Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Does size matter? Excellent info here...

"Dr. Fackler’s retirement did not conclude the U.S. Government’s reliance on his expertise. On April 11, 1986, FBI agents engaged in a 4 ½-minute gun battle with two suspected bank robbers. The two suspects succumbed from their wounds but not before one of them killed two FBI agents and wounded five others. To its credit the FBI launched a full review into the lack of effectiveness of the handgun ammunition it employed. It called upon outside medical and other experts, including Dr. Fackler, to participate in meetings it hosted in 1987 and 1992. Its focus was on terminal ballistic effectiveness rather than undefined lay terms, such as “increased lethality” and “stopping power”.

Other corrective measures followed. In August 1988, the first steps were taken in establishment of a world-class FBI Ballistic Research Facility to evaluate terminal effectiveness of law enforcement ammunition, utilizing 10% ballistic gel, for dissemination of test and evaluation results to law enforcement departments. In 1989, the FBI published “Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness,” based on comments at its 1987 experts meeting."


http://www.sadefensejournal.com/wp/father-of-modern-wound-ballistics/

Quite so.

FWP is partly correct in giving the FBI some credit for establishing a database of ammunition performance, but they were Johnny-come-lately to the party. The FBI database was started after the 1987 conference (see FBI Spl. Agent Urey Patrick's paper, "Handgun Wounding Effectiveness" for some of the background here, it's available on the DOJ website). They began this work in 1987, and has been generated using test protocols devised by Dr. Martin Fackler in the 1970's and 1980's.

Dr. Fackler was the man who "invented" 4% ballistic gelatin as a bullet testing medium. Duncan McPherson, one of the other founding members of the International Wound Ballistics Association, was also a major contributor to the early study of terminal ballistics and in fact generated most of the mathematical formulae used today by all testers, including the FBI.

Additionally, there have been a number of very influential bullet/ammo testing entities working as private contractors for both the Dept of Defense and for LE agencies. Dr. Gary Roberts' group was very active for a number of years testing ammunition and compiling statistics on street shootings for LE agencies in the state of California. Their data have never been made available to the public, but it is quite possibly the largest single database of terminal ballistics research in existence. Unlike the FBI data, which is all laboratory findings, the California data is correlated with street shootings using proprietary info from CA's law enforcement agencies. I know that Federal/Speer has relied on this data heavily in developing defensive/police ammunition, and I've heard that Hornady and others have as well.

Correct. I believe that Dr. Fackler was the first to say that penetration was the primary concern even after barrier penetration

The FBI gets more credit than they deserve, dumbassses. By that I mean the Miami shoot out. They went in unprepared.

Hard to argue w/ bigger wound cavities and 400 ft-lbs...






GR

That mantra that small holes are the same as big holes, a desperate fiction, was one of the early manifestations of the Woke Weltanschauung. In many minds it is now Truth.

Hard to get one's mind around the notion that this wouldn't be more effective than the same round in 9mm.

9mm looked like it did pretty well judging by the lucky gunner link.

What concerns me about the 45acp is it's loss velocity when fired from shorter barrels than the 5" govt 1911. It doesn't start with much velocity.

I agree. The 9mm +P in the Lucky Gunner test expanded to. 68 and penetrated 17+ inches.

[/quote]
The better bullet designs we use today are the results of the FBI tests.
[/quote]

Actually, the better bullet designs we use today are the results of the efforts of lots of people and entities.

The FBI, after consulting with many people and following the advice of those it thought most relevant, created a scientifically repeatable test protocol. This protocol has been adjusted with experience. It is a better protocol today than when invented. I hope (and expect) it will continue to be improved.

Much of the credit belongs to the engineers at the major ammunition manufacturers. Once they knew what LE desired AND had a repeatable test method, they could:

1 - Design a projetile
2 - Test the projectile
3 - Modify the design to achieve the desired performance
4 - Repeat

The people previously mentioned in this thread all contributed but the credit belongs to the collective, not any single individual. There are many others that share in the success.

If pressed to say who deserved the most credit, I'd point to John Hall. He was the Unit Chief (SSA Patrick's Boss) that allowed/encouraged/helped Patrick get the whole Ballistic Research Facility created.

That is not to take anything away from anyone else that contributed, just to say that it wouldn't have happened without the support of the Chief of the Firearms Training Unit.

He played a big role in establishing the FBI's evaluation criteria. I personally think the establishment of this criteria is the single most important step ever taken in the development of self defense ammunition.

It follows the old axiom "You cannot improve what you don't measure".

Previous performance measurements were far from scientific. Once someone established a standard that was scientific and truly meaningful, it gave ammunition developers a target to shoot for (no pun intended), and very quickly ammunition made huge leaps and bounds.

For 1988 the criteria they came up with was truly outstanding IMO. From time to time that may need to be re-visited, but for now; it's working very well.

