Evan Marshall versus firearmstactical.com

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I think 1500 fps is a little low to be considered a high velocity wound. As a surgeon, I have not seen much additional tissue destruction from projectiles moving near that speed when compared to wounds from slower but larger caliber projectiles.

I don't know if anyone has established a velocity above which additional tissue trauma occurs related to energy, but I think from personal experience that the velocity is closer to 2000 fps than 1500 fps.
 
The funny thing is...

I read on this site where some guy got shot 8 times with a 9mm and lived. Another person was shot with a .22 and died.

I honestly think it comes down to shot placement. Penetration is great, but what if the guy is 450 lbs? if it penetrates to blubber, not much chance of taking him down.

If you are involved in shooting a guy who is a string bean, then maybe it just overpenetrates, goes straight through and does not hit an organ.

I say, if you hit someone right the first time and all subsequent shots, you will do well, but if you are shooting through sides of flab, you prolly aint gonna hurt em too bad.
 
My own thoughts on this is based upon the writting of both the 'high speed' vs. 'deep pentration' schools. Bullets damage by tissue they come in contact with. This can be agrivated by expansion, fragmentation, and strecthing of tissue by high speed overcoming the elasticity of the tissue. That being said I favor the bigger bullet weights based upon my hunting experience.
My .45 carried 230 grain bullets
My 9mm carries 124 & 147 rounds (summer vs. winter)
My .357- 180 JHP partition except in summer then 125 JHP.
My .38- 158 LHP
 
I honestly think it comes down to shot placement. Penetration is great, but what if the guy is 450 lbs? if it penetrates to blubber, not much chance of taking him down.
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This is important, if you are shooting through some of the leather jackets and multiple clothing it is best to have a good penetrating round IMHO...

I have gone to the the 357 Sig. I like it. The 140 grain bullet skipping along at 1400 fps is good. But I also carry a 380 :uhoh: A 40 and a 9 :) Not all at once though. I've been know to have the 45 cal close too;)

Carried the 38 spl for decades, Hmmm

HQ
 
i find value in both trains of thought, but i will not sacrifice weight for speed. ballistic performance is about probabilities. yes people have walked away from .44 magnum wounds and dropped dead instantly from .25 acp wounds but as a matter of probability the .44 magnum is by far superior. for this reason i can find value in M&S findings not as to draw a conclusion on what would happen, but as a rough guildeline for what should happen based on probabilities formed from past performance.

some believe simple energy matters most but i find that unrealistic. many loads of the .223 are far superior (in terms of simple energy) to the .44 magnum, yet i wouldnt even consider shooting a bear with .223, and i dont think most other folks would either despite the superior energy. there is a formula ive seen that calculates velocity, weight, and caliber and i feel it does a very fair job of representing expected ballistic performance.
 
I honestly think it comes down to shot placement. Penetration is great, but what if the guy is 450 lbs? if it penetrates to blubber, not much chance of taking him down.
this is exactly why you need penetration. shot placement without penetration is useless. shot placement is critical, but the bullet still must be able to do its job and penetrate to reach the vitals.

....unless by shot placement you were referencing head shots which in a defensive shooting isnt advisable. even with extensive training a head shot at typical defensive ranges can be quite difficult with adrenaline flowing. if you miss youve wasted a bullet that is now stray. only after several ineffective A zone hits would i ever attempt a head shot. i understand you didnt specifically mention this, im just throwing it in to cover that base in advance.
 
I honestly think it comes down to shot placement.

I agree with that also. To some degree though, caliber, velocity, and energy can help make up for less than optimal shot placement.

For example, if you are shot in the heart, it probably won't matter too much if it was a 357 magnum or a 380. You are going to go down fairly quickly.

However, if the bullet misses the heart, and hits the aorta, its going to probably take longer to incapacitate the person. But a larger hole that penetrates through the aorta will cause the incapacitation to occur more quickly than a smaller hole that only penetrates one wall.
 
some believe simple energy matters most but i find that unrealistic. many loads of the .223 are far superior (in terms of simple energy) to the .44 magnum, yet i wouldnt even consider shooting a bear with .223, and i dont think most other folks would either despite the superior energy. there is a formula ive seen that calculates velocity, weight, and caliber and i feel it does a very fair job of representing expected ballistic performance
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I understand what you are saying but no 44 is going to punch through steel and 223 can. So I think Id take the 223 with solids and go for the bear at 100yds rather than the 44 mag.

