Ignorance behind "Shot placement is key" fallacy.

[TestPilot]

To keep things in perspective, I am NOT talking about extremity shots or grazing wounds.

Unless you aim for the brain stem, heart, and actually hit it with near every shot you fire, your opponent is stopped by the amount of damge a bullet caused, not because exactly what part it was hit.

Even a head shot can be not any better than a hit on a lower abdomen or thigh shot if it does not involve a brain or spine hit, and many opponents who were shot in the head kept on fighting for exactly that reason.

Ignorant people keep talking as if a neat center mass hit with a weak bullet is a great "shot placement" to overcome whatever lack of power it may have. But, unless it involves a spine or heart, which later still may not have an effect for several seconds, it really does not matter if the shot is center mass, shoulder, or lower gut shot. It's not as if the power suddenly increase just because the placement of the shot is closer to a higher scoring ring on a piece of paper.

So, the FACT OF THE MATTER is that in vast majority of the case where the bullet does not hit a central nerve system, the incapacitation is decided by the AMOUNT of damage a bullet causes, NOT WHERE it was hit.

 

[skoro]

uh...

I have nothing.

 

[JohnnyBravo]

Aim small, miss small.

 

[huntsman]

So what's a "weak" bullet?

 

[ironworkerwill]

I think he's from the "no replacement for displacement'' camp.

 

[45_auto]

So, the FACT OF THE MATTER is that in vast majority of the case where the bullet does not hit a central nerve system, the incapacitation is decided by the AMOUNT of damage a bullet causes, NOT WHERE it was hit.

Are you trying to articulate that something like a major flesh wound of the foot is more incapacitating than a smaller wound in something like the heart or femoral artery?

Sees to me that the FACT OF THE MATTER is that WHAT is damaged is at least as important as the AMOUNT of damage.

In other words, SHOT PLACEMENT IS KEY.

Of course, that line of thinking could be just because of my ignorance. Please feel free to enlighten me.

Have you ever been hunting, or studied any after-action military or LEO reports? The actions of severely wounded men and other animals would tend to discredit your reasoning.

 

[DPris]

Periodically when the placement thing comes up I mention the officer in a neighboring jurisdiction who was shot square in the heart by a .38 less than 5 feet away several years ago.
He was already dead, but didn't know it.
Chased his killer several yards on foot before dropping.

You can't count on even a heart shot for an immediate stop.

I don't buy the PIE mantra.
It's only true in a very limited sense & nothing to bank your life on.
Denis

 

[627PCFan]

380ACP bashing to commence in 3.......2........

 

[WestKentucky]

I refer back to Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail on this one. If a shot were to literally remove the left arm of an attacker then until that wound causes a person to bleed out or go into shock they are still coming at you with both feet, teeth, and right arm. It's merely a flesh wound. Now in our realm, if that attacker is armed (assuming so since we just hypothetically shot his arm off) he still can use that weapon to inflict as much damage as he can. A bullet doesn't care if it was shot by a 1 armed man, it's still going to do its thing.

Now, with weaker cartridges or smaller diameter cartridges whatever you prefer to refer to them as, you put a 50bmg through a brainstem and your attacker is DOA. Same goes for a 32acp, .380acp, 30 carbine, .223, 25 acp, 22lr, 22 mag, 38 spl, 32swl, 32sw,....all DOA with the same placement. The only significant advantage to a larger caliber, even when looking at similar hits, is that there's a bigger hole to bleed from making the countdown to the attacker being bled out go a bit quicker with a big bullet.

 

[Thermactor]

Hit with a 9BPLE, somewhere, anywhere, and it will be catastrophic.

 

[WestKentucky]

Gut shoot, or spine shoot a coyote, and run right up to him to have your picture made...he may not be in the mood to play nice for the photographer. Doesn't matter if you did it with a .223 or a 7 mag. He's still biting you until he gets tired....adrenaline may keep him going for a lot longer than you want to tangle with him.

 

[Teachu2]

By this standard, a near miss from a .500 should be sufficient.

 

[ironworkerwill]

It's a dumdum wound. (see movie: Lethal Weapon) Gets shot in the hand- dies later of trauma, or at least that's what they tell the guy.

 

[Frank Ettin]

...the incapacitation is decided by the AMOUNT of damage a bullet causes, NOT WHERE it was hit.

Your underlying fallacy there is that the amount of damage the bullet causes will be, in some part, related to where it hits. A bullet that passes through muscle and other tissue without solidly hitting major, blood bearing organs, does less damage that one that passes through major blood bearing organs.

