I shot a groundhog with one, but it made it down the hole 5 yards away. There was blood and bits of meat, so I would say they were pass throughs..........
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." Thomas Jefferson
So the theme is staying in the heavy side of the spectrum for all you tests? How about 115 +P. Or a 180 +P so we can actually see what something DIFFERENT will do?
I've got dogma to put to the test first. Then, I'll move on to other stuff. If given the chance. But, good size pigs ain't easy to trap. The little runts seem to be more common. And unless you're attacked by a band of roving midgets.......a 35 pound pig ain't gonna tell me much on terminal performance of a defensive round.
"To Hell with efficiency, it's performance we want!" - Elmer Keith
One of Evan Marshall's updates on his collection of actual street stats from about 2004, as best I can tell - current enough to provide a decent chunk of data from the post-Miami '86 drive to design "engineered" bullets. Pretty much all of the major cartridge choices run from the low 80% to low 90% range for stopping the fight with one torso shot.
He's about as scientific as you can get without putting a Nazi death camp supervisor in charge of death row. It's worth noting that you're going to have a bigger pool of modern data from "whatever the cool kids are using", and that if you wanted to get more exact about it, you'd want to try to separate the pre-'86 bullet data (which doesn't exist for the .40) from the post-'86.
From my understanding of what you said and his first few paragraphs.......this data is from 2001 to 2004? Roughly 13 years ago? That is a bunch of shootings in 3 years.
"To Hell with efficiency, it's performance we want!" - Elmer Keith
So as you seen by that "science" the heavier slugs for caliber trend to have lower percentages. Therefore my pushing for you to test the lighter/faster side of the spectrum, specially with modern design bullets.
Quit your bitching!
I carry 124s in my 9mm Glocks, 155s in my .40cal Glocks, 180s in my .40cal HKs, and I've switched to 185s in my .45s.
:jester:
"To Hell with efficiency, it's performance we want!" - Elmer Keith
I'm glad to see some data finally presented. That's a good thing. I'd still like to see some more thorough evidence to include more that just statistics. But, that may be too much to ask.
I'd also like to see some current results from this decade, if possible. Since "these days" was thrown out there. Let's see info from "these days".
"To Hell with efficiency, it's performance we want!" - Elmer Keith
So as you seen by that "science" the heavier slugs for caliber trend to have lower percentages. Therefore my pushing for you to test the lighter/faster side of the spectrum, specially with modern design bullets.
My brain is still somewhat in flux on that topic:
*Light and fast USED to be a problem, as they often lacked the integrity to penetrate deeply enough.
*Light and fast can STILL present problems in situations where extra penetration is needed. The auto glass test takes a lot of starch out of a bullet's penetrating ability, and typically those with the most mass going in, do the best coming out. You have to look at the whole range of potential tactical problems - not just the thinly-clothed adversary in the open.
* Modern bullets (hunting and defense) do a better job of staying together, and therefore turn a lot of the old conventional wisdom of how much weight is needed on its head. The common thought on the Barnes TSX's is that they penetrate like the next weight class or two up, thereby making a 150 or 165 grain .30 cal reasonable for elk where 180 used to be the accepted norm. Bullet casting has changed my thinking on the matter as well - solid, homogenous, masses of hardened alloy doing a lot better job of penetrating than thinly jacketed pieces of squishy stuff.
Still, I tend to gravitate to the heavier pills, because (a.) I'm not really sure how much I believe in hydrostatic effects at handgun velocities, and (b.) I like the predictability of a lot of inertia to transect a target completely, while dealing with intervening "stuff", and wanting to rely more on my ability to place the shot than rely on a bullet's "special effects".
Marshall's study is on the one hand nice because it breaks it down to a simple level and doesn't bog you down with a lot of extraneous data. On the other hand, it makes you curious about that extraneous data, for example:
Are a couple of agencies with really good training programs responsible for a disproportional amount of clean stops due to great accuracy with whatever load they happen to be using at the time? A silly example to make the point would be a department composed entirely of former special ops hit men who specialize in always clipping the top of the aorta with their suppressed .22's. To take that data without knowing the shooter background and exact shot placement would have you thinking that subsonic .22's were the end-all, be-all, but we all know that's not the case.
On the flip side, you could have a cash-strapped agency in a large, crime ridden city, run by anti-gun liberals who don't believe in giving cops the money to develop marksmanship. These guys might not know how to shoot very well, and might get into a LOT of shootings, delivering marginal hits with what might otherwise be the bee's knees of bullets, and THAT could certainly skew stats the other way.
