Modern Data on stopping power

[glockarmourer40517]

Any person on THIS THREAD or otherwise who thinks, “stopping power doesn’t exist” (really is meant AIT/Average incapacitation time)

......Such an ignorant person is EQUALLY DISPOSED to therefore believe that, given: same shot, same person, same conditions;......using a .22 LR has no less ‘stopping power’ than a .50 BMG

…..which is asinine in the extreme.

 

[PcMakr]

After the infamous Miami Shootout, the FBI did extensive tests on many different calibers since their beloved 9's failed them. The ultimate decision in calibers was paraphrased as "anything that starts with a 4." From some of the things that I have read about incapacitating an attacker, some departments have started teaching to shoot at the pelvic area. If the pelvis is shattered, the attacker goes down "now", as his pelvis can no longer support the weight of his body. Don't know how that would go with someone loaded on drugs with a gun in hand, but I would think the pain to most people not "up" would override their ability to use a weapon. The forward physical movement of the attacker would however be stopped.

 

[mavracer]

A: 'stopping power is a mythos"

yep thats why we all carry cause they won't stop the BG

B: Exotic modern ammo negates caliber size/velocity/mass (which is an utter lie)

Exotic modern ammo enhances caliber size/velocity/mass. it closes the gap between 9mm and 45 by tayloring energy transfer and maximizing damage.

C: "many so-called tests like the goat-shoots prove nothing since this isn’t ABSOLUTELY scientific".........absolute rubbish

.

my problem with the strassberg tests is not that they wern't scientific they are the problem is the goats were naked and shot broadside hence not putting any premium on penatration.the marshall tables are not scientific but are great for showing trends of what works.

The rule of conceal carry is : “ALWAYS CARRY AS MUCH (GUN) AS YOU CAN HANDLE”……if you can carry any form of .45, then you shouldn’t be carrying a 9mm, regardless of the nature of the ammunition.

so your 9mm is 100% reliable with +p Golddots and you can put all rounds COM out to 50 yards but you would rather carry your 45 that feeds FMJs most of the time and COM at 10 yards some of the time.

…..which is asinine in the extreme

 

[nemoaz]

After the infamous Miami Shootout, the FBI did extensive tests on many different calibers since their beloved 9's failed them.

You mean their beloved .38 +P 158 LSWCHP. Only two had 9mms. The rest had .38 revolvers.

The ultimate decision in calibers was paraphrased as "anything that starts with a 4."

The agents in the field were complaining about too little expansion, as many of the shots hit the bad guys in the upper torso and exited the body without expanding much. But the chief accountant G-men vetoed that. Instead, they demanded ammo that penetrated more (meaning less expansion) and we've been stuck with crappy ammo that expands little but penetrates a certain amount (an number that was pulled out of someone's arse) ever since. Another oddity is that the .38 +P LSWCHP which "failed" in the actual Miami shootout is a round that passes the new FBI penetration tests that resulted from the failures of the shootout.

the reasoning behind same is due to countless shoot-outs with drugged up, drunken & stoned / lunatic criminals who fail to become "immediately incapacitated" with 9mm shots......not only this, but MULTIPLE 9mm shots.

So what is the reasoning behind the countless shout-outs with drugged up/ lunatic criminals who fail to become immediately capacitated with .45 shots... not only this, but multiple or even doezens of .45 shots. I've seen a several.


Our generals in WWII recognized the lack of power of a .45 and decided to requisition carbines (at much higher cost) to replacde the pistols. And our soldiers scooped up the carbines vice the .45s as quickly as they couild. The carbines were also in great demand in Korea and Vietnam.

.45 worship is an illogical disease.

 

[748]

"The ultimate decision in calibers was paraphrased as "anything that starts with a 4."
Works for me!

 

[sm]

glockarmourer40517,

In all due respect, I do not appreciate the condescending tone of your posts.

