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Old November 15, 2012, 01:10 PM   #51
Rifleman1952
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125 gr for urban carry. 158 gr or larger for woods carry.

I wouldn't use the .357 magnum round for self-defense inside the home. Firing any round indoors magnifies the sound and the potential for hearing loss, but this is particularly true with large caliber magnum rounds. It is not even long term hearing loss that concerns me. It is during the short term, right after the blast, that you may not be able to hear anything. You may not be able to hear the voice of a loved one or the sound of; "police, put your weapon down." I want to be able to use all of my senses during a home self-defense incident.

The larger caliber magnum handgun rounds have their place and purposes, but IMHO, not for inside the home. If I use a handgun for home defense, I choose 9 MM or .45 ACP.
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Old November 15, 2012, 01:26 PM   #52
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Wow, this thread is like all the thousands and thousands of words written on the subject and all the ballistic testing thats taken place never happened.
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Old November 15, 2012, 01:46 PM   #53
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^this
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Old November 15, 2012, 02:15 PM   #54
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Just out of curiosity, how do you quantify the terminal effectiveness of 9mm, .357 Magnum, and .45 ACP and the degree of hearing damage each will cause (since we already know that all three can cause some degree of permanent hearing damage)? After all, it seems to me that unless such things can be quantified, then the above statement is more opinion than fac
The point I was trying to make is 9mm and .45acp do not reach the decibel levels of the .357 magnum, not even close considering just a small rise in the decibel levels is a huge increase in sound. It's pretty obvious the higher the decibel level the more potential to cause major hearing loss so I don't know what you mean it cant be quantified. The point I am also trying to make is the .357 magnum isn't a magic round that will do anything the .45 or 9mm cant do as a self defense round. The .357 magnum is punishing to your ears so if I can decrease the chance of major hearing damage while still using a capable round like the 9mm or .45 I see no reason not to.

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I'll take the ear damage over losing my hide.
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Rather have some hearing loss than your life or your loved ones.
So in any given situation you really think the .357 will get you and your family out alive where a 9mm or .45 would not? Some people think you add a couple hundred FPS and some razzle dazzle and you automatically have a magic man stopper. The person getting shot isn't going to realize if the 125gr round that hit them came out of a 9mm at 1200 fps or a .357 at 1400 fps. I'll take larger capacity, easier followup shots, and less muzzle flash and noise over just a gain of a couple hundred FPS.
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Old November 15, 2012, 03:35 PM   #55
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.357 Magnum is like 9mm, in that the three most common weights, 125 grain, 158 grain and 180 grain in .357 Magnum and in 9mm 115, 124 and 147 all preform about the same in the real world. There are many ballistic formulas and there is ballistic gelatin and shooting results, on animals and humans to back that up too.

Look at the 125 grain .357 Magnum versus the 115 grain 9mm. Like Dragline45 said, do you really think ten grains and two hundred fps create some sort of magic threshold of power?

No, there is nothing wrong with a .357 Magnum for defense, but a 9mm Parabellum loaded with eighteen premium hollow points can easily be argued to be of more combat utility than a revolver loaded with six-eight.
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Old November 15, 2012, 04:18 PM   #56
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I prefer the 158 grain bullets for the simple reason that they hit to point of aim in all of the guns I have, and several others that I have shot as well. I place a higher value on being able to place the round exactly where the sights are aligned than having more velocity.

Besides the mold I have is a 158 grain LSWC mold. Mine cost me less than one cent each to make.
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Old November 15, 2012, 05:31 PM   #57
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Tipoc

I'm not sure I get what you're saying here. Do you mean that someone shot with a 125 gr. round from a .357 in the stomach will suffer a heart attack as a result, and that this makes the 125 gr. bullet performance superior and lead to a "one shot stop"? Is this what you meant?



Yes that is what i mean. The temporary wound cavity and all of the kinetic energy expelled can cause a heart attack even if the heart isnt hit. If the kinetic energy is high enough it can even rupture other organs as well without hitting them.

So from looking at brassfetchers vids and seeing the insane potential damage it can cause a human beings internals, I like the 125 gr bullet. However since the media doesnt have anything solid in side of it (the ones I saw had the solid media in front on the gel block on the outside) I am curious to know what a smaller 125 gr bullet will do after it shoots through flesh and then into bone.

My theory is that it will deflect off of the bone. Where as a heavier bullet 158 gr could shatter it.

