Stiff wrote: Sun Aug 09, 2020 6:35 pm I have watched this video before, but somehow I didn’t quite understand it, or maybe I refused to understand. I came across it again today, and a lightbulb went off in my head.



These guys are not only professionals, they have access to a tremendous amount of data. Due to their company’s close relationship with the FBI and police departments, they can (and do) correlate handgun bullet performance in ballistic gelatin with real world incidents. This information is usually hard to find on the internet.

The fact that blows my mind is human tissue elasticity. Under 2200 fps, temporary cavity created by a bullet has little destructive effect, and virtually all handgun bullets fall under that threshold. They say that they can make bullets go really fast, but they choose not to do it because the 100-200 fps difference would just be soaked by the tissue with little ill effect. One of the guys said that a 44 Magnum has considerably more energy than a regular .40 S&W, but the terminal ballistic effect is not as different as you think.

Paraphrasing their description, the important factors are shot placement, penetration, then expansion in the distant third. The FBI decided to adopt the 9mm again because of milder recoil (compared to .40 S&W) that makes the gun easier to control, thus increasing the probability of effective shot placement. Their choice is the 147 grain G2 Speer Gold Dot, which has excellent penetration at the expense of occasional failure to expand. This makes sense to me, because I read elsewhere that lighter 9mm bullets have a higher probability of getting deflected by bone (thus missing the targeted vital organs). Heavier bullets usually plow through and break through bones.

We know that controllability doesn’t depend on the bullet alone, the gun can make a lot of difference. A gun with a powerful cartridge that you can’t shoot accurately under stress is worse than one with an adequate cartridge that you can shoot well. The Glock 42 and the S&W Shield EZ make sense now. I think there’s too much emphasis placed on the cartridge’s “stopping power” and not enough on controllability and accuracy in real world conditions. The FBI knows that roughly half the shots missed their targets, and their effectiveness at stopping a perp would increase if they can improve that statistics.

The 9mm allows their handguns to have higher capacity, which means more statistical chances to hit where it matters.

TL;DR
Pick a handgun that you shoot best under stress, as long as the cartridge has adequate penetration. Consider higher capacity to compensate for lower accuracy.

What I think the FBI tests fail to capture is the kinetic energy dump. Sure, .45 acp and 9mm may have similar permanent wound channels and even penetration, but I really think that it's myopic to consider all the real world events that have shown heavier calibers to have a lot more "stopping power" in real world applications. Don't get me wrong, I think 9mm is a great balance of just about everything, but I'm not going to pretend that there are no advantages to having a heavier round (at the cost of capacity, and felt recoil of course).

If they were measuring the foot pounds of energy on impact, along with the wound channels, and everything else, I'd say that you could then completely discount the larger calibers stopping power, but I have never seen that done in any of the FBI penetration tests.

NegativeApproach wrote: Thu Aug 13, 2020 11:53 pm
What I think the FBI tests fail to capture is the kinetic energy dump. Sure, .45 acp and 9mm may have similar permanent wound channels and even penetration, but I really think that it's myopic to consider all the real world events that have shown heavier calibers to have a lot more "stopping power" in real world applications. Don't get me wrong, I think 9mm is a great balance of just about everything, but I'm not going to pretend that there are no advantages to having a heavier round (at the cost of capacity, and felt recoil of course).

If they were measuring the foot pounds of energy on impact, along with the wound channels, and everything else, I'd say that you could then completely discount the larger calibers stopping power, but I have never seen that done in any of the FBI penetration tests.

I used to think that muzzle energy was the be-all and end-all, until I watched this video the second time and really listened. As a matter of fact the presenter asks where the energy goes.

Based on Federal’s test (confirmed by actual shooting data they got from police departments and the FBI), a 44 magnum is a lot more powerful than a .40 S&W on paper, but in gel block and actual humans the difference is not that much. It’s remarkable when you consider that .44 magnum has 2-3 times the muzzle energy. Both are still pistol cartridges incapable of creating paralyzing hydrostatic shock effect, so they both still rely on shot placement.

