Different target location.

[OneFreeTexan]

On most paper targets, the ten ring is centered on the chest.
I think just below the belt buckle would be a better location, Many men can easily take a hard punch to their chest and not fall, where, a very light tap below the belt buckle will bring them to their knees.
There is the hard breastbone that has to be penetrated, so even a 9 mm, has a job to do..Where I think a 25 acp hit below the belt buckle would really get a guys attention.

I post this here for this naysayers than read to respond, rather than read to understand…they just love to jump in quickly to attack and disagree with a post. You know who you are.

 

[Robert]

On most paper targets, the ten ring is centered on the chest.
I think just below the belt buckle would be a better location, Many men can easily take a hard punch to their chest and not fall, where, a very light tap below the belt buckle will bring them to their knees.
There is the hard breastbone that has to be penetrated, so even a 9 mm, has a job to do..Where I think a 25 acp hit below the belt buckle would really get a guys attention.

I guess you could say I jumped in and

I post this here for this naysayers than read to respond, rather than read to understand…they just love to jump in quickly to attack and disagree with a post. You know who you are.

A punch and a gun shot are two totally different things and damage in different ways. We aim for the center mass of the target presented. On full size torso sized targets I use an armpit hold, meaning if you draw a line between the armpits I aim for the center of the torso at that area. Punch holes in hearts and lungs stops an attacker much faster than a hole in the stomach or intestines. I don't give one whit for what hurts more. I am shooting to stop an attacker, I am aiming where I can do the most damage as quickly as possible. They can continue an attach if they can't breath, pump blood to the arms and legs, or have no brain function. Simple as that.

I guess you could say I disagree...

 

[CapnMac]

Part of that "human target presentation" is also based on motion. That areas just at the base of the rib cage is a bit of a pivot center.
The shoulder "girdle" swings side-to-side from that base of the thorax; it's also where the shoulder rotates fore and aft, too.
Ditto the pelvic girdle, too (other than that small minority of great boxers and rushing WRs)

One of the classic (and time proven) arguments against aiming at the head; or especially the legs, is from the amount of motion either of those have. Just because you aim there does not mean those "parts" will still be there when the bullet gets there.
For the thorax, like the head or leg, it's the middle "third" that is the critical target zone. On average, the wide part of the thorax is right at 3x as wide as the entire head; about 6x as wide as a leg (averaged for width). So, the critical zone of the thorax is much wider than those moving bits. (The abdominal cavity reverses this trend, the critical area is the center sixth, and that is being generous--barring extremely lucky hits to hepatic, splenic, or renal arteries).

Which brings up another issue with targets in general. They may not present front-to-front, they can be "bladed" to you. And "under the beltline" hold at a person turned 45° or more away from you, is present the arch of the pelvis, which is heavy bone, and might deflect smaller bullets.

The "bottle" or "bowling pin" target, and the IPSC "shopping bag" targets are actually quite well thought out.

 

[Meeks36]

Crotch shots are used when body armor is in play.

 

[The Night Rider]

I mean, unless I've completely misread the OP, we're not talking about aiming at the pelvic girdle. We're talking about aiming for the testicles on the theory that the pain alone will stop our assailant.

I've never been shot but I can't fathom how the pain of being shot in the testicles would be THAT MUCH MORE PAINFUL than being shot center mass that the pain alone would stop me.

With all due respect I think it's a dumb idea.

 

[FL-NC]

Lots of vital plumbing is in the chest area. Below the belt buckle is a gut shot, period. I've seen people shot in just about every body part you could name. Gut shoot a big game animal like a deer and see what happens. Not really, don't do that.

 

[Kleanbore]

And on a moving target, consider the likelihood of a hit.

Consider motion and target area.

That's why COM is much preferred.

 

[entropy]

You can think what you want, One Free Texan, but as Ayn Rand was fond of saying, "Check your premise."

 

[bangswitch]

Crotch shots are used when body armor is in play.

I prefer a head shot if body armor is being worn. I don't want him to sing at all, let alone sing soprano. The head is no harder to target than the groin.

I shoot B-27 targets; I picture in my mind the anatomy behind the bulls eye and scoring rings.
Light orange is the sternum and lower edge of the rib cage
Dark orange is the lungs
Green is the liver, although it is bigger than that
Purple are the kidneys
Dark red is the heart and aorta

While we aim for the 10X ring, all those structures will bleed a person out within a few minutes. There is also the spine, which runs generally down the middle. As long as I'm hitting body mass when I practice, I know I'll hit at least one of those structures. The sternum won't stop a pistol bullet from 15 yards or less, and there are gaps between the ribs. even hitting the bones damages what is behind them, from shockwave propagation and bone fragments.