You agreed to certain rules of conduct upon registration to THR :
http://www.thehighroad.org/code-of-conduct.html

4.) Spamming, trolling, flaming, and personal attacks are prohibited. You can disagree with other members, even vehemently, but it must be done in a well-mannered form. Attack the argument, not the arguer.

Ignorant

Now another member may very well ignorant, stupid, a moron, an idiot or dumber than a sack of rocks. Attack the argument, not the arguer in a civil polite manner, please.

You have a problem with me, take it to PM please.

Steve

 

[mdao]

After the infamous Miami Shootout, the FBI did extensive tests on many different calibers since their beloved 9's failed them. The ultimate decision in calibers was paraphrased as "anything that starts with a 4." From some of the things that I have read about incapacitating an attacker, some departments have started teaching to shoot at the pelvic area. If the pelvis is shattered, the attacker goes down "now", as his pelvis can no longer support the weight of his body. Don't know how that would go with someone loaded on drugs with a gun in hand, but I would think the pain to most people not "up" would override their ability to use a weapon. The forward physical movement of the attacker would however be stopped.

"anything that starts with a 4." was decidedly not the conclusion the FBI's ballistics experts came to. Their conclusion was that adequate penetration was paramount, expansion is secondary but a very good thing to have. That's why they settled on the 10 mm. At the time, high velocities were necessary for bullet expansion, and the 10 mm was one of the few that had enough velocity to expand and enough mass to penetrate deeply. It also performed better on barriers than most expanding loads of the time, as "bonded core" bullets had not been invented. This was a big deal since most of the fighting in the Miami shoot out took place around cars.

Also, the pelvic shot is a low percentage shot. Just go talk to an orthopedic surgeon. The pelvis is relatively large, but the load bearing surfaces in the pelvis are much smaller. Unless you hit those, the "insta-incapacitation" effect ain't going to happen. Mind you, it can work, and spectacularly so when it does. The odds suck though.

You mean their beloved .38 +P 158 LSWCHP. Only two had 9mms. The rest had .38 revolvers.

The agents in the field were complaining about too little expansion, as many of the shots hit the bad guys in the upper torso and exited the body without expanding much. But the chief accountant G-men vetoed that. Instead, they demanded ammo that penetrated more (meaning less expansion) and we've been stuck with crappy ammo that expands little but penetrates a certain amount (an number that was pulled out of someone's arse) ever since. Another oddity is that the .38 +P LSWCHP which "failed" in the actual Miami shootout is a round that passes the new FBI penetration tests that resulted from the failures of the shootout.

Miami Shootout information.

As Platt crawled through the pasenger side window, one of Dove’s 9mm bullets hit his right upper arm, just above the inside crook of the elbow. According to Dr. Anderson, the bullet passed under the bone, through the deltoid, triceps and teres major muscles, and severed the brachial arteries and veins. The bullet exited the inner side of his upper arm near the armpit, penetrated his chest between the fifth and sixth ribs, and passed almost completely through the right lung before stopping. The bullet came to a rest about an inch short of penetrating the wall of the heart.

That's the wound that gave us the FBI penetration requirements. If that 9 mm Silvertip had not expanded or had expanded less, it would have destroyed Platt's heart instead of stopping short. That would have ended the fight before it Platt could get the Mini-14 into play. From the FBI's perspective, this shootout conclusively showed that penetration is king. The only "stoppers" were from bullets that penetrated deeply enough to damage critical strutures.

According to what the FBI standards wanted, the .38 Special FBI Load worked fine in that gunfight. Matix was incapacitated for the entire fight by two shots from a revolver, and none of the .38 special hits would have been fight stoppers if they had penetrated more.

 

[Soybomb]

Countless police forces have ditched their 9mm glocks/ S&W/ Sigs in exchange for mostly .40SW and a few for 45ACP

And yet the 5 largest agencies in the US (employing over 10% of the LEO's in the US) issue 9mm weapons.

