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Old February 6, 2002, 11:31 PM   #19
Mike Irwin
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Join Date: April 13, 2000
Location: Northern Virginia
Posts: 41,367
With all due respect, Corbon is writing something that is CLOSELY tailored to suit the particular product that they're selling. In some ways, it's not unlike the CEO of Enron telling employees to put all of their money into company stock -- it's the issue of faith in the messenger based on supporting evidence that is either not there, is unclearly understood, or is fraudulent (please be clear that I am NOT in any way accusing Corbon of fraudulently promoting their products, but I'm certainly not buying into their theory that energy, and not penetration, gets the job done).

I'd actually be VERY surprised if they were doing any true quantatitive ballistics research of the type necessary to determine the effectivness of any given bullet at any velocity.

In other words, they're selling a product with the view that the highest velocity is the most desirable aspect of stopping power.

None of the forensic research supports that, at least not directly. The work being done by the Army's Wound Ballistics Research Laboratory, and by its former director, Dr. Martin Fackler, under the aegis of his group (the specific name escapes me now), is making it clearer and clearer that with handgun rounds, the only truly sure way of effecting reliable stopping is through penetration that allows disruption of vital body structures.

To put it quite frankly, deep penetration is EVEN MORE CRITICAL with a handgun round because you have, in reality, such a poor device for stopping an attack.

The Corbon blurb talks about the effective application of energy. Good statement that actually DETRACTS from Corbon's premise, that deep penetration isn't necessary.

It's simple physics that the energy developed by a handgun bullet, if applied to the body in a way as to not penetrate, really isn't enough to cause serious injury (unless it's to the head or another very sensitive area). To put it simply, there's not enough energy dump.

In order to make the most of the energy that a handgun bullet does pack requires that the bullet penetrate and disrupt vital body structures -- organs, the central nervous system, blood vessels, etc.

Anything less than adequate penetration leaves you in a VERY dicey situation, without any sure way of stopping a determined attacker.
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