 

[Frank Ettin]

....I post this here for this naysayers than read to respond, rather than read to understand…they just love to jump in quickly to attack and disagree with a post.....

There is data, and there are studies, and we have a good deal of knowledge about wound physiology. What all that shows with regard to self defense could be summarized as follows:

1. Pretty much every cartridge ever made has at times succeeded at quickly stopping an assailant.
   
   
2. Pretty much every cartridge ever made has at times failed at quickly stopping an assailant.
   
   
3. Considering ballistic gelatin performance, data available on real world incidents, an understanding of wound physiology and psychology, certain cartridges with certain bullets are more likely to be more effective more of the time.
   
   
4. For defensive use in a handgun the 9mm Luger, .38 Special +P, .40 S&W, .45 ACP, .357 Magnum, and other, similar cartridges when of high quality manufacture, and loaded with expanding bullets appropriately designed for their respective velocities to both expand and penetrate adequately, are reasonably good choices.
   
   
5. And that's probably as good as we can do.

Let's consider how shooting someone will actually cause him to stop what he's doing.

• The goal is to stop the assailant.
  
  
• There are four ways in which shooting someone stops him:
  
  
  • 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.
  
  Depending on someone just giving up because he's been shot is iffy. Probably most fights are stopped that way, but some aren't; and there are no guarantees.
  
  Breaking major skeletal structures can quickly impair mobility. But if the assailant has a gun, he can still shoot. And it will take a reasonably powerful round to reliably penetrate and break a large bone, like the pelvis.
  
  Hits to the central nervous system are sure and quick, but the CNS presents a small and uncertain target. And sometimes significant penetration will be needed to reach it.
  
  The most common and sure physiological way in which shooting someone stops him is blood loss -- depriving the brain and muscles of oxygen and nutrients, thus impairing the ability of the brain and muscles to function. Blood loss is facilitated by (1) large holes causing tissue damage; (2) getting the holes in the right places to damage major blood vessels or blood bearing organs; and (3) adequate penetration to get those holes into the blood vessels and organs which are fairly deep in the body. The problem is that blood loss takes time. People have continued to fight effectively when gravely, even mortally, wounded. So things that can speed up blood loss, more holes, bigger holes, better placed holes, etc., help.
  
  So as a rule of thumb --
  
  
  • More holes are better than fewer holes.
    
    
  • Larger holes are better than smaller holes.
    
    
  • Holes in the right places are better than holes in the wrong places.
    
    
  • Holes that are deep enough are better than holes that aren't.
    
    
  • There are no magic bullets.
    
    
  • There are no guarantees.
  
  
• With regard to the issue of psychological stops see
  
  
  • this study, entitled "An Alternate Look at Handgun Stopping Power" by Greg Ellifritz. And take special notice of his data on failure to incapacitate rates set out in the table headed "Here are the results."
    
    As Ellifritz notes in his discussion of his "failure to incapacitate" data (emphasis added):

    ...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. This tells us a couple of things...
    
    In a certain (fairly high) percentage of shootings, people stop their aggressive actions after being hit with one round regardless of caliber or shot placement. These people are likely NOT physically incapacitated by the bullet. They just don't want to be shot anymore and give up! Call it a psychological stop if you will. Any bullet or caliber combination will likely yield similar results in those cases. And fortunately for us, there are a lot of these "psychological stops" occurring. The problem we have is when we don't get a psychological stop. If our attacker fights through the pain and continues to victimize us, we might want a round that causes the most damage possible. In essence, we are relying on a "physical stop" rather than a "psychological" one. In order to physically force someone to stop their violent actions we need to either hit him in the Central Nervous System (brain or upper spine) or cause enough bleeding that he becomes unconscious. The more powerful rounds look to be better at doing this....

    
    
    • There are two sets of data in the Ellifritz study: incapacitation and failure to incapacitate. They present some contradictions.
      
      
      • Considering the physiology of wounding, the data showing high incapacitation rates for light cartridges seems anomalous.
        
        
      • Furthermore, those same light cartridges which show high rates of incapacitation also show high rates of failures to incapacitate. In addition, heavier cartridges which show incapacitation rates comparable to the lighter cartridges nonetheless show lower failure to incapacitate rates.
        