Why? Because human tissue is elastic. An extreme example is rubber: unless you apply force beyond its breaking point, it simply bounces back. Federal’s research indicates that the shockwave (for lack of a better word) generated by bullet energy can still be absorbed by tissue elasticity, unless it goes beyond 2200 fps. No bullet in mass production reaches above 2200 fps out of a handgun.

If kinetic energy dump mattered in a pistol round, then the super lightweight copper fragmenting rounds would see a lot wider use. Human skin is so elastic it's worth 4 inches of ballistic gel on its own. So you get rapid energy transfer for rounds that have crazy high KE values, but without the penetration the damage is limited to the first few inches of tissue. Where they do see use is in varminting.

Perhaps worth noting that the speed of sound in water is around 4600 fps at body temperature. Suggests you need to be going around half that to start getting hydrostatic shock effects. Seems reasonable.

VodoundaVinci wrote: Thu Aug 13, 2020 5:15 pm I got the opportunity to talk to a bunch of my FIL's Law Enforcement Buddies from the Old Days...guys who had actually been shot and had shot other people some back in the 20's and 30's and I learned a lot about defensive shooting with a hand gun. From guys who had actually been there and done that.

...
VooDoo

Big fan of experience over theory. 7.65mm and .32 ACP seemed to be totally adequate for antipersonnel use historically. There must've been reasons. Control is huge. The stories I've read from people who survived .22 shots tend to run similar. Getting shot is traumatic. Who knew?

But adrenaline, man. Adrenaline does weird stuff.

Stiff wrote: Fri Aug 14, 2020 2:02 am

NegativeApproach wrote: Thu Aug 13, 2020 11:53 pm
What I think the FBI tests fail to capture is the kinetic energy dump. Sure, .45 acp and 9mm may have similar permanent wound channels and even penetration, but I really think that it's myopic to consider all the real world events that have shown heavier calibers to have a lot more "stopping power" in real world applications. Don't get me wrong, I think 9mm is a great balance of just about everything, but I'm not going to pretend that there are no advantages to having a heavier round (at the cost of capacity, and felt recoil of course).

If they were measuring the foot pounds of energy on impact, along with the wound channels, and everything else, I'd say that you could then completely discount the larger calibers stopping power, but I have never seen that done in any of the FBI penetration tests.

I used to think that muzzle energy was the be-all and end-all, until I watched this video the second time and really listened. As a matter of fact the presenter asks where the energy goes.

Based on Federal’s test (confirmed by actual shooting data they got from police departments and the FBI), a 44 magnum is a lot more powerful than a .40 S&W on paper, but in gel block and actual humans the difference is not that much. It’s remarkable when you consider that .44 magnum has 2-3 times the muzzle energy. Both are still pistol cartridges incapable of creating paralyzing hydrostatic shock effect, so they both still rely on shot placement.

Why? Because human tissue is elastic. An extreme example is rubber: unless you apply force beyond its breaking point, it simply bounces back. Federal’s research indicates that the shockwave (for lack of a better word) generated by bullet energy can still be absorbed by tissue elasticity, unless it goes beyond 2200 fps. No bullet in mass production reaches above 2200 fps out of a handgun.

wings wrote: Fri Aug 14, 2020 5:36 am If kinetic energy dump mattered in a pistol round, then the super lightweight copper fragmenting rounds would see a lot wider use. Human skin is so elastic it's worth 4 inches of ballistic gel on its own. So you get rapid energy transfer for rounds that have crazy high KE values, but without the penetration the damage is limited to the first few inches of tissue. Where they do see use is in varminting.

Perhaps worth noting that the speed of sound in water is around 4600 fps at body temperature. Suggests you need to be going around half that to start getting hydrostatic shock effects. Seems reasonable.

That's likely all true, but I think that it would still be helpful to see a study that included the effects of it. Leaving it out of the testing completely feels incomplete.

2200-2300 fps is not something most pistol rounds can reach, so that seems like a reasonable argument. FN 5.7 can though. I'd be curious to see that in these tests. I dont' think I ever saw it on lucky gunners site.

The kinetic energy dump in human flesh from a handgun round is literally nothing. It has no effect other than in the mind that somehow a bigger, more powerful bullet will do more damage proportionately.

