exact science.

Handgun cartridges simply aren't very powerful, regardless of what caliber you choose. Clearly you need a cartridge that has enough power to reliably penetrate deep enough into an attacker so it can disrupt vital organs and/or the CNS, and we generally get consistent and reliable penetration in handgun calibers from 9X19mm on up. On the other hand, when you go smaller than the 9X19, power drops off DRAMATICALLY as the smaller cartridges develop much less pressure and adequate penetration becomes much less consistent.

With the above as a known, if we stick with more powerful loadings such as 9X19mm, .38spl +P, .357 SIG, .357 Mag., .40S&W, and .45ACP, the concept of "best" as it relates to "knock down power" is barely (if at all) quantifiable. Shot placement is King, penetration is Queen, and everything else is just icing on the cake.

Shot placement is 90% of the equation, and sufficient penetration is 9.5%. The other 0.5% is made up of the 0.10" difference in diameter between the 9mm and .45ACP bullets and the minor differences between one type of premium defense hollow point over the other, in addition to the debatable relevance either of them would have on the outcome of a given defensive shooting encounter anyway. On top of that, we can wrap the whole package up in a heavy layer of luck and take into consideration the possible psychological/physiological state of our adversary, and we can see that the marginal differences from one higher-powered cartridge to the next is of very little significance in the overall scheme of things.

I think a MUCH more relevant discussion to have is shootability of the various more-powerful cartridges, ie: recoil management - how quickly are you able to deliver combat-accurate hits with a given handgun using a specific cartridge. If, for example, you are 1.5 times more efficient with a 9X19mm as you are with the .45ACP from the same handgun platform, then the 9X19mm is the better choice. The same consideration can be made when comparing revolvers to semi-autos, low-capacity semi-autos to high-capacity semi autos, and so on and so forth. Placing a higher number of more accurate hits on the target will nearly always end the hostilities quicker than placing a lower number of less accurate hits on the target, once we get into 9X19mm caliber (or larger) handguns.


I believe that this response is appropriate & sums up a lot of issues,

"People say, this is everything. Velocity is everything. Caliber is everything. Placement is everything. Permanent cavity is everything. Temporary cavity is everything. Look, nothing is everything, but everything is something." - Massad Ayoob
 

Jay Jacobs

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 15, 2012
Messages
100
Location
Canton, GA
"Conclusion

This study took me a long time and a lot of effort to complete. Despite the work it took, I'm glad I did it. The results I got from the study lead me to believe that there really isn't that much difference between most defensive handgun rounds and calibers. None is a death ray, but most work adequately...even the lowly .22s. I've stopped worrying about trying to find the "ultimate" bullet. There isn't one. And I've stopped feeling the need to strap on my .45 every time I leave the house out of fear that my 9mm doesn't have enough "stopping power." Folks, carry what you want. Caliber really isn't all that important..."



Interesting conclusion.


(I'm a .45 ACP guy myself)
 

cshoff

Regular Member
Joined
May 20, 2010
Messages
687
Location
, Missouri, USA
I believe that this response is appropriate & sums up a lot of issues,

"People say, this is everything. Velocity is everything. Caliber is everything. Placement is everything. Permanent cavity is everything. Temporary cavity is everything. Look, nothing is everything, but everything is something." - Massad Ayoob

I agree with Mas. So many people seem to be "married" to their favorite caliber and will go to such great lengths to make themselves look like a fool defending their decision and criticizing the decisions everyone else has made. Everything; shot placement, penetration, caliber, type of projectile, etc, makes up a part of the whole. Trying to select guns, gear, and ammo that provide you with incremental improvements over other options is the name of the game. If there was such a thing as a "magic bullet" from a "magic caliber", we would all be using it.
 

Merlin

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 31, 2008
Messages
487
Location
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
I am always on the fence about this. My first handgun was a Glock 19 (9mm, medium frame, 15rd). Later, I purchased a Glock 36 (45acp, same medium frame, 6rd). I love them both, each with their pros and cons. The 9mm carries more ammo, and is much easier to land an accurate followup shot. In fact, after shooting the 45, the 9mm feels like a 22 (in a good way). But the 45 makes big holes, and delivers significantly more kinetic energy.

I go back and forth all the time. See, I can argue for and against both. Clearly, the answer is to dual-wield. :-D

---
PS. I just had to add "Glock" to the address book on my Android tablet, so it wouldn't auto correct to "block". Damn hippy-liberal Google. River, weather by, Walter. I mean Ruger, Weatherby, and Walther. Bastards.


Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 2
 
Last edited:

scott58dh

Regular Member
Joined
Oct 16, 2011
Messages
425
Location
why?
I agree with Mas. So many people seem to be "married" to their favorite caliber and will go to such great lengths to make themselves look like a fool defending their decision and criticizing the decisions everyone else has made. Everything; shot placement, penetration, caliber, type of projectile, etc, makes up a part of the whole. Trying to select guns, gear, and ammo that provide you with incremental improvements over other options is the name of the game. If there was such a thing as a "magic bullet" from a "magic caliber", we would all be using it.