Its great to talk about stuff like that but it seems like you're making the false assumption that these moves are based on sound educated opinions by people who truly want the absolute best and know enough about the subject to know what that actually is. In reality I'm under the impression that these decisions are based more on the whims of what an organizations head wants and who offers what on the cheapest bid.

the reasoning behind same is due to countless shoot-outs with drugged up, drunken & stoned / lunatic criminals who fail to become "immediately incapacitated" with 9mm shots......not only this, but MULTIPLE 9mm shots.

I'd love links to any studies you have on this, specifically incapacitation times for 9mm, .40, .45 and .357 sig if available. Like real data, not M&S data. After talking about armchair gun gurus I would hope that such a statement is based on verifiable fact where I can see that .45 is dropping people with 1 shot and 9mm is failling.

Any opponent/attacker who is wounded with, say a 9mm HP, is provided with enough time before shock/incapacitation/bleed-out occurs,

As will someone shot with a .45. Primarly, Courtney's work aside, most of what is accepted as modern working theory says it isn't caliber as much as it is placement. 9/40/45 can all make a very similiar hole in tissue, can you put that hole in the right place to get a quick stop by destruction of the nervous system or rapid blood loss? The more important lesson that gets lost in the noise on the internet is its the shooter, not the gun and we're largely talking about minute differences.

Thanks to mdao for correcting a bunch of bad miami information.

 

[tackleberry45]

I appreciate the results and commentary however the post was simply "does anyone know of modern stopping power data" For those that have seen some of my threads you will note I shoot the 9 because the lower part of my hand has nerve damage from a metal shop accident. The 9 just suits me better. The conversation that started the post was actually a side connversation I was having with an officer in my martial arts class. We got on the subject as they issue the Winchester 127 load, and we just wondered "does anyone track this stuff?"

 

[Michael Courtney]

I also don't understand why any one would criticize any of strasbourg,M&S or HWFE when they all agree the bullet that makes the biggest hole tends to work better given suffesent penatration.

Other factors being equal, bigger holes work better. However, in every case where there is available data, quantitative measures of incapacitation are correlated much more strongly with pressure wave magnitude than with the size of the hole.

The work of Goransson et al, Suneson et al, and Wang et al also suggest that brain injury and incapacitation can occur via remote pressure wave injury. We're also preparing a paper for publication, "Experimental Observations of Incapacitation via Ballistic Pressure Wave without a Wound Channel" that reports our observations of incapacitation by applying a ballistic pressure wave in 10-20 lb mammals without creating any wound channel.

the strassbourg tests only flaw is they didn't put goats in a coat and shoot through glass at a bad angle,thus the ideal world for glaser and mag safe.

The value in the goat tests is understanding incapacitation mechanisms in a controlled experiment rather than assuming the load that works best in one controlled experiment will also work the best in other situations.

Michael Courtney

 

[Michael Courtney]

As will someone shot with a .45. Primarly, Courtney's work aside, most of what is accepted as modern working theory says it isn't caliber as much as it is placement.

The work published by Dr. Amy Courtney and I does not ever suggest that anything is more important than shot placement. Our pressure wave hypothesis states:

Other factors being equal, bullets producing larger pressure waves incapacitate more rapidly than bullets producing smaller pressure waves.

The point is that with the same shot placement, expanded diameter, etc the bullet creating the higher pressure wave will work better, on average.

Since the pressure wave tends to decrease with distance as it propagates through the body, there is every indication that the pressure wave effect also depends on shot placement, though perhaps not as strongly as the direct crush mechanism.

Michael Courtney

 

[mavracer]

Other factors being equal, bigger holes work better. However, in every case where there is available data, quantitative measures of incapacitation are correlated much more strongly with pressure wave magnitude than with the size of the hole.

bla bla bla you think temparary wound channel is more important ok I get that.
99% of the time bigger permanate wound channel= bigger temporary wound channel.