The "fashion trends" are also a bit unfortunate in that we don't have a lot of data for MODERN bullets in OLDER guns - namely, the duty-sized revolvers that aren't so popular in duty holsters anymore. Seeing as I've been drifting heavily into DA wheelies over the last couple of years, it's numbers I'd like to see more of.
The linked data is helpful. But, like you said, it leaves out data that I personally would like to know. Where was the individual hit? Yeah, the data logged "torso" hits. That is a lot of real estate. I'd like to know what organs were hit, any bones? How deep did the round penetrate? Was there expansion?
Yeah. All that info and Marshall ain't gonna give me that. Only AAR and Autopsy Reports will. Or, hands on experience.
"To Hell with efficiency, it's performance we want!" - Elmer Keith
I was taking my boy hunting for management deer this morning and had a spike under our stand at about 10 yards!!!! I was looking down on him and wishing I had a 9mm on me.
How many times can someone say that thought had gone through their head. Ha!!
"To Hell with efficiency, it's performance we want!" - Elmer Keith
The linked data is helpful. But, like you said, it leaves out data that I personally would like to know. Where was the individual hit? Yeah, the data logged "torso" hits. That is a lot of real estate. I'd like to know what organs were hit, any bones? How deep did the round penetrate? Was there expansion?
Yeah. All that info and Marshall ain't gonna give me that. Only AAR and Autopsy Reports will. Or, hands on experience.
And that's where we get into the hazy area of "not an exact science", not only for those reasons, but the physical build and mental state of the shootee as well. You've got those who fall over at the sound of a shot without being hit or get hit by a beanbag and fall over believing their about to die on the one extreme, and then you've got the examples of extreme will to fight that serve as inspiration for the Untouchables Sean-Connery-chewed-up-with-a-Thompson scene on the other.
Keep in mind with all this that, while small, there IS a .50 BMG Survivor's Club, so it's best to take it with a grain of salt. . .or 647 grains of lead and copper. It's easy to understand why Marshall distills it down to the simplest level possible; the sheer cliff of potential variables is more than even the maddest of geniuses can scale. I put together a comparison of available gel test data years ago, and quickly realized that sanity would be lost if I went outside one bullet weight for each of three calibers
Having wrangled around the fringes of this stuff for a long while, I might seem to be a bit laid back/lazy/jaded/cynical on the matter of what the headstamp is, or Bullet A versus Bullet B. You can truthfully say that Jell-O isn't the same as people, but you also have to accept that physics is physics, If every ammunition manufacturer is engineering their rounds to perform about the same in human tissue analog regardless of weight and caliber, it stands to reason that they'll be consistent in the actual live tissue as well. Marshall's data seems to decently support this. It comes down primarily to accuracy and - critically for the guys selecting the gear and providing the training - enabling the end-users to deliver it. In the case of the gun mechanic, it also includes factoring in the prolonging of weapon service life - part of which is minimizing the chances of that service life becoming compromised at the moment of truth rather than on a training day.
Holistic Big Picture Thinking. . .It hurts sometimes:drool:.:silly:
I was taking my boy hunting for management deer this morning and had a spike under our stand at about 10 yards!!!! I was looking down on him and wishing I had a 9mm on me.
How many times can someone say that thought had gone through their head. Ha!!
Almost every time I've had the opportunity to say "Coulda killed him with a rock", I haven't had a rock.
Well then, this is where you and I take two different paths. I KNOW Bullets do not act the same way in actual flesh and bone as they do in ballistic gel/water/paper. That is a pipe dream. The pretty in gel turns to ugly in a body.
All hullets and calibers ARE NOT created equal. I'm seeing that with the bullets I have to test. Im seeing that across the board, the .40cal HST in all weights is a better, more consistent performer than anything else I have in 9mm or .45 ACP. That's not to say there aren't better bullets in those calibers. Just that for what I have and use........the .40cal HST is tops in my book.
You obviously read a different book than I
I do not embrace Marshall's data for the reason you stated. Every person reacts different. What I want to know is how the bullet reacts. If I know how the bullet reacts to tissue and bone, I know my physiology and science. I know what will happen after the fact. What I don't know......without testing and data.......is what the bullet will do.
Base you logic on the FBI parameters all you want. The streets aren't a controlled lab. All bullets are not created equal.
