In this thread we carry pistols 40 (10mm) or larger caliber.

[ATLDave]

If you objective is to stop the fight quickly, they aren't always you ally.

As I noted, Platt had been hit eleven times before he was finally stopped. A couple of those shots were deep wounds. He wasn't knocked out of the fight.

He was hit eleven times with relatively low-powered rounds. When the .357 started delivering hits, he was done in a hurry.

How do higher energy wounds generate larger temporary wound cavities? And how do you know this? From ballistic gelatin results?

Or fluid dynamics in general. That's a big part of what KE energy is useful for predicting - displacement of the substance impacted. I don't think this is actually a controversial proposition.

As pblanc notes above, other things can certainly cause the fight to end quickly -- concussion, a shot to the pelvis breaking the structure -- but its hard to plan such shots. It may be as much luck as anything. And, while larger wounds channel might speed the process, they don't automatically stop the process.

That is generally correct. You seem, however, to only be attaching weight to the things that are "automatic," and that's where we part ways. I will try to take all the "automatic" I can get, and any other probabalistic advantages, too.

I'm not looking for precise measurement of how much extra efficacy you get for larger wound channels or more forceful loads. I'm just looking for SOMETHING that doesn't require us to accept on faith along that the points you hold to be true and want others to accept as true, as well.

Oh, there's a great deal of evidence. For example:

• Hunters talking about their observations from shooting animals;
• The non-exceptional cases in which people don't keep fighting after getting shot a bunch of times and don't have a CNS hit;
• Various sources of "one shot stop" and other data (including even your chart, which shows additional marginal efficacy of 357-and-above rounds compared to 9mm... with small numbers of pocket calibers skewing things).
• The basic physics of KE displacing impact media.
• Ballistics gel or other similar testing showing greater disruption and more violent reaction of the impacted substance.
• Analogy to non-firearm fight-stoppers.

Are any of those sources as well quanitified as the FBI penetration test? No, they aren't. That doesn't mean that they don't exist or are "no evidence."

I'll remain an agnostic on this topic. I don't say you're wrong, but I do say we also don't know you're right.

As is typical for internet exchanges, I suspect both of us have been drawn into slightly stronger statements than our actual views. For instance, you said: " About the only time any handgun has REAL stopping power is when shots hit an attacker's central nervous system " That's an affirmative claim, not an agnostic one.

Similarly, I do not know whether the marginal efficacy that seems pretty apparent is material or not. It may be a 1% increase in efficacy. Or a 0.1%. In which case, it's not a great trade to give away much else to seek it. That's why I say have no real basis to criticize those who attach no weight to it in their decision-making calculus. My claim is a pretty modest one.

 

[Walt Sherrill]

Oh, there's a great deal of evidence. For example:

You points are shown italicized below; my responses are immediately below each of them.

• Hunters talking about their observations from shooting animals;

Most hunters use high velocity rounds fired from long guns. While hunters DO use handguns, they are the exception not the rule. And animals are typically trying to get away (bears are an exception), and unlike many humans typically don't fight back.​

• The non-exceptional cases in which people don't keep fighting after getting shot a bunch of times and don't have a CNS hit;

If you're saying that some attackers quit without getting shot a bunch of times, I'd understand and agree. Some attackers just aren't into it... but if they're experienced and have been there and done that, the results might be different. That really does little to address the focus of this discussion -- the value/importance of bigger or faster rounds.in the self-defense calculus.

In the chart below, you'll see that .380 rounds seem to perform about as well as .357 magnum rounds and better than .45 acp. Other anomalies can be seen.​

• The basic physics of KE displacing impact media.

The basic physics of KE displacing impact media may or may not be seen in human tissue. If it existed, you'd expect temporary wound cavities from almost any large caliber, high speed round to have a more dramatic effect than seems to be the case.​

• Ballistics gel or other similar testing showing greater disruption and more violent reaction of the impacted substance.

