Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Why Ballistics Gel Works And Caliber Arguments Are Dumb

Well,

If I correctly remember the thread on that study, I'm not sure he's reading the statistics correctly.

As an example. If the 45% stops 40% of bad guys with one shot, and the .380 stops 20% with one shot, the .380's "within 20%" but the 45 actually stops 100% more bad guys with one shot.

My pard whom the .gov put in harms way many times during his 30 plus years with the "agency" was shot at alot. Hit many times in the vest by a large assortment of projectiles and 5 times in flesh and bone. Four hits from 9mm hard ball did not put him out of the fight. The 5th hit came from a .380 hollow point. That one took out 13 inches of his colon and damn near killed him. However he does not carry a .380 into a fight. He also does not own or carry a 9mm any longer. His comment is that it aint the gun or the caliber that you carry into the fight but the fight you carry into the gun fight. During his service to the agency he was issued a BHP and he came out alive from many fights but he has little love for the 9mm although he used it effectively. In later years doing security work he carried many other guns and calibers but never another 9mm. His choice for his reasons and I cant say he is wrong.

If it recoils "big" then its got to be more powerful and it is producing more momentum but until its going 2300 FPS there aint that much difference in the wounding capability. A 380 FMJ into the center of your chest is going to kill you just as dead as a 45ACP Golden Whizzum bullet in exactly the same spot. You punch a hole in the heart or nick the spine with either and its all over. he only argument we could have is "how fast will one or the other caliber cause you to bleed out". Without 2300 FPS your wound cavity is not that much different between .38 and .45. This has been a great thread and the Lehigh bullets are next on my list of to try things. Again we are not shooting thru 5 foot of buffalo, all we have to do is make a hole thru a relatively soft animal.

FYI, I have some .380 factory loaded Lehigh Xtreme Penetrators arriving Monday, so I can chronograph them and compare them to the handloads that I rolled using Lehigh load data. I hope to be shooting some more mixed media tests in the next couple of weeks.

I am going to buy the Underwood Lehigh 380’s. Your using a G42 to test them? I am going to use a P380. Did you see the Underwood 115 grain extreme penetrator 10mm at 1700 FPS!! Makes you wonder.

It’s stunning how many people are shot graveyard dead by gun/load choices that might not pass these tests. 😜

yes a 22 LR will kill the piss out of you.

Look at all the gang shooting in Chicago. Lots of cheap hardball used there, an many more are wounded than killed. Bullet choice matter, but if enough inner city youths shoot each other with hard ball, some will still die.

Days later.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner! The FBI specced ammo that would penetrate 12-18", and that is what they got. From 10 feet. Circular reasoning to now say, "Well, there's no difference between any of these cartridges." There may not be any difference between those particular loads, but I don't buy that a 115 grain bullet always = a 124 grain bullet always = a 165 grain bullet always =180 grain bullet always =230 grain bullet.

Makes me wonder if "personal defense" loads are actually watered down from a cartridge's true potential so they don't go past 18".

The FBI specced out ammunition for their needs. They apparently train to get a lot closer to their bad guys than I do and work with a lot of people in the area. I typically work alone on Indian reservations and am not too worried about overpenetation, but am concerned about being ambushed or prevented from egressing on a muddy or snow-drifted, dirt road. My agency won't allow rifles, which would be my first choice in this scenario. So I prefer the heaviest bullets that are issued at the fastest speeds. Our 165 gr .40 ammo goes at about the same velocity as a 124 gr 9mm, (in general, or at least in the brands my agency usually buys) so to me, it's a no-brainer.

As is typical, we qualify from up to 25 yards. How about some ammo tests against Carhartt's and a wool shirt, thermal underwear, etc. at 25-35 yards?

But the technology! We designed a bullet that makes a 9mm = a .44 Mag. The hunting forum is full of stories of wonder bullets not opening up, opening up too much, or otherwise not working as hoped for in the real world. Paul Harrell's videos consistently show that "plain" HP's work as well as, and often better, than what he calls "so-called premium ammo" on his meat tests, but he does not usually shoot thru barriers.

Yes I really like Paul Harrels Meat test.
Whereas Gel test provide a more constant medium to test bullet performance against other bullet performance, I feel like the meat target test provide a more realistic yardstick regarding how bullets perform against human or animal targets.

Any body that believes that the best loads in a 45 is no more effective than the loads in a 9mm are full of BS. I’ve shot way too many head of game with both to buy that crap.

Within seconds in the chest and instantly in the head

JWP no one disputes that you need a lot of momentum to poke a hole through a grizzly bear, but poking a hole through a 250 pound human does not take 300 grains at 1200 FPS. After reading the report of 250 quantified shootings and seeing the ballistic gel info, I am sure a 9mm will perform on humans the same as a 45ACP. The 380 with FMJ is almost as good, but the Lehigh might be a game changer for that caliber as well. The world of bullets is changing, and our understanding/Knowledge is expanding.

How does the 124 grain HST work on Meat?

No where have I suggested needing 300 grains of anything. I’m talking about defensive handguns like 45 ACP and 9mm. I ve shot a lot of game with them. A 45 into the rib cage of a deer pushes the ribs in that is visible to the eye and bone are broken better than with a smaller diameter projectile. Hit a deer in th3 ribs with a 9mm and there is no visible indicator of a hit and sometime the smaller diameter projectile goes through a bone without completely severing the bone.

You jump to conclusions way too much, I’m talking of deer and pigs, not as big as some humans.

Its all good JWP, and Happy Easter to all. He is Risen.

I checked out Liberty Ammo’s site, 10 mm =2400 FPS.

Uh nope
I personally know someone that took a CCI Mini mag Hollow Point from a 6-1/2 barrel Ruger single six at a range of less than 3 inches from a drunk woman who was fugging around with a loaded gun she thought was unloaded.

The bullet struck him 3 inches below his nipple and 2-1/2 left of dead center of his chest.

Guy instantly thought it was a lung shot and walked to his kitchen about 40 feet away and grabbed a couple of plastic sandwich bags and held over the entrance and exit wound to keep the lung from sucking in air and collapsing his lung.

He sat on the couch for about 20 minutes waiting for the ambulance to arrive.

Ended up the bullet did not hit his lung but did hit his kidney,he had one tube going in to pump blood in and a tube sucking blood out of his penis .This after an hour long ambulance ride to the hospital..After a long surgery he was in the hospital for a couple of weeks and pissed blood for about a year.He survived and was not incapacitated by the shot IE could have done anything he wanted to .

Rare occurrence? Maybe

But to state that any shot to the chest is an instant death is not correct.
would identical shot placement with a 9mm or 45 killed him ? who knows as the wider bullet might have caught the heart or Major artery.Maybe not.

And people who say this always bring me down to earth on this subject.