"To Hell with efficiency, it's performance we want!" - Elmer Keith
How come nobody ever references the Strasbourg Tests anymore? An attempt was made to compile real data about what various calibers do to animals and tissue and although there have been a few advancements in calibers and ammunition in the 25 or so years since the tests were performed, it's about the most scientific test data available.
Assuming we're still talking about top-shelf duty handgun loads. . .
Copper-based alloy skin; lead with 3 - 3.5% tin as a core; a third to half an ounce in weight; starting diameter a bit over a third to a bit under half an inch; finished diameter about 1.5x that; B.C. and S.D. both generally between 0.13 and 0.19; launch velocities all around a thousand feet per second; stop at about the same depth whether it's gel, water, or a Kevlar fluff trap; frequently are found on the exit side skin or clothing of the deceased; delivering sufficiently similar results on the street that Marshall states he'd gleefully drop his Sig .45 (generator of the best numbers in his study) for a 9mm BHP.
Barring differences in construction for one desired effect over another, I would have to say that, yeah, they pretty much ARE.
How come nobody ever references the Strasbourg Tests anymore? An attempt was made to compile real data about what various calibers do to animals and tissue and although there have been a few advancements in calibers and ammunition in the 25 or so years since the tests were performed, it's about the most scientific test data available.
I would assume the bunny huggers had a dim view of shooting animals for science. Just an assumption.
I would also also assume there are too many variables for the people like Bigslug to accept. Gel and manmade media give you repeatable data that looks good on paper and makes for pretty graph charts. Pretty bullets as well. And.......you can do it over and over the same way every time.
Live tissue is not so repeatable. Density and bone structure carry too much to present repeatable data. Folks like numbers and percentages to give them the warm fuzzy. Therefore the acceptance of Marshall's data.
Personally, I want to see those variables that are uncontrollable. I want to see what a particular bullet does when it hits just meat, meat and thin bones, heavy bone, lungs, heart, liver and onions! Everything from thin shirts to thick leather chaps. Variables.
That is what interests me. Not percentages. Because, I want to know the best case and the worst case. Percentages give you an average of the two. So, what happened the other 10-15% of the time the bullets didn't provide a "1-Shot Stop" that Marshall logs? Why do you think I test my own stuff and don't just take others word for it?!?
I desire knowledge, I don't watch sports and I suck at golf. What the hell else I gotta do?
:guns:
"To Hell with efficiency, it's performance we want!" - Elmer Keith
Let me reiterate that I am NOT a sole proponent of the .40 S&W!
Hell, I carried a 9mm this morning on my way to pick up a .45 ACP!!!! This afternoon I toted a .40 S&W to the ranch and will likely have a .44 Mag on me this evening!
Ha!!
"To Hell with efficiency, it's performance we want!" - Elmer Keith
Let me reiterate that I am NOT a sole proponent of the .40 S&W!
Hell, I carried a 9mm this morning on my way to pick up a .45 ACP!!!! This afternoon I toted a .40 S&W to the ranch and will likely have a .44 Mag on me this evening!
Ha!!
**Thread Drift**
I would assume then (not usually a good idea, I know) that you have no concerns about consistency in your potential performance with the particular platform you happen to be carrying, the ammunition loaded, the particular characteristics of that combination, methods of carry, etc.?
What I'm getting at is, you're obviously confident that you can be effective when it counts with anything you're carrying; is that due to training time spent with each weapon/load combo, or do you attribute it to something else? (mindset, for example)
Knowledge is essential to living freely and fully; understanding gives knowledge purpose and strength; wisdom is combining the two and applying them appropriately in words and actions.
Replies
You could at least help me!!!:cool:
I got the call this week that the field's are getting planted. Stay tuned........
I shot a groundhog with one, but it made it down the hole 5 yards away. There was blood and bits of meat, so I would say they were pass throughs..........
Go buy angle iron and cattle panels Chris. Then on your way stop and pick me up.
Dad 5-31-13
1st trapped pig (and maybe a snuck up on one) is getting a 9mm 124gr GD in the chest. Next one a 230gr .45 ACP Bullet.
I've got dogma to put to the test first. Then, I'll move on to other stuff. If given the chance. But, good size pigs ain't easy to trap. The little runts seem to be more common. And unless you're attacked by a band of roving midgets.......a 35 pound pig ain't gonna tell me much on terminal performance of a defensive round.
:jester:
OK: http://www.hendonpub.com/resources/article_archive/results/details?id=4593
One of Evan Marshall's updates on his collection of actual street stats from about 2004, as best I can tell - current enough to provide a decent chunk of data from the post-Miami '86 drive to design "engineered" bullets. Pretty much all of the major cartridge choices run from the low 80% to low 90% range for stopping the fight with one torso shot.