Thank you very much sir. I truly appreciate your taking *MY* (Mr. Ayoobs') POV as intended, just another opinion.

In all actuality, it is really a personal decision with what *Oneself* must be Confident, Comfortable & Competent to make, hopefully after doing the proper *Homework*, Training & of course Practice, PRACTICE,,,PRACTICE !!!

To make my observation a little more personal, I'll tell ya' a decision which I came to thru trial & error.

When i purchased my 1st firearm, I compared the multitude of options out there & finally bought the Ruger SP101 - 3" - 357 Magnum.

So, after setting up a TP Range in my field behind my house, i went to blasting away, & REALLY Lovin' IT.

That is until one day I was just finishing up & thot, " What the hay, let's see what this Wheel Gun REALLY ***SOUNDS*** like !!!"

WARNING; DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME, THESE STUNTS ARE PERFORMED BY TRAINED PROFESSIONALS !!!:banghead:

Being a numbskull ,,,at the time,,,:eek: I proceeded to empty all the chambers, WITHOUT HEARING PROTECTION,:shocker:.

Now I have bragging rights to the fact that a 357 Mag is REALLY REALLY LOUD :exclaim: & I SUSTAINED 50% Hearing loss in my left ear.

To say the least, I've come to the conclusion that IF I EVER Need to discharge my Firearm in my Home, Vehicle or Where ever, I'm keeping it loaded with 38 spl. HP FJM & 38 spl. Hornaday CD loads.

I don't desire to experience that type of *IDIOCY* again,,,,,EVER !!!!

p.s., This is just *our* little secret, I know you won't tell another soul,,,,, RRIIIGHT !!! peace ! :cool:
 
Last edited:

cshoff

Regular Member
Joined
May 20, 2010
Messages
687
Location
, Missouri, USA
Thank you very much sir. I truly appreciate your taking *MY* (Mr. Ayoobs') POV as intended, just another opinion.

In all actuality, it is really a personal decision with what *Oneself* must be Confident, Comfortable & Competent to make, hopefully after doing the proper *Homework*, Training & of course Practice, PRACTICE,,,PRACTICE !!!

To make my observation a little more personal, I'll tell ya' a decision which I came to thru trial & error.

When i purchased my 1st firearm, I compared the multitude of options out there & finally bought the Ruger SP101 - 3" - 357 Magnum.

So, after setting up a TP Range in my field behind my house, i went to blasting away, & REALLY Lovin' IT.

That is until one day I was just finishing up & thot, " What the hay, let's see what this Wheel Gun REALLY ***SOUNDS*** like !!!"

WARNING; DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME, THESE STUNTS ARE PERFORMED BY TRAINED PROFESSIONALS !!!:banghead:

Being a numbskull ,,,at the time,,,:eek: I proceeded to empty all the chambers, WITHOUT HEARING PROTECTION,:shocker:.

Now I have bragging rights to the fact that a 357 Mag is REALLY REALLY LOUD :exclaim: & I SUSTAINED 50% Hearing loss in my left ear.

To say the least, I've come to the conclusion that IF I EVER Need to discharge my Firearm in my Home, Vehicle or Where ever, I'm keeping it loaded with 38 spl. HP FJM & 38 spl. Hornaday CD loads.

I don't desire to experience that type of *IDIOCY* again,,,,,EVER !!!!

p.s., This is just *our* little secret, I know you won't tell another soul,,,,, RRIIIGHT !!! peace ! :cool:

I would recommend reading Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's book, "On Combat" where he explains, in detail, how auditory exclusion works when the human body is under stress. He also cites several studies that have been conducted that support his analysis. It's very likely that in a true life-threatening situation where you had to fire your gun in self defense, that you would never even hear those shots being fired. Furthermore, it's also likely that you would suffer no hearing loss whatsoever from those shots. The human body, under stress, does some pretty amazing things.
 

MAC702

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Jul 31, 2011
Messages
6,331
Location
Nevada
My first EDC gun was a S&W 19 "K-Comp" from the Performance Center. After one particularly stupid experiment, I learned that hard way how much louder a ported firearm is over even a regular .357 Magnum revolver. Even figuring for auditory exclusion, I will never choose to carry a ported firearm again. I'd rather deal with the muzzle snap between shots.
 

cshoff

Regular Member
Joined
May 20, 2010
Messages
687
Location
, Missouri, USA
My first EDC gun was a S&W 19 "K-Comp" from the Performance Center. After one particularly stupid experiment, I learned that hard way how much louder a ported firearm is over even a regular .357 Magnum revolver. Even figuring for auditory exclusion, I will never choose to carry a ported firearm again. I'd rather deal with the muzzle snap between shots.

Besides added dB levels, I have some other issues with ported guns for defensive carry. Certainly not something I would choose for defensive use.
 
Top