Ammunition Effectiveness

[FastMover]

Lets play nice!

As continued.



DonRon. As you stated:
"We have used FMJ and round nosed bullets in warfare for hundreds of years now with remarkable success."
Please note the inception date of the Hague Convention. 111 years.


"A LEO's first weapon of choice in a gun fight is a 12 gauge shotgun shooting 9 round .38 caliber size pellets at the aggressor."
This is simply not correct. The 1st weapon of choice for LE is a patrol rifle(AR-15). With the types and varieties of ammunition on the market, I can do everything a shotgun can do and more accurately. In most scenario's 9 .32 caliber pellets leaving the muzzle of a shotgun is reckless. Even with modern flight control wadding I can see only a handful of CQB engagements that I will use my shotty with buckshot. Slugs and slugs alone are what I carry. In my SBS 870, I can pack 5in the tube, 1 in the chamber, and 6 on my side saddle. That's 11 total rounds. My patrol rifle with down loaded magazines totes a total of 54 rounds.

Taken into consideration that blood loss is the primary killer, one could argue that a .45 diameter wound track will cause more blood flow than a .38 diameter one. Expanding bullets cause the diameter to become even larger with less chance of over penetration. In closing I think that the opinion of combat superiority by the M9 comes more from the magazine capacity than the bullet diameter.

 

[DonRon]

Lets play nice!

As continued.



DonRon. As you stated:
"We have used FMJ and round nosed bullets in warfare for hundreds of years now with remarkable success."
Please note the inception date of the Hague Convention. 111 years.


"A LEO's first weapon of choice in a gun fight is a 12 gauge shotgun shooting 9 round .38 caliber size pellets at the aggressor."
This is simply not correct. The 1st weapon of choice for LE is a patrol rifle(AR-15). With the types and varieties of ammunition on the market, I can do everything a shotgun can do and more accurately. In most scenario's 9 .32 caliber pellets leaving the muzzle of a shotgun is reckless. Even with modern flight control wadding I can see only a handful of CQB engagements that I will use my shotty with buckshot. Slugs and slugs alone are what I carry. In my SBS 870, I can pack 5in the tube, 1 in the chamber, and 6 on my side saddle. That's 11 total rounds. My patrol rifle with down loaded magazines totes a total of 54 rounds.

Taken into consideration that blood loss is the primary killer, one could argue that a .45 diameter wound track will cause more blood flow than a .38 diameter one. Expanding bullets cause the diameter to become even larger with less chance of over penetration. In closing I think that the opinion of combat superiority by the M9 comes more from the magazine capacity than the bullet diameter.

That expansion occurs in the body and not at the entrance wound. I have personally seen several shoot through with hollow point ammunition where no expansion was derived. Not ever department issues or carries an AR 15 Carbine as well.

The indisputable fact that I have ascertained in 40 some years of ballistic forensics it that any bullet, regardless of caliber, is capable of causing death to a human being. The rest is all academic. If you do not believe that then let me know which caliber you would like to be hit with to disprove my conclusion,

 

[KenW.]

"A LEO's first weapon of choice in a gun fight is a 12 gauge shotgun shooting 9 round .38 caliber size pellets at the aggressor."

Not for me. While I do have an issued AR-15 in the back of my explorer, I grab Ole' mossy from the overhead locking rack. Its loaded with 000 buck and a sidesaddle of 6 slugs. 000 buck is 8 .36 cal pellets per round.

 

[DonRon]

Once Again, I maintain that any caliber bullet, regardless of shape is capable of causing a fatal injury to the human body and that this fact is indisputable.

 

[Kleanbore]

Posted by orleen: Lethality and stopping ability are only distantly related. You can be stopped by a bean bag, the flat side of a boat oar, a stun gun, and be fine later. You can be killed by injesting enough arsenic, but it will take several days for you to get sick, and more for you to expire.

Interesting comment.

Welcome to THR, orleen.

90% of our history with ball ammo has been most unsatisfactory. There is a reason why ball ammo is illegal for deer hunting! It lets the critters run for hundreds of yards before blood loss finally makes them lie down.

