I have a very basic philosophy...

[Nightcrawler]

...regarding what's good and what's not so good for a self defense round.

In short, it is as follows:

A pistol cartridge is adequate for self-defense usage if it is able to reliably penetrate the frontal skull plate of a human being, and if it can penetrate the torso deep enough (even if entering from oblique angles) to hit vital organs. It should also have enough oomph to reliably punch through the sternum at typical handgun ranges.

Anything else (expansion, for example) is just icing on that cake.

Bigger bullets give you more margin of error. Simply put, a fat .45 bullet is less likely to miss something, given equally skillful shot placement, than a small .32 caliber bullet. The same holds true with a bullet that expands once inside the body.

Momentum is good because it gives you better penetration. It also causes more of a "splash", which while perhaps not doing a lot of severe permanent damage, certainly isn't going to help the badguy any, either.

If the bullet completely penetrates and exits the target, he then has that much longer of a wound channel and two holes to bleed out of. Be wary of bystanders, though (but of course, it's always possible you'll miss, too; always watch your background before firing!).

Agree/disagree?

 

[TIR]

100% agree

Can't go wrong with what you said there. To bad they don't make compact 12 ga. handguns, the bigger the drain hole the better!

 

[Nightcrawler]

Anybody else? Anything?

 

[BerettaNut92]

Hmmm seems to make a lot of sense. I think the market has reached an equilibrium where the most practical rounds in all the tested platorms have also the most economical to obtain. I think all the mainstream service pistols in mainstream calibers, you really can't go wrong

 

[Sven]

Looks good. Also important that that round feeds well in your gun.

 

[clubsoda22]

i use aguila IQ. 4 drain holes instead of one.

 

[Nightcrawler]

i use aguila IQ. 4 drain holes instead of one.

Penetration? Super light bullets, moving at high speed, don't penetrate nearly as well as a heavier bullet moving at much slower speeds. Especially if they fragment.

Hence people recommending 5.56mm carbines for home defense, on the basis that the bullet, despite moving at 3,000fps, won't penetrate three layers of drywall and sheetrock.

(A heavy bullet moving at high speed is a winner all around, but you of course get an increase in recoil.)

 

[George Hill]

I thing you got it, NC. You got it.

 

[Hal]

I like your thinking fella.

 

[LFW]

Sounds about right to me too. I was one of those ammo nuts for years, starting way back in the Lee Jurras/Super Vel era. I finally reached info overload about a year ago and now have gone back to basic "holes-is-holes" outlook.--Leigh

 

[Lone_Gunman]

I think what you say is true, but everything greater than or equal to 22 LR will meet you criteria.

 

[LeadPumper]

Holes...

I've basically adopted some other guy's concept that bigger holes are usually better than smaller ones...and faster bullets are generally better than slower ones.

But you can get too big, and too fast.

So I say shoot as big as you can, as fast as you can. But no faster.


Some of you might've heard this one before...


-LeadPumper

 

[Nightcrawler]

but everything greater than or equal to 22 LR will meet you criteria.

Untrue; the frontal plate of the skull can be a tough customer. I wouldn't rely on a .32, .380, or 9x18 to pierce it at anything but point-blank range. Non-+P .38 Special, especially out of a snubby, leaves me with doubts, too.

 

[MJRW]

I really can't get on board with .45 providing a greater margin of error. Just roughly estimating the torso of a man at say 15" across and 24" high gives me 360 square inches of target. Figuring that a .45 is less than 3/4 square inches and a .32 is just over a 1/4 square inches. We are talking the difference of 0.2% vs 0.1% of bullet area whatever the heck you call it vs target area. Even something like the heart only gives you like 3% vs 2% in bullet area vs target area. Yeah, they expand and may push those numbers up a bit. But it seems like a pretty minute advantage if real at all.

I personally put more faith in energy, penetration, and expansion for creating a wound channel. I kind of take shot placement out of the equation. Now, before you all go jumping on me about that, here me out. I figure without shot placement, you've got nothing. It's kind of like arguing what are the important things in life and someone responds "oxygen." Yeah, well, no $%&t?

 

[Nightcrawler]

I've talked quite a BIT about penetration.

Why don't I care about expansion? It helps, but it's not critical. If you say the difference between 9mm and .45 isn't much, what about the difference between your non-expanded and your expanded bullet? We're still dealing with size differences of less than an inch, oftentimes less than half an inch.

But, a big-bore Hollow Point will expand to a greater area than a smaller-bore hollow point of the same quality.

Not saying that 9mm is bad; in fact 9mm does quite well in the penetration department, especially in the 124 grain +P NATO load.

The rounds I wouldn't trust (due to fear of inadequate penetration) at anything longer than point-blank range have been listed; .22, .25, .32, .380, 9x18, and standard-pressure .38 Special out of a snubby.

 

[GySgt]

Hence people recommending 5.56mm carbines for home defense, on the basis that the bullet, despite moving at 3,000fps, won't penetrate three layers of drywall and sheetrock.

I find that a little hard to believe, having punched perfect holes through 1/4" steel "I" beams with 55grain bullets out of a mini-14.

 

[Nightcrawler]

I find that a little hard to believe, having punched perfect holes through 1/4" steel "I" beams with 55grain bullets out of a mini-14.

That's what I said. Do a search for posts by me regarding 5.56mm and fragmentation.

