Another look at stopping power

Regarding the over-penetration concern:

The FBI would disagree:

"The fear of over-penetration is a misconception, which was created back when law enforcement was trying to overcome misinformed public resistance to the use of hollowpoint ammunition. In the process, we began to believe it ourselves. First, our lawyers are unaware of any sucessful legal action resulting from the injury of a bystander due to a round over-penetrating the subject. We are aware of numerous incidents of Agents/officers being killed because their round did not penetrate enough (Grogan and Dove, for example). Further, if you examine shooting statistics you will see that officers hit the subject somewhere around 20-30% of the time. Thus 70-80% of shots fired never hit their intended target, and nobody ever worries about them - only the ones that might “over-penetrate” the bad guy. Third, as our testing shows, even the most frangible bullets designed specifically for shallow penetration will plug up when striking wood or wallboard and then penetrate like full metal jacket ammunition. We are aware of successful legal actions where an innocent party has been struck by a shot passing through a wall, but as we have proven, ALL of them will do that."

- http://www.firearmstactical.com/pdf/fbi_10mm_notes.pdf

This post was shamelessly stolen reposted from diesel556:
http://forum.opencarry.org/forums/s...appy-Weather-in-Forcast&p=1402547#post1402547

true. over penetration may not be "LETHAL" or a worry on paper. however i ask the FBI to ask anyone who has had a through and through gunshot wound to agree with them that it does not happen. now with that said. im not saying over penetration as a worry for side casualty. im talking about the ineffectiveness of a round that is indeed a through and through.

think of this. you take a 1,200fps pellit rifle and fire it at drywall. is it going to go straight through? yes. is it going to make a very tiny hole? yes. the reason for this is all of the kinnetic energy behind that pellet continues on with the pellet after it passes through the wall.

now take a drill, drill a hole in the wall and place a M-80 firecracker in the hole and light the fuse. this is the same physical reaction as a round stopping inside the wound cavity. all of the kennetic force behind the round which is propelling it stops abruptly and has a force ripple effect. like dropping a rock into the middle of a lake. those ripples damage tissue, muscle, can even fracture and break bone.

now it is a scientific fact that any object that meets another object and comes to a complete stop transfers all of the energy of both objects to the point of impact and outwards from it. . and things that crumple up transfer more energy than things that dont. hence why a tennis ball thrown at 100mph transfers more energy than a baseball thrown at the same speed. because it folds and forces the engergy outwards.

now any round that is small and hot can and does have a tendency to over penetrate, because it has a small surface area and is traveling at above sub sonic speeds. therefore when it strikes a target you get 3X less energy transfer than you would with a round with a larger surface area , balanced velocity and a surface that tends to flatten out giving yet a larger surface area.


now on the issue of the FBI reports *a little humor to end*..........why would they ever want to tell us that bigger guns work better? the bigger guns people carry. the more scared the FBI is of them. so what is to say they arnt just hearding the "sheeple" to buy less powerful/ less lethal weapons for their own personal gain

One more thought for you to consider. Over-penetration does not lessen lethality. Consider a (dud) 155mm howitzer shell that completely penetrates versus a BB that that stops in the flesh. Obviously the considerable hole left by the arty shell would be a much larger concern.

It may be that the portion (10%, 53%, 99% ,?) of the more powerful projectile used to pass through flesh exceeds the entirety of the available energy of the round that is stopped inside.

Also, disrupting a certain volume of flesh a certain degree requires X amount of energy. If the round actually breaks the skin on the other side of the body it can't go back and undo damage even though its flying off to continue following the laws of physics.

A .50 BMG is an effective man-stopper even though over-penetration is the norm.

I'd say that if your truly intent on stopping someone a long gun is the only way to go. Since it is not practical to carry around a long gun in daily life the hand gun will have to suffice.
Regardless of the caliber the handgun should be viewed merely as a means to buy you the much needed time to escape the unfortunate violent situation you have managed to find yourself in.

Jim675 said:

One more thought for you to consider. Over-penetration does not lessen lethality. Consider a (dud) 155mm howitzer shell that completely penetrates versus a BB that that stops in the flesh. Obviously the considerable hole left by the arty shell would be a much larger concern.

It may be that the portion (10%, 53%, 99% ,?) of the more powerful projectile used to pass through flesh exceeds the entirety of the available energy of the round that is stopped inside.

Also, disrupting a certain volume of flesh a certain degree requires X amount of energy. If the round actually breaks the skin on the other side of the body it can't go back and undo damage even though its flying off to continue following the laws of physics.

A .50 BMG is an effective man-stopper even though over-penetration is the norm.