The work of Goransson et al, Suneson et al, and Wang et al also suggest that brain injury and incapacitation can occur via remote pressure wave injury. We're also preparing a paper for publication, "Experimental Observations of Incapacitation via Ballistic Pressure Wave without a Wound Channel" that reports our observations of incapacitation by applying a ballistic pressure wave in 10-20 lb mammals without creating any wound channel.

they call that blunt force trauma ain't gonna happen bouncin a 45 off someones noggin.

ya need to quit reading so much and practice shooting cause the BG didn't read your paper and won't know he's supose to stop.
THE BOTTOM LINE ACCURACY WORKS

 

[mavracer]

Other factors being equal, bullets producing larger pressure waves incapacitate more rapidly than bullets producing smaller pressure waves

So a more powerful gun with a JHP will work better than a less powerful gun with a FMJ. dang glad you guys splained that to me I was thinkin all rong.this pressure wave thing work ifin I just get close say 3-4" to the right of the BG.

all snideness aside I appreciate that pressure waves work but not if its in the wrong place or not deep enough,BTW which round has larger pressure wave 115 grn.9mm silvertip that failed to stop platte or 158 LSHCHP 38+p that most everyone agrees would have sooner.
rules in order of importance
a: have a gun
b: gun should go bang when trigger pulled
c: bullet needs to hit where you want it to
d: bullet needs to perform

and d is the least important because without the other three IT DON"T MATTER

 

[LightningJoe]

I think you guys are wasting your time looking for a handgun caliber that produces mechanical incapacitation. The BG is either "incapacitated" by fear and/or demoralization or he keeps fighting. Good shot placement with adequate penetration will kill him eventually. Truly serendipitous shot placement (brain stem) will, in fact, incapacitate him instantly, but caliber won't matter then.

 

[Michael Courtney]

bla bla bla you think temparary wound channel is more important ok I get that. 99% of the time bigger permanate wound channel= bigger temporary wound channel.

First of all, the pressure wave is not the same thing as the temporary cavity.

In addition, when simply models the wound channel as the expanded diameter times the penetration depth, increasing the wound channel does not increase either the pressure wave or the temporary cavity most of the time.

The work of Goransson et al, Suneson et al, and Wang et al also suggest that brain injury and incapacitation can occur via remote pressure wave injury. We're also preparing a paper for publication, "Experimental Observations of Incapacitation via Ballistic Pressure Wave without a Wound Channel" that reports our observations of incapacitation by applying a ballistic pressure wave in 10-20 lb mammals without creating any wound channel.

they call that blunt force trauma ain't gonna happen bouncin a 45 off someones noggin.

No. While there may be some blunt force trauma associated with pressure wave effects, research has clearly shown that a pressure wave reaching the brain can cause traumatic brain injury and incapacitation separately from blunt force effects.

ya need to quit reading so much and practice shooting cause the BG didn't read your paper and won't know he's supose to stop.

There is room for good science as well as practice. My co-author (Dr. Amy Courtney) and I are both pretty good shots, and you are right that placement is more important than load selection. However, your statement is analogous to "don't worry about a car's safety features, concentrate on avoiding accidents."

Michael Courtney

 

[Michael Courtney]

I think you guys are wasting your time looking for a handgun caliber that produces mechanical incapacitation. The BG is either "incapacitated" by fear and/or demoralization or he keeps fighting. Good shot placement with adequate penetration will kill him eventually. Truly serendipitous shot placement (brain stem) will, in fact, incapacitate him instantly, but caliber won't matter then.

A main point of our published papers is that the ballistic pressure wave can produce physiological incapacitation and traumatic brain injury without a direct hit to the brain and that some loads give a higher probability than others of this effect occurring. Increasing the ballistic pressure wave tends to increase the probability of incapacitation more quickly than wound channel effects via blood loss.

Michael Courtney

 

[mavracer]

A main point of our published papers is that the ballistic pressure wave can produce physiological incapacitation and traumatic brain injury without a direct hit to the brain and that some loads give a higher probability than others of this effect occurring. Increasing the ballistic pressure wave tends to increase the probability of incapacitation more quickly than wound channel effects via blood loss

.

and I reask the question

which round has larger pressure wave 115 grn.9mm silvertip that failed to stop platte or 158 LSHCHP 38+p that most everyone agrees would have sooner.