Ballistic gel (or other similar testing media) DOES show greater disruption and more violent reaction, but it is not permeated with connective tissue, bones, etc. And most of the major disruption is typically seen where the bullet first enters the media, with the disruption rapidly reducing as the bullet moves through the media. (It looks like an ice cream cone on it's side: big ball that tapers down to a point (or several points).

As I've said before, ballistic gel is better than nothing, for comparative purposes, but it is designed to simulate porcine muscle tissue, which is only a so-so testing substitute for human tissue. Gel is better than nothing, but results can be misleading. Ballistic gel actually tears,while some temporary wound cavities in human are created by tissue stretching, not tearing.​

• Analogy to non-firearm fight-stoppers.

Analogues to non-firearm fight-stoppers are interesting, but because they are non-firearm matters, I'm not sure you can equate those data points to our discussion about the relative values and effectivenss of different handgun loads.​

As is typical for internet exchanges, I suspect both of us have been drawn into slightly stronger statements than our actual views. For instance, you said: " About the only time any handgun has REAL stopping power is when shots hit an attacker's central nervous system " That's an affirmative claim, not an agnostic one.

A number of times you've claimed I made statements I didn't make, and argued with your version of my statements. This discussion is about the relative effectiveness of larger caliber rounds or more powerful loads. My claim -- which was a generalization -- was that about the only time any handgun has real stopping power is when its use includes a CNS hits remains an agnostic statement in that can be applied to any and all calibers and loads. It doesn't take sides in this discussion..

If you looked at Ellifritz's database (linked to earller in this discussion) it was based on 1800 different handgun battles. Here's a summary table I created from Ellifritz's data:addressing some topics for discussion.



The claim that higher energy or higher caliber gets better results is sometimes true, but there are unusual exceptions, and other exceptions show up in unusual places.. Notice that .380 rounds have the same percentage of one-shot stops as .357 magnum rounds, and .380s do better than .45 acp. or .40 S&W. in that performance measurement. (I'm sure the aggressors aren't the same in these different cases, but larger rounds moving quickly don't always give the expected results. Only rifle and shotguns consistently top the lists.)

 

[Demi-human]

I thought I would see pictures of larger than three fifty seven caliber guns.
I don't mean to raise any ire, you both have good points, but...


There is a distinct lack of firearms photos in these pages!

One of these I only carry in the woods, for fun, when I want a back ache.

 

[pblanc]

Back around 1977 I was a medical student in Chicago and spent 6 weeks at the Cook County Hospital Trauma Unit. This unit had been started about 10 years earlier and was widely acknowledged as the first such dedicated trauma unit in the country. It saw a great deal of penetrating trauma. Pretty much all police shootings were taken there and at that time the Chicago PD was still carrying revolvers (mostly 357 Magnum) and shotguns. Also at that time, the city was seeing increasing numbers of high velocity rifle wounds, mostly from M16 and occasionally AKMs that had been brought back by servicemen returning from Vietnam and had fallen into the hands of some malefactor. I saw a number of such wounds there. I am sure that they all resulted from military ball ammunition.

Information that had filtered back from battlefield medics and surgeons in Vietnam, and the collective wisdom regarding the treatment of high velocity rifle wounds in earlier conflicts, suggested that these weapons routinely caused extensive tissue injury as a result of high kinetic energy transfer, and that wide explorations and debridements needed to be done routinely to remove devitalized tissue adjacent to the primary crush cavity. But as time went on, surgeons realized that this was not true. When such projectiles struck bone, tumbled, or fragmented the damage could be quite impressive. But when they did not, the soft tissue damage adjacent to the primary wound cavity was often not very significant. The surgical dictum then became "treat the wound, not the weapon". It eventually became accepted that high velocity rifle wounds of the extremities that did not involve bone or projectile fragmentation could often be treated with a simple limited excision of skin from around the entry and exit wounds, irrigation, and antibiotic therapy alone without the need for muscle debridement and these patients typically did just fine.

It seems to me that if tissue damage outside of the primary wound channel occurs due to kinetic energy propagating a fluid wave, cavitation occurring behind the projectile, or whatever. that one should expect to see this with all high velocity wounds even if the projectile did not expand, deform, yaw, tumble, fragment, or strike bone.