But it doesn't work that way. The only two factors in a handgun wound that are relevant to de animating a person is placement to a critical area and the penetration to get there. Bullet expansion and all that looks heinous with all those little razor blades sticking out and it's touted to do more damage. Big fat boxcar bullets are touted as having more kinetic energy to deliver (and they do) but that's not what ends a gunfight/de animates the perp.

Even a shot to the heart with a .45 will not/has not stopped a person. A shot to the spine or head is a one shot stop.

I read one very thorough report where the author started out from the fist word saying he wanted cold hard number collected from a number of shooting with all common calibers and compiled it expertly into categories like how many rounds it took till incapacitation and the percentage of one shot stops. And that report, in raw numbers, showed .32 acp as being as good at one shot stops as a .45. So he immediately threw that data out in his conclusions because "everyone knows that's just not possible"....

Most reports I have seen except the very newest ones are biased to prove that some handgun caliber have a marked advantage because of the bullet shape/diameter, speed, weight, etc. But in Handgun calibers the only things that matter (and the FBI and others are getting this finally) is placing the round to a critical area and getting sufficient penetration to destroy that critical component. Most police and SD rounds are designed to limit penetration and most LE Agencies issue and demand the use of bullets that are not likely to penetrate the perp and hit bystanders. The reason we see this huge proliferation and advances in hollow point bullet design is to limit liability not because they work better in a gun fight.

The problem is that bullets that are good at stopping fights are the same ones that are scary because of over penetration and ricochet risks. We have not been able to get both but might if we get a hyper velocity bullet where we can exploit the hydro static shock concept.

VooDoo

wings wrote: Fri Aug 14, 2020 5:49 am

VodoundaVinci wrote: Thu Aug 13, 2020 5:15 pm I got the opportunity to talk to a bunch of my FIL's Law Enforcement Buddies from the Old Days...guys who had actually been shot and had shot other people some back in the 20's and 30's and I learned a lot about defensive shooting with a hand gun. From guys who had actually been there and done that.

...
VooDoo

Big fan of experience over theory. 7.65mm and .32 ACP seemed to be totally adequate for antipersonnel use historically. There must've been reasons. Control is huge. The stories I've read from people who survived .22 shots tend to run similar. Getting shot is traumatic. Who knew?

But adrenaline, man. Adrenaline does weird stuff.

I’m not rushing to buy any .32 though. While any pistol round with perfect placement can do the job, there is a sweet spot below which the performance dips significantly.

There must be a good reason why militaries around the world all moved to 9mm or the like. The famous Luger pistol was originally chambered in 7.65mm (about .31), until the German military in the 1900’s wanted a larger caliber, resulting in the legendary 9mm parabellum that we still use today. The soviets were using 7.62 Tokarev, but they eventually replaced it with 9x18mm Makarov. Russians today use a cartridge that’s dimensionally identical to 9mm para, just loaded very hot with AP bullet. From the other side, we get progressively smaller from .45 to .40 and now 9mm.

While Ellifritz’s data are not perfect, they do show higher percentage of people not being stopped at all by cartridges smaller than .380.

The biggest problem with .32 today is availability of pistols chambered in it. Everybody and their brother make pistols in 9mm, but very few still make .32 models. It doesn’t help that existing .32 guns aren’t necessarily smaller and lighter than modern 9mm and .380 pistols, nor does it have considerably higher capacity. Since shooting performance also depends on the gun, lack of options is not good.

Stiff wrote: Fri Aug 14, 2020 11:41 am

wings wrote: Fri Aug 14, 2020 5:49 am

VodoundaVinci wrote: Thu Aug 13, 2020 5:15 pm I got the opportunity to talk to a bunch of my FIL's Law Enforcement Buddies from the Old Days...guys who had actually been shot and had shot other people some back in the 20's and 30's and I learned a lot about defensive shooting with a hand gun. From guys who had actually been there and done that.

...
VooDoo

Big fan of experience over theory. 7.65mm and .32 ACP seemed to be totally adequate for antipersonnel use historically. There must've been reasons. Control is huge. The stories I've read from people who survived .22 shots tend to run similar. Getting shot is traumatic. Who knew?

