.32 for within a room defense?

[Pyro]

My take on using a .32 acp is aim for the face.
That goes for it's use anywhere.

 

[Walt Sherrill]

Kleanbore:

Thanks for the link to the FBI study. I've begun reading it.

My take on using a .32 acp is aim for the face.
That goes for it's use anywhere.

Here's what the FBI study (linked above) says about that:

Few, if any shooting incidents will present the officer with an opportunity to take a careful, precisely aimed shot at the subject's head. Rather, shootings are characterized by their sudden, unexpected occurrence; by rapid and unpredictable movement of both officer and adversary; by limited and partial target opportunities; by poor light and unforeseen obstacles; and by the life or death stress of sudden, close, personal violence... A review of law enforcement shootings clearly suggests that regardless of the number of rounds fired in a shooting, most of the time only one or two solid torso hits on the adversary can be expected...​

Aiming at the face is good in theory, but that may prove to be a very impractical tactic.

 

[Kleanbore]

Posted by Pyro: My take on using a .32 acp is aim for the face.
That goes for it's use anywhere.

Already addressed in Posts 132 and 133.

 

[jimbo555]

The last sentence of that FBI study," the edge is always with the bigger bullet."

 

[Kleanbore]

Posted by jimbo555: The last sentence of that FBI study," the edge is always with the bigger bullet."

Yes, and on Page 12 the reasons are explained; the report goes on to say "Although such an edge clearly exists, is significance cannot be quantified".

 

[jimbo555]

The significance is obvious. The bigger bullet can hit things the little bullet misses while going into the body!

 

[el Godfather]

The significance is obvious. The bigger bullet can hit things the little bullet misses while going into the body!

This does not seem true with general projectiles sizes irrespective of calibers out there.

 

[jimbo555]

The last FBI agent to carry a 32 was Hoover. After all the reports and studies what do fBI agents carry? They could save a lot of money switching to 32acp and concentrate on aiming at the head and spinal chord. Lets be serious!

 

[gym]

You need at least 2-3 hits minimum, to stop a large male who is charging at you. Even then if you don't hit him with a head shot, or heart, spinal chord, etc. "which is hard to do when 2 people are moving and shooting" there is a good chance he will get to you in some manner. If he has a knife you will most likely get cut to some degree, unless you have a background in self defense.
If you cannot maintain a level head while being shot at, there is a 50/50 chance that you won't make it even if you are armed.
The very least you can do, is to hit the guy with the most powerful round that you are able to control. A 32 is not that round. It's not going to stop one or two armed men who are armed with 9mm or larger, unless you are a real gunslinger. Unfortunately everything you read and practiced gets blurry when the crap hit's the fan, and adrenaline starts pumping. It's very hard to hit a moving target when you are trying to avoid being shot, jumping over things and looking for cover. That's why if you only get in 1 hit, you want it to count. If he's hit bad enough to start leaking, he may just run,, and forget about you.
The odds of hitting a guy 3 times while running are slim at best. That's another reason for high cap pistols. 2 or 3 bad guys, don't mean 2 or 3 rounds. They mean maybe 15 rounds to get 9 or 10 rounds on target, even if you are a good shooter. Expect 30-50% misses when under fire. At 3 hits per guy to bring him down, you need the 15 rounds, unless they run.

 

[Walt Sherrill]

The significance is obvious. The bigger bullet can hit things the little bullet misses while going into the body!

This does not seem true with general projectiles sizes irrespective of calibers out there.

He seems to be saying (implicitly, if not directly) that when two projectiles of different calibers have the same level of penetration and follow equivalent paths, the projectile with the larger cross-section WILL disrupt more tissue and/or bone (i.e.," hit things the little bullet misses").

You seem to disagree, but offer no explanation.

Perhaps you're saying that you (and some others) feel you will be more effective with a smaller caliber weapon than with a larger caliber one. That may be true for you (and some others), but I would argue that such a claim is really more dependent on your gun's innate precision (it's ability to place shots in the same place, one after another) and your marksmanship skills than the caliber used.