 

[ATLDave]

It seems to me that if tissue damage outside of the primary wound channel occurs due to kinetic energy propagating a fluid wave, cavitation occurring behind the projectile, or whatever. that one should expect to see this with all high velocity wounds even if the projectile did not expand, deform, yaw, tumble, fragment, or strike bone.

The cavitation begins at a varying depth. If you are talking limb hits (particularly on skinny-armed people), the bullet can be out the other side before the serious cavitation begins. Here's an oft-reproduced image of typical tracts of various military long-arm projectiles:

http://files.forensicmed.webnode.com/200000763-9b7429c6e1/40053-MilitaryRifleWPcopy.jpg

 

[pblanc]

I've seen some through and through thigh wounds on pretty large people.

Since I was talking with my experience with 5.56x45 and 7.6239 wounds lets look at some of those wound "profiles"



The problem with these 5.56 wound profiles is that they almost invariably depict what happens when the projectile yaws, tumbles, and fragments. When the 5.56 FMJ projectile does tumble and fragment, it often does so starting at around 10 cm (4 inches or so) but M855 projectiles in particular sometimes do not tumble until after penetrating as much as 7 inches. And when these projectiles do not tumble and fragment, they often seem to cause relatively little damage outside of the primary wound channel. The penetration depth issue seems to be a matter of what is required to produce yaw and tumble rather than a minimum penetration depth required for "cavitation" (assuming that occurs).

Again, if "hydrostatic" (a complete misnomer) propagation of a fluid wave was responsible for significant wounding of tissues outside the primary crush channel, one should certainly expect to see this occurring within several inches of penetration.

Here is a pretty good article on terminal ballistics of the 223 Rem/5.56x45 rifle cartridge for those who are interested:

http://www.mlefiaa.org/files/ERPR/Terminal_Ballistic_Performance.pdf

 

[Walt Sherrill]

Have you seen a chart for the 5.56 NATO rounds used by the US military? I don't think the GIs in Mogadishu were talking about limb hits. But even torso hits may have resulted in through-and-through wounds without a lot of expansion.

Most of the rounds shown above have major expansions when they've gone from 8-12 inches. (I think the TSWG round is one used by snipers so expansion is less of a concern.)

U.S. military 5.56x45 rounds run from 2800 fps - 3200 fps, but the bullets are much lighter (roughly 1/3 the weight of the rounds shown in the chart above). While the 5.56x45 rounds vary from a little faster to a lot faster, I wonder whether bullet weights could that explain the anomalies mentioned by Rangers in Mogadishu?

This part of the discussion addresses the effect of long-gun rounds and rifle velocities, but it doesn't address handgun results.

 

[ATLDave]

I've seen some through and through thigh wounds on pretty large people.

Sigh... I feel we are talking past one another. Bullet geometry and other factors definitely impact when/where any cavitation occurs. Load two 180 grain .400-diameter projectiles to the same velocity. Give one a round nose, give the other an expanding hollow point. They will not produce the same displacement tract through water or ballistic gelatin, and the difference will not solely be the difference in diameter of the projectile.

If your point is that the human body is sufficiently complex in composition to produce variable results, then, yes, obviously I agree.

 

[ATLDave]

This part of the discussion addresses the effect of long-gun rounds and rifle velocities, but it doesn't address handgun results.

Cavitation occurs with handguns, too. The conventional wisdom is that, because the cavitation is not a large as that generated by rifle-speed rounds, it does not exceed the stretch capacity of the tissue. If one is analyzing things from the point of view of what can be seen later on the autopsy table or trauma operating room, then this level of cavitation does not exist except for some bruising. Just as a punch to the solar plexus no longer appear to have occurred, apart from potential bruising, some time later. But they both happened. If a solar plexus punch is capable of temporarily incapacitating people some of the time (though not every time), it seems obvious to me that having a void of even half the size shown here ( ) temporarily expanded in one's torso would incapacitate (perhaps only temporarily) some of the time.