But adrenaline, man. Adrenaline does weird stuff.

I’m not rushing to buy any .32 though. While any pistol round with perfect placement can do the job, there is a sweet spot below which the performance dips significantly.

There must be a good reason why militaries around the world all moved to 9mm or the like. The famous Luger pistol was originally chambered in 7.65mm (about .31), until the German military in the 1900’s wanted a larger caliber, resulting in the legendary 9mm parabellum that we still use today. The soviets were using 7.62 Tokarev, but they eventually replaced it with 9x18mm Makarov. Russians today use a cartridge that’s dimensionally identical to 9mm para, just loaded very hot with AP bullet. From the other side, we get progressively smaller from .45 to .40 and now 9mm.

While Ellifritz’s data are not perfect, they do show higher percentage of people not being stopped at all by cartridges smaller than .380.

The biggest problem with .32 today is availability of pistols chambered in it. Everybody and their brother make pistols in 9mm, but very few still make .32 models. It doesn’t help that existing .32 guns aren’t necessarily smaller and lighter than modern 9mm and .380 pistols, nor does it have considerably higher capacity. Since shooting performance also depends on the gun, lack of options is not good.

Fortunately I have more 32acp pistols to choose from than 9mm Parabellum, 9mm Kurz and 9mm Mak combined. No lack of options (or options I'd even want) here.

Back in 1968 importation of small 22LR, 25acp and 32acp pistols was not banned because they were hard to conceal, unreliable, ineffective and unreasonably priced.

I'm fine with 9mm and .380 for portablility but prefer 5.56 zinging along if given the choice.

Rather than bullets, let's consider knives. A big knife and a small knife both make things leak. The big knife might make more leaking, but it really depends on what it impacts--holes in the abdomen, arms, legs aren't really show stoppers. Neither a small knife or a big knife will make things leak to death immediately unless something critical is severed. Both the small knife and the big knife are capable of severing something critical, but the wielder has to do their part. So again, knife placement.

As of now there’s still no cartridge fired out of a pistol that can reach the magical 2200 fps velocity.

The FN 5.7mm gets close to 2800 fps, but out of a 10.5” barrel. From a 5” pistol barrel they say it’s closer to 1700 fps.

The .22 TCM comes very close at about 2100 fps from a 5” barrel.

If I have the means someday, I’d be interested in putting a 40 grain .22 bullet in a necked down 10mm case. That could just push it over the limit. Use a Glock 20 as the base, if it works then Glock 29 is available as a compact option.

featureless wrote: Fri Aug 14, 2020 12:09 pm I'm fine with 9mm and .380 for portablility but prefer 5.56 zinging along if given the choice.

Rather than bullets, let's consider knives. A big knife and a small knife both make things leak. The big knife might make more leaking, but it really depends on what it impacts--holes in the abdomen, arms, legs aren't really show stoppers. Neither a small knife or a big knife will make things leak to death immediately unless something critical is severed. Both the small knife and the big knife are capable of severing something critical, but the wielder has to do their part. So again, knife placement.

Right. A pistol is not a rifle, and a knife is not a sword.

With a katana one swing can potentially lop off the head or an arm, ending the fight immediately. With a knife you gotta stab something important, repeatedly.

Stiff wrote: Fri Aug 14, 2020 12:37 pm

featureless wrote: Fri Aug 14, 2020 12:09 pm I'm fine with 9mm and .380 for portablility but prefer 5.56 zinging along if given the choice.

Rather than bullets, let's consider knives. A big knife and a small knife both make things leak. The big knife might make more leaking, but it really depends on what it impacts--holes in the abdomen, arms, legs aren't really show stoppers. Neither a small knife or a big knife will make things leak to death immediately unless something critical is severed. Both the small knife and the big knife are capable of severing something critical, but the wielder has to do their part. So again, knife placement.

Right. A pistol is not a rifle, and a knife is not a sword.

With a katana one swing can potentially lop off the head or an arm, ending the fight immediately. With a knife you gotta stab something important, repeatedly.

Oh don't be such a stiff, Stiff. I was just having fun.