I think you mean full metal jacket ammunition. Ball ammo (as opposed to shot, blanks, tracers, or rifle granade cartridges) has been doing the job for centuries.

That said, when we discuss what we shoot, many of us do refer to FMJ ammo as "ball".

I've read more than once (though that doesn't make it true) that one advantage that FMJ ammo had in battle was that it was more likely to wound than kill, and that caring for wounded palaces a significant burden on the enemy.

One other interesting thing. In American Rifle: A Biography, Alexander Rose commented that Army medics in the Spanish American war were amazed at the survival rate of soldiers who had been injured with clean, narrow wounds by Spanish troops with their 7MM Mauser rifles; they had been accostomed to seeing men who had been shot with large lead bullets.

 

[DonRon]

Muskets used by our forefather shoot ball projectiles and many English Solders fell victim to them and died as well.

 

[mljdeckard]

No one is saying that there is such thing as a non-deadly bullet. But we certainly are saying that some are much more likely to quickly incapacitate than others.

 

[MikeNice]

A lot of them died from infection and bad medical practices.

A FMJ round will kill you. A .22lr will do the job if placed just right. However, a .45 Federal HST round that opens up to .85" will give you some room for error. No matter what anybody says a .85" hole will cause a lot more bleeding than a .3" hole.

Nobody is arguing the point that any size bullet will kill somebody. A rock to the eye can kill somebody. However, I would much rather have a gun than a rock. I would much rather have an expanding round than a FMJ any day of the week.

Is there any agency besides the armed forces that still uses ball ammo? I know all of the PDs near me use HPs.

 

[Shadow 7D]

DonRon,

wow. great addition

And now for the rest of the story

The average caliber for the Brown Bess was .75, most muzzle loaders shot and still shoot rounds in the .58 to .75 or even larger. The ammo they shot was a SOFT lead ball, that deformed on impact, caused some horrendous wounds and behaved more like shotgun or pistol ammo than modern rifle, Oh, and death was often a time coming, esp. such wonderful conditions as being 'gut shot'

So size matters, but it is, and always will be second to PLACEMENT PLACEMENT PLACEMENT. FMJ have had some funny things done to them to make them more lethal, but consider a well designed frangible that shatters and leave ground meat (rifle caliber not pistol) there isn't much to do for that, get one in or close enough to a major blood source and thats it.

HP have two things going for them, better energy dumping in the target, and wider wound path, for SD, I want something that is less likely to go through, and if it does, at least you can claim on the stand that you tried.

 

[Zerodefect]

It's all about placement, luck, and how many hits you can put on target.

Nearly every "so called weakish" ammo has impressed me in informal testing. 9mm, 5.7x28, .380 all rumored to be weak, seem to tear stuff up plenty well.

It's just a matter of hitting something critical.

Even a M1 Garand chewing a chunk of flesh out of someones chest the size of a shoe, may or may not be quickly effective. Sometimes your luck just stinks, there is no "for sure" in a gunfught. Plenty of troops have died for no fault of there own, or their weapons. That's just life.

And of course, handguns are handguns (weak), and rifles are rifles (better).


I carry as heavy a caliber as my CCW garments allow. A good mousegun deos find it's way onto my belt from time to time.

 

[Shadow 7D]

Yeah, but think about it, mouse guns aren't for reaching out and touching someone, they are up close and personal, a bit more range than a knife. I have one, yeah, I keep a mouse in my pocket, I think that it's better to be armed, even if it is 'inadequate' than be unarmed. Thinking of it, I do need to get to the range, I want to see if my pocket mouse is going to choke on all the lint, I've been remiss on my cleaning.

 

[bigfatdave]

Everyone knows that HP ammo is a scam to get us buying more ammo and wearing guns out faster with the hotter loads. The ideal defensive round is a solid featureless spherical osmium projectile on top of just enough powder to get it to roll out of the muzzle, which ensures nice neat cookie-cutter holes in the target regardless of composition.

Or maybe HP ammo lets the round expend more energy in one focused spot rather than sailing through and making a neat hole with little kinetic energy transfer.

How could we ever figure it out? Let's just use what the military uses, their group tactics and acceptable losses are a direct translation into personal defense, right?