Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire handgun stopping power

Yes and no. He accounted for this in his study.

Simply put, by using % you account for this.

I fished for fluke using a cooked hot dog for 3 days straight- 36 hours of daylight. Caught 21 fluke.
I fished the next 20 minutes with a gulp on a bucktail. Caught 7 fluke.

Was it just a fluke?

His study shows that people shot less accurately with a 38 special than with a 357 magnum, 45 auto, or 44 magnum.

one could argue that there was not enough data for the 44.

I am NOT defending the guy. In fact I take issue with his methodology.

I am just pointing out that people hardly ever take the 2 clicks to read source material and issue a "huh" for something that they have already preconceived notions (however good they may be).

You moved from MT to FL. Your judgement is highly suspect.

Yeah. Definitely. Or maybe.

He accounts for rifles in an odd manner. He references 'all rifles' and 'all shotguns' almost as an afterthought.

Can we assume that 22 handgun and 22 rifle data were not present in both sets? I dont know. I couldnt find it, hence I am dubious about his methodology.

Flaky calculations/information regardless.

Crocketnj... I read Ellifritz's report when it first came out. While I applaud the effort, and have a lot of respect for the author, I have to say that there are a lot of methodology problems with it. Like Evan Marshall's OSS data, the methodological problems make its conclusions difficult to rely on. It's interesting, and some generalizations can be taken from it, but that's about it.

Defining the dynamic elements of gunshot wounding from a ballistics standpoint alone is an enormously complex task. The now defunct International Wound Ballistics Association, founded by Dr. Martin Fackler back in the 90's, was intended to inform a larger scientific community and in so doing was hoped to make these complexities easier to grasp. It did not succeed, in no small part because popular demand for answers to "simple" questions like "what caliber gun should I carry?" were not forthcoming.

Ellifritz's report, which is really nothing more than a compendium of partial information from public record of shootings nationwide, is more of an attempt to answer the simple questions than to get down to nitty-gritty solid science in the field of wound ballistics. And on that score, it doesn't really give us good answers. From the table above, you might conclude that a .22 derringer was your best bet for concealed carry, for instance; this doesn't measure up to reality, however.

There are very large privately-held databases on GSW's and incapacitation that will hopefully some day become available to the public. The California database is the largest one I am aware of, and is a collaborative effort by municipal, county, and state agencies. Dr. Gary Roberts, arguably one of the foremost authority on wound ballistics in the past 30 years, has shared some of the conclusions that have been drawn from that and other databases, and these have been confirmed by other ballistics authorities. These databases discard data from suicides, from execution-style homicides (where the little guns truly shine), and so on.

These conclusions are pretty broad. Basically, the best success rates in "winning" armed confrontations with handguns occur when the shooter is using a service-caliber handgun and good quality jacketed hollowpoint ammunition. But there isn't much to choose between the service calibers, as they all perform pretty much the same over large numbers of shootings. What appears to be more important than caliber is the shooter's ability to put his bullets into critical body parts of his opponent, which means knowing how to shoot the gun you've got well is more important than deciding what your next handgun is going to be.

There was a video of a guy shooting 9mm, 40 S&W, 45 auto into gelatin. They all penetrated about the same. The bigger bullets have more stopping power of course.

This shows the problem with gun writers trying to come up with meaningful data. They might know guns but they don't know statistical methods so their data is often faulty and usually meaningless.

I think the politically correct term is " vertically impaired "

Shrapnel, that midget comment was funny. I don't care who you are.
I thought the term was "little people".

That's exactly what I concluded about 10 years ago when selecting a handgun for CCW. As near as I could tell, using JHP bullets that would pass the FBI's penetration test, there was no difference between 9mm, .40, or .45 ACP. 9mm is easier to hit with, makes the gun lighter to carry, and you get more rounds.

The study cited by the OP did not take into account the type of bullet.

would like to see some stats on a 22 mag ,anyone have any against the rest of these pistol cartridges ?

Looking at just the table provided in the original post is somewhat misleading. I also think there are some problems with the methodology but the broad conclusions are not that different from what other people have found. Namely, that handguns are not that effective in stopping violent attacks compared to rifles and shotguns, the effectiveness of standard duty calibers is relatively similar and mouse guns are best avoided.

