Does Energy Count In Handgun Calibers?

[56hawk]

Penetration my friend, penetration.

Well, according to Brass Fetcher Speer 158gr Gold Dot penetrates 13.5" and Federal 36gr Champion PLHP penetrates 13.9". Which would you rather carry?

 

[RBid]

It matters only insofar as it relates to penetration and expansion.

 

[farm23]

Big holes and penetration need energy.

 

[mljdeckard]

Among standardized service cartridges, no, not at all. They have enough to completely traverse a human target under most circumstances. That's enough. They don't have enough energy to create explosive force like a rifle bullet does.

 

[kokapelli]

Energy of the round is totally relevant.

Show me a round that can offer adequate penetration with no energy.

Any fmj 380 or 32 will give plenty of penetration, but I'm really talking about "energy transfer" and that's my fault for not being more specific.

 

[coolluke01]

Transfer of energy is foolishness. Leaving all the energy in the target is not what "stops" the BG. As has been said Penetration is what is important. An 13" ice pick and a .44 mag with 13" of penetration can have the same end result on a target. It will take much less energy for the ice pick to gain 13". But if the placement is right it will do the job. As will the .44 mag, if placed right it will stop the BG. The expansion of the .44 slug will buy you a little leeway and also offer more tissue damage so after he's done shooting/stabbing/clubbing you he will die in a few minuets.

I voted no as energy is hardly important. Mass and speed are, but not the product of the two multiplied but how it achieves penetration and allows a HP to expand reliably.

Shot placement if far more important. The force exerted on the target will only be as great as the opposite force you feel in recoil.

 

[SammyIamToday]

At what ranges were they shot with the 7.62 NATO rounds? That makes a difference. As do adrenaline and drug use.
If handgun energy doesn't matter, then the .25 acp is a great service round.

I'm not saying it's the be all, end all of stopping power, but it does matter. Especially with expanding ammo.

The reality is, stopping failures can occur with any and all common small arms projectiles. There are a lot of reasons they can occur.

Bottom line is, we all need to carry a 12 gauge shotgun for SD.
Too bad it's not practical.

This particular incident was down a street. Well inside 100 meters.

If you'll re-read my post, you'll also notice I said service calibers. To be more clear, there's a threshold of usefulness when it comes to handgun calibers for sure. Which may have been an assumption on my part to the purpose of this poll.

Bingo with stopping failures. Therefore, I've come to believe that more capacity and shootability while meeting a threshold of energy is the best solution. Personal opinion and all.

Yes, that is a common problem with FMJ bullets. The wound cavity is very small until the bullet starts to tumble. The results would have likey been very different with hollowpoint bullets.

I was perhaps again not descriptive enough. By hits, I meant several rounds of a burst to which the target suffered massive trauma. Organs needed to survive were done significant damage judging by placement. I'm not sure how a hollow point bullet at significantly less energy is going to suddenly provide a stronger stop than a series of rifle rounds at high energy even in a FMJ configuration. The target did expire after a short time, but more rounds were fired back our way in that time period.

Perhaps not a good scientific comparison, but certainly one powerful enough for me individually to not worry about small amounts of foot pounds of energy. If you think a bit more energy is a great thing, then that's a testament to choice and I think choice is wonderful. I've simply decided my anecdotal evidence makes it negligible at best.

 

[wally]

Not very much. Bullet placement on the target counts way more!

 

[481]

Do you think energy counts in handgun calibers?

It is part of the picture, but not exclusively so.

Any bullet that has kinetic energy (1/2MV^2) also possesses momentum (MV)- regardless of which quantity you favor, how much it (KE or momentum) has is not nearly as imprtant as what it (the bullet) does with what (KE or momentum) it has.

The poll could really use an option that reflects this.

 

[Sergei Mosin]

Energy is an indicator of potential effectiveness. But it is only one factor - and a minor one - in what actually happens to a person struck by a bullet.

What are the important factors? Shot placement, penetration, and expansion - in that order.

Shot placement is affected by training and luck. The better you are trained, the more likely you are to be lucky. But sometimes it's just not your day. The death of Trooper Coates is a prime example of this. Four solid hits with a .357 Magnum didn't stop a bad guy. One bad hit with a .22LR killed a good guy. An unlikely outcome - but it happened. Just bad luck.

Penetration means getting deep enough to hit something vital. Penetration is dependent on the mass of the projectile, the velocity of the projectile, (these two are commonly thought of as energy) the shape and construction of the projectile, and the target characteristics (target angle, shape and construction of the target, etc.)

