Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns +P+ in the Browning Hi-Power?

No, that is wrong, especially in soft tissue. You're correct about the reduced penetration (sometimes) from more expansion, but the rest is completely false. You seem to have bought in to the myth that handgun bullets only damage what they actually touch, but that's bunk and easily proven wrong if you go shoot some animals with them. By your "logic" for example, a 90gr .380 and a 90gr +P+ 9mm should do the same damage, but that's absurd.

No, that is wrong, especially in soft tissue. You're correct about the reduced penetration (sometimes) from more expansion, but the rest is completely false. You seem to have bought in to the myth that handgun bullets only damage what they actually touch, but that's bunk and easily proven wrong if you go shoot some animals with them. By your "logic" for example, a 90gr .380 and a 90gr +P+ 9mm should do the same damage, but that's absurd.

We'll have to disagree about that then. The wound stuff is bunk unless you're only talking about FMJ, in my experience. Pushing the same expanding bullet faster does do more damage. Higher velocity also gets you flatter trajectory and longer effective range, something the typical "gunfights are at 7 yards" crowd may have trouble wrapping their heads around.

Anyone that claims that increased speed does not increase wound channel is simple wrong. A 38 special doe not do the same damage that a 357 mag does shooting the same bullet. The 357 mag also out penetrates the 38 special shooting the same JHP bullets. Some of the crap I read on here tells who doesn't shoot much game.

]In soft tissue higher velocity in a JHP will get you less penetration. So when it's all measured out, the actual volume of tissue destroyed is right about the same. Slightly larger (and I'm talking SLIGHTLY) bullet expansion but less penetration. Standard pressure will expand a couple thou less in diameter but penetrate a little deeper in soft tissue. So it really doesn't make any meaningful difference IN SOFT TISSUE. The only meaningful difference is in barrier penetration.

I'm so tired of this argument, we've done this to death.
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Yes increased velocity CAN increase wound channels. And your comment about some bullets traveling deeper...for the purpose of this discussion, when I make a comment like I did about penetrating less, you have to understand that such comments are made in the light of "All else being equal"...because without the "all else being equal" qualifier, all we would do is talk about every exception to every rule we can find. So while your comment is very relevant, it would be more relevant in a different discussion about very specific bullets in specific cartridges through specific mediums.

But more to your comment, while trying to bring it back to the "all else being equal" for the sake of argument. You're absolutely right that bullet velocity can increase wound cavity. But from 9mm standard pressure to +P ADVERTISED velocities increase about 100fps, while in the real world they're closer to about 70fps. So to think that 70fps in soft tissue is a make or break difference is a bit naive. Like I said, 124's at standard pressure are right on the teetering edge of passing the FBI's tests for barrier penetration, that extra 70fps in hard mediums has put it over the edge. The124's were about 50/50 passing/failing the windshield test, and that little extra velocity made it 100%, but the wound cavity in tissue stimulants have been mostly the same as standard pressure.

The analogy of 38 Special vs. .357 rather confuses the issue. We're talking about 9mm vs. 9mm +P, and the difference is at best 100fps. The difference between .38 Special and .357 Magnum is 300fps or more; so there's a 3 fold difference. So when I say the tissue destruction is basically the same, such a statement isn't absolute and doesn't extend to something like the .38 Special vs. .357; it's specific to 9mm vs. +P.

based on everything I have seen and read, gungeek is right about this. Most pistol wounds are indistinguishable in the operating room or morgue. Again stuff like this is like a religious belief and you will never believe it yet its why the 9mm has surpassed the 40 caliber sw and why the FBI is said to have adopted the 9mm. Naturally there are logical end points to this so I view it more as a bell curve regards pistols and their bullets. Funny thing my friend and I were shooting 230 grain hard ball from his shield the other day and the sun was just so at 20 yards we could watch the bullet in flight.

Keep in mind there are actual tests that prove a 55 FMJ and 3100 FPS at 20 feet is quite different than a 9mm 124 super expanding wonder bullet at 1000 or even 1200. Yet more results from the operating room that indicate pistol wounding is quite similar.

John, if I said the sky was blue, you'd say it's green

Sorry Jimmy, I'm gonna go with my own experience of what I've seen in testing and in live animals instead of what some guy has read and seen on the internet. Too many people just repeat the same garbage they were told, because it looks or sounds good, without knowing if it's true or not. I don't need your statistical study of civilian shootings (which would be meaningless at best) to show me what bullets do in meat, and whether pushing them faster causes more damage.

When you see golf ball sized holes through deer's heart/lungs from expanding handgun bullets, it's pretty easy to recognize that the guys claiming stuff like what GunGeek said simply don't know what they're talking about.