        
      • And note that the failure to incapacitate rates of the 9mm Luger, .40 S&W, .45 ACP, and .44 Magnum were comparable to each other.
        
        
      • If the point of the exercise is to help choose cartridges best suited to self defense application, it would be helpful to resolve those contradictions.
        
        
      • A way to try to resolve those contradictions is to better understand the mechanism(s) by which someone who has been shot is caused to stop what he is doing.
      
      
    • The two data sets and the apparent contradiction between them (and as Ellifritz wrote) thus strongly suggest that there are two mechanisms by which someone who has been shot will be caused to stop what he is doing.
      
      
      • One mechanism is psychological. This was alluded to by both Ellifritz and FBI agent and firearms instructor Urey Patrick. Sometimes the mere fact of being shot will cause someone to stop. When this is the stopping mechanism, the cartridge used really doesn't matter. One stops because his mind tells him to because he's been shot, not because of the amount of damage the wound has done to his body.
        
        
      • The other mechanism is physiological. If the body suffers sufficient damage, the person will be forced to stop what he is doing because he will be physiologically incapable of continuing. Heavier cartridges with large bullets making bigger holes are more likely to cause more damage to the body than lighter cartridges. Therefore, if the stopping mechanism is physiological, lighter cartridges are more likely to fail to incapacitate
      
      
    • And in looking at any population of persons who were shot and therefore stopped what they were doing, we could expect that some stopped for psychological reasons. We could also expect others would not be stopped psychologically and would not stop until they were forced to because their bodies became physiologically incapable of continuing.
      
      
    • From that perspective, the failure to incapacitate data is probably more important. That essentially tells us that when Plan A (a psychological stop) fails, we must rely on Plan B (a physiological stop) to save our bacon; and a heavier cartridge would have a lower [Plan B] failure rate.
  
  
  • Also see the FBI paper entitled "Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness", by Urey W. Patrick. Agent Patrick, for example, notes on page 8:

    ...Psychological factors are probably the most important relative to achieving rapid incapacitation from a gunshot wound to the torso. Awareness of the injury..., fear of injury, fear of death, blood or pain; intimidation by the weapon or the act of being shot; or the simple desire to quit can all lead to rapid incapacitation even from minor wounds. However, psychological factors are also the primary cause of incapacitation failures.
    
    The individual may be unaware of the wound and thus have no stimuli to force a reaction. Strong will, survival instinct, or sheer emotion such as rage or hate can keep a grievously wounded individual fighting....

  • And for some more insight into wound physiology and "stopping power":
    
    
    • Dr. V. J. M. DiMaio (DiMaio, V. J. M., M. D., Gunshot Wounds, Elsevier Science Publishing Company, 1987, pg. 42, as quoted in In Defense of Self and Others..., Patrick, Urey W. and Hall, John C., Carolina Academic Press, 2010, pg. 83):

      In the case of low velocity missles, e. g., pistol bullets, the bullet produces a direct path of destruction with very little lateral extension within the surrounding tissue. Only a small temporary cavity is produced. To cause significant injuries to a structure, a pistol bullet must strike that structure directly. The amount of kinetic energy lost in the tissue by a pistol bullet is insufficient to cause the remote injuries produced by a high-velocity rifle bullet.

      
      
    • And further in In Defense of Self and Others... (pp. 83-84, emphasis in original):

      The tissue disruption caused by a handgun bullet is limited to two mechanisms. The first or crush mechanism is the hole that the bullet makes passing through the tissue. The second or stretch mechanism is the temporary wound cavity formed by the tissue being driven outward in a radial direction away from the path of the bullet. Of the two, the crush mechanism is the only handgun wounding mechanism that damages tissue. To cause significant injuries to a structure within the body using a handgun, the bullet must penetrate the structure.

      
      
    • And further in In Defense of Self and Others... (pp. 95-96, emphasis in original):

      Kinetic energy does not wound. Temporary cavity does not wound. The much-discussed "shock" of bullet impact is a fable....The critical element in wounding effectiveness is penetration. The bullet must pass through the large blood-bearing organs and be of sufficient diameter to promote rapid bleeding....Given durable and reliable penetration, the only way to increase bullet effectiveness is to increase the severity of the wound by increasing the size of the hole made by the bullet....