Yeah.... taught Tantojutsu (Japanese knife arts) and Kenjutsu for over 20 years. At 6 'I can end just about any confrontation *WAY* faster with good knife and there will be no stabbing involved. Hand guns suck at stopping fights inside arms length which is where an awful lot of guns fights start - Bad Breath Distance.

The old joke about not bringing a knife to a gunfight is bullshit. You can't pull the trigger with all yer muscles and tendons slashed and it's a lot easier and faster than making a little .356" dealie go where you want it with precision.

Sorry for the off topic. Just saying that a good knife is way better than a good pistol inside of 6' if you can close with your opponent. If I shoot someone they have statistically a 70% chance to survive. If I get at a person with a knife and I'm afraid for my Life? No chance unless you can get them to surgery in 5 seconds.

VooDoo

VodoundaVinci wrote: Fri Aug 14, 2020 1:03 pm Yeah.... taught Tantojutsu (Japanese knife arts) and Kenjutsu for over 20 years. At 6 'I can end just about any confrontation *WAY* faster with good knife and there will be no stabbing involved. Hand guns suck at stopping fights inside arms length which is where an awful lot of guns fights start - Bad Breath Distance.

The old joke about not bringing a knife to a gunfight is bullshit. You can't pull the trigger with all yer muscles and tendons slashed and it's a lot easier and faster than making a little .356" dealie go where you want it with precision.

Sorry for the off topic. Just saying that a good knife is way better than a good pistol inside of 6' if you can close with your opponent. If I shoot someone they have statistically a 70% chance to survive. If I get at a person with a knife and I'm afraid for my Life? No chance unless you can get them to surgery in 5 seconds.

VooDoo

At bad breath distance I’ll take a kukri over a pistol.

Now that's fun, Voodoo. And I agree. Not that I've had anywhere near that much knife training--more centered on disarming techniques.

It's worth the training - both using a blade, and counter-blade techniques. I'd far rather a blade than a gun in close quarters, and even then I'm picky about which one I'm going for first. In a hall or doorway, you really don't want something you have to swing. I won't even consider a katana for home defense, although I've given the wakizashi some thought. But the big vs. little knife comparison is very, very valid.

Consider the stiletto. Penetration and placement.

Lucky Gunner did do ballistics gel testing on lightweight copper fragmenting rounds (Liberty Defense 78 grain .45ACP comes to mind). Check out the videos. https://www.luckygunner.com/45-acp-78-c ... ds#geltest
None give you more than 11" or so in gel, and that's the little flat base of the bullet after the jacket shears off into shrapnel within the first 4". Remember, that's skin equivalent. Absolute monsters for the first few inches, probably catastrophic tissue damage, but you won't hit CNS. If you're lucky, you might hit an artery - if you aim for an armpit or the throat.

Now BrassFetcher did test out 5.7mm. At 2300 fps out of a 4.5" barrel, it looks like about 8" penetration in 20% gelatin - denser stuff than what LG tests in, but you can calibrate the two. Looks about the same for 10% based on their data. Tumbling is, to use the technical term, a bitch. It penetrates much better when it doesn't.
http://www.brassfetcher.com/Handguns/5. ... x28mm.html

Whether or not it's a useful antipersonnel round remains controversial, but at that velocity, it's loud AF. It's so tiny that you're really counting on two things to do the job for you, and it's the same things we've been talking about this whole thread. Can't remember anymore.

Shoot all the way thru the perp with a bullet that can penetrate whatever it hits. We might be sorry tomorrow if it penetrates and exits to wound/kill a bystander but we'll be alive. I'm not a cop...I'm probably going to jail following a self defense shooting anyway so as long as the perp is de animated I'll live with collateral damage.

If I shoot I want to live and have already decided that it's Life or Death before I pull the Smoke Wagon. If it comes to that I'll still feel lucky if I survive. No winners in a gun fight. That has been impressed upon me as well by folks who have been in them. Once the gun comes out there are 3 possibilities - you drop the perp and live to love another day. You fail and he kills you and you don't get no lovin' ever again. Or ya'll kill each other and nobody gets no lovin' ever again.