I feel like we're going around in circles here.

 

[pblanc]

No, a discussion of rifle terminal ballistics is not directly relevant to handgun wounding mechanisms. But the claim is often made that higher velocity handgun cartridges, like the 357 SIG, because they deliver more kinetic energy to the target, are superior to lesser velocity handgun cartridges like the .40 S&W, even though the slower projectiles often create permanent crush channels that are larger in volume. And the mechanism proposed to substantiate their superiority is usually some variation of "hydrostatic shock" or cavitation creating tissue damage in the secondary wound channel.

My point is that projectiles of vastly greater kinetic energy often do not demonstrate these secondary wounding effects, at least not in such a way as is apparent to a surgeon or pathologist, so I question whether any handgun cartridge is capable of doing so.

And I think I understand the point you are making, ATLDave. I might knock you out temporarily with a baseball bat. Yet, in the Emergency Department there might be little evidence apart from some mild swelling and bruising and a CT scan or MRI of your brain would probably be completely normal. Yet you would have been temporarily incapacitated. But the existence of such an effect is going to be very difficult to either prove or disprove rather like the existence of God, and has to accepted on faith, or not.

 

[Charliefrank]

Up until recently I've carried a Colt Delta Elite 10mm since 1998. Recently it's gotten a little too collectable to be a every day gun. Now I'm carrying a Ruger sr1911 10mm.
Don't get me wrong I also own and carry a Colt Combat Commander 45. Both great self defense rounds. But when I'm in the woods where large black bears are abundant I have the 10mm with me. With full power loads I feel a little more confident in having to stop a mauling. I don't have any hard evidence to back that up, it's just my feeling on the matter of stopping power.

 

[CDW4ME]

This is a good point that I hadn't considered, specifically. But I am in the camp of KE is mostly useful in the resultant penetration/expansion instead of some third nebulous advantage based solely on the KE.

Except that, in fluid and at handgun velocities, it often seems that momentum, rather than KE, is more predictive of penetration (along with sectional density).

I should (could) have made criteria, so that 9mm & 357 Sig would (could) be included, but not 380.

Minimum momentum of .75 and/or minimum KE of 400# - (and 12-18'' penetration with consistent expansion, of course).

Examples:
Glock 19: Federal HST 124 gr. +P @ 1,210 fps / 403# KE
Glock 32 (357 Sig): Federal HST 125 gr. @ 1,358 fps / 512# KE
Glock 22: Speer Gold Dot 180 gr. @ 975 fps / 380# KE - .78 momentum
Glock 21: Federal HST 230 gr. @ 863 fps / 380# KE - .88 momentum

380 (and less) aint likely gonna make either "desirable" criteria.

 

[Charliefrank]

Up until recently I've carried a Colt Delta Elite 10mm since 1998. Recently it's gotten a little too collectable to be a every day gun. Now I'm carrying a Ruger sr1911 10mm.
Don't get me wrong I also own and carry a Colt Combat Commander 45. Both great self defense rounds. But when I'm in the woods where large black bears are abundant I have the 10mm with me. With full power loads I feel a little more confident in having to stop a mauling. I don't have any hard evidence to back that up, it's just my feeling on the matter of stopping power.

Of course in the woods I have my 44 magnum with me a lot, but that's probably an entirely different discussion

 

[JR24]

I should (could) have made criteria, so that 9mm & 357 Sig would (could) be included, but not 380.

Minimum momentum of .75 and/or minimum KE of 400# - (and 12-18'' penetration with consistent expansion, of course).

Examples:
Glock 19: Federal HST 124 gr. +P @ 1,210 fps / 403# KE
Glock 32 (357 Sig): Federal HST 125 gr. @ 1,358 fps / 512# KE
Glock 22: Speer Gold Dot 180 gr. @ 975 fps / 380# KE - .78 momentum
Glock 21: Federal HST 230 gr. @ 863 fps / 380# KE - .88 momentum

380 (and less) aint likely gonna make either "desirable" criteria.

