[P95Carry]

Ok, just some late (Xmas eve) musings .... not unusual for me!:p

Now, we often discuss effectiveness, ''stopping power'' etc with handgun ammo ... and we know that broadly, few handguns are going to do as much good as a rifle in a defensive situation.

However .... whilst we might sneer at a load yielding a ''mere'' 500 ft lbs let's say .. think on this (imagination needed here) ..... and I am too damn lazy right now to do all the math ....

Swing an 8lb sledge hammer, as if perhaps to strike a post ... or to break a stone. Now let's say that a good swing accelerates said sledge hammer to 20 ft/sec ... that would mean an impact energy available of 50 ft/lbs ... and it doesn't take much to imagine the result of being on the receiving end.!!

Furthermore ........ that energy, if the hammer hits square ... is spread over let's say 9 sq inches ( 3 x 3 face probably?). Well, force = pressure/area ... so pressure will be quite distributed..... but if that same weight hammer was an ice pick ... imagine then the concentration of force at the point. Huge increase in penetration, as against wider area 'crush'.

Now to contrast .... taking the ''humble'' 500 ft lbs (easy figure) in, say, a 230 gr .45 acp bullet .. that has a cross sectional area of just 0.159 sq inches ... apply that 500 ft lbs to that small CSA and .. you can see how drastically penetration increases, because the impact area is now pretty small.

So - handgun bullets may get belittled but .... a bit of imagination with this hammer analogy .... does to me make it seem real good not to take a bullet, if avoidable!:p :D

That's all .... just rambling - again!!:)

[QuarterBoreGunner]

Great. I *had* sugar plum fairies dancing... now I have 'lead sledgehammers'.




Ok the sugar plum fairies were a little... you know... weak...

[P95Carry]

I must have had subliminal suggestion ... I earlier played the old Peter Gabriel track ''Sledgehammer''! Plus of course .. not that long ago we had the thread running on the TV series too!

Oh well ........... :rolleyes: :p

[krept]

yeah, i agree

when one says 'handguns are underpowered' I think of it being relative...

most, if not all, have better energy than I can produce with a hand thrown stone. I think this is why many feel comfortable with "9mm and up..." lots better than carrying a pocket full o' rocks

cheers, and happy holidays.

[popbang]

I think some people need to remember kinetic energy is the ability to do work. It does not mean that it actually does work. An example is a bullet may have 500 ft/lbs of energy yet it doesn't move a one pound object 500 feet. The energy is an ability that cannot be fully harnessed, so to me it is just another golly gee whiz number.

[P95Carry]

It does not mean that it actually does work. Aha popbang ....... but I beg to differ!! It most surely DOES do ''work'' .... represented by tissue damage and displacement as the energy is translated in to work. Surely in a sense ... it has to - all that stored energy has to be dissipated ...... and if not by continued flight with losses due to drag and gravity ... then it has to be dissipated on impact.a bullet may have 500 ft/lbs of energy yet it doesn't move a one pound object 500 feet. Probably, in a vacuum and with gravity left out of the equation ... it probably could do just that - leaving out friction forces too, and even bullet distortion/break-up. The figures are really just a convenient way to ''quantify'' the energy .... things being far from ''ideal'' of course in ''real'' world!!!

Bottom line is - when you think of the impact from a sledge hammer, and equate that with even a humble pistol bullet ..... it become apparent that a bullet impact is nothing to sneeze at. In fact our recent thread on merits of air rifle .. support the fact that apparently low energy projectiles can still be remarkably effective when placed usefully. ...... leaving out for convenience anything to do with the ''stopping power'' debate!:p

[DMK]

What about the difference in the weight of the two projectiles you are comparing? 8lbs, vs 230gr.?

[P95Carry]

DMK ..... the object of this (OK, rather odd musing!) ..... is purely to contrast 2 extremes of mass .... but the big variable is velocity ... and thus the energy.

The 8lb hammer is moving slow ..... but we can all imagine what a 50 ft lb impact might be like if hit by said hammer. Who has not damaged a finger from even a 2 lb hammer when nailing!! Hurts!!

Then we move up the velocity scale considerably, but have a much lighter and smaller ''hammer head'' ..... a small bullet. This, by virtue of much increased velocity compared with our hammer ... finishes up having way more energy ..... and because of its much smaller CSA can therefore penetrate and deliver that energy in a very confined (and unpleasant!) manner.

Make in sense? probably not - I ramble too much!:D

[popbang]

It is at times like this I wish I had a scanner. In "Handloader's Digest" 17th Edition there is an article by Lee Saunders titled Thoughts on Energy in which he tried to explain or rather quantify bullet energy. He used an apparatus to measure energy. He looked several arguements about energy and came up with a theory of impulse energy which is not the same as momentum nor kinetic. That is the amount of energy transferred to the target.

The idea and testing make alot of sense, probably why it has fallen by the way side.

[BluesBear]

I had a demonstration I used to do in my Home Firearms Safety Classes as well as my beginning classes to illustrate the power of a firearm.

I had the students open their hand out flat and slap themselves in the breast bone several times.
The idea is to get a good hand speed and produce a nice THWAP when the hand hit.

Now make a fist and hit the same area just as hard 2 or 3 times. Notice the difference in discomfort?

Now take a 230gr FMJ .45ACP cartridge, place it between your thumb and forefinger and do it again so the bullet is all that hits the breastbone. You'll probably only want to do this one once.

Then I'd ask, "Now imagine how it would feel from a gun?"
You could see the light bulbs come on in their heads.

[P95Carry]

Good demo method Bear ...... exemplifies well the effects of impact from different object CSA's with similar energy quotients.

Could say - it''makes a point''!:p

[Amish_Bill]

Dang...

At first I thought you were talking about the Tromix Sledgehammer in .458Socom. Then I wondered what a Tromix rifle was doing in the pistol section... then I got started thinking of a .458 Socom pistol upper...

Oh My.... a .458 Socom AR pistol upper.... :-)

[sm]

Blues Bear, great example!

I recall seeing a Hunter Safety video a lot of years ago. Various objects and fruit shot with 22lr and up. The one that really got the students attention was seeing the expoision of fruit , and water jugs, upon impact by a hunting arrow.

The lesson being all things sharp and pointy driven by force , can injure or kill. Safety with all things sharp and pointy , not just cartridges.