“Shoot the pelvis with something hard hitting, like 357mag. When the pelvic bone breaks, the legs become useless.”
Almost never works when tried. People are actually VERY tough animals. Few handguns will reliably break the pelvic bone.
“Also, if the cartridge is powerful enough, the shock wave of the impact temporarily disables all nerves in the area even if they aren’t damaged or directly hit. A 357mag and higher will temporarily paralyze arms and legs even if nerves and bone are untouched. This is what I’ve read anyway.”
You’ve read tripe. No handgun does that. Many hunters can attest to shooting a 100-200 lb deer with a rifle (4+ times the power of a .357) and seeing the deer run 100+ yards with it heart blown out. Lots of info here: http://www.firearmstactical.com/tactical.htm
“Unfortunately 357mag from a snubbie won’t do it tho. 357mag loses more power from short barrels than any other handgun cartridge I know of. With extremely short barrels, you are better off with 9mm+P than with 357mag.”
No. My S&W 2” barrel will fire Buffalo Bore .38+P ammo moving 158 grain bullets at over 1000 fps. Frankly, that will wound about as well as anything. However, their .357 ammo will move a 158 grain bullet at 1400 fps from a 3” barrel - don’t have data at my fingertips for 2” barrels, but believe it is around 1250 fps.
158 grain Federal Hydrashock ammo, fired from real guns, recorded the following speeds:
3”: 1154
4”: 1248
6”: 1153
You lose about 100-200 fps shooting .357 ammo from a 2/2.5 inch barrel vs 4 inch barrel.
http://www.ballisticsbytheinch.com/results.html
I think the best short article I’ve read on handguns for self defense is here:
http://www.snubnose.info/docs/No_faith.htm
Deer have 4 legs and can run on three. No one shoots a deer in the leg. humans don’t run so good on one leg and cant shoot worth crap when their gun hand won’t work.
I beg your pardon, humans are not nearly as tough as a deer of the same body mass. Humans are fragile. And I consider your numbers tripe. 158grain specials are not even close to the same thing as 125grain magnums.
Shoot for center mass, its been tried and proven. You don’t shoot for arms, legs or anything else. I’ve never read anything about disabling nerves before.