Stopping power or capacity?

[BUSHMASTER1]

This may or may not be relevant, but, here in Miss. certain parts of the state have a problem with armadillos. I spent many an afternoon shooting these pests. I have shot them with everything from a .22 to a 12 ga..If you've never shot an armadillo before, one thing you can count on, he's gonna haul butt, period. I've put a quarter sized hole through them with .40's and .44 mags, they're gonna run. I was slow to buy a .45 ACP because the ballistics on paper suck. 1300 fps for a .40 135gr., or 800 with the .45, no question right? I have only shot 8 armi's with my .45's and all have fell over and just quivered, Dad is equally amazed as he had the same results. Not bullet placement as we shoot center of body regardless of angle, ball or hollowpoints. .45 for me, thanks.

[Rogue Ram]

This is the never ending quest for what SHOULD work. People get shot with guns in funny places and die instantly. Others get shot to hell and walk into the ER wanting to get stitched up.

My office partner was shot in the arm 5 years ago with a .45 ACP 230gr? Hydrashok that penetrated a wall first. Blew his arm all to hell, severed the artery, broke the bone, so on and so forth.  The guy then went out on a balcony and shot a city officer at a great distance as he got out of his car, nailed him in the leg and dropped him like a rock. One shot each cop, both out of the fight.

My former Sergeant, 1975, large Virginia police agency...bad guy on PCP, armed with a gun. Sarge, young a dumb, decided to chase him in the dark. They had a very up close encounter.....Sarge hit him 4 times at about 15 feet with a Remington 870 12 gauge wtih #4 buck dead center in the chest. Each shot would completely take him down, he'd get right back up, gun in hand. The final shot was between the eyes....and no, he didn't get back up. The "rat hole wound" in his chest was a large gigantic hole described as between a softball and a honeydew melon, that came out the back. Now someone tell me how the bad guy lived as long as he did, much less get UP?

WWII....friend of ours was a USMC infantry Lt.  Japanese did a banzai charge, Lt turns to his Sgt and says "drop him"...but Sgt is dead. Lt. pulls his trusty 1911 and hits a samurai sword wielding Japanese with an entire mag of hardball dead in the chest....they finished it up hand to hand and our friend looks like he got carved in a pumpkin carving contest.  Go figure.

my dad tossed his Colt .45 the day he took a Browning High Power 9mm off a German non com. Browning held 13 in the mag, one in the spout, dead krauts with machine pistols were a ready supply of ammo, Browning shot circles around the Colt. Claimed the penetration with the machine pistol ammo was much superior on Germans wearing heavier winter clothing, gear, etc. According to him, it dumped them with one shot.   Yet he got shot while on guard duty by a sniper using a K98 8mm at about 300 yards....whose bullet failed to penetrate his M1 rifle stock. (hehehe  then a jeep came around the corner and the guy manning the .50 cal lit up the kraut who was up in a tree.....all the way down...) On that day pops was gonna be the bug...but it turned out the kraut was the bug and not the windshield.

On duty I am stuck with a Glock .40. Killed hogs and nutria with it, I know what it will do to a two legged beast and plenty of ammo to go with it. Off duty, summer wear a 5 shot revolver is better than nothing.

I just think that there is no correct answer, fun to argue over, but sometimes we're gonna be the windshield, other times we might just be the bug......no matter what we do.  Shoot straight as many times as it takes. Running like hell has been known to work too.

Have a good holiday!

RR

[wyocarp]

http://www.fbi.gov/publications/leb/2004/oct2004/oct04leb.htm#page_15

Very interesting read for the "stopping power" argument.  This was a study done by the FBI in 2004 looking at the calibers used in the killing of over 400 cops in the last ten years (1991-2001).  The results may surprise you.  The 9mm killed the most cops BY FAR!  Second was the .38, followed by the .380.  The .45 was pretty far down the line.

The study also compared those kills where the cop was wearing body armor and those when the cop was killed with their own service weapon (taken away).  Again, 9mm won out on all accounts.

Are you kidding me?  The only thing that this study shows is what type of weapon was used most often.  Of course the 9mm "won".  People who shoot police generally don't have the knowledge of handguns or usually don't have the means to buy the nicer guns that many of us have.  How many punks are going to be able to spend the $1000 or more on a .500.  If all of them did, the .500 would be the winner for sure.  Be smarter than your average news journalist.  Look at the calibers on the list.  I would expect the top cop killing calibers to be the ones that scored highest because of their available price ranges, cost of ammo, and and availability to punks.

[SHOOTALL]

when stealing you can't be choosey

[Devy55]

For me, the primary objective is to eliminate the threat.  That means taking control and bring the situation to a rapid conclusion, under my terms.  Not to see who can swap the most lead. 