Just my thought about that.

HQ
 
THIS WHOLE PISSING CONTEST IS ABOUT APPLES AND ORANGES.

Flackler and the other jello murderers, were talking about killing.

Marshall was talking about stopping.

Yeah, I know killing someone will stop them. Eventually. I can make the killing shot, but the guy who is dying decides to kill me until he quits wasting oxygen. Doesn't do me a bit of good.

Fact is Flackler admitted he did not know what "stopped" folks 50% of the time. His supposition is that it was for psychological reasons, maybe.

Marshall was much less scientific. He stated his criteria for a definition of a stop and used the data to come up with some ideas. His data collection was not official and as such states up front that he would not give up his sources, so as to protect them from their own agencies.

So, if you think Marshall is a lying, don't believe him. Flackler is absolutely right about killing people. If your goal is to kill people use his data. You will be right at least half the time. His words, not mine.

I use my weapons to stop folks. So I make my decisions accordingly. By the way. They agree on rounds more often than you would think.

As to how much velocity is needed for "shock" to be a factor, I believe, don't know anything, that how much velocity needed is a function of Caliber and bullet shape/function (BC/Meplat/SD etc...). I base that on being in a whole lot of military firefights (Vietnam), being a Trauma ICU and later ER RN.

Go figure.

Fred
 
I don't know if anyone has established a velocity above which additional tissue trauma occurs related to energy, but I think from personal experience that the velocity is closer to 2000 fps than 1500 fps.

Where did Dr. Michael What'shisname, the physicist that was doing all the pressure wave studies and writing the paper, go? He claimed the pressure wave was linear in relationship to energy (vs velocity) and that there was no point in velocity at which suddenly something turned on, IIRC. He was a wealth of knowledge on the subject of pressure waves in wounding. He also said his studies showed there was definitely nerve shutdown possible due to pressure waves if not direct muscle or organ tissue destruction.

Courtney, that's his name! Dr. Michael Courtney. Anyway, that guy made a lot of sense to me putting together hunting experiences and wounding theory with the idea of pressure waves in tissue and he said his studies correlated statistically with Evan Marshalls statistics on STOPPING (not killing) power. He wrote some interesting stuff on this board. Maybe a search would bring some of it back up.

It's all theory, though. Reality is shot placement with a service caliber capable of being carried all day, 24 hours a day if necessary. If the gun is in your car when you need it, it does no good. So, carrying a cannon is not a real good option when you will get tired of the thing. A 14 ounce 9mm is so light, it's like part of the clothing.
 
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Tactical Ninja said:
No firearm - especially a handgun - can be counted on to reliably put down an attacker with any given number of shots, and certainly not one.
Just so… and the best encapsulation of this was told to me many years ago by one retired USMC CWO3, a man celebrated within a certain community for having killed more people than cancer:
The more I see of this, the more convinced I am that nothing hand-held is a reliable stopper.
choochboost said:
It's not as simple as light and fast vs. heavy and slow, but more specificially about what rounds are more likely to penetrate deeply, expand reliably, retain weight, etc. There are loads that are recommended by the Firearms Tactical crowd that some would consider light and fast.
There is something of a third school on this, as exemplified by Amy Courtney and Michael Courtney, and I like it because it brings science to the table without the vitriol and name-calling of the IWBA side… which is "represented" by Firearms Tactical, or Shawn Dodson who in adopting the Cooper-esque first person plural often gulls visitors into assuming that he's a gaggle of personages.

We've had several dialogues going with Michael Courtney since February. What he and his associate have done with this contentious subject is most interesting, and worthy of consideration.
 
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=292871&highlight=Courtney

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=290868&highlight=Courtney

A quick search of previous threads on this subject matter with Dr. Courtney's opinions and research. This guy has the most convincing arguments, scientific, not BS, that I've seen. He's not a medical doctor or coroner. I think the subject deserves study from a physicist, myself, but he has neurologists he quotes concerning effects of pressure waves on nerves, too.
 
