Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns The FBI shoot Out In Miami 1986

I agree & carry JHP's but all JHP's are not created equal.

I favor Hydra-shoks & Gold Dots, while foregoing Silvertips, for example.

This is an ongoing test of bullet performance originally begun as a result of the Miami incident.

45 ACP Performance Data

MM

Yep, good points.

Might be a worthwhile read: After You Shoot

MtnHtr

True as true and right as rain but "enough" is truly enough. While bystanders may not be a concern, penetration to the loss of expansion ain't a good thing. If you're using an expanding bullet, you want it to do that, and that usually means stopping some place, preferably in the vitals. You seldom get both penetration and expansion. If a .40 expands to .60 it usually stops...you get the picture. Anyway, it's not all about bystanders, but some of it is.

As far as terminal performance is concerned exits are not a bad thing.

Kevin, I'd like to see the percentage of any LA cops that have been wounded after the bullet exited the bad guy from a solid hit. A very low percntage, I'd say

In the Miami FBI shootout there were 140 rounds fired, a high percentage were misses and residences were hit. This fact is in the Adminstrative Report that I posted. There were many innocent bystanders and none were hit. I am sure that by standers are sometimes hit, but this is rare. I will try my best to consider if or not a bystander may get hit or not before I pull the trigger, but my first matter of concern is to survive.

I was told the FBI carry's .40cal. pistols nowdays, don't really know for sure. Many police departments around me have gone to carrying the .45acp caliber.

I know this much, the 10mm does the job in spades! Now my wife shoots my model 20 Glock in 10mm without any problems, other than more recoil than her .40 cal Glock but nothing she can't handle for a dozen rounds.

So in my eyes, the FBI and other LEO's would be leaps and bounds ahead of the bad guy by carrying the 10mm caliber. The Glocks don't have as much recoil as the Dan Wesson, Smith & Wesson models do. Just my thoughts on the subject and I myself carry every other round as FMJ in both my pistols.

Tonk are you saying that you load your pistol one round hollow point, one round FMJ, one round hollow point, etc?

Dink

What the Miami shootout really showed is bring rifles, shotguns, and fire a lot of penetrating ammo into perps who resist.

This Country has a severe chronic shortage of dead career criminals

Just read the whole thread and I just backs up my choices that I made when I was a working LEO. The minute we were allowed to go to semi-autos I stuck my .38 Super Commander on my belt loaded with Federal Hydra-Shoks, in the car was an M-1 Carbine with both 110 grain ball & JHP rounds plus my 870 loaded with OO buck.

If I knew or even thought there was gonna be shooting I got out with the Carbine, if clearing a building it was the 870.

Today if I was to be active I would only change the handgun, I would carry my .45 Commander with 230 grain Hydrs-Shoks, I would still bring the carbine & 870. And pray every night before bed to NEVER need them!

First off, that is not true all the time. If you have a non-expanding bullet, the terminal performance is not hindered and in fact, may be helped by a longer wound channel. The main thing that stops fights though, is hitting vital organs, in which case larger diameter wounds are a big help and we only have so much velocity to use in the creation of a wound channel. To wit: If the bullet expands it travels less far than one which doesn't, given the same velocity. So if a bullet is not expanding, it is not as likely to hit vitals and it is also creating a smaller diameter wound channel. The only value of exiting is a second hole to bleed from and bleeding out is a much less desirable method of stopping a fight than hitting vitals. (ie disruption of the CNS or cardio pulmonary system.) Generally speaking, you have less expansion from deeply penetrating rounds. If penetration is all you seek, FMJ Ball is as good as anything. Regardless of what your views on Marshall are, 45 autos stopping people 9 times out of 10 with Ball Ammo has been thoroughly debunked.

The problem of bullets exiting and hitting unintentional targets is a separate but related concern.

Secondly, if you are only worried about bystanders as sort of a secondary concern, as your post kind of suggests, then you need to re-think. It ain't ethical to throw shots around to save yourself while killing innocents who just happen to be there too. Each shootout is different and there may be other concerns, but this is a general rule and is taught in any CCW class in the country. Also, if you do hit somebody who is not involved in the fracas, you are almost guaranteed to be beaten in the civil suit to follow and you will probably do jail time after you are hit with criminal charges. The rule of the Jungle is to survive, but in civilization laws have been created to protect the innocent. You can't survive at the expense of innocents without consequences.

I will say I think you already know all this, but your post doesn't relate that knowledge.

Most of the security gents I worked around (not with) in the Katrina aftermath got out of vehicles with M4's and cleared buildings with pump shotguns, usually 870's. You would have fit right in.

Luckily I don't know what it is like to hit an innocent person by mistake. Thank God for that.

Yep, and that statement is a good summary of why the kinetic energy of a bullet really does matter, regardless of who understands that or not.

When kinetic energy is converted to thermal energy, work is done. Work is defined as a force applied over a distance. If the bullet expands, it deccelerates faster, meaning that it imparts more energy on its target at the expense of penetration. And vice versa.

The conversion of kinetic energy demonstrates how expansion and penetration are related.

....and as ignorant about their weapons as most cops I know.

DINK yes I do and it works just fine for me!

I am sure it works just fine but I am not sure how it will fly in court for you if you ever have to use your gun. I arrested a guy one night that had a pistol loaded the same way it was made a big deal in court. Now keep in mind the guy was turd and could not legally have any firearm anyway. I don't know how it would go in a self defense shooting.

Dink

A couple of things here guys.
First of all, if you are defending yourself, under attack, you are not civily or crimminaly repsonsible for any outcome, including your unintentional killing of another. The guy that started the fight is.
I've also noticed that those who worry about other people while trying to engage a BG in a gunfight often don't prevail. That's because it takes all of the concentration you have just to hit the guy and put him down. Trying to "multitask" in a gunfight is a good way to give away the fight.
Now, if you want to argue that you'd feel terrible if you shot somebody by mistake, no matter the circumstances, be my guest. I'd feel terrible if I couldn't get the job done due to poor ammo or gun choice and some innocent died. Or, even worse, me. E

A post that is spot on, from some one that gets it. Bravo

I only know of two incidents, one involved the death of the partner. Where the intended target was shot and under what circumstances I really don't know; but honestly I don't have to know. I know enough about ballistics to know what bullets do. If a bullet penetrates 20 or more inches in ballistic gelatin then there's a good chance it will completely perforate a center hit bad guy and still be lethal after leaving the bad guy's body. Considering the fact that were just as likely to be hit by lightning as to find ourselves in a gunfight, the odds are in our favor. Each of us need to decide for ourselves how concerned we need to be about bullets that perforate their intended target. I've come to terms on this subject and so have you; we disagree. No big deal, we're both intelligent gentlemen who have intelligently and even somewhat scientifically considered the topic(you and I have both done a significant amount of bullet testing), and came to slightly different conclusions. I don't know that there is a 100% "right" answer to this one. We choose the ammunition that best suits our situation and needs.

I tend to agree, but would you feel quite the same way if the gun fight were going on in the upstairs hall of your home with your wife and kids asleep in various rooms? I could imagine a rationale for seeing it exactly the same. Just wondering what your response would be.