Something just dawned on me about penitration.

[CoalCrackerAl]

You see all these videos and tables about how SD ammo goes x amount of inches in gell. Some go over 12 inches in. Now what i was wondering about. Thin folks are not 12 inches thick. Alot of drug addicts are real thin. So this gives the issue of pass through, If bone is not hit. Something to think about. Im thinking about loading some 180 grain hollow points in 40sw at starting loads. I have a Taurus PT140. It would be a comfortable carry for me. I carry my PT111 comfortably. Same size guns. Thoughts folks?

 

[JohnKSa]

Now what i was wondering about. Thin folks are not 12 inches thick.

People are not always shot directly from the front. Sometimes the shot is at an angle. Sometimes something (like an arm) gets in between the muzzle and the torso. As you note, sometimes bone is hit.

And not all attackers are thin.

 

[reloaded_in_pa]

My take....

There's no perfect gun or ammo for every possibility. All we can do is carry what would be the most effective in the most likely situation. There are many that say never handload for personal defense because of legal reasons. I can unfortunately understand that thinking but..... if I have to pull it, I need it to do it's job. Regardless if it's factory ammo or handloads.

 

[CoalCrackerAl]

Something that often came up at US Law shield meetings, The hand loads legal concerns are a myth. I like attending mettings. From them. I need to see if they started up again. They were not doing them with the covid.

 

[JJFitch]

Once you have made the decision to draw your firearm and eliminate the threat, have the threat stand still long enough for you to get a measurement and then change ammo to suit the penetration according to the FBI gel tests!

Of course, this is a joke, but I think you may get the point!

Gel tests are just that and completely change once layers of clothing are applied.

There is no way to tell the depth of penetration once the projectile hits the threat/body!

Research the results of emergency room analysis of gunshot wounds and how they travel inside the human body.

Don't over think it and "Don't go to stupid places where stupid people do stupid stuff"!

 

[lemaymiami]

Here's the bottom line for anyone in that once in a lifetime desperate situation where you're going to need deadly force to survive... No matter how amped up you are - you not only have to be focused on your opponent but you also need the presence of mind to be surveying the area behind your opponent (if you think "over penetration" might be a problem - what if your round misses its intended target - "What's downrange?"). In short, no matter how difficult it is - there are times when not shooting is the better choice, period, maybe the only choice (no matter how they do it in the movies...).

Yes, choosing the right ammo is something to do in preparation for the possible use in a self defense setting - but as noted, gel tests aren't your only consideration. For my purposes, I'm wanting the same penetration levels that you'd have in two iconic weapons...

2 3/4" 00 buck in a 12ga. riot gun, and the actual results if you were shooting a standard GI 45 auto pistol - with ordinary hardball ammo... Both of these will "over- penetrate" a human target but they'll also deliver the actual results you really need when you're facing someone who intends to kill you... Providing you do your part and get a good center of mass impact downrange. I used to mention to my young officers that you still had to line up your target and get those good center of mass hits to win if it was ever needed...

 

[JDeere]

I don't worry about all of those gel and expansion test. My only concern is will the ammo function 100% in my carry weapon and trying to avoid having to use it period...

 

[DeepSouth]

I once shot a deer with a PM45, that’s a 3” barrel now. I was using 230 gr Gold Dot short barrel ammo.

The bullet stopped just under the hide on the out going side, and busted through a rib to get there.

I switched to a lighter gr. projectile after that.

 

[Kleanbore]

The hand loads legal concerns are a myth

There are some that are, and some that are not.

 

[Shawn Dodson]

At the 1987 FBI Wound Ballistics Workshop, COL Martin L. Fackler, M.D., who at the time was director of the US Army's Wound Ballistics Laboratory, stated that a bullet must penetrate at least 10-inches to reach vitals (which he defined as the heart & great vessels in the torso) from any angle as well as when the bullet must pass through an arm to reach the torso.

10-inches is just to REACH these structures. In order to damage them then the bullet has to pass through them, and this is the genesis of the FBI's requirement that a bullet must penetrate a minimum of 12-inches to be reliably effective.

In addition, many folks are unaware that unshored skin, on the exit side of the body, can present as much as 4-inches of penetration resistance to bullet passage. This explains why many bullets are found just underneath the skin at the expected point of exit. Unshored skin stretches, like a trampoline, and can prevent the bullet from exiting.

 

[CDW4ME]

Add the thickness of a forearm into the equation.