Some insight into wound physiology and "stopping power":

• Dr. V. J. M. DiMaio (DiMaio, V. J. M., M. D., Gunshot Wounds, Elsevier Science Publishing Company, 1987, pg. 42, as quoted in In Defense of Self and Others..., Patrick, Urey W. and Hall, John C., Carolina Academic Press, 2010, pg. 83, emphasis added):

  In the case of low velocity missles, e. g., pistol bullets, the bullet produces a direct path of destruction with very little lateral extension within the surrounding tissue. Only a small temporary cavity is produced. To cause significant injuries to a structure, a pistol bullet must strike that structure directly. The amount of kinetic energy lost in the tissue by a pistol bullet is insufficient to cause the remote injuries produced by a high-velocity rifle bullet.

  
  
• And further in In Defense of Self and Others... (pp. 83-84, italicized emphasis in original, bold emphasis added):

  The tissue disruption caused by a handgun bullet is limited to two mechanisms. The first or crush mechanism is the hole that the bullet makes passing through the tissue. The second or stretch mechanism is the temporary wound cavity formed by the tissue being driven outward in a radial direction away from the path of the bullet. Of the two, the crush mechanism is the only handgun wounding mechanism that damages tissue. To cause significant injuries to a structure within the body using a handgun, the bullet must penetrate the structure.

  
  
• And further in In Defense of Self and Others... (pp. 95-96, italicized emphasis in original, bold emphasis added):

  Kinetic energy does not wound. Temporary cavity does not wound. The much-discussed "shock" of bullet impact is a fable....The critical element in wounding effectiveness is penetration. The bullet must pass through the large blood-bearing organs and be of sufficient diameter to promote rapid bleeding....Given durable and reliable penetration, the only way to increase bullet effectiveness is to increase the severity of the wound by increasing the size of the hole made by the bullet....

So where and how the bullet strikes does matter.

 

[Old Dog]

Boy, I had to read through the OP's post several times in an attempt to figure out just what it was that he was trying to say ...

My conclusion is that he has not proven that "shot placement is key" is a fallacy. As far as ignorance being behind that ... I don't hear

Ignorant people keep talking as if a neat center mass hit with a weak bullet is a great "shot placement" to overcome whatever lack of power it may have

Rather, I suspect that most believe a neat center mass hit merely increases one's chances of incapacitating one's adversary. I doubt that few here still believe in the "magic bullet" or the concept of automatic one-shot stops ...

But, again, I may just be displaying my own ignorance, in spite of having spent almost 40 years of my adult life carrying firearms in the military and law enforcement.

So, rather than just proclaiming things to be so, perhaps some actual facts are in order?

 

[ku4hx]

Gunshots cause death by three mechanisms: interruption of the central nervous system (brain/spine), compromising the circulatory system (bleeding out) and interruption of the distribution of blood and oxygen to the body (heart/lung).

With that being said, "shot placement", i.e. placing a shot to affect maximum brain activity disruption, maximum loss of blood and/or maximized loss of pumping action and oxygen carrying ability is generally the best tactic. In order to maximize your chances of bringing about one or more modes of death, fire multiple shots. The more shots you fire the higher your odds are of hitting something vital. Just like in horse shoe pitching ... pitch enough shoes and sooner or later you'll get a ringer.

My wife and I got training from our local sheriffs department. We had two range sessions with every shooter having his or her own personal mentor. It was great. One of the things they kept telling us was not to attempt to be a marksman. I in fact got a bit of repeat instruction because my groupings were not large enough they felt. The idea being, more bullet holes more widely spaced had a greater likelihood of doing maximum damage than a string of bullets all through the same hole.

Obviously others will espouse other tactics. It all comes down to what you feel is best for you and what you feel is going to get the job done most effectively in the shortest amount of rime.

 

[strambo]

Placement is everything, but I think the OP's point is that true and effective placement isn't well-understood by the masses. I think he is saying, since we can't guarantee a heart/brain hit under stress, the bullets that make the most damage wherever they strike are the best choice and don't use the placement excuse to justify a mouse gun as you probably aren't gonna have the the placement you think you are (under life or death stress) to make up for the less effective caliber.

He is correct, only a CNS/brain hit (mid brain, brain stem or high spine) is an instant incapacitator. A heart hit is the best we can expect in the chest, yet it is not an instant, or necessarily even rapid incapacitator. A person can fight for 7-30 seconds after being heart shot.

The heart is a doable target being softball size but you have to know your anatomy in 3d and practice this way, dumping fast and accurate rounds into the heart area. I can do it on demand in training 7yds and under, under an adrenal dump against a threat who is moving and shooting back, I'd be happy with any hitting the heart and prepared to fight via whatever means until it is over, even if it degenerates into H2H.

If you overlay an 8" circle high chest on an anatomical model, there is a lot of nothing there as well. Nothing as in just lung, a person can survive for hours with no medical treatment lung shot. It is serious, but by no means a fight stopper...