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very true. but then your taking into account the fact that the .50 BMG or howitzer shell are very heavy and large rounds. weighing well over 400g and in the case of the howitzer..........haha 85lbs. now if you take a 350ft tall man. who weighs 3 tons.......and fire the .50 BMG at his face it will have the same effect as the .25acp would on a brick wall .. so overpenitrating is GREAT with a very large and extremely powerful projectile. but then again a caliber of that size would be a 'man stopper" .

however when comparing pistol ammunition. scientifically speaking. larger and more powerful IS going to outweigh smaller and faster any day of the week.

now if your talking penetrating a windshild or car door and striking a BG with effectiveness, small and fast is better for the penetrating power it holds lol

Blah, blah, blah, stopping power, kinetic energy, fps, x19j4, PDQ, Reser's Peanut Butter Cups. All that amounts to JACK SQUAT when your rounds are flying everywhere because you can't put one of them on target.

Ironbar said:

Blah, blah, blah, stopping power, kinetic energy, fps, x19j4, PDQ, Reser's Peanut Butter Cups. All that amounts to JACK SQUAT when your rounds are flying everywhere because you can't put one of them on target.

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I was going to mention something likw this, only more eloquently. Since9, you mentioned that based soley on your chart you would buy a 10mm semi-auto for your next purchase. I sorely hope you do your research on that particular round before finalizing that. If I recal correctly the .40s&w was made to replace the 10mm because the 10 was originally found to have much more kick than needed. (Edit: the term Hand Cannon comes to mind... ) The .40 will have nearly the same trajectory as the 10 but can have less kick than a .45 but more "stopping power"than a 45. Meaning that you can shoot it faster and more accurately than a 10mm.

Also... There really aren't alot of options for 10mm out there... After the .40 caught on manufacture kinda petered out.


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Beretta9mm (army) said:

gunslinger,

Yes, but what is the Peneratration of a stardard JHP in 9MM? For the most part unless you shoot a fat person your allready likely to overpenetrate. So why add +P?

What do you guys think of the exploding ammo that turns into a powder when it hits somthing hard and or wet? It will not go thru someone and about a foot after hitting a wall (even just a sheet of drywall) it turns into a powder. i beleve it is called elertro shock. A friend was telling me about it. He said that it does such a wide spred area of damage that it causes the nervous system to shut down, not sure how true that is but it sounds good.

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All 9x19 standard velocity rounds from a 4" barrel with penetrate the fbi standard 12". The higher velocity gives better expansion, and that's why I prefer it. Better expansion at a slight loss of penetration is a good tradeoff and far lessens the overpenetration factor. JHPs will never penetrate as much as fmjs. The fmjs gave rise to the overpenetration potential in 9mm, not the hollow points.
DRT has gotten a good reputation for stopping power, from what I've read. It isn't exploding ammo, just a compressed steel mass.

"The .40 will have nearly the same trajectory as the 10 but can have less kick than a .45 but more "stopping power"than a 45."

Dead wrong. Come try my 845, and bring your .40. You'll notice a significantly more "snappy" kick to the .40 , hands-down. This constant interweb mythology people keep dishing out about the .45 having some kind of massive recoil compared to other rounds is a huge dis-service to folks. Especially when they end up settling for inferior rounds for SD/combat use without having actually tried it 1st.
Just because it's a bigger, heavier round, doesnt mean it kicks as hard,much less any harder, than 9mm/.40, etc. The .45 is a lower-pressure round than either of those 2, and as a result, kicks a lot less than either of those 2.
10mm has a little more kick than the .45, but not at all punishing, IMO.
Folks who are that recoil-sensitive (small people, little petite women, and maybe the elderly perhaps,) should probably stick to small calibers, if that's what they can handle. But normal, reasonably healthy male adults shouldnt have any real issue with .45/10mm, etc..

On paper. And in gelatin. Neither of which contain fatty tissues, muscles, bones, cartilage, tendons, all wrapped in clothing.
By all means make use of 9mm of the load of your choice, in an actual shooting encounter. If, you somehow survive said encounter, come back and let us know how well that worked out for you lol...

j4l said:

On paper. And in gelatin. Neither of which contain fatty tissues, muscles, bones, cartilage, tendons, all wrapped in clothing.
By all means make use of 9mm of the load of your choice, in an actual shooting encounter. If, you somehow survive said encounter, come back and let us know how well that worked out for you lol...

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+1. however i do have to say in 9mm's defense. it is a good round. and it has had its fair share of death on its.......jacket?. however look at 90% of LEO's. most departments that carried 9mm *usually in beretta 92f form" have upgraded to glock. in .40, not because its cheaper either

i would not turn down a 9mm any day of the week if it was all there was. because it DOES work. however my 10mm, my .45, my .357 sig and my .500 S&W...........work better haha

Ya' know, my scroll-wheel finger would get less wore out if certain y'alls would trim some of the longer quotes. I'll give ya a fer-instance in jes a sec.

since9 said:

SNIP Hi, Citizen. It's just physics...

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Oh, I see. Thanks!