He's about as scientific as you can get without putting a Nazi death camp supervisor in charge of death row. It's worth noting that you're going to have a bigger pool of modern data from "whatever the cool kids are using", and that if you wanted to get more exact about it, you'd want to try to separate the pre-'86 bullet data (which doesn't exist for the .40) from the post-'86.
More brain squeezings later. Gotta get to work.
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
From my understanding of what you said and his first few paragraphs.......this data is from 2001 to 2004? Roughly 13 years ago? That is a bunch of shootings in 3 years.
Quit your bitching!
I carry 124s in my 9mm Glocks, 155s in my .40cal Glocks, 180s in my .40cal HKs, and I've switched to 185s in my .45s.
:jester:
I'd also like to see some current results from this decade, if possible. Since "these days" was thrown out there. Let's see info from "these days".
:uhm:
My brain is still somewhat in flux on that topic:
*Light and fast USED to be a problem, as they often lacked the integrity to penetrate deeply enough.
*Light and fast can STILL present problems in situations where extra penetration is needed. The auto glass test takes a lot of starch out of a bullet's penetrating ability, and typically those with the most mass going in, do the best coming out. You have to look at the whole range of potential tactical problems - not just the thinly-clothed adversary in the open.
* Modern bullets (hunting and defense) do a better job of staying together, and therefore turn a lot of the old conventional wisdom of how much weight is needed on its head. The common thought on the Barnes TSX's is that they penetrate like the next weight class or two up, thereby making a 150 or 165 grain .30 cal reasonable for elk where 180 used to be the accepted norm. Bullet casting has changed my thinking on the matter as well - solid, homogenous, masses of hardened alloy doing a lot better job of penetrating than thinly jacketed pieces of squishy stuff.
Still, I tend to gravitate to the heavier pills, because (a.) I'm not really sure how much I believe in hydrostatic effects at handgun velocities, and (b.) I like the predictability of a lot of inertia to transect a target completely, while dealing with intervening "stuff", and wanting to rely more on my ability to place the shot than rely on a bullet's "special effects".
Marshall's study is on the one hand nice because it breaks it down to a simple level and doesn't bog you down with a lot of extraneous data. On the other hand, it makes you curious about that extraneous data, for example:
Are a couple of agencies with really good training programs responsible for a disproportional amount of clean stops due to great accuracy with whatever load they happen to be using at the time? A silly example to make the point would be a department composed entirely of former special ops hit men who specialize in always clipping the top of the aorta with their suppressed .22's. To take that data without knowing the shooter background and exact shot placement would have you thinking that subsonic .22's were the end-all, be-all, but we all know that's not the case.
On the flip side, you could have a cash-strapped agency in a large, crime ridden city, run by anti-gun liberals who don't believe in giving cops the money to develop marksmanship. These guys might not know how to shoot very well, and might get into a LOT of shootings, delivering marginal hits with what might otherwise be the bee's knees of bullets, and THAT could certainly skew stats the other way.
The "fashion trends" are also a bit unfortunate in that we don't have a lot of data for MODERN bullets in OLDER guns - namely, the duty-sized revolvers that aren't so popular in duty holsters anymore. Seeing as I've been drifting heavily into DA wheelies over the last couple of years, it's numbers I'd like to see more of.
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
Yeah. All that info and Marshall ain't gonna give me that. Only AAR and Autopsy Reports will. Or, hands on experience.
How many times can someone say that thought had gone through their head. Ha!!
And that's where we get into the hazy area of "not an exact science", not only for those reasons, but the physical build and mental state of the shootee as well. You've got those who fall over at the sound of a shot without being hit or get hit by a beanbag and fall over believing their about to die on the one extreme, and then you've got the examples of extreme will to fight that serve as inspiration for the Untouchables Sean-Connery-chewed-up-with-a-Thompson scene on the other.