Just repeating what I'm told.

 

[JohnKSa]

I'm not sure that there are any pistol cartridges short of the magnums that offer 100% reliable penetration of the forehead. There's a thread on this going on the revolver forum.

If you're going to take a probabilistic approach to wounding (bigger bullet means more chance of hitting something important) then it's very hard to argue against a lot of smaller bullets versus a few large bullets. It simply comes down to surface area, and it's certainly possible to get more surface area with lots of small projectiles than with a few large ones.

Momentum does not increase "splash"--"splash" is a function mostly of energy.

Momentum does increase penetration--BUT...

There is a fallacy with simply saying that more momentum = more penetration. Most ammunition makers design all of their premium self-defense ammo (through the use of controlled expansion technology) to conform to very similar penetration specifications. That means that, regardless of caliber (within reason) and regardless of momentum (again within reason) you're going to get the amount of penetration that the ammo maker figures you need.

By within reason, I mean that once you get below a certain momentum level, it's no longer possible to get the bullet to penetrate as deeply as you might wish. .380 is starting to get into that realm. Most anything hotter than .380 isn't a problem.

Agree that through and through is better than not. Agree that this is a problem for bystanders. Don't think this is much of an issue due to the point I raised above regarding ammunition design.

 

[Lone_Gunman]

Nightcrawler, I have seen several skulls penetrated by 22's over the years. I have also seen 45's and 9mm's glance off. A lot more is involved with punching through the skull than the bullet used.

Shouldnt you be aiming COM and not at the head anyway?

 

[zahc]

I'm disagreeing with Nightcrawler here...

Super light bullets, moving at high speed, don't penetrate nearly as well as a heavier bullet moving at much slower speeds

Unfortuntely, the physics don't support this very well at all...

Especially if they fragment

I think you have something there.

Hence people recommending 5.56mm carbines for home defense, on the basis that the bullet, despite moving at 3,000fps, won't penetrate three layers of drywall and sheetrock.

I've never shot through sheetrock with a lot of scape between, so i won't say I don't believe this, but I have shot .223 FMJ through 24 inches of cedar before and it was bookin' right out the other side. I can't see anything in the human body providing much resistance.

 

[SnWnMe]

I agree with going with penetration over expansion. The odds of carving a deep hole is better than the odds of reliable expansion. And a deep hole is what I want with relatively low energy handgun rounds. I still load hollowpoints. But with a big 45 caliber bullet to begin with, expansion will just be a nice extra.

All this of course, assumes that I can hit COM.

 

[George Hill]

To me, the whole point is to make as large of a hole as you can, that goes as deep as you can make it. How you make that hole, be it bullet or drill bit... it doesn't matter. Hydrostatic shock, expansion, energy dump, deathraytazerblasters... any other effect is just icing on the cake if you get it... but it all comes down to that hole. If you can't see daylight through it, it might not be big enough for a gaurantee of an OSS.... so if you are not packing heat big enough to shoot a hole through someone large enough for a trained poodle to jump through... then what you need to worry about is where to put that hole.
Center Mass is the best bet. But if Center Mass is just the Left Big Toe, that might not be good enough. Idealy you want your hole making process to penetrate through as much mass as possible. If you have to go through that big toe to get there... then do it. Take the best bet... aim center mass... and push it on through. It's always a good idea to take more than one core sample, so make some other holes for the best results.

 

[matsaleh]

9x18 FMJ

Regarding smaller/lower energy rounds, if that's what was available would it make sense to use FMJ instead of JHP?

For instance, I can get a small variety of JHP for my 9x18 Makarov. Almost all of them are 95gr, except for the 120gr Silver Bear. More is available in FMJ, including the 109gr Wolf, and Sellier and Bellot, which only come FMJ in 9x18.

Should I choose one of these FMJ rounds over JHP if I (for whatever reason) found myself needing to rely on my Makarov to defend myself?

Thanks.

 

[Carbonator]

Great thread.

I admit that I am starting to put a little less importance on caliber and more on heavier bullet weight in a skinnier bullet. Compare a .45 180grain bullet at 1000fps vs a .357 180grain bullet at 1000fps. The .45 may have a slight edge on hole size, but the skinnier bullet should penetrate better and deeper, through skulls, bone, clothing, etc... Plus skinnier bullets allow for higher capacity - I think extra bullets gives a better margin of error than a larger bullets with less rounds, especially with more than 1 target.

I am also comparing hollowpoint vs the better penetration and reliability of FMJ.

 

[GySgt]

NightCrawler: I'm not going to waste my time doing a search on your posts. If you say you agree with me, I believe you

Carbonator: Ain't America great? You can load more of those smaller bullets and I can load less of larger ones and we can still get the job done. I understand why people feel they need, or want more rounds on tap. Heck I owned a wondernine once, a long time ago. But I feel better armed with what fits and works for me and that is a single stack .45, cocked and locked. I hope you never need all those rounds in a firefight, as I hope and pray I never need my lousy 8 rounds, with 14 backing them up. But should I need them, trust me......even with more than one target, the odds are in my favor, if I do my part and realize the threat in time. It's really about what weapon fits you and how well you shoot it, not how many rounds you have on tap. Anyone who still wants to fight after taking a doubletap of Corbon PowRball's center of mass, isn't from this World.

Semper Fi, GySgt