Hey I still carry a .45 half the time and 10 mm in the woods, so it's all good to me!

 

[pblanc]

This thread has a convenient table for comparing the relative momentum of various handgun cartridges:

http://rugerforum.net/reloading/7566-ammo-momentum-energy-chart.html

The conventional wisdom is that projectiles with between 20 and 30 lb-ft/sec momentum are best for self-defense whereas those with much greater than 30 lb-ft.sec have too much potential for over-penetration when used against human targets, but may be beneficial for hunting are defense against large four legged attackers.

.40 S&W and 357 SIG are nearly equivalent in projectile momentum.

 

[ATLDave]

And I think I understand the point you are making, ATLDave. I might knock you out temporarily with a baseball bat. Yet, in the Emergency Department there might be little evidence apart from some mild swelling and bruising and a CT scan or MRI of your brain would probably be completely normal. Yet you would have been temporarily incapacitated. But the existence of such an effect is going to be very difficult to either prove or disprove rather like the existence of God, and has to accepted on faith, or not.

I think there's probably a little bit more tangible, less-faith-based evidence for phenomena such as someone having the wind knocked out of them or getting knocked loopy by an impact to the head than various theological propositions.

 

[pblanc]

Hard to understand then why those Somalis shot through with 5.56x45 did not have the wind knocked out of them if your theory is correct.

 

[ATLDave]

Hard to understand then why those Somalis shot through with 5.56x45 did not have the wind knocked out of them if your theory is correct.

Because none of the energy was converted into a cavitation effect.

See that M855 tract? See the long neck? If the bullet gets out the other side of some skinny, dehydrated guy's shoulder at 18cm, there's no big transfer of energy creating a cavity... just a poke with an ice-pick.

And pointing to an incident in which a mechanism that I have repeatedly said is not always going to be effective as proof of the absence of the mechanism... well, that's like saying "one time I saw a guy get punched hard in the gut and he didn't get the wind knocked out of him... so much for this 'wind-knocking' magical thinking!"

 

[pblanc]

Because the bullet did not tumble and fragment. And you can see from that M855 tract that the area of maximum tissue damage corresponded to the area past which the projectile did tumble and fragment. The wounding mechanism that results from 5.56x45 projectiles "switching ends" after a certain distance of passage through tissue, tumbling, breaking apart at the cannelure, and fragmenting is pretty well established. You do not need to invoke some type of hydrodynamic mechanism causing a transmission of a high pressure fluid wave through tissues with the formation of turbulence behind the projectile's path to explain that behavior.


If such hydrodynamic effects did occur on a regular basis to the extent that they caused significant tissue injury, it seems implausible to me that they would require passage through 7 inches of basically a fluid medium before they became apparent. What you seem to be saying is that effects of this type do occur and can be responsible for some type of transient physiological effect. Maybe so, I cannot disprove it but only say that I have seen no evidence of such in my limited personal experience. And I have seen individuals shot through 8" of soft tissue with high velocity rifle wounds. And if there was some type of transient physiologic incapacitation that occurred in the absence of bullet tumble and fragmentation, I would perhaps have expected to see it in those skinny Somalis.

 

[ATLDave]

pblanc, go to the swimming pool. Slap the water with your hand flat. Now karate chop the water with your hand's edge. Notice the difference in the deceleration of your hand (and how much it stung?)? Notice the difference in the level of disruption/displacement of the water?

Your hand when flat is like a bullet with a wide meplat or an expanding hollow-point or a tumbling round. Your knife-edge hand is like the bullet that doesn't have/hasn't yet experienced those things.

I cannot tell whether you are contending that this kind of displacement does not happen or if you are contending that this displacement happens but never has any incapacitating effect. Which one is your position?

