RebelRabbi
Member
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2010
- Messages
- 78
The answer to your question depends upon many factors, most basically bullet mass and velocity. The 5.56 is a good penetrating and wounding round, it's not designed as a "stopping" round or "killing" round. NATO and us like it because it is logistically better than 7.62 NATO, meaning they can haul around more smaller bullets. You have to taylor your load to your mission. I BELIEVE that white tailed deer and humans make a good comparison. Deer are smaller but tougher than humans, humans have more mass. The 30-30 is balistically equivalent to 7.62x39 Russian and many states won't allow anything under .24 caliber. The 30-30 is a danged effetive Deer caliber to 200 yards. The .32, .380, 9mm, 38 Sp, 40 S&W, and 45 ACP are all poor choices for Deer but these are your basic defensive handgun calibers. If you want a caliber/load combination is a handgun that would be great, try the 44 magnum 180 gr JHP's. Why doesn't anybody carry one of these, shoot it and find out, the recoil, muzzel blast and flash are spectacular.