Posted on 06/18/2015 10:31:19 AM PDT by w1n1
When I used to work at a gun store I was frequently asked what caliber was best for any given situation. It would have been nice if there had been some sort of magic death ray that I could have suggested, but there isn’t, and most people have a pretty flawed understanding of what actually happens when a bullet interacts with a human target. Here’s my take on it and personal reasoning behind selecting a 9mm round.
For starters let’s examine a couple of concepts that don’t actually exist in the scientific world but everyone talks about anyway. I’m going to regurgitate the work from those better than myself, and the information is worth paying attention to.
KNOCKDOWN POWER
This doesn’t actually exist. If a bullet had enough force to knock down an individual, it would also knock down the individual firing the gun. People do not go flying through the air when hit by a bullet, contrary to what the movies and television would have us believe. Newton’s Third Law and all.
ENERGY DUMP
On the back of a box of ammo, manufacturers list the foot-pounds of energy (ft-lbf, or foot-pounds of force/energy) that their rounds have. Well, that doesn’t actually matter. The terminal performance of a projectile is determined solely by how much tissue it cuts, crushes or tears. While it has been advocated by many-a-misinformed-gun-counter commando that some sort of energy transfer occurs between a projectile and its target, this has been rejected by everyone I respect who studies terminal ballistics for a living.
9mm is for girls and sissies How often have you heard, “If you’re not carrying a caliber that begins with the number four and ends with the number five, you’re doing it wrong”? This almost makes sense if we were limited to nonexpanding ammunition, but most of us aren’t. When we compare modern hollow-point rounds in popular service calibers, there is, on average, one-tenth of an inch of difference in expanded diameter between a 9mm and a .45ACP. Grab a ruler and look at a tenth of an inch. It doesn’t seem like much, does it? That’s because it’s not. Read the rest of the story here.
Depends on where you hit um............
Ha!!
.380
Spits them out pretty nicely
I like ammo. Lot’s of ammo. I have to say the only caliber I have no use for is 40 S&W. Just ain’t my thing. But 9mm, 45ACP, 7.62X51 (my favorite), 5.56X45, 22LR....12 guage, 20 guage,...I’ll shoot it all.
More deer in this country were killed by a .22 bullet than any other...........
Should have bot all I could handle a few years ago...and the ammo too.
Some basic guidance: don't shoot ball ammunition from a pistol in a self-defense scenario. Shoot modern expanding ammunition. Hit your mark. You'll be fine.
I had occasion to view some autopsy photos over last weekend for a tactical carbine course I was taking. The difference between practically any handgun projectile damage and that caused by a rifle projectile running in excess of 2000 fps was truly remarkable, a difference in realm that made all of the handgun photos sort of shrink to a certain sameness. Looked at from that perspective, arguing over which handgun caliber is superior is futile - you don't want a handgun at all in combat if you can get something bigger, but if you have to use one, the variable of caliber isn't the most important one.
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Shot for shot it may be MORE deadly than a .38 special.
That's silly.
I always wonder about this when considering the 5.7x28mm round. While the bullet weights in at puny 27 grains, the muzzle velocity out of a pistol clocks in excess of 2000 fps.
To deepen the intrigue, finding ANY non-anecdotal AARs on the real-world performance of this round on the interwebz is like searching for black holes. This despite its use by numerous organizations around the world, as well as its favor by the Mexican Drug Cartels.
It seems for every trauma surgeon that reports the thing is as close to a deathray as you can get there is a SWAT cop swearing he put forty rounds in a bad guy who just kept going.
Very curious.
1. The ammo it's really designed for, designated SS-190, is not for sale to civilians in the U.S., being "armor-piercing". HERE's an interesting test of that capability. The stuff you buy in a store, the blue-tipped SS-197, doesn't pierce armor but it also doesn't run the velocities its cousin does.