 

[pblanc]

Of course soft elastic tissues are temporarily displaced by the passage of a projectile. Of course, an FMJ projectile with a flat meplat or an expanding hollow point causes more tissue injury through a wider crush channel, sometimes at the expense of penetration. Of course bullets that tumble end over end or bullets that fragment create vastly more tissue injury than those which do not. Bullets which do so create vastly more extensive crush channels. I have seen no evidence that FMJ handgun projectiles with a flat meplat cause significantly more tissue injury than those with a conical meplat, but there does seem to be significant evidence from hunters that high powered FMJ rifle projectiles with a flat meplat can do so. I think that part of this injury might be attributed to the greater resistance that such projectiles encounter penetrating the skin, which very forcibly indents the skin and also causes the projectile to start to tumble immediately upon penetration.

Animal soft tissues are generally high elastic. Unlike ballistic gelatin, elastic tissues which are displaced by the passage of a projectile rebound back with little or no apparent damage after the projectile has passed apart from the permanent crush channel. This is true for all handgun calibers and I have tried to present evidence, some based on personal experience, that the same is often true for some high velocity rifle rounds that do not tumble or fragment.

Now some tissues with a loose structure and relatively few or no collagen or elastin fibers may behave differently. Examples of such are brain, liver, and spleen and to some extent, myocardium (heart muscle).

So in answer to your question, of course tissue displacement occurs. And if you had read my posts with a bit more care you might have noticed that twice now I have said that I cannot rule out the possibility of such displacement causing some type of transient incapacitating effect even in the absence of permanent signs of tissue injury. But I have seen no convincing evidence that such an incapacitating effect occurs with handgun velocity wounds. If it does occur it is no doubt more likely to do so with high velocity rifle wounds. I do recall one case of an M16 gunshot wound to the abdomen that did cause "remote" injuries in the form of a small crack in the liver capsule and a couple of small ruptures of distended small bowel loops that appeared to be in close proximity, but outside the direct path of the projectile.

But the collected evidence from many surgeons who have treated 5.56x45 FMJ wounds is that when these projectiles tumble and fragment they can cause quite massive tissue injury because the permanent crush channel is greatly increased. If they do not, they often cause no more apparent injury than a 22 LR wound, even though they presumably caused considerable soft tissue displacement during their passage. In other words, when it comes to permanent tissue injury it all seems to depend on whether the projectiles tumble and fragment, period.

Now if you have clear evidence that transient soft tissue displacement clearly causes temporary incapacitation in either handgun or rifle caliber cartridges, why don't you present it?

 

[ATLDave]

Yet again, we seem to be going in circles. I will try to recapitulate one more time:

• If by "clear evidence" you mean direct, measured, controlled, and quantified data that directly links the mechanism of tissue displacement with incapacitation at some predictable rate: I don't know of any. This aspect of terminal ballistics is not as easy to study as the post-death or medical-treatment permanent wound tract aspects. If your expectation is the same level of clarity, it's not there yet. I don't dispute that, and have been clear about that from the beginning. However, as I have tried to explain and will try again to explain, there is great deal of evidence that you and the other strong-view-Facklerites simply dismiss because it is not as well-quantified. This includes:
  • Every instance of someone who gets shot and immediately falls down, sits down, drops their weapon, or is otherwise out of the fight despite the lack of a promptly-fatal injury or CNS hit. There are thousands and thousands of such instances. Something is happening.
  • Bodies of evidence - both tabulated and annecdotal - about the relative effectiveness of various handgun caliber rounds. For instance, the 125 grain .357 JHP load has almost uniformly been acknowledged as being an extremely effective round at stopping fights. Given its unremarkable diameter and typically good-but-not-extraordinary penetration, this is most easily explained by the substantial KE it rapidly delivers... which would generate the kind of tissue displacement we're talking about.
  • "the collected evidence from many surgeons who have treated 5.56x45 FMJ wounds is that when these projectiles tumble and fragment they can cause quite massive tissue injury because the permanent crush channel is greatly increased" is not quite correct. Look at the wound channels in the illustration above. No matter how vigorously tumbling, the projectile is not large enough to have "touched" that entire area. That is an area of destruction caused by a very large cavitation that exceeds the stretch capacity of the tissue.
    • What causes that area is kinetic energy being transferred from the bullet to the tissue. Tumbling, fragmentation, and expansion are all methods which dramatically increase the rate of KE transfer. If the bullet in question doesn't decelerate, then it doesn't transfer KE, and you don't get much displacement. This is just physics, and non-controversial.
  • The question is what happens when the tissue is not stretched quite as far, but is still moved in a very rapid fashion, as by fairly powerful handgun round. We know, for a fact, that SOME of the time, if you use your fist to rapidly move a portion of tissue in the area of the diaphram, the person whose tissue is being moved will be temporarily incapacitated or severely disrupted in their ability to act. Why in the world would we not expect a similar phenomenon when it is a bullet, not a fist, doing that disruption??? It simply beggars belief.
  • Similarly, I have had the interesting and intensely unpleasant experience of having a surgically-implanted drain removed while I was conscious. The drain was in my lower abdomen. Its removal was not exactly painful, but it was extremely unpleasant. As it was pulled out (under clean procedure-room conditions by a highly-skilled surgeon), I could feel the drag of it through/along my innards. I was not wounded. No new tissue was crushed - the "wound channel" had been there for weeks. Bleeding was very minimal (in fact, no stitches or further repair/closure was necessary). I promise you, during the few seconds of that event and for half a minute thereafter, I was incapacitated.
    