Keep in mind with all this that, while small, there IS a .50 BMG Survivor's Club, so it's best to take it with a grain of salt. . .or 647 grains of lead and copper. It's easy to understand why Marshall distills it down to the simplest level possible; the sheer cliff of potential variables is more than even the maddest of geniuses can scale. I put together a comparison of available gel test data years ago, and quickly realized that sanity would be lost if I went outside one bullet weight for each of three calibers
Having wrangled around the fringes of this stuff for a long while, I might seem to be a bit laid back/lazy/jaded/cynical on the matter of what the headstamp is, or Bullet A versus Bullet B. You can truthfully say that Jell-O isn't the same as people, but you also have to accept that physics is physics, If every ammunition manufacturer is engineering their rounds to perform about the same in human tissue analog regardless of weight and caliber, it stands to reason that they'll be consistent in the actual live tissue as well. Marshall's data seems to decently support this. It comes down primarily to accuracy and - critically for the guys selecting the gear and providing the training - enabling the end-users to deliver it. In the case of the gun mechanic, it also includes factoring in the prolonging of weapon service life - part of which is minimizing the chances of that service life becoming compromised at the moment of truth rather than on a training day.
Holistic Big Picture Thinking. . .It hurts sometimes:drool:.:silly:
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
Almost every time I've had the opportunity to say "Coulda killed him with a rock", I haven't had a rock.
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
All hullets and calibers ARE NOT created equal. I'm seeing that with the bullets I have to test. Im seeing that across the board, the .40cal HST in all weights is a better, more consistent performer than anything else I have in 9mm or .45 ACP. That's not to say there aren't better bullets in those calibers. Just that for what I have and use........the .40cal HST is tops in my book.
You obviously read a different book than I
I do not embrace Marshall's data for the reason you stated. Every person reacts different. What I want to know is how the bullet reacts. If I know how the bullet reacts to tissue and bone, I know my physiology and science. I know what will happen after the fact. What I don't know......without testing and data.......is what the bullet will do.
Base you logic on the FBI parameters all you want. The streets aren't a controlled lab. All bullets are not created equal.
Assuming we're still talking about top-shelf duty handgun loads. . .
Copper-based alloy skin; lead with 3 - 3.5% tin as a core; a third to half an ounce in weight; starting diameter a bit over a third to a bit under half an inch; finished diameter about 1.5x that; B.C. and S.D. both generally between 0.13 and 0.19; launch velocities all around a thousand feet per second; stop at about the same depth whether it's gel, water, or a Kevlar fluff trap; frequently are found on the exit side skin or clothing of the deceased; delivering sufficiently similar results on the street that Marshall states he'd gleefully drop his Sig .45 (generator of the best numbers in his study) for a 9mm BHP.
Barring differences in construction for one desired effect over another, I would have to say that, yeah, they pretty much ARE.
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
I would assume the bunny huggers had a dim view of shooting animals for science. Just an assumption.
I would also also assume there are too many variables for the people like Bigslug to accept. Gel and manmade media give you repeatable data that looks good on paper and makes for pretty graph charts. Pretty bullets as well. And.......you can do it over and over the same way every time.
Live tissue is not so repeatable. Density and bone structure carry too much to present repeatable data. Folks like numbers and percentages to give them the warm fuzzy. Therefore the acceptance of Marshall's data.
Personally, I want to see those variables that are uncontrollable. I want to see what a particular bullet does when it hits just meat, meat and thin bones, heavy bone, lungs, heart, liver and onions! Everything from thin shirts to thick leather chaps. Variables.
That is what interests me. Not percentages. Because, I want to know the best case and the worst case. Percentages give you an average of the two. So, what happened the other 10-15% of the time the bullets didn't provide a "1-Shot Stop" that Marshall logs? Why do you think I test my own stuff and don't just take others word for it?!?
I desire knowledge, I don't watch sports and I suck at golf. What the hell else I gotta do?
:guns:
Some of it is posted here. Other is in my head, computer, freezer, on my work bench, or Lumburgh's TSP Reports.
If it's said that 40S&W is just as good as 45acp, is the 45 better?
Or do we tend to spin any avialable evidence to support opinions and decisions extant?
Hell, I carried a 9mm this morning on my way to pick up a .45 ACP!!!! This afternoon I toted a .40 S&W to the ranch and will likely have a .44 Mag on me this evening!
Ha!!
The idea that .40 S&W has fallen out of favor due to any performance issues is silly.
That would be this thing:
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
used 40S&Ws at the pawn shops and gun stores. If you like the caliber, this is a great time to
snap them up.
I would assume then (not usually a good idea, I know) that you have no concerns about consistency in your potential performance with the particular platform you happen to be carrying, the ammunition loaded, the particular characteristics of that combination, methods of carry, etc.?
What I'm getting at is, you're obviously confident that you can be effective when it counts with anything you're carrying; is that due to training time spent with each weapon/load combo, or do you attribute it to something else? (mindset, for example)