Increasing the ballistic pressure wave tends to increase the probability of incapacitation more quickly than wound channel effects via blood loss

when it fails it may fail compleatly,IE. badguy lives and kills you and your whole family.at least a 38 through the heart is gonna stop him.

 

[Michael Courtney]

Your question makes me wonder how carefully you read our papers. We do not advocate sacrificing minimum penetration requirements to increase the pressure wave. Here are some quotes from our concluding sections:

Courtney and Courtney:

Do not be overly impressed by the propensity for shallow penetrating loads to produce larger pressure waves. Bullet selection criteria should first determine the required penetration depth for the given risk assessment and application, and only use pressure wave magnitude as a selection criterion for bullets which meet a minimum penetration requirement.

Reliable expansion, penetration, feeding, and functioning are all important aspects of load testing and selection. It would be unwise to abandon long-held aspects of the load testing and selection process, but it seems prudent to consider the pressure wave magnitude along with other factors.

Courtney and Courtney:

Selecting ammunition for law enforcement should begin by assuring that the bullet expands reliably and meets penetration requirements for the application.

Invoking the 1986 shootout is also an example of the vivid appeal fallacy. Since handguns are inherently underpowered for their task, there will always be some failures regardless of the ammunition that is used. We point out the vivid appeal fallacy in the way the 1986 incident is used to support "slow and heavy" loads on page 10 of the review paper:

http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0701/0701268.pdf

Michael Courtney

 

[mavracer]

Reliable expansion, penetration, feeding, and functioning are all important aspects of load testing and selection. It would be unwise to abandon long-held aspects of the load testing and selection process, but it seems prudent to consider the pressure wave magnitude along with other factors

your still going the long way around the barn.I agree that pressure wave or temporary cavaty or shock or what ever you want to call it are a factor.The problem I have is you keep putting the important things in the wrong order.
A. Functioning, feeding, penatration and bullet performance are important.
B. "big and slow" and "light and fast" both work provided they are either big enough or fast enough
C. if your in deep concealment ie.seecamp. kel-tec you aint gonna shock somebody with the bullet it'll be the bang and maybe the that hurts.
D. Not everyone can shoot a gun that has 400 ft lbs of energy accuratly. and 400 is a arbitrary # where IMHO you get adequte penatration and can start seeing effects of pressure wave.
E. The majority of the time for a given shot placement.the caliber of gun (of service rounds 9mm,40,45,.357 and 38) will have the same out come.
Pressure wave plays a roll with the 125 grn .357 obviously because everyone agrees this round works alot of the time. and the closer you get other .355 -.357 loadings to the 125@1450 the better they work.
but for some reason most everything points to the 230 grn .45 my contention would be( using years of experiance both my own hunting and others reading)that it uses momentum to break bones when others would not.

 

[Don357]

caliber vs stopping power

:banghead:In my personal opinion, most people who think bigger is better are trying to make up for their "shortcomings" in other areas. A WELL placed .22 will do the job as well as a 500mag. It all boils down to one thing... ... being able to hit what or who you shoot at.

"Gun control is being able to hit your target!!!"

 

[Logos]

Love This Thread

Thanks to all. This is a fascinating topic.....and useful in helping people understand the complexities of the issues involved.

I'll throw out a few opinions backed only by the fact that I've been shooting for 55 years now (since my dad helped me hold a Colt 38-40 at the age of five--and I liked it).

I've been reading about "stopping power" for almost as long, it seems......since early Elmer Keith stuff.

I find that I'm STILL formulating new views as this discussion goes on.

My concealed carry comfort zone only goes as high as 9mm compact so that's my carry choice and I believe in it 100 percent. I can handle it fast and well and shoot it with precision (at least when shooting at paper, God only knows what would happen if somebody was shooting at me).

But I do believe you can improve your chances, at least a little, by carrying something more powerful--as long as you can shoot it with speed and precision and you can stand the extra weight and bulk.