  • If you don't think handgun hunters have strong stories to tell about the impact of bullet shape/construction on effectiveness, then you need to talk to more of them.
  • Please look at video of gel tests. Gelatin is not a direct analogue for human tissue, of course, and the various structures in human tissue surely serve to damp some of the movement... but the idea that a 20-40% increase in the amount of even-temporary displacement of tissue will have NO EFFECT IN A FIGHT again strikes me as a proposition that is extremely difficult to believe.

None of these may meet your standard for "clear evidence." None of these permit a clear quantification of the additional likelihood of incapacitation (or other disruption of ability to act, even temporarily). But this seems more than sufficient to support a reasonable inference that the Facklerite analysis is incomplete and that, without sacrificing penetration or permanent tract diameter, a higher-energy bullet has some additional probability of disrupting a fight.

Finally, I would reiterate that instances (such as some unspecified, unquantified percentage of Somalis... although they are a bad example, I explained above) not showing any incapacitation from tissue displacement is not proof that the phenomenon is non-existent... just proof that it does not always manifest. Just as not every punch in the stomach knocks the wind out of someone. That doesn't mean that gut-punches don't stop a lot of fights.

 

[pblanc]

First, where do those wound channel illustrations come from and what are they based on? Clearly, they are not photographs of damaged tissue. You can see in most of them little diagrams of a tumbling but intact projectile or a fragmenting projectile. In the case of the intact projectile, what appears to be a representation of the primary crush channel is relatively small whereas when the bullet fragments it is quite large. So what is that envelope around the primary crush channel delineated by the second line and what is it based on? I suspect it is based on the so-called secondary wound channel seen in ballistic gel. You say it is "an area of destruction caused by a very large cavitation that exceeds the stretch capacity of the tissue." And what I am telling you is that it does not exist, or frequently doesn't, at least not as an area of tissue destruction that is visible at surgery. It is never seen with the common handgun self-defense cartridges. And even intermediate power rifle bullets traversing soft tissue that do not yaw, tumble, or fragment very commonly do not have any area of tissue destruction caused by a very large area of cavitation. At most, there might be a little devitalized muscle tissue immediately adjacent to the primary crush channel. I have been there and seen this with my own eyes. If there was significant tissue destruction due to a large area of cavitation, then the conservative treatment of these rifle wounds with minimal excision of entry and exit sites, and irrigation would never work. But it frequently does work. Here is a short article on the management of high velocity gunshot wounds of the extremities:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4596205/

And here is a paragraph taken from that article:

"An injury with small entrance and exit wounds, no neurovascular compromise, and no evidence of fracture or bullet fragmentation on radiographs can be regarded as a simple through-and-through wound. It is likely in these injuries that there is a small amount of necrotic tissue in the permanent tract only and they can safely be managed minimally with irrigation, dressings, and prophylactic oral antibiotics."