I get 1 chance out of 3 to walk away and get lovin' one more day. Not good odds - Choose wisely. Choose the most powerful caliber you can get fast multiple and accurate hits with and train, train, train with it. If that's a .45 or .40 then rock on...most likely it's a 9mm or .380.

I have a friend who was off duty at 3am when a guy walked into a Quick Shop and pulled a pistol a to rob the place. Dude had a .357 snubbie revolver as his off duty gun and engaged. He fired one shot which hit the perp but the perp then hit him multiple times with a .380 and he lost consciousness...recovered (the perp died in the parking lot 3 minutes later) after weeks in the hospital with permanent impairment due to organ damage.

His impressions were of hitting the perp center mass with a 158 gr. .357 hollow point and while he was trying to get the gun back on target for a repeat the Bad Guy drilled him repeatedly with a pip squeek caliber pistol like a machine gun and would have killed him had it not been for quick response by paramedics. To this day he believes that if he'd have been carrying a .380 or 9mm off duty piece he'd have dropped that BG with multiple follow ups instead of fighting to get the big ass powerhouse back on target.

Shoot what works for you and you can get fast precision follow ups with and this is rarely a lightweight .45/.40 or pocket .357. This is why the FBI has dropped back to 9mm. It's controllable and accurate in the hands of most agents...much more than .40. And the terminal ballistics are just as good with multiple, accurate hit probability increased. My Wife is a good shot but with full house .38 out of a plastic Ruger revolver she gets one shot and then it takes a while to follow. With a .380 Sig Sauer P238, Browning 1911 .380, or a Colt 1903 in .32 ACP she delivers absolutely accurate and devastating follow ups...like 5 shots in 2 seconds. If she is attacked or needs or defend herself she'll be far ahead with 5 .380 to the breadbasket than one .38 Special +P to the same spot.

My opinions. Little people do *WAY* better with smaller caliber, low recoil pistols and their confidence is over the top as opposed to being sterilized by a one shot .45 out of a Springer .45 XDM. Confidence is everything when is come to getting shot.

VooDoo

I think part of the reason why a more controllable pistol cartridge is important for the FBI is an increasing number of female agents. On average they have smaller stature and less upper body strength compared to male agents. If 9mm makes them shoot better, it would actually increase their chance at surviving a gunfight.

Against a timer I can put 5X rounds of .32 on target faster than I can put 2X rounds of 9mm+P on target - that would mean that the 9mm should yield at least 2X as much "stopping power" or lethality/one shot stops as the 32 acp to "Git 'er Dun" but it simply does not work out on the math. Statistically I'm better off with 5X of .32 ACP as opposed to 2X of hot 9mm.

Handgun rounds simply *SuCk!* at stopping perps and de animating an aggressor. More rounds placed faster and more precisely Trumps (sorry) bigger. bad ass high tech rounds from a Monster caliber. I carry 9mm but I'm not in the least intimidated to carry an 8+1 Colt Pocket Hammerless in .32 ACP. I'd like a higher capacity but if I can't get it done in 9 rounds?

Statistically I'm dead. I'm not trying to get folks to trade .45 ACP for .32 ACP so much as I'm wanting folks to train against a timer and find out that the .45 ACP Pocket Hammer they love will get them killed where the smaller pistol with higher capacity and greater precision of placement/lower recoil is less Manly but way more likely to keep US alive. That's just the way it is. Bigger ain't better in SD handguns - precision placement of well penetrating rounds with a high probability of multiple follow ups is what will keep us alive IMO. Shoot the aggressor to the ground with multiple, precision placed rounds to a critical zone. Bigger caliber/more "power" is mental masturbation.

