For self defense, I'm going to load my gun with quality, JHP ammunition.
[1] For Practice.
I don't see cost as an issue. I don't think it's necessary to practice with exactly the same ammunition one loads in the gun for self defense. It's sufficient to practice with ammunition that ballistically similar to one's defensive ammunition. (But it is necessary to test the gun with one's self defense ammunition.)
[2] Shot Placement
Yes, shot placement is "king", but here's no reason that one's shot placement should be any different for JHP ammunition compared with ball.
[3] Terminal Ballistics (1)
There were four ways in which shooting an assailant stops the fight:
- psychological -- "I'm shot, it hurts, I don't want to get shot any more."
- massive blood loss depriving the muscles and brain of oxygen and thus significantly impairing their ability to function
- breaking major skeletal support structures
- damaging the central nervous system.
Of those, damage to the central nervous system is the quickest, surest and most likely to be fatal. And many times the BG will stop because it hurts, is the least sure and most likely to be hazardous to your own health. But do you really want to count on it? People, both good and bad, have also fought long and hard with serious, and often ultimately fatal wounds. And someone who has massive amounts of adrenalin in his system, like a bad guy under the stress of committing a violent crime might, may not feel much pain from even a serious wound.
Since adrenalin or drugs can blunt the effects of pain, and people have continued to fight when severely wounded, effectively stopping the fight reasonably quickly will call for causing sufficient damage to render the attacker physiologically incapable of continuing the fight, such as from massive blood loss depriving the muscles and brain of oxygen, major damage to important skeletal support structures or damage to the central nervous system. But the central nervous system is a small target, and important skeletal support structures are also small targets and causing significant enough damage to one can be a somewhat iffy proposition with most handgun rounds.
Thus rely on blood loss depriving the attacker’s brain and muscles of oxygen to stop the fight. The rub is that the effects of blood loss and oxygen deprivation can take some time – during which our attacker will most likely continue to try to hurt us.
The more damage that is caused, the quicker the blood supply to the muscles and brain will be impaired and the more quickly the attacker will lose the physiological ability to press the fight. So we can try to increase the amount and rate of blood loss by (1) making more holes and (2) making bigger holes.
And of course an expanded JHP makes a bigger hole.
[4] Terminal Ballistics (2)
The Marshall and Sanow "stopping power" data is controversial. But looking at the data for .45 ACP, for example, shows some major themes.
- All JHPs performed in the 80%+ "one shpt stop" range. No FMJ did better than 62%.
- All JHPs when fired from a gun with a 5 inch barrel showed adequate (at least 12 inches) average penetration (except for three -- and those still showed average penetration of more than 11 inches).
- All 230 grain JHPs showed adequate average penetration even when fired with a gun having a 4 inch barrel.
[5] JHP Ammunition is the Overwhelming Choice of Law Enforcement Agencies
littlerichard said:
The most effective ones are those that actually hit the target.
If you can't get good hits on target with JHPs, you probably can't do any better with ball. There's no reason you'll be more likely to get better hits with ball than with JHPs.