I want to incapacitate the enemy immediately and not get into a fire-fight.  Hopefully, I'll drop them or they'll flee.  Either way, I have eliminated the immediate threat.

If you can make your shots count, regardless of caliber, that's what I'd use.  The fewer shots it takes, the better for everyone.

Spraying a lot of lead increases the risk of harming innocent bystanders, without increasing the probability of hitting your target.  If you can't hit  the target in the first one or two rounds, blasting away a magazine or two won't help.  Especially since the enemy knows you're firing at him and taking evasive maneuvers.

Just my opinion.

[schnarrgj]

As said before, use what you can handle the best. Then practice and practice. Hits count misses don't. Stopping power drives me nuts. The only way to stop someone for sure is for a hit in the spine or CNS period--or with my truck and it doesn't fit through the bedroom door.

[montveil]

I have a 45 and wonder if the hydro shocks or ball ammo would be better in the winter when an intruder would be wearing polyester filled coats?

I have wondered if alternating every other round would be a better winter choice. Maybe I should stick with ball in the 45 as that size slug is  already "expanded"

The reason I was thinking about the hydro shocks is they may not penetrate walls as easily as ball.  Hence, my concerns about them in winter clothing.


montveil

[mcwoodduck]

Montviel,
I think both would go through wall board.  As far as the hollow points not going through a down or hollow filled jacket I also don't think you have anything to worry about.  If the cavity fills with stuff it will still expand the round is also made to be a controlled expanding round and does not just open up and dump energy on impact.  If you're worried take an old jacket and put it on a target stand hang 2 liter soda bottles behind the cardboard and shoot a few rounds through your handgun.  I'm sure you will be happy with the results.
My test have shown that the bullets will punch through the jacket, through the card board through the 2 liter soda bottle filled with water and out through the jacket at 7 yards.  Even when we added a 1/4 sheet of plywood to simulate bone and foam sleeping pads to simulate fat we got the same results.
Even the 380 hollow points exited.  After the first few tests the jacket was wet.
Check with your local laws.  Stacking fmj and hollow points may give you legal problems.  Here is CA a lawyer was telling me of a client that was sued by the bad guys family as the stacked mag proved he wanted to kill rather than stop.

[Bigbuck]

One's enough if it's big enough and put in the right spot 

With that said....my home gun is a Mossberg 12 gauge with #4 Buck and my back up is a Colt .45 ACP.

[jwp475]

No standard handgun round is really potent enough to go hunting the worlds most dangerous game. Having opined that, I will favour firepower by volume. Not spray and pray mind you, but rapidly delivered hits on target until the target ceases to be a threat.
I like 9mm. In reading various works by people who know far more than I, it seems that if top flight ammo is chosen then there is little if any difference in effectiveness between 9mm, 40 and 45 ACP. In "Street Stoppers" they list Corbon 9mm 115 JHP +P, various maker's .40 S&W 155gr and Federal .45 ACP 230 Hydro-shock as being the top performers. They were listed as being separated performance wise by only 1 percent a piece. When I get unpacked from moving I can find the book and name the authors if anyone is interested.

  My experience with handguns and hunting with them has given me a totally different perspective of their ability to take very Large and potentialy dangerous game. I shot an Artic Grizzly that came in on me  and the results were dramatic and dessive instantly the revolver a 475 Linebaugh.

 A large Bull Bison taken with the 500 Linebaugh a one shot kill and complete penetration (exit) with blood pouring out the entrance and exit holes




 The next two photos show the exit holes in the rib cage of a bull Elk one from a 300 Win Mag the other from the 500 JRH with a 44o grain flat point hard cast at 950 FPS


300 Win Mag exit




 The 500 JRH exit 5 1/2" barrel

[jwp475]

Stopping power with a handgun is woefully little compared to almost any rifle or shotgun. Heck even the 30 M1 carbine round has more knock down power than a 44 mag from a revolver. 

  In my experience a 44 Mag is a big step up in performance over a 30 carbine

[SHOOTALL]

ON its best day a 30 carbine was close to a 1940 vintage 357 mag. !
but 30 of them vs. 6 - 44 mags could even things out a bit depending on the need at the time !

[Hook686]

The tacticalforums.com have determined (punching jello) that the service calibers: 9mm, .38, .40 and .45, with the right choice in ammunition are virtually the same in ballistic results. To go up to .357 magnum, .41 magnum, .44 magnum has increased ballistic results, but there is a price in size, weight, over penetration, and noise/flash. It seems to me that anything a 230 grain JHP (.45acp) can do, a 240, 270, or 300 grain JHP .44 magnum can do, and then some.

.44 magnum would probably fall under 'Stopping power'. However, with a Desert Eagle .44 magnum, 9 shots of .44 magnum might also fall under capacity.