(Y'all see how I put the word SNIP in there to indicate I'd cut out text. And, see those three little periods at the end of what I didn't cut. Three in a row like that is called an ellipsis. It means the reader is supposed to supply the rest of the missing info himself. In this case the rest of the post.

Trim the quoted material down a bit, an' y'all won't wear out my scroll-wheel, nor my trigger finger. )

Gunslinger said:

SNIP .44 mags are not good for PD. They will overpenetrate too easily if they don't hit bone.

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Over-penetrate? And, him a lawyer. My, my.

Perforate. Already means make a hole through. Didn't need no gun-zine writers to invent a new word by combining two others. Or, maybe it was an FBI report writer. Lets blame it on the FBI.

j4l said:

"The .40 will have nearly the same trajectory as the 10 but can have less kick than a .45 but more "stopping power"than a 45."

Dead wrong. Come try my 845, and bring your .40. You'll notice a significantly more "snappy" kick to the .40 , hands-down. This constant interweb mythology people keep dishing out about the .45 having some kind of massive recoil compared to other rounds is a huge dis-service to folks. Especially when they end up settling for inferior rounds for SD/combat use without having actually tried it 1st.
Just because it's a bigger, heavier round, doesnt mean it kicks as hard,much less any harder, than 9mm/.40, etc. The .45 is a lower-pressure round than either of those 2, and as a result, kicks a lot less than either of those 2.
10mm has a little more kick than the .45, but not at all punishing, IMO.
Folks who are that recoil-sensitive (small people, little petite women, and maybe the elderly perhaps,) should probably stick to small calibers, if that's what they can handle. But normal, reasonably healthy male adults shouldnt have any real issue with .45/10mm, etc..

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This.

My Ruger p95 (9mm) has more of a kick to it than my FIL's .45 1911. People have to take notice of the gun when comparing recoil of bullets, for a solid metal 1911 is going to be better, recoil wise, than a polymer gun. At least, that is how it works in my experience.

Sometimes- I used to think so before getting my 845- Stainless slide/Poly frame. A lot also depends on the recoil springs and such, and some folks are of a mind that since the Polymer has some degree or other of "flex" to it, that this helps absorb recoil somewhat.
I think there's some combo of both. I never felt .45 kicked much at all to begin with, but the 845 is so smooth that half the time I cant even tell it fired,except for the noise. It has a smooth, steady push back INTO the hand, vs. the muzzle-flip of some arms. My double-taps almost always go into little figure-8 shapes- 2 over-lapping holes.

Last time out, just for giggles, I rapid-fired the entire mag (12 rounds+1 in chamber) as fast as I could- managed to put all 13 rounds (230 grain TMJ)into a group I could cover with my palm @ 30 feet. That's plenty effective for my needs-not that I anticpate ever really needing to send more than a pair of TMJ's downrange at anyone..
(and #2 is just sort of a "..and one to grow on, badguy" thing :monkey)

Verd said:

This.

My Ruger p95 (9mm) has more of a kick to it than my FIL's .45 1911. People have to take notice of the gun when comparing recoil of bullets, for a solid metal 1911 is going to be better, recoil wise, than a polymer gun. At least, that is how it works in my experience.

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+1 i had a beretta 96D full steel .40 cal that was less recoil than my old Glock 19. and then i bought a Kahr Cw40 in. 40 smith and it had more recoil than my 10mm glock 20. haha weight of the weapon has a serious effect on recoil. my current weapon my glock 32 in .357 sig has 3x more recoil than my old kimber in .45acp

Sadly, here in Tucson, we've seen the effects of the supposedly "puny" 9mm. Six people lost their lives at the beginning of this year less than 10 minutes from my home because this feeble caliber was used by a psychopathic maniac. I know of another individual who believed the bad rap against the 9mm- he was a caliber snob. He is no longer with us either because in an effort to scare his girlfriend into staying with him, he "shot to wound" himself with this ineffective round. He bled to death very quickly in spite of purposefully trying to avoid any vital organs. But if I were to listen to all the talk on gun forums, I would have to believe that something else must have been the real cause of death- it certainly wasn't anything his ".45 set to stun".

Caliber wars are just plain dumb. Choose a good service caliber 9mm, .357, .40, 10mm, .45 and learn to put the rounds where they will do the most damage and make sure you have your sidearm with you at all times. Everything else is just a ******* contest.

Citizen said:

Over-penetrate? And, him a lawyer. My, my.

Perforate. Already means make a hole through. Didn't need no gun-zine writers to invent a new word by combining two others. Or, maybe it was an FBI report writer. Lets blame it on the FBI.

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I would never blame the fbi for anything...afterall, look how they defended us against evil at Ruby Ridge and Waco. Then there is their role model, hanssen...

So if I'm reading this right, a .40 S&W @ 155 grain "has more stopping power" than any of the .45 ACP rounds? That goes against most of what I've read and thought. Someone care to weigh in on that?

--
Peace. ~G