Here's part of what Ellifritz says in the study:

"Some people will look at this data and say "He's telling us all to carry .22s". That's not true. Although this study showed that the percentages of people stopped with one shot are similar between almost all handgun cartridges, there's more to the story. Take a look at two numbers: the percentage of people who did not stop (no matter how many rounds were fired into them) and the one-shot-stop percentage. The lower caliber rounds (.22, .25, .32) had a failure rate that was roughly double that of the higher caliber rounds. The one-shot-stop percentage (where I considered all hits, anywhere on the body) trended generally higher as the round gets more powerful. This tells us a couple of things..."

"In a certain (fairly high) percentage of shootings, people stop their aggressive actions after being hit with one round regardless of caliber or shot placement. These people are likely NOT physically incapacitated by the bullet. They just don't want to be shot anymore and give up! Call it a psychological stop if you will. Any bullet or caliber combination will likely yield similar results in those cases. And fortunately for us, there are a lot of these "psychological stops" occurring. The problem we have is when we don't get a psychological stop. If our attacker fights through the pain and continues to victimize us, we might want a round that causes the most damage possible. In essence, we are relying on a "physical stop" rather than a "psychological" one. In order to physically force someone to stop their violent actions we need to either hit him in the Central Nervous System (brain or upper spine) or cause enough bleeding that he becomes unconscious. The more powerful rounds look to be better at doing this."

I've know Evan Marshall for several years. His son is one of my best friends. He told me years ago that there is more difference in what bullet you choose than the caliber. A good quality expanding bullet outperforms fmj/ball type ammo.

In the early 2000s I carried a glock 19 with 124g +p gold dot GPS. I got death threats every week back then because of my line of work. Many friends and armchair experts said I was undergunned and needed a 40 or 45. Evan invited me to shotshow with him in in 2004 and we spent a lot of time in the Corbon booth talking with other people in the industry about stopping power. They all told me to stick with the 9mm and my 124 +p gold dots.

I don't carry as much anymore and often find myself just using my scadnium snubby s&w revolvers in 22 mag or 357. But when I feel more need to carry its usually a glock 19 or an xd, xdm, or other 9mm with the same 124 gold dot I've ran for years. Unless I'm in the hills than its usually 10mm or 44.

Bb

I think the psychological effect of being shot is under valued. If someone feels a solid thump on their chest and hears the sound of gun fire I don't think
they are going to immediately know if they were just shot with a 22, a 38 or a 45. And most of us are smart enough not to say, "you sissy, it was just a 22".

I have both of the Marshall & Sanow books "Handgun Stopping Power" and "Street Stoppers" and have read them both cover to cover. Good reads for us analytical types though I've also read that they have been accused of taking some creative license with the facts in some of the chapters. I did think that the goat shooting chapter was informative and would have removed the psychological aspect of when a handgun bullet actually stopped someone. The 180# goats were hooked up to an electroencephalograph to measure when they were actually killed by handgun bullets in a controlled environment. They do analyze a lot of different aspects of handgun and long guns relating to wound potential in multiple chapters.

These days, I think one would have to break it down into bullet type. The popularity of small pocket .380's has resulted in a lot of attention towards producing high performance bullets that produce optimum results in that chambering.

It's hard to put much credibility in numbers that show that a 9mm performs lower than a .380 since a 9mm is the same diameter bullet, only heavier (typically) and traveling significantly faster.

I'm a big fan of the LCP and it's what goes with me when I carry. But if I was at home and needed to grab up a pistol, it would be my 9mm.

Actually, it would be my AR,...but that's for a different discussion.

One of the reasons the main self defense calibers (9mm, .40 & .45) have similar effectiveness now is that bullet design has improved dramatically in the last 20 years. This has made 9mm nearly as effective as .40 or .45 if the best bullets are used. I think that in .40 and .45 nearly any decent HP will work well but in 9mm (and certainly anything smaller) it's important to use the best bullets, of which there are a number of great choices.

if i was a toter, and it happened to be a .22 rf, or even .22 rf mag i was carrying,

i'd attempt to remember the decision rule of 3 shots, quickly in the torso.

maybe i'd be wrong, but what if i missed the head?

a .22 kills far above it's paygrade.

to implement a shooting is key.

Handgun stopping power, the eternal question. Marshall and Sanow's works were pretty much disregarded many years ago. Read Doc Rockets post above and look up Doc GKR.

If you visualize a line 4" wide tube running down the center of the opponent from the eyes to the bottom of the sternum shoot them there, continue shooting until the threat is stopped. If you always carry a gun that you can shoot to this standard and practice enough to do so quickly on demand you will then have maximized your ability to defend w/ a handgun.

That of course is my personal working model, YMMV.


mike r