If there was one size fits all answer here, there would only be one caliber a bullet manufactured. Cute little stories, junk science, and the lot mean little. You can be a combat vet, a surgeon, and priest for all I care, none of you will be there when I have to fire a weapon to defend myself or my family.

Here are a few actual facts.

All projectiles moving at rapid speed have the potential to take a life.

Missing someone with a handgun or rifle rarely results in them being killed.

Pick a round with a proven track record that you shoot well with and feeds in the platform you shoot best with.
 
one thing marshal definatly shows no ammo is 100% also none is 0% so they all work, some to a different degree.I carry 32acp,9mm,38+p,357mag,10mm,45acp and occasionally 45 Colt or 44Mag.the BG is gonna choose what he gets shot with.
 
. The other school of thought, which I have encountered on the firearmstactical website, says that the heaviest bullet loads, like 147 grain in 9mm, and 180 grain in .40, have the best stopping power.
I think to put it in this fashion really avoids the core of what firearmstactical's information shows. it isn't so much that heavy is good, use heavy ammo. The real message there is that bullets aren't coated in pixie dust and there is no magic to making a person stop. If you want to force an attacker to stop, you have to break the important parts of the machine. You need to examine the performance of ammo to see if its going to be able to do enough tissue damage to do that or not. Often heavier rounds are best, but we need to remember what we're really looking for. If you haven't read it yet btw http://www.firearmstactical.com/hwfe.htm is an excellent read. M&S studies aren't scientific and of just too poor quality for me to think anyone should rely on them.

As a surgeon:

Nothing beats close range high velocity.
*snip*
I prefer the higher velocity because I have taken care of many high velocity wounds
Personally I'd be alot more interested in the wounds of people that never make it to your OR. It seems odd to make such a decision on people that are still alive and conscious well past the time they were shot.
 
Personally I'd be alot more interested in the wounds of people that never make it to your OR. It seems odd to make such a decision on people that are still alive and conscious well past the time they were shot.

At the risk of being obtuse, are you only interested in a given bullets ability to kill with properly placed rounds?

I on the other hand am interested in stopping the BG. Killing is purely incidental. Besides, if you want to kill him, use a rifle or shot gun. both the Shotty and Rifle are more effective at stopping them too.

If harsh words stop a Violent Criminal Actor, that is fine with me too. I am interested in stopping these folks as fast and quickly as possible. The fact it may kill them is purely incidental.

Go figure.

Fred
 
This looks like it has pretty good stopping power. It must be Extreme-Shok.
bwsmall.gif
 
Long ago, I was instructed, the body mass is/was good.

But here is the thing the lower body mass... A location that was held to be supreme was the bladder area... (humans) this area is very brutal and takes into account of muscles doing their thing (involuntarily, plus you are more likely to be hitting bone, pelvis and such.

I am still a believer of this, not that you are going to always be able to do this, but it is a stopper they mentioned in training, the person who mentioned it was very good at this thing. The area is not one easily covered with a vest either;) The bad guys are just as well covered in this day and age, but not always.

HQ
 
At the risk of being obtuse, are you only interested in a given bullets ability to kill with properly placed rounds?

I on the other hand am interested in stopping the BG. Killing is purely incidental. Besides, if you want to kill him, use a rifle or shot gun. both the Shotty and Rifle are more effective at stopping them too.

If harsh words stop a Violent Criminal Actor, that is fine with me too. I am interested in stopping these folks as fast and quickly as possible. The fact it may kill them is purely incidental.
When we talk about stopping people for sure we're talking about doing massive damage to the neurological or cardiovascular system and forcing them to stop. Death isn't the goal, but it is often a side effect of such things. Sometimes people will get shot and stop because of pain or psychological effect. Other times they don't and they have to be forced to stop their attack. The guy that comes into the OR with an owie stopped voluntarily. I don't want to kill anyone, I don't even want to wound anyone, but I want to be able to stop people that have to be forced to stop and aren't going to have the courtesy to stop because I shot them. Can you describe how a bullet can reliably force an attacker to stop in a way that doesn't carry the decent chance of death with it?

