July 19, 2014, 09:03 PM | #51 |
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From all my researches about wounding and lethality and they recommend 12" minimum but 18" is ideal. I hope y'all realize that 18" penetration in test media is not the same as 18" penetration in human body. The human body is tougher including the bone and muscle as well as tissue.
18" of penetration means it can go quite deep in the body, better chance of incapacitating. I guess it depends on the size of the perps but hardly any of them are pee wees, instead they are brutes. I chose the middle ground on weight and velocity of the bullet. I know heavier is better but in the case of 40sw the 180 are weaker charged as protection against setbacks. For my 40 I use 165 FTX and for my 9mm 135 FTX, both Hornady CDs. |
July 19, 2014, 09:47 PM | #52 | |||
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July 19, 2014, 09:56 PM | #53 | |||
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July 19, 2014, 10:03 PM | #54 | ||
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"While penetration up to 18" is preferable, a handgun bullet MUST reliably penetrate 12" of soft body tissue at a minimum..."Up to 18 inches does NOT mean that 18" is ideal, it means that 18 inches is the upper limit of what is preferable. Quote:
Second, no, human tissue is not tougher than test medium, at least in terms of soft tissue. In fact the ballistics gelatin is specifically designed to replicate the toughness (for the purpose of penetration measurements) of human soft tissue--INCLUDING muscle. Third, going back to the quote from the FBI study, it's important to note that the minimum penetration figure of 12" is specifically stated to be penetration in "soft body tissue", which would certainly include muscle but probably not bone. The FBI penetration specs are, in reality, very stringent when they are taken in context. I don't know of anyone with any credentials or credibility that suggests that the FBI penetration specs are conservative and that we should be trying for more penetration than the FBI recommends. In fact, to the contrary, most experts suggest that the FBI specs are overly aggressive in terms of what is required/recommended for civilian self-defense.
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July 20, 2014, 03:40 AM | #55 | |
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And, what is the likelihood of a good JHP hitting a vital with its wide 12-18" wound path vs. the narrow and unnecessarily extended wound path of a solid? The anwer is: The JHP is more likely to damage something vital. Again, this isn't theory. Cops don't use JHPs because of some PC policy thing. They just kill better. Like so many discussions around here, people seize on the less likely scenarios to bolster arguments that don't match up with observable fact. Not to overuse it, but it is just like the people that say they are against seat belts because they won't be able to get out of a fire, ignoring how much more likely a deadly collision is than a deadly post collision fire. Modern JHPs built to FBI and similar guidelines do, on average, the most amount of tissue damage in the penetration depth range that human bodies are likely to present. What is there to argue about in that? What's especially funny is that this thread is based on excerpting ideas lifted directly from JHP test protocols and applying them retroactively to other bullet types. It really is absurd. |
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July 20, 2014, 06:25 AM | #56 |
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To the OP...
Look for the term "bonded"..in the hollow point type, where the jacket and core are kinda locked together.... these type hollowpoint bullets usually achieve what you are looking for. |
July 20, 2014, 06:34 AM | #57 |
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For mes228
I have read some real rubbish/garbage written about guns. It is nice to read an underlying fact backed up by experience.
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July 20, 2014, 12:19 PM | #58 |
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Notice that even with the 12-18'' of penetration in gel, that LEO pistol ammunition rarely exits humans.
IMO exit wounds are more effective than holes that don't go all the way through. Before someone starts crying 'wasted energy' there's not much energy 'wasted' if you can get a HP to expand and also exit it will likely give you this most lethal, discouraging wounds. A bullet that stops short in the target and 'dumps' 8% more energy isn't guaranteed to do more damage, in a pistol cartridge. I'd rather have my holes go all the way through. And before someone comments about some 'over penetration' nonsense, it should be noted that during the Boston Marathon Bombing 200 shots were fired by LEO's. Of those 200 shots, 5 shots hit. With that type of accuracy, 'over penetration' is the least of your concerns and IMO sounds ridiculous to worry about. Know what's behind your target at all times. Anyone with any useable brain matter knows that a complete miss is far more dangerous to bystanders than a bullet that MAY 'over penetrate.' |
July 20, 2014, 12:57 PM | #59 | |
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A premium expanding handgun round that misses, can certainly kill one innocent bystander, but it's quite unlikely to cause a second fatality although it may cause a second injury. In a worst case scenario, a single non-expanding handgun round that misses its initial target has enough penetration to cause 2-3 bystander fatalities and perhaps even a fourth injury.
