On handguns and calibre wars...

[Panzercat]

Against a human attacker, your goal isn't to kill them necessarily, but rather to incapacitate them. Punching a bunch of clean holes through them may very well kill them, but probably not immediately unless you severely damage the CNS.

Like this. Humans are incredibly fragile to the right form of damage. But they also have a lot of non-lethal or not immeditely lethal surface area to hit. Sure, we'd all like to think we will be dispensing silver bullets to absolutely vital areas of the body because we're all just that good, but real life is seldom that clean cut.

Penetration isn't my priority* for an HD round. We're not bears. Making sure I do enough damage to the target so it drops and doesn't get back up is, all while providing for less than ideal firing scenario redundancy. A head shot does that. And so does a round that expands to the size of a silver dollar pancake.

You're allowed to have both

* Hey now, don't be silly. Of course penetration is required for a firearm to do its job. try not to be too anal retentive concerning this one.

 

[ripp]

hpbt match RIFLE bullets are made with ZERO concern with what they do after they punch a hole in a paper target. I should have said that having the bullet be nose heavy makes it more stable as it penetrates FLESH, since one can no longer just assume common sense on the part of readers of gun forums. Of course the performance of rifle and pistol bullets in the air differ, bud. The 2-3x greater velocity and faster rate of twist of the rifle barrels makes for 3-4x the rpm of the rifle bullet, as vs the pistol bullet, so they can get away with being butt-heavy, in the air, making them streamlined, for minimal resistance as they pierce the air.

 

[Prosser]

Probably just stay with what works. LFN type bullets, not wadcutters, going at least 1200 fps, prefer 1350 fps. This gives you enough velocity so the bullets
tend to mushroom, like this:


and leave exit holes like this:


I suspect you might be able to tailor lesser calibers to expand in a similar manner, using a lighter bullet, at the same or higher velocity.

The problem for CCW then becomes having enough barrel length for the bullet
to get to speed, and, the speed of the powder you use, faster generally tending to hit higher pressure much faster.

 

[KimberUltra]

I agree with panzercat.

I use hollow points to do as much damage to a target as I can. My .45 will have plenty of penetration from a typical self defense distance which would probably be inside 10 feet. For all intents and purposes that's a muzzle velocity range. You can also bet your balls that I'm not going to stop pulling that trigger until I'm empty. If hes not incapacitated after 7 rounds to the torso then my kimber weighs like 14 lbs and I'd probably throw it at him.

If a 7 rounds to the chest with a .45 doesn't stop someone from close range and the BG manages to do whatever it is he wanted to do to me, then that's just the cards I had been dealt. You can't do a whole lot more than that.

 

[Al Thompson]

You can't do a whole lot more than that.

Yes you can. It's called a non-standard response.

Get some training. If after a couple of shots to the chest the bad guy isn't reacting, shoot something different. Body armor is not uncommon.

 

[MCgunner]

Yeah, whatever...

Just buy what you can carry always and shoot well, practice, and don't worry about it. Hell, there are times I can only conceal a .22 mag mini revolver, but I CAN hit with it.

 

[JustinJ]

"Body armor is not uncommon."

I would venture that far less than 1% of SD related shootings involve body armor.

 

[Al Thompson]

Justin, agree completely that it's unlikely, but, again, if what I'm hitting with isn't working, time to hit him somewhere else. Regardless of why it isn't working.

 

[KAS1981]

My school of thought on calibers & self defense:

If you start putting holes in somebody, no matter what diameter they are, they're (more than likely) going to stop molesting you.

That being said, I won't carry anything less powerful than .38 special or 9mm for self-defense.

 

[Prosser]

Body Armour? Get a caliber that penetrates it. What are calibers that penetrate armour in a handgun?