And speaking of bad examples, I don't think your comparison of what happens when someone gets the wind knocked out of them by a punch to the gut has any bearing on what happens when someone gets shot in the abdomen. Although only an elite boxer can deliver close to the kinetic energy of even most handgun projectiles with their fist, arm, and body throwing a punch, that energy is delivered to a broad area of the skin of the abdominal wall and does not penetrate the skin. It therefore causes a large degree of displacement of the abdominal wall and a greater transient increase in intra-bdominal pressure than even a high velocity projectile striking and penetrating the abdominal wall. It is this large increase in intra-abdominal pressure that pushes up on the diaphragm emptying the lungs of air and sometimes temporarily interfering with diaphragmatic function. The increase in intra-abdominal pressure can also cause an immediate cessation of blood return from the abdomen and lower extremities via the vena cava.

Lets see if we can settle on a few points of agreement. I hope you would agree with me that pain and fear can be temporarily incapacitating. It seems that you found this out when you had a surgical drain removed, and having removed many, many drains I can tell you that it did not result in any cavitation, as you already know. Even surprise can be incapacitating to immediate action. We know from a number of well-publicized events that not everyone who gets shot feels pain, fear, or even surprise. But I think it is reasonable to propose that many do. And if they do, these can all be temporarily incapacitating factors apart from the purely psychological effects of getting shot.

As for whether or not rapid tissue displacement that does not cause permanent tissue injury (by whatever mechanism we wish to invoke) can have a temporary incapacitating effect, you can't provide any incontrovertible evidence for its existence (at least not any I would consider incontrovertible) but you seem to feel strongly that such an effect does exist. And I certainly can't provide any evidence that it does not exist.

You seem to think that I believe strongly that such a mechanism does not exist. That is actually not true. I have taken into account the accounts of various hunters and a few anecdotal stories of humans who have been shot with various high velocity handgun cartridges. I am more of an agnostic when it comes to this issue having simply seen no solid evidence for its existence.

The problem with evaluating the outcome of individual gun fights involving humans at least, is we know there is such a vast difference in the terminal ballistic behavior of cartridges from case to case, and a huge variation in how individuals respond to being shot. We all know about the case of Michael Platt. If you go to youtube and search for "The murder of Trooper Mark Coates" you will see a dashcam video of a South Carolina State Trooper who made a traffic stop of an individual who attacked him with a 22 LR handgun. Trooper Coates hit the perp 5 times center mass with 357 Magnum silvertips at point blank range without any apparent effect. Coates was killed by a single 22 LR shot that penetrated his ascending aorta, and the video shows that he was on the ground within 30 seconds. In another documented instance, a perp was shot 6 times in the chest with 45 Long Colt at point blank range, shot between the shoulder blades 5 times with 38 Special +P at contact range, then shot twice more with .44 Magnum rounds at a range of 15 feet and rapidly closing. He was a small individual and none of these 13 center mass hits had any apparent effect. He was shot twice more in the thigh and knee and it was the 15th shot to the knee that took him out of the fight. He lived for 10 days. It is anomalous outcomes like this that make it difficult for me to know how much importance to attach to anecdotal accounts of shootings.

 

[Walkalong]

All the debate bores me, I'd rather look at cool pics of guns. I have carried anything from the .22 Mag to the .45 ACP over the last 40+ years. I won't argue about my choices, nor fault anyone for disagreeing with any of them.

But in keeping with the title of the thread, here is my Kimber CDP in .45 ACP. I installed a Wilson bulletproof slide catch, and modded a Wilson thumb safety to mimic the old Lightweight Commander style, then sandblasted them to match the gun. I removed the plastic mainspring housing and replaced it with a (Can't remember the brand) aluminum mainspring housing/magwell. I use Wilson mags with extended aluminum baseplates.

 

[JR24]

Sounds good. My most carried .45 ACP (or non 9mm). Very first 8 round mag through, at 10 yards IIRC.

DW VBob