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January 7, 2013, 01:05 PM | #1 | |
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.38 spl for self defence? man shot 5 times in face lives
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/01/06...est=latestnews
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What are the FPS ratings from a 1-3/8 barrel from standard fmj rounds at 10 feet? |
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January 7, 2013, 01:24 PM | #2 |
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The 38 special has always been a marginal self defense round. The 38, 380 and 9mm have been notoriously unpredictable. There is a picture of a felon in the old calibre press book "Street Survival" who took 33 hits to the face, neck, upper chest to stop.
Police departments that were using 38 Special +P's and switched to the same companies magnum load went from having to shoot bad-guys 5-6 times to 1-2 times. In my experience you want a moderate to heavy bullet at a hefty velocity (above 1100 FPS). I am glad here and her children are ok, that was some fine shooting. Irregardless of anything, her shots stopped the attack and allowed her and hers to escape, so in reality her 38 did fine. It would have been nice to have a reload available though.
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January 7, 2013, 01:39 PM | #3 |
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Lol. She was probably using anemic target rounds or the like. It's all In the dynamics and details of the shooting. I like to carry heavy lead hollow points or premium ammo in my .38. In my area not too long ago their was a situation where the police had to shoot an armed suspect multiple times with their issue .40 calibers. The perp survived. Some one wrote to the paper in regards to this wanting to know if the cops were issued BB guns, lol. All hand gun shootings are unpredictable and have their unique dynamics. A good hit with a .22 has dropped people.
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January 7, 2013, 01:42 PM | #4 |
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Stuff happens. Not every shot to the face or head is life-threatening. There is a good Massad Ayood podcast with a Chicago police officer who has been in more than 15 gunfights. In his first one, he and his partner emptied a .44 mag and .45 Colt respectively into a suspect, who didn't go down until he took a shot to the knee. http://proarmspodcast.com/2010/05/23...ce-department/
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January 7, 2013, 01:43 PM | #5 | |
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January 7, 2013, 01:53 PM | #6 |
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Always an exception to the rules. I remember seeing a photo during the Vietnam war era of a doctor standing behind sandbags trying to remove a mortal shell lodged between the skin and ribcage.
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January 7, 2013, 01:55 PM | #7 |
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Who said it was .38 Special? It could have been .38 S&W or (given the usual accuracy of the press) a .32, .22 BB Cap, or about anything.
Nor is it really indicated where the bullets hit. A shot in the cheek or ear lobe won't be fatal with any caliber. I agree that a .38 Special is not an especially powerful cartridge, even with the hotter loads, but a .500 S&W is not the ideal home defense firearm either, especially for a woman. Jim |
January 7, 2013, 01:56 PM | #8 |
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From the limited amount of information in the news article, IMHO it's not reasonable to draw any conclusions regarding the efficacy (or lack thereof) of the .38Spl round.
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January 7, 2013, 02:01 PM | #9 |
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I have
Winchester PDX1 38 special 130-gr +P |
January 7, 2013, 02:02 PM | #10 |
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You've been on this Forum for two years. You should have read about larger calibers not stopping a person on occasion.
Why aren't you questioning their ability to work? |
January 7, 2013, 02:19 PM | #11 | |
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Quote:
It is the responsibility of the shooter to put the rounds where they will have the desired effect and in this case the lady got it (the assailant ran away). With a premium JHP, the .38 Special is just fine for SD. Not every successful self-defense shooting ends with the death of the offender.
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January 7, 2013, 02:21 PM | #12 |
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I once saw a post saying, in effect, that to stop an attacker, don't shoot at the head or center of mass, shoot at the top of the leg. His point was that even a head shot won't always stop an attack, but no one can continue coming with a broken thigh bone or a smashed hip socket.
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January 7, 2013, 02:28 PM | #13 |
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She stopped the attack, she and her children are safe, she does not have to live with the fact that she killed a man, it was a good outcome. She did everything right, got her twins to safety and defended them with what she had. Does anybody really think this dummy is ever going to break into another occupied house?