VooDoo

VodoundaVinci wrote: Fri Aug 14, 2020 8:52 pm Handgun rounds simply *SuCk!* at stopping perps and de animating an aggressor. More rounds placed faster and more precisely Trumps (sorry) bigger. bad ass high tech rounds from a Monster caliber. I carry 9mm but I'm not in the least intimidated to carry an 8+1 Colt Pocket Hammerless in .32 ACP. I'd like a higher capacity but if I can't get it done in 9 rounds?
VooDoo

So get a Savage 1907; "Ten rounds quick" (actually it was ten + one).
It was also the first practical dual stack high capacity pistol.

sig230 wrote: Fri Aug 14, 2020 9:24 pm

VodoundaVinci wrote: Fri Aug 14, 2020 8:52 pm Handgun rounds simply *SuCk!* at stopping perps and de animating an aggressor. More rounds placed faster and more precisely Trumps (sorry) bigger. bad ass high tech rounds from a Monster caliber. I carry 9mm but I'm not in the least intimidated to carry an 8+1 Colt Pocket Hammerless in .32 ACP. I'd like a higher capacity but if I can't get it done in 9 rounds?
VooDoo

So get a Savage 1907; "Ten rounds quick" (actually it was ten + one).

Savage-02c.jpg

Burglar.gif

It was also the first practical dual stack high capacity pistol.

That gun always reminds me of the “Road to Perdition”, used by the assassin played by Jude Law. Excellent movie.

The 5.7mm out of FN five seven pistol gets close to 2100 fps, but the 27 grain bullet is so light that it only penetrates to 9” in clear ballistic gel (not FBI spec). The FBI spec gel is less sensitive toward high velocity rounds, which means the penetration would be even less in it.

Besides, FN only sells this 27gr SS198LF rounds to police and military because they’re considered armor piercing. Occasionally it’s available to civilians, but not always.

It goes without saying that the 40gr rounds are considerably slower, thus farther than the desired 2200 fps but still with limited penetration.

WELL! Hoarder? Been called that. I currently have 1,500 rounds of .308, 3,000+ rounds of .223 with a couple hundred rounds of brass ready to load. ALL are reloads. Some are dedicated, that is will chamber in only one rifle.

Additionally, there are hundreds of other rounds / calibers loaded: .30-06, Swiss, Argentine 8mm, 32-40, .30-30, .30 Car. .45-70 & 90, and a great many rounds of handgun ammo from .22 RF to .500 S&W Mag.
of course this requires a LOT of reloading components. I buy all that I need/can whenever available. First come = first served. If the other guy wanted it, he should have did what I did, get there first. I have missed out many more times than being first and NEVER got upset at the person(s) that beat me out. Such is life.
And yes, I do shoot a LOT. I am 70 years old and should have sufficient supplies for the remaining years.
Watch for the auction, it will be a good one. 150 + guns too.

Zombie thread and I guess time for these again.
https://sofrep.com/gear/the-best-handgu ... rld-study/

https://www.buckeyefirearms.org/alterna ... ping-power

Good thread.

If found this from personally experience competing in a fair amount of USPSA matches: small pistols while better than nothing, are very difficult to control and fire accurately & rapidly in any sort of stress. We ran a few back up gun matches and my “back up gun” at the time (kel-Tec .380) was far inferior to the gun I competed with in every respect - a Glock 21. In regards to rapid accurate fire while moving dynamically and engaging moving and or multiple targets. Larger duty sized or compact (not subcompact) handguns are large enough to manipulate and fight. A typical, polymer framed double stack, 9mm (or any other common defensive caliber) is easier to deploy and employ. I can shoot one way faster and more accurately than an air weight, JFrame.

That being said - I oftentimes carry a JFrame. I consider it a belly gun at best, and I limit my rapid fire defensive training to about 3-5 yards. If I’m punching paper slow, single fire than nothing beats a good SA revolver trigger pull. I can also shoot a full size 1911 fairly rapidly and accurately- again Becuase it’s a 45 oz handgun with a good trigger and .45 ACP is fairly mild in that platform.

Anecdotally, I’ve noticed zero difference on raccoons between the handgun calibers in: .45 colt, .45 ACP .38 Spec, .357 mag unless you get a direct hit on a CNS. The CNS is hard to hit on a tiny scurrying critter. About two weeks ago, I shot a raccoon twice with a stompy .45 colt “Taffin load” out of a carbine & I had to wait for it to bleed out. After my experiences shooting & hunting animals I’m am zero convinced that anything less than a direct hit to CNS with almost any pistol will stop an assailant immediately- one needs to get a “psychological stop” or a “physical stop.”

I would say is be aware of your limitations of the system you choose to carry on a given day.


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