  
  And sometimes a .357 Magnum doesn't work all that well. LAPD Officer Stacy Lim who was shot in the chest with a .357 Magnum and still ran down her attacker, returned fire, killed him, survived, and ultimately was able to return to duty. She was off duty and heading home after a softball game and a brief stop at the station to check her work assignment. According to the article I linked to:

  ... The bullet ravaged her upper body when it nicked the lower portion of her heart, damaged her liver, destroyed her spleen, and exited through the center of her back, still with enough energy to penetrate her vehicle door, where it was later found....

 

[marksman13]

It’s America. Do as you please, OP, but I’m gonna do what I’ve always trained to do and shoot center mass. I’d rather take out the pump station and oxygen exchange centers. Very low chance that shooting an attacker in the balls is going stop him faster than cutting off his oxygen supply or breaking his spine. If I need to stop him faster than that, I’ll start sending rounds through the Central Nervous System. Those hits count every time.

 

[marksman13]

I personally know a guy who shot himself in the twig and berries while stuffing a 9mm Glock into his waistband. Zero adrenaline flowing. He wasn’t attacking anyone. He literally put a round through his left testicle and he calmly walked to the elevator of the hotel in which he was staying and had his wife drive him to the hospital. Yeah, I’m not going to take my chances trying to end a gunfight like that.

 

[hso]

I think just below the belt buckle would be a better location

Anatomy would go against that assumption. The movement of the body lowers the percentages further with bending, twisting, turning pivoting about that area.

 

[ACES&8S]

Interesting thought you have.
Could start from the lower and climb up with impacts but that would take training ourselves
differently or in your case you could become very proficient at this technique and teach others.
There is no punch like feeling to hitting muscle, I happen to know that.
A large caliber, perhaps a 357 mag and upward -could- have a cause and effect, or even
action vs reaction, forcing the assailant to bend forward making his shots less likely to
hit you or it could even bring his head down for the next shot, so many maybes here.
The pelvic area with -bone- impact just below the belt, no lower would be ok for heavy
caliber would be an ok first hit, but not lower. I have shot for center mass to long, can't change.
Seems like after a man size silhouette center if almost gone we go for the head
then somebody just has to shoot it in the cookies. Like a giggle shot.

 

[bangswitch]

There is data, and there are studies, and we have a good deal of knowledge about wound physiology. .

• 
  The most common and sure physiological way in which shooting someone stops him is blood loss -- depriving the brain and muscles of oxygen and nutrients, thus impairing the ability of the brain and muscles to function. Blood loss is facilitated by (1) large holes causing tissue damage; (2) getting the holes in the right places to damage major blood vessels or blood bearing organs; and (3) adequate penetration to get those holes into the blood vessels and organs which are fairly deep in the body. The problem is that blood loss takes time. People have continued to fight effectively when gravely, even mortally, wounded. So things that can speed up blood loss, more holes, bigger holes, better placed holes, etc., help.
  
  
• ​

To expand a little on "blood loss". The abdominal cavity can contain the entire blood volume of a victim, without loss to the outside of the body, so bleeding does not need to be external to kill.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Interesting thought you have.
Could start from the lower and climb up with impacts but that would take training ourselves
differently or in your case you could become very proficient at this technique and teach others.

Zipper shooting is something of a fantasy situation where your assailant is standing nice and still and fails to move after being shot the first time.

What I particularly like about the notion of fantasy shooting is assuming you are going to get any more than just one shot, or on shot that connects. Wasting your first shot by intentionally shooting low into an area that isn't apt to incapacitate is a really bad idea on so many levels. Shots 2 - 5 in this zippering aren't apt to well aimed and your target isn't apt to be stationary. If you can make a well placed lower shot, just below the belly button as stated in the OP and some people suggest actually starting with the crotch, then why not make a well aimed shot somewhere you know to actually be vital?

And sometimes a .357 Magnum doesn't work all that well. LAPD Officer Stacy Lim who was shot in the chest with a .357 Magnum and still ran down her attacker, returned fire, killed him, survived, and ultimately was able to return to duty.

Absolutely on the caliber comment. Stacy Lim received a fatal wound, just not immediately fatal AND not immediately incapacitating (critical in this case). This isn't uncommon. It is also one of the things that screws of shooting stats when people talk about effectiveness of calibers and kills. Lots of shots are fatal and in similar circumstances 80 years ago, would have been, but not today because of medical treatment and speed of getting medical treatment.
https://www.police1.com/officer-saf...tacy-lims-story-of-survival-J2ay86axRN55pvP8/

We make a big deal about shot placement on the exterior of the body (and there are some good reasons why), but what the bullet hits inside is what matters. From the descriptions I read, she slowly bleed out. In her case, the bullet nicked the heart and ruptured the spleen. Her heart did stop. Had the damage been reversed, rupturing the heart and nicking the spleen, it likely would have been a different ballgame, no pun intended. She survived because of the medical treatment she received. That she chased down her attacker AFTER being severely wounded attests to her character.