The better bullet designs we use today are the results of the FBI tests.
[/quote]

Actually, the better bullet designs we use today are the results of the efforts of lots of people and entities.

The FBI, after consulting with many people and following the advice of those it thought most relevant, created a scientifically repeatable test protocol. This protocol has been adjusted with experience. It is a better protocol today than when invented. I hope (and expect) it will continue to be improved.

Much of the credit belongs to the engineers at the major ammunition manufacturers. Once they knew what LE desired AND had a repeatable test method, they could:

1 - Design a projetile
2 - Test the projectile
3 - Modify the design to achieve the desired performance
4 - Repeat

The people previously mentioned in this thread all contributed but the credit belongs to the collective, not any single individual. There are many others that share in the success.

If pressed to say who deserved the most credit, I'd point to John Hall. He was the Unit Chief (SSA Patrick's Boss) that allowed/encouraged/helped Patrick get the whole Ballistic Research Facility created.

That is not to take anything away from anyone else that contributed, just to say that it wouldn't have happened without the support of the Chief of the Firearms Training Unit.

[/quote]

The better bullet designs we use today are the results of the FBI tests.
[/quote]

Actually, the better bullet designs we use today are the results of the efforts of lots of people and entities.

The FBI, after consulting with many people and following the advice of those it thought most relevant, created a scientifically repeatable test protocol. This protocol has been adjusted with experience. It is a better protocol today than when invented. I hope (and expect) it will continue to be improved.

Much of the credit belongs to the engineers at the major ammunition manufacturers. Once they knew what LE desired AND had a repeatable test method, they could:

1 - Design a projetile
2 - Test the projectile
3 - Modify the design to achieve the desired performance
4 - Repeat

The people previously mentioned in this thread all contributed but the credit belongs to the collective, not any single individual. There are many others that share in the success.

If pressed to say who deserved the most credit, I'd point to John Hall. He was the Unit Chief (SSA Patrick's Boss) that allowed/encouraged/helped Patrick get the whole Ballistic Research Facility created.

That is not to take anything away from anyone else that contributed, just to say that it wouldn't have happened without the support of the Chief of the Firearms Training Unit.

[/quote]

Fackler set the criteria for how a projectal needed to perform and this was key. MacPherson math model of bullet penetration and wound trauma incapacitation assisted bullet manufacturers in designing a projectal that worked from the get go.

Before Fackler and MacPherson the FBI put too much emphasis on temporary wound cavity

Could you expound a bit more on this opinion?

From what I've read they used comput d r models and chose what produced the larger temporary wound channel

You would know more about this than anyone here since you worked for the FBI

I personally believe temporary wound cavities at typical handgun speeds are far less significant than say a 223 round.

Good bullet and placement works on all critters - and today's options are better than ever. I think the LEO today are far better equipped if shooting say a 9, then they were long ago. Before Gold Dots, HST's and similar, I was not a big fan of the 9.....no doubt a 40 or 45 can give a certain level of confidence, maybe greater. Whether that's an illusion or there is merit is debated often. Data and Stats are not to be dismissed.

Yes, Sir. That is why I was asking. I don't recall anything in the documents I've reviewed that even mentioned temporary wound cavity before the Wound Ballistics seminars of the late 80's (when Dr. Fackler and Mr. MacPherson were consulted).

I didn't know if you were someone that was there before I was and had info I'd not seen.

In any event, the documents I've reviewed don't support the opinion that "The FBI put too much emphasis on temporary wound cavity".

I didn't come into the FBI until 1988 and there is bound to be information I didn't review, despite my attempt to look at all of it.

Dr. Fackler became a personal friend. I visited him days before he passed because I wanted to look him in the eye and tell him he was important to me.

Hope you have a great weekend.

Edited to add that the FBI didn't have much in the way of computers when I entered in 1988. I recall dictating reports onto cassette tape to be sent to the steno pool for typing (onion skins for copies). To my knowledge, the FBI has never used computers to model wound ballistics.

There are always two different conversations going on in these threads.
1-Is a 9mm as effective as a .40 / .45?
2-Are shooters (of varying abilities) able to shoot the 9mm more accurately at speed as the .40 / .45?

I don’t know about #1, because I’m not a science nerd like some of y’all. But I do know anecdotally that a 9mm will work well enough for my purposes.

As far as #2....
The only people still debating this are those who have never seen large groups of shooters fire .40s and 9s back to back. They’re all more accurate at speed with a 9, regardless of skill level or type of weapon. I’ve seen it from beginners and I’ve heard it from the mouths of the best shooters on the planet.

How much the accuracy degrades depends on a lot of things. I believe that those who don’t see much difference aren’t that accurate or fast to begin with. You’re just an average shooter with no frame of reference for what really exceptional shooting looks like.

This.

Bullshit as usual.