What in your opinion is the greatest factor in stopping power?

[MikePGS]

When i was younger, i used to read a lot of hunting magazines, in spite of the fact that I did not hunt. Peterson's Hunting in particular was something I enjoyed, because it gave details of what guns were used and so forth. In addition to the calibers and models and so forth, they would often give the amount of energy a particular round would do at a particular range, which i think caused me to fixate at an early age on the importance of energy delivered to a target for stopping power. However, this doesn't seem to work so well in the real world. For the most part, an energy from a .45 acp which is one of the benchmarks of stopping power runs on average between 400 and 450 ft-lbs. That being said, something like a .357 magnum will easily run higher in a four or so inch barrelled gun, and a .38 super will do close to the mid-sized .357 mag loads. A 10mm will easily beat any of those when loaded right, yet at the same time it is by no means the end to the stopping power argument. Whether this is a matter of ability to fire such a stout load properly or not, i don't know. So what (besides shot placement) is most important? Energy? Bullet size? Momentum?

 

[mavracer]

So what (besides shot placement) is most important? Energy? Bullet size? Momentum?

depends on the exact bullet placement on which will be more important.momentum will tend to be more important when hitting bone but energy can play a greater in soft tissue,just my opinion. I try to take every thing into account when choosing ammo in my order of importance function,accuracy,performance and price.

 

[RedLion]

Pure Kinetic energy is an important factor, but what is more important is how the energy is transfered to the target if at all. If an animal or other flesh an bone target is shot with a FMJ bullet very little of the original kinetic energy will be transfered to the target. Hollow points and fragile bullets help deliver more energy to the target and cause more traumatic wound by ripping/ tearing and destroying more tissue/organs. Velocity can also play a role in bullet effectiveness because if you have a bullet that is travelling very slow the bullet is going to take longer to get to a target and will not be able to expand/fragment as easily if at all, but a bullet traveling extremely fast will not penetrate as deeply as a medium speed bullet. So if your hunting varmint pick a high velocity bullet(>2900fps) with fragile construction so the bullet will not penetrate too far( a few inches), if its a medium size target like a deer pick a more solid bullet traveling at a moderate speed(~2600fps) and for large game pick a heavily constructed bullet travelling at a semi moderate speed(<2500fps).

These are just as basic guidlines as i can formulate. you can find exceptions anywhere like the 5.56 nato round used effectively in the m-16 and the 7mm remington magnum taking elk down or the .510 whisper taking large african game.

Just keep in mind you want to have good energy but also want to make sure that energy ends up on the target not on the hill behind it.

 

[gcrookston]

ya, what redlion said.

 

[Scanr]

I have heard that stopping power is a myth. It goes back to shot placement. A determined attacker may continue the attack after being hit in the chest with a 45. Whereas, a not so determined attacker my lay down and wait to die after being hit with a 380. A head shot or heart shot or a very large caliber (44 mag+) maybe the only way to drop some people.

 

[nwilliams]

Spinal column or mid brain, whatever reaches either of those spots will have the greatest stopping power, at least that's what my last defensive shooting instructor told me, I have no personal experience to back this up.

 

[RedLion]

Yeah i forgot to mention shot placement is important too, but every else seems to have covered that.

Scanr does have it right. Shot placement is much more important than stopping power.

 

[The Lone Haranguer]

Hitting the target. Everything else is secondary.

 

[W.E.G.]

Alright!!!

A "stopping power" thread!

The greatest factor in stopping power is the gun writers who invented the expression.

Most animals and crazy people don't know that gunshot wounds are supposed to kill them DRT. So no matter the caliber, unless you make a solid CNS shot, the fight is still on for at least another 30 seconds.

Bleed time is the greatest factor in stopping power.

 

[Timthinker]

Nwilliams, your last instructor was correct. Think in terms of anatomy. Damage to either area you mentioned would incapacitate an assailant quickly. But this is not the real issue. The real point is hitting either one of those targets under the streesful conditions of a violent assault. Now that is tough to do.


Timthinker

 

[MachIVshooter]

What in your opinion is the greatest factor in stopping power?

Something we can't get in a firearm. You need a gun if you want real stopping power.

 

[Josh Aston]

What in your opinion is the greatest factor in stopping power?

Convincing the person you just shot that he/she should stop.

 

[chieftain]

A man who doesn't know he is in a fight is very easy to stop.

A man who does know he is fighting for his life is often very hard to stop.

And then there are those that just don't care.

Otherwise pick a good bullet in any of the fighting calibers, and put them where they belong.