 

[Jim Watson]

Not every armed encounter involves shooting. I am not sure about that one in 11 "statistic" but there are surely some number of assaults deterred instead of defeated.

OK, what of the deterrent effect of a gun pointed at one's crotch? Better or worse or no difference vs directed towards the heart or head?

A local instructor was having his students fire the first shot at COM but a followup at the hip joint.

 

[roval]

they had old targets marked off in that area.
check out the range scene from magnum force. i once read an article advocating shooting in the pelvic area. Can't remember where i read it.

 

[Howland937]

No expert, but I think I'll stick with targeting the area that gives best chance of an incapacitating hit. An inch or so one way or another in a C.O.M. shot can still be debilitating if not lethal. An inch or so off a crotch shot can be a complete miss. Besides, studies have shown most guys lie about their size, so the average "below the belt" target ain't gonna be that big.

 

[roval]

No expert, but I think I'll stick with targeting the area that gives best chance of an incapacitating hit. An inch or so one way or another in a C.O.M. shot can still be debilitating if not lethal. An inch or so off a crotch shot can be a complete miss. Besides, studies have shown most guys lie about their size, so the average "below the belt" target ain't gonna be that big.

ha ha... the article i read before alluded to the crowding of large blood vessels (aorta, iliac vessels ) , shattering the pelvic bones immediately immobilizing etc... just from what i remember about the article and later i saw the magnum force clip. so maybe it was a thing in the 70s. i would go for center mass myself.

 

[CapnMac]

all those structures will bleed a person out within a few minutes.

With a bit of tricky yes and no.
The Lungs are 80% void space. Now, the tissues of the lunges are 80% circulatory, both athlrotic and venal, but the dimensions are not great, per se. Now, pneumothorax is a legitimate debilitator, it's not always a reliable one.

The liver is as complicated as the Spleen--vascularly dense, but, unless the hepatic artery/vein or splenic artery/vein are pierced, the blood volume lost can be quite small. The critical zone on liver and spleen is perhaps the size of a dollar bill folded in half.

The human corpus is an amazing thing. It's very resistant to puncture wounds by design. That makes this business complicated.

 

[FL-NC]

An exception where lower abdominal/pelvic area shots are seen as a preferred technique is when the target is wearing body armor. This has become a legit concern recently, since in the wake of the "late unpleasantness" overseas, large quantities of military grade body armor have been provided to "allies", which then ended up with some really bad organizations (along with weapons, munitions, night vision and thermal capabilities, armored vehicles, and so on). Body armor has also proliferated among criminal organizations who are able to obtain it through various means as well. Lots of body armor has been reverse engineered and in some cases improvised (with varying degrees of effectiveness) in some of these really "wild" places, along with more advanced capabilities of other countries that we are currently in "adversarial" relations with - and current training has been updated to address these challenges moving forward, regarding viable targets when using small arms against an enemy that is wearing body armor. Against an opponent not thusly equipped, the upper chest or alternatively the brain pan remain the preferred areas to target.

 

[Riomouse911]

The ring locations on the B-27 emphasizes “center mass” shooting, which has been a standard of training for decades. As was posted above, this area has a higher hit probability in a dynamic shooting event with everyone moving than trying to place a pinpoint shot with a handgun.

Is the B-27 perfect? No. I would prefer the rings be centered just a little bit higher to try and emphasize the upper thorax (heart-lungs) as the ideal 10-ring shot zone rather than the liver-stomach, but they are what they are and the idea behind the scoring zones where they are is a good one IMHO.

As for shooting strictly for pain compliance to stop an attacker, I do not subscribe to that theory. After watching a naked PCP addled 20-something practically pull his own penis off one December morning, it was pretty clear to me that the stopping factors outlined above by Frank Ettin’s post are pretty much the only way to reliably end a gunfight.

Stay safe.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

No expert, but I think I'll stick with targeting the area that gives best chance of an incapacitating hit.

That would be an upper CNS shot. Good luck. Everything else is wishful thinking or a waiting game.

 

[KyJim]

About bigger holes being better---I had a legal case where the victim was shot in the heart with a .25, but ran 100 yards before keeling over and dying.