Food for thought about Over-penetration.

[jato]

In the limited handgun shooting I have seen, most projectiles stay in the body. The ones that I have seen exit were largely spent. Of the two perforations I can think of off hand:

1.) Browning Hi-power fired through the side of a persons head. FMJ (unknown type) exited the head and went though one thin piece of veneer wood and stopped.

2.) HK USP 9x19 Hollow Point fired through a person's upper leg. It expanded, exited and stopped in a pile of laundry (minimal laundry penetration).

I am not worried about handguns over penetrating.

 

[amprecon]

I'm not so sure I'd solely rely on information coming from the NY Times from 1997 even, their credibility has been questionable recently. It was probably made up to boost the anti-gun propaganda.

 

[Preacherman]

I've frequently seen handgun rounds over-penetrate, even hollowpoints - and George is absolutely right that it's a serious issue. You'd be astonished at how many LE agencies have quietly settled lawsuits out of court, and paid out very large sums in damages, to avoid the negative publicity of a guaranteed loss before a jury.

In my (extensive) firsthand experience of gunfights, I've seen overpenetration in at least two-thirds of the encounters, with at least some of the rounds fired. This was typically caused by a soft-tissue impact point, where the bullet didn't hit bone or any major muscle structures. Even hollowpoints over-penetrated under these conditions. When bone was hit, or a major (tough) muscle group (e.g. the thigh or buttock area), overpenetration was much less likely.

Fast, light bullets certainly were less prone to over-penetration: but they were also prone to not penetrating enough. I've seen several surface "crater" wounds, where flesh and muscle was destroyed, but the bullet didn't penetrate deep enough to get to major organs or bones. I had this happen to me once... I'd handloaded the 88gr. Speer hollowpoint (intended for the .380 ACP) in a 9mm. case, with enough powder to get it up to 1,500 fps. In my youthful enthusiasm, I thought this would be an explosively effective round. Well, it was, but it exploded on contact, and didn't penetrate more than 2"! Fortunately, it exploded on a part of the body that led to instant incapacitation (the left testicle, actually... ), but I destroyed the rest of those rounds, and went back to something with better penetration, even if it had less expansion.

Unfortunately, there's no way to guarantee that one will hit bone or a major muscle group without some big-time expenditure on practice ammo. and training. For someone who shoots a couple of hundred rounds a year, this simply isn't enough. This means that such people are more likely to have defensive shots over-penetrate the target, and are thus more likely to face the liability issues involved.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

I read an article a couple of years ago about this very issue and whether or not folks should use frangible rounds for home defense situations. Basically, they found some of the frangible rounds to pass through sheetrock and even cinder blocks better than regular ball or hollowpoint ammo. In their simulated testing, what they found was that claims for lack of over penetration by some of the frangible ammo makers were quite valid so long as the round passed through the chest cavity of the bad guy first. In other words, if you are on target and the round passes through, it isn't going to have enough umph velocity to really hurt anyone else or pass through more than one layer of sheetrock. Along with that they found that regular hollowpoint and ball pistol ammo performed about as well. If you hit the bad guy in the chest and the round passes through, there won't be much energy on the other side to harm somebody else.

In short, there is little significant risk of over penetration of a human with harm to another with a properly landed COM pistol shot.

 

[Morgan]

I'd rather be around to be sued than dead because my bullet choice didn't penetrate far enough to hit vital organs.

First thing's first, fella's - I want an exit wound in my goblin. I don't consider that overpenetration. Ideally, the round would come to rest under the skin or clothing on the exit side, but I go for more to insure that it gets far enough. I'd rather have too much than not enough.

That said, I don't need a cartridge that will go through three people, but I do need a cartridge that will go through sheetrock, glass, and light cover. I just want it all, don't I?

Well designed modern hollowpoints work pretty damn good. I'm quite impressed with the Gold Dots (my current #1 choice, and mandated by my department), Golden Sabres (especially the bonded ones), and SXT's. I've read good things about the newer Hydra-Shoks and the Starfire, as well as Hornady's HP.

.45 ACP ball has been rumored to not be a terrible overpenetrator, unlike 9mm ball. If I had to, I'd load my USP45 with 230gr ball and not worry about it.

 

[Shawn Dodson]

The risk of overpenetration is always present regardless of the ammunition you use. There's no guarantee your bullet will center punch the bad guy's body and remain inside, which is the underlying assumption of most people. The odds are good that your bullet will hit the periphery of the body, where the wound path through tissues will be short, and it will exit and continue down range.

Stuff happens. In as much as we want to believe that we'll quickly gain control of a situation we must temper this belief with the knowledge that the bad guys will attempt shape the situation so they're in a position of advantage and we're in a position of disadvantage. They want a contest of strength vs. weakness, not strength vs. strength.

As Clint Smith said: "Fights aren't what we want them to be, they're just what they are."