Caliber isn't the question. You are the question, trained, practiced and experienced enough? Is your platform of choice reliable? Is it clean and ready to go?

Frankly in any fight no one has enough time, distance, cover, ammo, friends, fire power etc. And if your using a handgun, just make sure it is reliable, and you can hit with it. If you do that, you will do the best you can. Otherwise the caliber simply will not matter.

If you still ask about which caliber, you don't really understand the question.

Go figure.

Fred

 

[Newton]

Fast bullets and fast energy dump. I believe that is why police departments using the .357 SiG are seeing such dramatic results with what is essentially a 9mm on steroids.

 

[Haycreek]

stopping power

Shot placement. Note that huntng Africa dangerous game, kinitic energy is not king, but large calibers and heavy bullet weight are used, smaller calibers, no matter how much kinitic energy, are not permited for dangerous African game. For handguns shot placement is king, and I will have to agree with the comment regarding the 357 sig.

 

[Mad Magyar]

Well, we can ask the descendents of the Moros warriors; it certainly wasn't the .38 Long Colt.....
I'll go with caliber over velocity....

 

[rbernie]

The greatest factor in stopping power is the gun writers who invented the expression.

Most animals and crazy people don't know that gunshot wounds are supposed to kill them DRT. So no matter the caliber, unless you make a solid CNS shot, the fight is still on for at least another 30 seconds.

Bleed time is the greatest factor in stopping power.

Read this again.

This is truth. This is real. Everything else - energy dump, momentum, one-shot stop statistics - is a fabrication designed to try to express why one round may be more effective than the other under circumstances with multiple uncontrolled variables.

To kill something, you either need to take out the CNS or you need to bleed it out. Any shot, of any energy level, of any bore diameter, that accomplishes either of those two will kill.

Obviously, you need a shot that is placed properly and that has sufficient energy to penetrate to the CNS or hydraulics.

But at the end of the day,

If you still ask about which caliber, you don't really understand the question

is as close to the answer as you can get.

 

[Javelin]

I have to agree with rbernie. Devastation to the tissue (blunt force trauma) is most important when looking at take down power. The larger the surface area of the bullet is, the more effective the payload of energy can be dispersed into the target.
This is why most big game rounds use heavy, domed, generally soft points backed up by massive charges to deliver immediate deep penetrating power to the dangerous game.

 

[jlbraun]

The only thing to remember when talking about handguns is that ALL handguns and ALL handgun cartridges suck at stopping people.

Shot placement is the only thing that puts people down. A powerful handgun you can't control easily is worse than a less powerful handgun that you can.

There is no such thing as "stopping power".

 

[RyanM]

Other than shot placement, penetration. A bullet must penetrate deep enough to hit something vital, given proper shot placement. After that, hole size. Bullets with more energy are capable of making a larger hole, but it's not as simple as that. Direct crush is a much more efficient way of turning energy into tissue damage, than temporary cavitation. Thus you want a bullet which expands as large as possible, while still penetrating adequately--especially with pistols. Rifles have energy to spare, and the temporary cavity usually makes a much larger hole than direct crush, especially if the bullet exhibits controlled fragmentation, about 60-70% retained mass is good.

 

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

More rounds = more chanced of hitting a vital area like the brain, spine, hear or lungs. The round that is the best stopper is the round that actually hits something vital.

 

[Just Jim]

What in your opinion is the greatest factor in stopping power?

How good my brakes on my car work LOL

Nope really if you don't hit a major point then it is all determined by how fast the BG bleeds out. The bigger the hole the faster the bleeding.

jj

 

[Frandy]

As the real estate agent says, "Location, location, location..."

 

[Timthinker]

Obviously, a bullet damaging the brain or spinal cord is a fight stopper. Let us look to two shootings in 1865 that demonstate this fact. President Lincoln was shot in the brain and was incapacitated immediately. He died several hours later. His assassin, John Wilkes Booth, escaped from the scene of the murder only to receive a gunshot wound to the neck some time after Lincoln's death. Booth's wound injured his spinal cord and paralyzed him immediately. Booth only lived a few hours after this injury.

These related deaths have always reminded me about the importance of shot placement and adequate penetration of the round(s) fired. Only bullets damaging these two area can insure true "stopping power". Now people may stop immediate if struck elsewhere, but the guarantees of this are not as great as brain or spinal shots. I hope this history lesson has answered this frequently asked question.


Timthinker

 

[Biker]

All things being equal, bigger holes. Just common sense.

Biker