[kevthebassman]

I think that stopping power is a crapshoot when we're talking "proper" self defense cartridges (9mm thru .45) using modern hollowpoint ammo.

Look at hunting for example.  One day you might shoot a deer heart/lung with a 30-06 and have him drop on the spot, stone dead.  The next day, you might shoot another deer in the same spot, with the same gun and load, and have it run 200 yards.

In any self defense situation, it's going to be life or death.  I will use whatever I have in reach.  Usually that's a 9mm with 12+1 capacity.  If I have a few extra seconds, I'll grab the 12 gauge pump that's loaded with buckshot. 

With either gun, I'm going to shoot until the threat is gone.  That could mean several things:  I could miss, but scare the living daylights out of a simple burglar who thought he was going to make some easy cash by hocking my DVD player, making him turn tail and run.  In that case, one shot from a .22 could do the job.

On a bad day, shooting till the threat is gone could mean putting three shots of 00 buck center of mass on a charging  meth head, then putting six shots of 9mm into the chests of his two buddies, also batshit insane on meth and out for blood.  Even that might not be enough.

In all probability, a real incident will fall somewhere in between.

[gundownunder]

I'm going to have to rehash a couple of old lines here.
1/ a hit with a 22 beats a miss with a 44
2/ the pistol is only on your belt so you can fight your way back to your rifle
At the moment I only have a 22 six shot revolver with which to fight my way back to my 357 rifle, then I've got 10 rounds of 125 gr 357 for the serious fools who didn't quit when they had a chance.
While we are on this subject I'm in the market for a single action, single stack, 9mm semi auto if any one has any ideas, I'm currently thinking Norinco 1911a1 9mm

[slim rem 7]

  kill power can be achieved with a 22.. but may take long enough for adversary to
possibly kill you .. stop power may not kill adversary but hits him with enough
 ball bat force to render him unable to continue to be a threat at least temporarayly... at least thats how it
  seems to me..

[georgeld]

Packing only five shots I feel PRACTICE is needed and do so.

There's a lot to say  about whirl and shoot, pace off, whirl and shoot,
drop to  a knee, or the ground even then shoot. I've found this kind of
practice did wonders to my hitting ability.

Generally there's upwards of 200 empties when I'm finished. but, the hits
are more equal to shots fired by the end of the session.

I don't believe it's possible to practice too much.

There's much to be said for brain shots with a .22 too.
Wish I could post a quick film of that bull elk I planted one under his ear that time.
Impressive the way his head hit him in the butt before dropping like a rock and never kicked
at 50 feet.

Wish you well,
George

[Mohawk]

  To me, the "stopping power" debate has been hashed over years ago with no real results that I believe. IMHO, shot placement is everything. I liked the earlier post about the Armadillo shooting with the .45....that was hilarious since it reminded me of my days when I used to protect a garden. In my experience the .22 LR in a rifle using the Remington Viper ammo dropped them when every handgun between a .22 and .357 mag did not, they would either flop around a while or run several yards. I once read a well known gunwriter's article about the .38 Special lead round nose load. It stated that the load stopped persons with one torso hit 50% of the time. Well, the way I figure, if those 50% of incidents where it was reported to fail never happened, whether through negotiations, arrest of the subject, or they had given up at gun point, then this would be a 100% load of stopping everyone. Of course it isn't, no load or caliber is, but it makes you think......Oh and for us ballistic nuts, 00 buck penetrates more than a foot in ordnance gelatin but less than 6 inches in a skinny, good eating size deer. That makes me think too.........

[kevthebassman]

Oh and for us ballistic nuts, 00 buck penetrates more than a foot in ordnance gelatin but less than 6 inches in a skinny, good eating size deer. That makes me think too.........

But at what distance?

I think that buckshot is probably the surest way to stop a man at self-defense distances.  I can wrap my mind around a person taking 3 to the chest at 7 paces from a pistol and still being able to present a threat.  I can't imagine a man taking a load of buckshot to the chest and being anything but a corpse. 

But that's just my thinking, and my thinking has been known to be in error from time-to-time. 

[torpedoman]

between stopping power or capacity the best choice is shot placement

[Mohawk]

 I killed the deer at 6 yards. Even the wad hit the deer. Only 3 of 9 pellets exited the deer that weighed less than 70 lbs. I would call that "room range" at its finest. The deer dropped, DRT, but that threw the overpenetration worries of 00 buckshot out the window for me. I would call it ideal as opposed to "cautioned" due to overpenetration concerns for such purposes as home defense.

[kevthebassman]

I killed the deer at 6 yards. Even the wad hit the deer. Only 3 of 9 pellets exited the deer that weighed less than 70 lbs. I would call that "room range" at its finest. The deer dropped, DRT, but that threw the overpenetration worries of 00 buckshot out the window for me. I would call it ideal as opposed to "cautioned" due to overpenetration concerns for such purposes as home defense.