plus you are more likely to be hitting bone, pelvis and such.
Fackler ML: "Shots to the Pelvic Area ". Wound Ballistics Review. 4(1):13; 1999. said:
“I welcome the chance to refute the belief that the pelvic area is a reasonable target during a gunfight. I can find no evidence or valid rationale for intentionally targeting the pelvic area in a gunfight. The reasons against, however, are many. They include:

-- From the belt line to the top of the head, the areas most likely to rapidly incapacitate the person hit are concentrated in or near the midline. In the pelvis, however, the blood vessels are located to each side, having diverged from the midline, as the aorta and inferior vena cava divide at about the level of the navel. Additionally, the target that, when struck, is the most likely to cause rapid and reliable incapacitation, the spinal cord located in the midline of the abdomen, thorax and neck), ends well above the navel and 18 not a target in the pelvis.
-- The pelvic branches of the aorta and inferior vena cava are more difficult to hit than their parent vessels -- they are smaller targets, and they diverge laterally from the midline (getting farther from it as they descend). Even if hit, each carry far less blood than the larger vessels from which they originated. Thus, even if one of these branches in the pelvis is hit, incapacitation from blood loss must necessarily be slower than from a major vessel hit higher up in the torso.
-- Other than soft tissue structures not essential to continuing the gunfight (1oops of bowel, bladder) the most likely thing to be struck by shots to the pelvis would be bone. The ilium is a large flat bone that forms most of the back wall of the pelvis. The problem is that handgun bullets that hit it would not break the bone but only make a small hole in passing through it: this would do nothing to destroy bony support of the pelvic girdle. The pelvic girdle is essentially a circle: to disrupt its structure significantly would require breaking it in two places. Only a shot that disrupted the neck or upper portion of the shaft of the femur would be likely to disrupt bony support enough to cause the person hit to fall. This is a small and highly unlikely target: the aim point to hit it would be a mystery to those without medical training — and to most of those with medical training.

The “theory” stated in the question postulates that “certain autonomic responses the body undergoes during periods of stress” causes officers to shoot low, and that apparently this is good in a gunfight because such shots cause “severe disability.” I hope that the points presented above debunk the second part of the theory. As for the “autonomic responses” that cause officers to shoot low, I am unaware of anything in the anatomy or physiology of the autonomic nervous system that would even suggest such an occurrence. Most laymen do not understand the function of the autonomic nervous system. It is simply a system whose main function is to fine tune the glands and smooth muscles (those in the walls of organs and blood vessels) of the body. During times of stress such as perceived impending danger, the autonomic nervous system diverts blood from the intestines and digestive organs to the skeletal muscles — in the so-called “fight or flight” response. The effects of this response are constantly exaggerated by laymen who lack an adequate understanding of it — most notably by gun writ-ers eager to impress their readers. Interestingly, the human body can get along quite well without major parts of the autonomic nervous system. During my professional life as a surgeon, myself and colleagues removed parts of thousands of vagus nerves (mostly in treating peptic ulcer disease) -- thus depriving the patient of the major part of the parasympathetic half of the autonomic nervous system. We also removed many ganglia from the sympathetic half of the auto-nomic nervous system, in treating such things as profusely excess sweating and various problems caused by spasm of the arteries. I am unaware of any evidence that these operations produced any significant effect on the future capacity of these patients to react appropriately in times of impending danger.

Unfortunately, the pelvis shot fallacy is common. This fallacy, along with other misinformation, is promoted constantly by at least one gun writer who is widely published in the popular gun press. Because of this, I regularly debunk this fallacy by including some of the above rationale in my presentations to law enforcement firearm instructor groups.”
 
I carry 147 gr in my 9mm because I want it to penetrate all the way to the spine, or not bounce off of the goblin's skull. It seems like neurological damage is the only quick way to incapacitate an assailant with a handgun. I also don't want to be concerned whether it will penetrate a leather jacket or heavy winter clothing. IMHO good tactics and shot placement are more important than caliber choice. .50 Desert Eagles are kind of inconvenient to carry. If it were legal and practical I would carry my Mossberg Persuader or SKS.
 
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