Expansion means making a big enough hole to increase the bullet's chances of hitting something vital once the projectile reaches an adequate depth. Without adequate penetration, expansion is irrelevant. Bullet design plays a huge role in this, of course. A bigger hole helps the luck side of the equation.

Ideally you want a bullet placed so as to hit the vitals, capable of penetrating deeply enough to reach the vitals, and big enough to do as much damage as possible to the vitals when it gets there.

Either big and slow or small and fast will work. Small and slow doesn't work very well. Big and fast works best.

Small and slow is exemplified by the .25 ACP. It's just too small to do very much and relies too much on luck.

Big and slow is exemplified by the .45 ACP. An expanding bullet can make it even bigger, at a cost in penetration.

Small and fast is exemplified by the 9x19, preferably with an expanding bullet to overcome the disadvantages of being small. However, expansion usually has a negative effect on penetration, which may effectively negate the gains in expansion.

Big and fast is exemplified by the .357 Magnum, which uses an expanding bullet to overcome the disadvantages of being small (it effectively becomes big) while using its very high speed to retain its ability to penetrate.

 

[56hawk]

I was perhaps again not descriptive enough. By hits, I meant several rounds of a burst to which the target suffered massive trauma. Organs needed to survive were done significant damage judging by placement. I'm not sure how a hollow point bullet at significantly less energy is going to suddenly provide a stronger stop than a series of rifle rounds at high energy even in a FMJ configuration. The target did expire after a short time, but more rounds were fired back our way in that time period.

I was referring to rifle rounds since that is what you were talking about. The same does hold true for pistol rounds, but not to the same extent. The drawings below show the difference for rifle rounds, but the quote is for pistol rounds.

http://www.frfrogspad.com/terminal.htm
Incidentally, round or pointed nose, non-expanding bullets tend to push tissue aside rather than crush it, and the permanent cavity for a non-tumbling bullet of these designs usually runs about 65 -70 percent of the diameter of the projectile. Non-expanding heavy jacketed or monolithic (solid metal) projectiles with large metplates yield permanent cavities of between 70 and 80 percent of the diameter of the projectile (and the large metplats helps them to penetrate in a straight path rather than veer off. ) The very blunt and often sharp-edged shape of an expanded projectile can yield a a permanent cavity of between 80 - 90+ percent of the expanded projectile's diameter.

 

[Jaymo]

I've decided that there are too many variables, to be able to count on any weapon for self defense.
As a result, I'm just not ever going to try do defend myself.

 

[SEE IT LIKE A NATIVE]

What I get from the article is that he is telling me that if i shoot Mr. Grizzly bear with my .45 auto , that it will be just as effective as my .454 Casull ? I think he forgets that it takes energy to drive the bullet to sufficient depth to reach vital organs or circulatory and central nervous system, it also takes energy to deform a bullet so that it cuts a larger wound channel ! So yes energy matters ,but a direct hit to a vital area with a .22 is still better than a loud miss with a .44 ! Kevin

 

[NG VI]

Well, if the energy of the round is not relevant then why is a 357 more effective than a 22?

Because of the proportions of diameter, mass, and velocity that the .357 delivers. Energy numbers can show one aspect of a bullet's overall performance, but it doesn't show the most important factor, which is how the bullet behaves in a human-sized animal. It's entirely possible to deliver huge amounts of energy with a bullet that isn't capable of reliably reaching anything important in a human-sized body, and it's possible for a projectile with much lower energy to deliver more useful results, because energy alone is not useful.

.357 has more energy than .22, sure, but the attributes that give it more energy are what matters.

It has three to four times the mass.

It flies 50-100% faster from similar weapons.

It has much more frontal area.

And it is easy to load with projectiles made to penetrate a meaningful distance in medium sized animals while also expanding.

.22 cannot do the same things, not because it has lower energy, it has lower energy ratings because it is not capable of doing the same work. Energy is one way to measure the difference, it isn't the difference itself.

 

[CZ57]

Yes it matters. It's what makes the bullet expand and penetrate. Both are very important. The faster the bullet expands the larger the wound volume will be but I believe that the expanded bullet still needs to penetrate to a min. depth of 12". Momentum works in much the same way like say a 230 gr. .45 ACP JHP. It has a lot of momentum so it is not as dependent on kinetic energy to expand and penetrate. For a lighter bullet to develop higher momentum it has to have both higher velocity and thus kinetic energy.