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January 7, 2013, 02:30 PM | #14 |
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That's it.
I'm switching to the .50 AE. |
January 7, 2013, 02:31 PM | #15 | |
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Quote:
http://ballisticsbytheinch.com/38special.html It looks like out of a S&W 642 with a 1.875 barrel velocities range from 900 fps to 700 fps. Assuming that they don't expand, over that range of velocities you can expect .38 Special 130 gr FMJs to penetrate between 21 and 25 inches in soft tissue (according to the Schwartz bullet penetration model) if they don't hit bone.
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January 7, 2013, 03:31 PM | #16 |
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News people are wrong so frequently. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a 380 auto. I'd be curious to hear the specifics on where the bullets hit. Regardless, a 38 special is more than enought 99% of the time.
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January 7, 2013, 03:39 PM | #17 | |
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January 7, 2013, 04:09 PM | #18 |
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I also read that two of the five shots were in the stomach/liver area.
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January 7, 2013, 04:14 PM | #19 |
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Did he stop what he was doing? If he did, the rounds did their job.
For all we know, they may have been glancing blows and simply ripped open bloody head wounds. There have been cases of people who shot themselves in the head and survived. That's why hunters are urged not to take head shots, or at least one reason.
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January 7, 2013, 05:47 PM | #20 |
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OK, I'll state the obvious. NO ONE here KNOWS exactly the nature of the perps wounds. If he was hit only on the fleshy parts of the face.....and the neck wound(s) did not involve major arteries or the spinal column....then, yes, one could certainly survive 5 such wounds.
So, all the "experts" here now jumping on the bandwagon to say that the 38 spl. is dead as a SD round.....whoa Nelly ! You guys DON'T have enough info to make that judgement - except for your OWN carry/ use purposes. Please don't make grandiose declarations without enough facts ! A 38 spl, using virtually ANY bullet, which penetrates the brain of someone in such a scenario as the one here (and they certainly CAN do so at such distances) - is a certain man stopper and more often than not, a killing round. I can only assume that the perp, in this circumstance, was not hit in the brain. |
January 7, 2013, 05:54 PM | #21 |
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Let's see the toxicology tests on the perp. The 38 Special started to be labeled inadequate for self defense when recreational drug use became more popular and more potent drugs became available.
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January 7, 2013, 06:04 PM | #22 |
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Never seen a person shot in the face, but I have seen many elk and deer shot in the face by hunting rifles up to .338 win mag run for miles with their bottom jaw or nose blown off!
If the perp in this case was hit from the side and through the mouth and jaw area, he could have been shot with a .50 AE and still survived. As said earlier, we don't know the whole situation, so we can't say .38 spl is a bad defensive round.
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January 7, 2013, 06:19 PM | #23 |
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Tony Montana was shot several times by AR15's and AK47's without going down. It wasn't until he was shot in the back with a shotgun that he finally died.
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January 7, 2013, 06:27 PM | #24 |
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Does anyone know exactly what type of loads this person was using? I can't imagine getting hit in the face with a +P level cartridge and not get at least a concussion even if the bullet didn't penetrate bone.
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January 7, 2013, 06:40 PM | #25 |
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A local priest has a huge ragged star shaped scar that covers most of the right side of his face. I asked one of his parishoners what the story was there.
When a child the priest had been shot in the back of the head by one of those south american death squads and thrown in a mass grave. He crawled out of the grave and was found in time for his life to be saved. The star shaped scar was the remnant of the exit wound, the bullet coming out just below the right eye. Unless theres enough hydraulic shock to turn the brain to mush, the most common cause of death from a wound to the brain or brain case is hemoraging that has no easy exit. Blood builds up in the brain case crushing the brain tissue. Since so little of the brain's mass is actually used, much of it may be destroyed without causing death or permanent disability. Some functions of the brain may shift to surviving otherwise unused brain cells. A few people have survived removal of one half of their grey matter and recovered completely. If a very important junction of ganglia is destroyed thats a different matter. |
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