 

[crstrode]

You see all these videos and tables about how SD ammo goes x amount of inches in gell. Some go over 12 inches in. Now what i was wondering about. Thin folks are not 12 inches thick. Alot of drug addicts are real thin. So this gives the issue of pass through, If bone is not hit. Something to think about. Im thinking about loading some 180 grain hollow points in 40sw at starting loads. I have a Taurus PT140. It would be a comfortable carry for me. I carry my PT111 comfortably. Same size guns. Thoughts folks?

People, be they fat, skinny, or drug addicted, are not composed of ballistic gelatin.

 

[herrwalther]

Ballistic gelatin is a consistent media for testing bullet penetration and expansion. Human beings are anything but. Skin, muscle, fat, bone, organs all have differing densities that will affect how deep a bullet is going to go. A bullet that goes 12 inches in media may only go 4 or 5 inches in a torso after going through the skin, fat, muscle, and bone of a rib cage first.

 

[CapnMac]

People, be they fat, skinny, or drug addicted, are not composed of ballistic gelatin.

Bears repeating.

Human COM is filled with voids, squishy bits, hard bone and flexible cartilage. Consistent, it is not.

To make engineering comparisons you need a uniform test medium. Ballistics gel is one such medium. Only thing biological about it is that it's made largely of beef hooves.

 

[Telekinesis]

Just because a bullet goes X inches into a block of ballistic gelatin does not mean it will go the same distance into a body. The standard is best understood as “if a bullet penetrates 12”-18” of ballistic gelatin, it will have ADEQUATE penetration of a human to reach the vital organs”.

Beyond that, ballistic gelatin is a standardized, consistent substance that allows us to easily compare the performance of two different bullets. This comparison is the best use of bullet testing results, not trying to figure out if a bullet will over/under penetrate a human.

 

[Madcap_Magician]

You see all these videos and tables about how SD ammo goes x amount of inches in gell. Some go over 12 inches in. Now what i was wondering about. Thin folks are not 12 inches thick. Alot of drug addicts are real thin. So this gives the issue of pass through, If bone is not hit. Something to think about. Im thinking about loading some 180 grain hollow points in 40sw at starting loads. I have a Taurus PT140. It would be a comfortable carry for me. I carry my PT111 comfortably. Same size guns. Thoughts folks?

One thought is that calibrated ballistic gelatin penetration does not correspond exactly to penetration into a human body. Ballistic gelatin is a homogeneous semi-solid of consistent physical characteristics throughout its mass, and a human body is not. Skin and bone are substantially more resistant to ballistic penetration than lung tissue or fat. Ballistic gelatin represents an average density and consistency of a living body. A bullet that penetrates 5" in ballistic gel will not necessarily penetrate 5" in a human or large mammal's torso. The 12-16" FBI standard is intended to represent the amount of ballistic gel penetration that correlates highly with sufficient penetration in a human torso to reach vital organs, not with exactly 12-16" of penetration in a human torso. Does that make sense?

 

[Shawn Dodson]

Ballistic gelatin is a consistent media for testing bullet penetration and expansion. Human beings are anything but. Skin, muscle, fat, bone, organs all have differing densities that will affect how deep a bullet is going to go. A bullet that goes 12 inches in media may only go 4 or 5 inches in a torso after going through the skin, fat, muscle, and bone of a rib cage first.

According to Duncan MacPherson, properly prepared and calibrated Type 250A ordnance gelatin accurately simulates "typical soft tissue". See - Wound Ballistics Misconceptions, IWBA Wound Ballistics Review, pages 42 and 43.

The two forces resisting bullet penetration are inertial force and shear force. The inertial force resisting penetration is about 800 pounds, compared to a shear force resistance of 3-5 pounds due to tissue inhomogeneities. According to MacPherson, the shear force resistance of tissue inhomogeneities is so small that "there's no practical difference".

Penetration in properly prepared and calibrated Type 250A ordnance gelatin depicts the average penetration one can expect in any given shooting, as compared to the average penetration measured in actual human tissues. The range of penetration is greater is actual shootings, but the average penetration depth is the same in human tissues and Type 250A ordnance gelatin.

MacPherson's final paragraph concludes, "...gelatin calibration is done to ensure that the shear forces in the gelatin are the same as in typical soft tissue..."

 

[JohnKSa]

Yup, it's not perfect, but it's so good at doing what it's supposed to that no one is looking for anything better. The key is understanding what it's supposed to do.

 

[film495]

there used to be some old way to see how many 1" pine boards a round would go through, with some minimum being considered acceptable. I forget how many, but for a handloader, something like that is worth doing IMHO. just to see what you've got and do some testing.

 

[CoalCrackerAl]

Thanks for all relpies. Very helpful with my concerns.

 

[Kleanbore]

Asked and answered.