2. The pistol was essentially an afterthought, the 5.7 originally being designed for the fully automatic FN P90 submachine gun. I'd love to have one but, you know... That platform has a barrel long enough to produce the promised velocity. The Pistol, not by quite a bit.
3. The range I shoot at the most offers free lane time for anyone who will let them chrono their Five seveN, so being a cheapskate and curious too I did that. Mine chrono'ed in the 1500-1700's for everything I've got in the way of factory ammo. Not one actually exceeded 2000 fps.
4. The round is a bugger to reload - it's really small, which means the tolerances on powder are super-critical given the relatively high chamber pressures involved - about 50,000 psi versus 30,000 for the 9mm. You cannot use a case polisher - they're dull-looking from the factory because there's a lacquer coating that facilitates feeding. I do NOT reload them myself.
So all that makes the gun too much of a pain in the butt to own, right? Wrong! It's a total hoot. It's just expensive (for me) because the ammo has to be just so. But it's a flat-shooting, low-recoil, loud-blast sweetie in your hand. YMMV... ;-)
Unfortunately, almost all commentators go off on the will-it/won’t-it question of performance against armor. I don’t think that’s the important question.
While ss190 is interesting its ability to defeat body armor from a pistol, I’m more interested in terminal ballistics. Leaving aside armor penetration, the ss190 is ballistic ally equivalent to ss192, 195, and 198 against unarmored targets. All three of those loads are available to lesser and greater degrees, for quite reasonable prices. All three chrono at just under or just over the magic 2000 fps mark.
So the question remains, what kind of efficacy can a civilian expect when using the non-sporting rounds for self defense?
I can't honestly answer that one. Like a lot of light, fast rounds, it tumbles and fragments, making consistent performance in tissue difficult to predict. Some folks insist it's no better than a .22 magnum, others point out that Major Hassan managed to kill 13 people with one. Those operators who do carry it like the 20-round magazine capacity and the super-fast shot recovery to target. I don't think it would be my first choice just due to size, (I'm not real big and it's a little hard to conceal) but I sure wouldn't want to get hit by one.
Mrs. Slim is very recoil adverse, so her carry is a Smith 351PD, a 10.6 ounce, seven shot .22 Mag. Hornady Critical Defense ammo is a 40 gr. hollow point at 1100 fps out of a 2” barrel with 11” ballistic gel penetration.
Of course, being a .22 Mag, the bad guy will probably be deaf and on fire if she empties it into him.
At least in my experience it's the easiest handgun cartridge there is to handload.
Oh, and in a revolver it goes blam every time unless there's something really bad wrong.
We all love to fuss over this caliber or that one, this handgun or that one, etc, but the whole entire handgun conversation starts with the .38 special IMO.
Thanks for bringing it up.
Therein lies the problem. The Fort Hood Massacre is by far the cleanest report the layman can find if willing to dig into multiple sources.
There are at least one, and possibly two examples of soldiers charging Hassan being brought down immediately with one center mass shot. At the same time Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford soaked up seven rounds, one being to the head, and lives to this day.
Of further interest, Lunsford carries a small jewelry box containing the bullet removed from his head. It is obviously an ss192 as there is no deformation of the bullet and the massacre was prior to the introduction of the ss195. The bullet entered just above his eye and lodged just under his ear on the same side. It seems clear to me this round must have skidded along the outside of his skull as the pressure wave generated by this tumbling round would have turned his brain into pudding if it had pierced the cranial vault.
Wherever one looks concerning 5.7x28mm data, one finds contradictions....
You may think so but you are wrong.
Me and Massad Ayoob, Jeff Cooper . . . wait, it would be quicker if you listed the self defense experts who agree with your assessment of .22 caliber handguns.
Shot placement.
Cost of ammo.
Magazine capacity.
Ammunition availability.
Accuracy, accuracy, accuracy - something only gained by practice. See “Cost of Ammo”
And studies have proven that the 9mm is damn close to the .45 in one-stop shots.
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