.

 

[jimbo555]

Thank you Walt for clearing that up.

 

[el Godfather]

He seems to be saying (implicitly, if not directly) that when two projectiles of different calibers have the same level of penetration and follow equivalent paths, the projectile with the larger cross-section WILL disrupt more tissue and/or bone (i.e.," hit things the little bullet misses").

You seem to disagree, but offer no explanation.

Perhaps you're saying that you (and some others) feel you will be more effective with a smaller caliber weapon than with a larger caliber one. That may be true for you (and some others), but I would argue that such a claim is really more dependent on your gun's innate precision (it's ability to place shots in the same place, one after another) and your marksmanship skills than the caliber used.

.

You mean to say that moving up from .32 to .355 (9mm) of an inch the possibility of hitting a vital organ significantly increases? I disagree the size of the projectile is so significant that its chances of hitting increases.

If that was the case then for precise shooting competitions .500 SW Mag would be first choice.

 

[Walt Sherrill]

You mean to say that moving up from .32 to .355 (9mm) of an inch the possibility of hitting a vital organ significantly increases? I disagree the size of the projectile is so significant that its chances of hitting increases.

If that was the case then for precise shooting competitions .500 SW Mag would be first choice.

Put simply, I would argue that increasing the diameter of the round from .3125 to .355 is almost a 14% increase in frontal area, and I'd think you could expect to increase tissue damage by at least that much... And, if you must hit a small area, your chances of hitting it could be 14% better. If we were to shift to hollow points, I would expect the difference in size there to be at least as much.

But why stop at 9mm? Why not move on up to .45 ACP? That's an almost 43% increase in size. Bullseye shooters have no problem demonstrating precision in their contests. And .45 hollow points expand reliably. (And while I don't want to shoot or carry a S&W 500 MAG --- I have shot one -- some U.S. Army and Marine snipers have done pretty well with .50 caliber rounds shot out of long guns.) Large calibers don't have to be less accurate, when they're fitted to the task at hand.

I would argue that PRECISION (here meaning real-world accuracy) is generally more dependent on the quality of the gun and the shooter's skills than on the caliber the gun fires.

 

[Old Fuff]

I would argue that PRECISION (here meaning real-world accuracy) is generally more dependent on the quality of the gun and the shooter's skills than on the caliber the gun fires.

Indeed, and every one of the relatively few individuals I knew that had been in shooting incidents and occasionally or regularly carried a .32 pistol admitted they depended on their frequently practiced skill, and had a quality handgun.

But that observation also applied to anything else they might use for whatever reason.

 

[Walt Sherrill]

I found the following information today -- a relatively recent analysis of the effectiveness of various rounds in self-defense or police-related confrontations, but without some of the statistical shortcomings of the Marshall & Sanow study.

Things like number of one-shot stops (but including incidents that took MORE than one shot), the number of incapacitations (taking the other guy out of the battle), and a lot of other information for a relatively high number of shootings.

It's not hard science, but it is better than some of the things I've read. And it includes information about roughly 1500 shootings. His methodology is well-explained and makes more sense than the Marshall & Sanow approach. (Only 25 of the total shootings involved the .32 ACP round.) Around 300 of the shootings were rifles or shotguns -- but they're broken out and can be ignored. Explore it, yourself:

http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/node/7866

Here's one excerpt from the website:

...Although this study showed that the percentages of people stopped with one shot are similar between almost all handgun cartridges, there's more to the story. Take a look at two numbers: the percentage of people who did not stop (no matter how many rounds were fired into them) and the one-shot-stop percentage. The lower caliber rounds (.22, .25, .32) had a failure rate that was roughly double that of the higher caliber rounds. The one-shot-stop percentage (where I considered all hits, anywhere on the body) trended generally higher as the round gets more powerful. ​

.

 

[Sergei Mosin]

Put simply, I would argue that increasing the diameter of the round from .3125 to .355 is almost a 14% increase in frontal area, and I'd think you could expect to increase tissue damage by at least that much... And, if you must hit a small area, your chances of hitting it could be 14% better. If we were to shift to hollow points, I would expect the difference in size there to be at least as much.