The question is......in a given situation--how much difference does it really make? Nobody truly knows.

So........based on the latest evidence and after a lifetime of reading all the arguments and studying all the extensive studies and real-life incident tracking.......here's my latest conclusion about what gives you the BEST chance of survival (assuming you can shoot it with speed and precision).

My choice is.......(drumroll) the .357 SIG in a high-quality full-size pistol with a proven 125 grain HP (and it should hold at least 15 of them because these days real-life shooting incidents can and do last longer than in years past).

In my earlier days I'd have gone with the 1911 in .45, but the huge improvements in bullet design and performance in recent years have changed the landscape immensely.

And to the guy who made the Opening Post--thanks, and your questions are valid and there ARE exhaustive studies made on this topic--but you DO need some shooting and hunting experience (observing wounds from various ballistic events) to interpret them.

On with the discussion!

And note that even after coming to this conclusion.....I'll stick with my 9mm.

 

[vanilla_gorilla]

Dr. Courtney, I appreciate your willingess to come here and debate the issue and provide access to your research, in spite of the condescending tone from some who would challenge yours without research of their own.

On another board and thread you participated in, there was mention of a change in the understanding of wounding capacity by a smaller, higher velocity bullet along the lines of a thirty caliber at 1500 fps. Does any of your pressure wave research indicate this may be the dawn of a new way of looking at "stopping power"?

 

[Logos]

Any opponent/attacker who is wounded with, say a 9mm HP, is provided with enough time before shock/incapacitation/bleed-out occurs, is going to A: shoot you back…..B. Knife you. C kill you in another way….in which case you have achieved nothing….Yes your opponent/attacker will DIE, but alas he has killed you in the interim between his being shot multiple times, and his incapacitation.

Wouldn't make any difference if he was wounded with a 9mm or a .357 or an elephant gun, would it?

The key word is wounded and everybody who gets shot is wounded.

The real question is.......how badly?

I think you are trying to say that a larger wound cavity is more likely to quickly incapacitate a bad guy.

The problem with that notion is that while it SEEMS right.....in reality, there is usually not all that much difference in 9mm, .357, .40, .45, etc., wound cavities when proper bullets are used.

When the wounded bad guy knifes somebody it is usually due to a far more complex set of reasons than simply caliber.

 

[Michael Courtney]

Does any of your pressure wave research indicate this may be the dawn of a new way of looking at "stopping power"?

No. Our work is an incremental improvement based on previous ideas. In the near term it should contribute to bullet selection from options which already meet existing standards for expansion, penetration, etc. In the longer term it might lead to incremental design improvements with new bullets that create a larger peak pressure wave without sacrificing penetration or crush cavity.

On another board and thread you participated in, there was mention of a change in the understanding of wounding capacity by a smaller, higher velocity bullet along the lines of a thirty caliber at 1500 fps.

This seems like a bad plan to me. At the present time, I would not advocate giving up crush cavity to gain a larger pressure wave. The pressure wave effect should be viewed as augmenting the crush cavity, not replacing it.

Any why would there be much interest in a .30 cal at 1500 fps? The Double Tap load of the 115 Grain Gold Dot in .357 Sig reaches 1600 FPS in a Glock 31. This load both expands and penetrates well and makes an impressive pressure wave as well. Likewise, there are several 135 grain JHP loads in .40 S&W that exceed 1300 FPS and create both impressive permanent cavitation, good penetration, and large pressure waves.

Don't fall into the trap of "idolatry of velocity." Velocity doesn't create a pressure wave. The retarding force creates the pressure wave. It's not about velocity. It's about the local rate of kinetic energy transfer.

Michael Courtney

 

[Logos]

As pistol caliber stopping power goes, I don't believe in it. I believe in the keep shooting them till they go down theory.

But the "going down" will come sooner with a .44 than it will with a .22 if the hits are in the same place.....therefore, a .44 has more of that mythical "stopping power," right?