 

[TimSr]

Incapitation is mostly determined by the will of the attacker to continue. Very few pistol shots will instantly physically incapacitate a determined attacker, but the good news is that there are very few really determined attackers.

I also think very few attackers will let you put a dot sticker on them and back up or move forward to your desired range practice distance and agree to stand still, and hold their fire until you have carefully placed your shot.

 

[sgt127]

Bad people stop doing bad things for three reasons.

1. "Ow...that hurts, I'm done."

2. All the hydraulic fluid leaks out and the machine can't work anymore.

3. Hitting the master switch and turning the machine off.

Really. Thats all there is to it. I've worked lots of shootings. I've seen it many times. A little bullet or a big bullet can find the master switch. Skill and luck.

Making the hydraulic fluid leak out means several big holes or lots of little holes. Faster leaking is better.

"Ow, that hurts, I quit" can be a .22 LR or a .45. Doesn't really matter.

 

[Fiv3r]

Gunshots cause death by three mechanisms: interruption of the central nervous system (brain/spine), compromising the circulatory system (bleeding out) and interruption of the distribution of blood and oxygen to the body (heart/lung).

With that being said, "shot placement", i.e. placing a shot to affect maximum brain activity disruption, maximum loss of blood and/or maximized loss of pumping action and oxygen carrying ability is generally the best tactic. In order to maximize your chances of bringing about one or more modes of death, fire multiple shots. The more shots you fire the higher your odds are of hitting something vital. Just like in horse shoe pitching ... pitch enough shoes and sooner or later you'll get a ringer.

My wife and I got training from our local sheriffs department. We had two range sessions with every shooter having his or her own personal mentor. It was great. One of the things they kept telling us was not to attempt to be a marksman. I in fact got a bit of repeat instruction because my groupings were not large enough they felt. The idea being, more bullet holes more widely spaced had a greater likelihood of doing maximum damage than a string of bullets all through the same hole.

Obviously others will espouse other tactics. It all comes down to what you feel is best for you and what you feel is going to get the job done most effectively in the shortest amount of rime.

I have a buddy who is a police officer who said the same thing. He knows he needs to be able to hit what he is aiming at, but making spectacular marksmen shots from the draw, into or around a car or corner, with a belt full of gear, while your body dumps adrenaline into your system just isn't practical.

I think the fact of the matter is that human beings, for all of our frailties, are quite hard to kill. We are adaptive and can suffer tremendous trauma before succumbing to blood loss or shock. Is a CoM grouping going to stop every bad guy everytime? No. Does it make logical sense that a bigger hole does more potential damage? Sure. I just think, in my opinion, that having a firearm that can produce at least .35 caliber holes quickly and within an easily identified target area is a good compromise. I'm not running a .22 for SD trying to pull off a head-shot, but I also understand that a magazine dump center of mass gives me the greatest statistical chance to end a fight.

 

[RustyShackelford]

Posts...

Is this topic in the right section?

How is it related to autoloaders?

I, for one do think shot placement is very important but would agree that bullet design & amount of trauma/damage a inflicted gun shot wound could make are also significant.

 

[Frank Ettin]

Incapitation is mostly determined by the will of the attacker to continue....

Yes, that is a big factor.

• With regard to the issue of psychological stops see
  
  
  • this study by Greg Ellifritz. And take special notice of his data on failure to incapacitate rates:
    
    
    
    ​
    
    
    As Ellifritz notes in his discussion of his "failure to incapacitate" data (emphasis added):

    ...Take a look at two numbers: the percentage of people who did not stop (no matter how many rounds were fired into them) and the one-shot-stop percentage. The lower caliber rounds (.22, .25, .32) had a failure rate that was roughly double that of the higher caliber rounds. The one-shot-stop percentage (where I considered all hits, anywhere on the body) trended generally higher as the round gets more powerful. This tells us a couple of things...
    
    In a certain (fairly high) percentage of shootings, people stop their aggressive actions after being hit with one round regardless of caliber or shot placement. These people are likely NOT physically incapacitated by the bullet. They just don't want to be shot anymore and give up! Call it a psychological stop if you will. Any bullet or caliber combination will likely yield similar results in those cases. And fortunately for us, there are a lot of these "psychological stops" occurring. The problem we have is when we don't get a psychological stop. If our attacker fights through the pain and continues to victimize us, we might want a round that causes the most damage possible. In essence, we are relying on a "physical stop" rather than a "psychological" one. In order to physically force someone to stop their violent actions we need to either hit him in the Central Nervous System (brain or upper spine) or cause enough bleeding that he becomes unconscious. The more powerful rounds look to be better at doing this....

    
    
    1. There are two sets of data in the Ellifritz study: incapacitation and failure to incapacitate. They present some contradictions.
       
       
       • Considering the physiology of wounding, the data showing high incapacitation rates for light cartridges seems anomalous.
         