But why stop at 9mm? Why not move on up to .45 ACP? That's an almost 43% increase in size. Bullseye shooters have no problem demonstrating precision in their contests. And .45 hollow points expand reliably.

That is essentially the logic underlying the old saying, "A 9mm might expand but a .45 won't shrink." It also comes back to what Frank Ettin says about bigger holes being better than smaller holes.

 

[Old Fuff]

Yup... But two things.

1. The gun fighting and marksmanship skills of the various shooters aren't known or taken into consideration.

2. Obviously by the time this last study was made, .32 pistols (maybe revolvers?) had become rare. 25 out of 1500 is an inconsequental sample.

Anyway my position is that large bore cartridges in big handguns are likely more effective, but when circumstances demand, smaller rounds and platforms can cary the day if they are matched with superior marksmanship and cool skill while under fire.

 

[el Godfather]

Put simply, I would argue that increasing the diameter of the round from .3125 to .355 is almost a 14% increase in frontal area, and I'd think you could expect to increase tissue damage by at least that much... And, if you must hit a small area, your chances of hitting it could be 14% better. If we were to shift to hollow points, I would expect the difference in size there to be at least as much.

But why stop at 9mm? Why not move on up to .45 ACP? That's an almost 43% increase in size. Bullseye shooters have no problem demonstrating precision in their contests. And .45 hollow points expand reliably. (And while I don't want to shoot or carry a S&W 500 MAG --- I have shot one -- some U.S. Army and Marine snipers have done pretty well with .50 caliber rounds shot out of long guns.) Large calibers don't have to be less accurate, when they're fitted to the task at hand.

I would argue that PRECISION (here meaning real-world accuracy) is generally more dependent on the quality of the gun and the shooter's skills than on the caliber the gun fires.

Your conclusion negates your own argument.

 

[C0untZer0]

At least one part of Greg Ellifritz's methodology doesn't make sense to me:

- One shot stop percentage - number of incapacitations divided by the number of hits the person took. Like Marshall's number, I only included hits to the torso or head in this number.

A one-shot-stop is not a derived number that is calculated, a one-shot-stop is a discrete event - like you'd expect, an instance where someone was shot - just once and stopped. So it isn't a number that is derived by a calculation, it is a number arrived at by counting the incidents where a one-shot-stop occurred.

His "fatal" categorization is flawed too. A .25 ACP FMJ can zip through the lower lung, miss major blood vessels and ultimately prove not to be fatal, or a round could be a torso hit, but due to clothing and bullet design, stop on a rib or otherwise fail to penetrate, and it's ultimately not fatal. You don't know what a fatal wound was until a coroner actually looks at the wound and declares that particular wound was the cause of death, or would have resulted in death due to the nature of the wound.

Am I the only one who looks at Greg Ellifritz's data and conclusions and sees problems with it?

 

[Zerodefect]

If you feel a need for a weaker round, by all means try it.
-less recoil
-less report
-girl hands?

Just keep in mid it's still a marginal pistol round. Choose wisely. Everything has it's plus's and minus's. Sometimes I use a weaker Ps90 rifle for home defense or RV camping for obvious reasons.

.380 auto seems available in plenty of small guns. That's as small as I go.

Other points I'd like to make after reading this thread:
-aim small, miss small. Don't aim for headshots! You won't make any. (Headshots are only popular in war, when people are behind cover and that's you're only target, it's not a practical technique for personal defense) And headshots with a subcompact with poor sights? Hahaha, good luck with that.
-good luck aiming at dogs, know how to go HTH with a dog. They are insaney small wirey targets.
-10feet, 10yards? Don't underestimate the fact that you can hit just about any vital organ you want and still end up HTH wrestling with a dieing bad guy intent on killing you. Pistols rarely drop anyone DRT.

 

[Kleanbore]

Count, those are two flaws in the analysis. There are more, but there is no need to harp on them.

 

[Kleanbore]

Seven pages ought to be enough.