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July 21, 2014, 02:57 PM | #60 | |
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This narrowing of the wound track doesn't happen with wadcutter and Keith-style semi-wadcutters because the bullets have a sharp shoulder and better retained velocity. Last edited by Derbel McDillet; July 21, 2014 at 03:32 PM. |
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July 21, 2014, 04:48 PM | #61 |
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Derbel,
You're making my point. The majority of shootings with JHPs behave pretty much as designed. Coming up with counterexamples is fine, but those counterexamples are at the ends of the bell curve. Wadcutters may be more consistent in some ways. But they will consistently wound less than HPs, on average. That's why everyone uses HPs. |
July 21, 2014, 05:31 PM | #62 |
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I remember back in the 80s when I asked a friend who has a gun shop what's a good SD round for a 38 special. He grabbed a box of wadcutters and said that these will stay in the body.
I assumed that they are wadcutters. It's a round that has no head on it, completely flat. |
July 21, 2014, 06:09 PM | #63 |
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Wadcutters are flat, semi-wads look like a lemon juicer.
.38s are often so anemic that even a solid won't go through. Most .38 defense ammo is +P JHP. |
July 21, 2014, 06:34 PM | #64 |
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True that but I think back then we weren't allowed HPs.
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July 21, 2014, 06:38 PM | #65 |
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Who wasn't allowed HPs?
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July 21, 2014, 07:02 PM | #66 |
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HPs wasn't available to us then, strictly for the police.
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July 21, 2014, 07:51 PM | #67 |
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How long ago was that?
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July 21, 2014, 07:53 PM | #68 |
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I thought it was back in the 80s but maybe it was earlier.
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July 21, 2014, 07:57 PM | #69 |
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Super Vel was selling them in the '60s.
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July 21, 2014, 08:01 PM | #70 |
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That's interesting but I did remember that we couldn't get HPs because they were dangerous to cops thus only the cops have 'em. They were called cop killers in the hands of a civilian.
I guess it depended on where you live and what law applied then. |
July 21, 2014, 08:09 PM | #71 |
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In the 1980s there were bans (or banning discussions) of "cop killer bullets". They weren't HPs, but pointed penetrators designed to go through bullet proof vests.
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July 21, 2014, 08:21 PM | #72 |
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That must be it. My mistake.
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July 22, 2014, 01:41 AM | #73 |
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The "cop killer" bullet frenzy did result in laws banning "armor piercing" handgun ammo.
The rounds that began the frenzy were developed and sold during the 70s by a company called KTW. They were tungsten, with a needle point and a Teflon coating. They were designed to penetrate cars, vests and light armor plate. They were ONLY sold to law enforcement agencies. When the anti gun press "discovered" them (around a decade or so after they appeared in the Law Enforcement market) they fixated on the fact that they were Teflon coated (slippery, to penetrate cop's vests) and dubbed them "cop killers". Despite the fact that no cop had ever been killed with one, despite the fact that they were never sold to private citizens, or the fact that the Teflon coating was NOT for penetration, but to protect the gun barrel steel from the tungsten, "cop killer bullets" became part of the American gun control rhetoric.
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July 22, 2014, 01:41 AM | #74 | |
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When in the real world has a single handgun round missing its intended target gone through three to four people, dropping three dead in their tracks, and sending the fourth to the hospital? (I am glad that I don't live where live bodies are stacked quite that close in a row.) This is just not something that I am going to stay awake tossing and turning over at night. I would imagine that there are far more misses in the world compared to over penetrations that this is really a mute point; it being an anomaly in the real world (definitely in my world.) Where I live penetration is the name of the game, Brown, Grizzly, and Black being some of the reason. Moose being another. Yes, in handguns rounds too. So, I guess depending on where you live... you pays your money and take your chances.
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July 22, 2014, 08:43 AM | #75 |
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I'm forced to use lead free bullets for hunting when I'm in certain parts of Cali. In these parts of the state the 140 grain Buffalo Bore Barnes bullet (1550 ft/sec out of my gun) is what I have my 357 stoked with. My sights are adjusted to this round, so it's what I keep in it for self defense too.
On my friends farm, I punched it through a fresh killed hog he was about to butcher and the round blew through the shoulder and exited the off side ribs and into the berm. If you want expansion and penetration this is a round worth considering, as it's very accurate and had a 10 shot extreme spread of only 12 ft/sec variation in velocity. |
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