         
       • Furthermore, those same light cartridges which show high rates of incapacitation also show high rates of failures to incapacitate. In addition, heavier cartridges which show incapacitation rates comparable to the lighter cartridges nonetheless show lower failure to incapacitate rates.
         
         
       • And note that the failure to incapacitate rates of the 9mm Luger, .40 S&W, .45 ACP, and .44 Magnum were comparable to each other.
         
         
       • If the point of the exercise is to help choose cartridges best suited to self defense application, it would be helpful to resolve those contradictions.
         
         
       • A way to try to resolve those contradictions is to better understand the mechanism(s) by which someone who has been shot is caused to stop what he is doing.
       
       
    2. The two data sets and the apparent contradiction between them (and as Ellifritz wrote) thus strongly suggest that there are two mechanisms by which someone who has been shot will be caused to stop what he is doing.
       
       
       • One mechanism is psychological. This was alluded to by both Ellifritz and FBI agent and firearms instructor Urey Patrick. Sometimes the mere fact of being shot will cause someone to stop. When this is the stopping mechanism, the cartridge used really doesn't matter. One stops because his mind tells him to because he's been shot, not because of the amount of damage the wound has done to his body.
         
         
       • The other mechanism is physiological. If the body suffers sufficient damage, the person will be forced to stop what he is doing because he will be physiologically incapable of continuing. Heavier cartridges with large bullets making bigger holes are more likely to cause more damage to the body than lighter cartridges. Therefore, if the stopping mechanism is physiological, lighter cartridges are more likely to fail to incapacitate.
       
       
    3. And in looking at any population of persons who were shot and therefore stopped what they were doing, we could expect that some stopped for psychological reasons. We could also expect others would not be stopped psychologically and would not stop until they were forced to because their bodies became physiologically incapable of continuing.
       
       
    4. From that perspective, the failure to incapacitate data is probably more important. That essentially tells us that when Plan A (a psychological stop) fails, we must rely on Plan B (a physiological stop) to save our bacon; and a heavier cartridge would have a lower [Plan B] failure rate.
  
  
• Also see the FBI paper entitled "Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness", by Urey W. Patrick. Agent Patrick, for example, notes on page 8:

  ...Psychological factors are probably the most important relative to achieving rapid incapacitation from a gunshot wound to the torso. Awareness of the injury..., fear of injury, fear of death, blood or pain; intimidation by the weapon or the act of being shot; or the simple desire to quit can all lead to rapid incapacitation even from minor wounds. However, psychological factors are also the primary cause of incapacitation failures.
  
  The individual may be unaware of the wound and thus have no stimuli to force a reaction. Strong will, survival instinct, or sheer emotion such as rage or hate can keep a grievously wounded individual fighting....

...I also think very few attackers will let you put a dot sticker on them and back up or move forward to your desired range practice distance and agree to stand still, and hold their fire until you have carefully placed your shot.

Which is why one is well advised to learn to shoot both quickly and accurately. It can be done.

 

[TestPilot]

By Frank Ettin:
Your underlying fallacy there is that the amount of damage the bullet causes will be, in some part, related to where it hits. A bullet that passes through muscle and other tissue without solidly hitting major, blood bearing organs, does less damage that one that passes through major blood bearing organs.

Could hits to some organ be more damaging than others?

Yes.

However, it is not as if those "major blood bearing organs" is concentrated in the 10 ring.

Also, do you specifically train to aim for those "major blood bearing organs," or just center mass?

This is a criticism toward people who equate the 10 ring with "shot placement' enough to get best incapacitation, not a criticism toward people aiming for a good shot placement.

Also, your comment primary concentrates around blood loss as the mechanism for a stop. I find that least significant for a stop(not kill), since it takes veeeery long time for someone to die from a blood loss.

People tend to dismiss non-CNS, non-blood loss, stop as "just psychological surrender." However, those takes up majority of the stops. It should not be dismissed how much volume of damage done contributes to such stops.

 

[jrdolall]

Is a bad shot with a .45 better than a good shot with a .380? One shot knockdowns are a rare thing with a handgun of any caliber.
I personally think that shot placement IS key but I also realize that placement is difficult under combat situations. Six shots that fail to hit a major organ are probably better than one shot that does hit a major organ in regards to quick incapacitation because of the pain and loss of blood associated with multiple gunshot wounds. The object of self defense is to stop the attack so I think a whole bunch of bullets striking the attacker is better than one "Magic Bullet", assuming we miss the CNS.

 

[danez71]

However, it is not as if those "major blood bearing organs" is concentrated in the 10 ring.

Some of them most certainly are located CM.

I don't how anyone can argue that what gets hit is less important.

Big wound in a fatty butt or a small hole thru the head..... Pretty clear which is better.