I believe there is a kinetic energy window of about 400 - 600 Ft/Lbs. Handgun bullets, particularly older designs, tend to work better in this window. The best defense load that I am aware of in LE use was the 125 gr. JHP in .357 Magnum. It is near the top of the energy window. Loads that exceed the window limit often do not expand very well because there is actually to much kinetic energy that actually works against expansion. Examples like Full power 10mm, .41 Magnum and the .44 Magnum have shown to have too much KE for practical defense use and more often than not behave like FMJ bullets.

Newer JHP designs do not require as much KE for expansion and 12" of penetration but a good many of them are subsonic. Personally I like to choose a bullet that develops 400 - 600 Ft/Lbs of KE provided it meets depth of penetration requirements. Especially testing to make sure a bullet will penetrate to 12" after passing through 4 layers of denim. If that requirement is met then all the KE you can get is desirable as in the case of the .357 SIG. Having said that I actually use a load that satisfies all requirements with a .45 ACP 230 gr. JHP achieving 900 FPS. It has both the momentum and over 400 Ft/Lbs of KE. With the 9mm, I tend to favor the 124 gr. +P or +P+ loads, but I wouldn't hesitate to use a 147 gr. +P JHP. For me the standard pressure 147 just does not have the KE to cause expansion to provide devastating wound volumes. What it does have is higher momentum so it penetrates very well, but the 124 +P penetrates as deep or nearly as deep while providing greater expansion.

 

[481]

For me the standard pressure 147 just does not have the KE to cause expansion to provide devastating wound volumes.

Looks like the Federal 147 gr JHPs expand quite well given their "diminished" energy-

http://www.luckygunner.com/catalog/product/gallery/id/2432/image/12515

The Winchester Ranger 147s -RA9T and RA9B- do pretty well, too.

 

[kokapelli]

The interesting thing about energy is that the lighter and faster bullets produce more energy, but lighter means less inertia which (in my mind) means less penetration.

Here is a chart with velocity and energy comparisons……..
http://www.ballistics101.com/9mm.php

 

[Thompsoncustom]

Well, if the energy of the round is not relevant then why is a 357 more effective than a 22?

Is it? A .22 to the heart or head should put something down just as easy as anything other handgun caliber that's why shot placement will always be king.

 

[The smiling swordsman]

Well, obviously it matters. A bullet with 0 energy would be worthless.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[coolluke01]

I doubt a bullet with 0 energy will penitrate to vitals. The real factor is not energy but penitration. A single number such as energy won't provide the correct information. Bullet weight, surface area, expansion, etc are needed. These still wont tell you exactly how far the bullet will penitrate. Real world testing is required.

Pointing to energy is to simplistic and won't tell the true story.
That is why I say that energy really isn't that important.

 

[AABEN]

Transfer of energy, especially with lower calibers, is important.

For rifle calibers, they are overkill so it's probably not as important in my view.

But for pistols, which are really undersuited for immediate results, energy dump is very important.

Energy is very important in rifles!! You would not take a 22 to kill a bear!

 

[AABEN]

Well, according to Brass Fetcher Speer 158gr Gold Dot penetrates 13.5" and Federal 36gr Champion PLHP penetrates 13.9". Which would you rather carry?

the 158 G D any time over the 36gr ! For the 158 will do more body damage and you will bled out faster and it will have more knock down powder! Why did the navy have large guns on battle ships? Be caws it did a lot more damage than a 5in did! The larger the bullet the more damage it does that is why tanks have large gun and longer barrels!

 

[coop2564]

No not in the standard defensive guns such as 45 acp, 9mm but in like full load 10mm, 357 mag it starts barely making some edge. In standard guns its about the hole.

 

[ku4hx]

Of course energy counts. Ye ol' physics teacher says you go to get work done and that requires an energy be expended. There are no perpetual motion machines and Enthalpy rules.

 

[kokapelli]

the 158 G D any time over the 36gr ! For the 158 will do more body damage and you will bled out faster and it will have more knock down powder! Why did the navy have large guns on battle ships? Be caws it did a lot more damage than a 5in did! The larger the bullet the more damage it does that is why tanks have large gun and longer barrels!

"knockdown power"! You have been watching too many movies. Nothing, nothing in a handgun caliber will knock someone down and that is pretty much true of rifle calibers too.

Battleship guns! The subject of this thread is about handgun calibers.