Interesting, to say the least.  Makes me sort of think about using #4 buck.  Either way, I think a shot to the chest from a 12 gauge is going to take the wind out of anybody and drop them like a sack of potatoes. 

[Mohawk]

  I agree Kevthebassman. And this was dead broadside so the penetration was easy to judge. But the effect was, like I said, devastating. I even used a 18 1/2 " barreled patrol shotgun, cylinder bore, I barrowed from work since all of my guns were out of state. It was a Mossberg with aftermarket barrl. Deer dropped, kicked a little, and that was it. Pattern was about 7" wide and the lungs were destroyed. The only surprise was the penetration. I was expecting them all to exit. But, that sounds like a good recipe for a violent burglar, definately. I've used this load for qualifying on paper targets for years to keep my commission current but until you see the affects on a live target it is hard to appreciate. I appreciate it now!!! Any deer, or bad guy, at very close range I would not hesitate at all.

[kevthebassman]

I know that when I get the wind knocked out of me, you can stick a fork in me because I'm DONE.  I imagine that even if a load of buckshot to the chest doesn't cause immediate death, it's got to knock the wind out of whatever it hits....

I gather that you're a cop... have you ever been hit with one of those rubber bullets fired from a shotgun?  Like they do with the tasers?   I imagine a shot to the breadbasket with one of those would put you on the GROUND.... I would think that a load of buckshot would have the same effect along with the added bonus of turning your heart, liver, and lungs into red, foamy jello.

BTW I keep a full turkey choke on my shotgun.... thoughts on that?

[Mohawk]

    Bean-bag rounds work well, at least from what I have witnessed. Pepper spray is iffy, but the Taser hurts, but not as affective as first thought. There was a local case here about a month ago where a burglar entered a residence, tied up the dad with tape in the bathroom, raped his pre-teen daughter, and then smoked some crack in the living room before leaving. Would anyone trust a bean-bag or Taser if this was your residence? I wouldn't.


     Haven't tested it, but some southern career buckshot hunters say that 00 and 000 buckshot do not favor tight chokes. I have never shot buckshot with anything tighter than a modified. Pattern the turkey choke and try it. I would be curious to hear the results. thanks.

[kevthebassman]

    Bean-bag rounds work well, at least from what I have witnessed. Pepper spray is iffy, but the Taser hurts, but not as affective as first thought. There was a local case here about a month ago where a burglar entered a residence, tied up the dad with tape in the bathroom, raped his pre-teen daughter, and then smoked some crack in the living room before leaving. Would anyone trust a bean-bag or Taser if this was your residence? I wouldn't.

Neither would I.  I would rather deal with a dead bad guy than deal with a hurt or stunned one.  I was just speculating about whether or not it would have the same power to knock the wind out of an attacker at close range and put them down, never to draw breath again.


   

Haven't tested it, but some southern career buckshot hunters say that 00 and 000 buckshot do not favor tight chokes. I have never shot buckshot with anything tighter than a modified. Pattern the turkey choke and try it. I would be curious to hear the results. thanks.

A few months back I tested some 00 buck through my turkey choke.  I only had two shells with me at the time and cannot seem to remember the pellet count on target, but at 45 yards I put an acceptable (to me, at least) number of pellets in a torso sized target.  The result at 10 yards was a softball sized, ragged hole through the target.  I wouldn't care to stand in front of it at any range.

I'll have to find an excuse to get out and do some serious patterning work one of these days.  Weather has been poor lately.

[Cheesehead]

I fired 00 buck at an 8 1/2 by 11 inch sheet of paper at 60 yards. The 3 1/2 inch mag was fired through an extra full turkey choke. I believe the round holds 18 pellets. Three pellets hit the paper, not bad. This is the hardest kicking round I have ever shot, ouch.

Cheese

[SHOOTALL]

CHEESEHEAD ,back off to improved mod. ( not IC ) , most goose choke tubes are IM or close .
Anyway i use it because it holds a tighter pattern with large shot .
And the 3.5 is a real kicker !

[montveil]

As it has stated before- only the first well placed shot is the one that counts. That better be from your gun, not the other guys.
I wonder if large capacity magazines would lead to a false sense of security.
My motto is aim, fire, hit the first time. This not only will get better results but it will lessen the missed rounds from hitting some unintended bystander with a hail of bullets
You may of guessed I'm a 45 advocate, especially for home defense as it is always handy and not in the closet and will do the job.
If you have time, of course a shotgun is great with my 45 tucked in my belt

[SHOOTALL]

montveil , so its safe to say ya can't miss fast enough to win a fight ?
good post !