Hope that clears things up a bit, I had a few beers last night when I wrote that
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Old November 15, 2012, 06:21 PM   #58
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Look at the 125 grain .357 Magnum versus the 115 grain 9mm. Like Dragline45 said, do you really think ten grains and two hundred fps create some sort of magic threshold of power?
People that were shot with it say yes.
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Old November 15, 2012, 07:42 PM   #59
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People that were shot with it say yes.
You have spoken with these people personally?

After being shot with a .357 did they cry out "oh lord why did I have to get shot by the dreaded .357, why couldn't he have shot me with just a lowly 115gr 9mm instead. Oh lord why did that .357 round have to have that extra 10 grains of weight and couple hundred FPS, if it was moving a tad slower I would probably be fine and this hole in my lung would be no big deal".

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Old November 15, 2012, 09:51 PM   #60
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People will believe what they want to believe.


The best I found for 9mm is about 500 ft-lbs. The best I found for .357 magnum is about 800 ft-lbs. If someone wants to beleve this is close in the real world, they will do so.

https://www.buffalobore.com/index.ph...oduct_list&c=1

.357 magnum is in a class separate from the typical service rounds as laid out by the 'Jello shooters'. 9mm, .357 Sig, .40 S&W, .45 acp all perform much the same (in the real world) with the right choice in ammunition.






9 mm:
Barnes XPB 115 gr JHP (copper bullet)
Federal Tactical 124 gr JHP (LE9T1)
Federal HST 124 gr +P JHP (P9HST3)
Remington Golden Saber 124 gr +P JHP bonded (GSB9MMD)
Speer Gold Dot 124 gr JHP
Speer Gold Dot 124 gr +P JHP
Winchester Partition Gold 124 gr JHP (RA91P)
Winchester Ranger-T 124 gr +P JHP (RA9124TP)
Winchester Ranger Bonded 124 gr +P JHP (RA9BA)
Winchester Ranger-T 127 gr +P+ JHP (RA9TA)
Federal Tactical 135 gr +P JHP (LE9T5)
Federal HST 147 gr JHP (P9HST2)
Remington Golden Saber 147 gr JHP (GS9MMC)
Speer Gold Dot 147 gr JHP
Winchester Ranger-T 147 gr JHP (RA9T)
Winchester 147 gr bonded JHP (RA9B/Q4364)

.40 S&W:
Barnes XPB 155 gr JHP (copper bullet)
Speer Gold Dot 155 gr JHP
Federal Tactical 165 gr JHP (LE40T3)
Winchester Ranger-T 165 gr JHP (RA40TA)
Winchester Partition Gold 165 gr JHP (RA401P)
Federal HST 180 gr JHP (P40HST1)
Federal Tactical 180 gr JHP (LE40T1)
Remington Golden Saber 180 gr JHP (GS40SWB)
Speer Gold Dot 180 gr JHP
Winchester Ranger-T 180 gr JHP (RA40T)
Winchester 180 gr bonded JHP (RA40B/Q4355/S40SWPDB1)

.45 ACP:
Barnes XPB 185 gr JHP (copper bullet)
Federal HST 230 gr JHP (P45HST2)
Federal HST 230 gr +P JHP (P45HST1)
Federal Tactical 230 gr JHP (LE45T1)
Speer Gold Dot 230 gr JHP
Speer Gold Dot 230 gr +P JHP
Winchester Ranger-T 230 gr JHP (RA45T)
Winchester Ranger-T 230 gr +P JHP (RA45TP)


http://www.m4carbine.net/forumdisplay.php?f=91
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Old November 16, 2012, 12:45 AM   #61
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Robert1811,

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Yes that is what i mean. The temporary wound cavity and all of the kinetic energy expelled can cause a heart attack even if the heart isnt hit. If the kinetic energy is high enough it can even rupture other organs as well without hitting them.
I thought that might be what you were getting at. There have been a number of discussions here and elsewhere over the years on "Ballistic Pressure Waves" or "Hydrostatic Shock" as it's sometimes referred to. While it is sometimes a factor in wounding at rifle velocities it is much less certain at handgun velocities. Meaning that even with a 125 gr. well made jhp bullets at 1400 fps there is no guarantee that any trauma will be induced outside of the direct path of the bullet and the permanent and temporary stretch cavities. There is absolutely no proof that a person hit with a 125 gr. bullet in the stomach from a .357 Magnum will suffer a heart attack, a stroke, or any damage to the heart at all unless the heart itself is directly struck.

There is ample proof of this but you can also reason it out.

How effective a bullet can be is dependent on a number of factors, bullet construction, weight, velocity, caliber and most of all shot placement. How the shooter handles the gun and if they can shoot it accurately is a large factor in the "shot placement" factor. Some shooters prefer a certain weight bullet because in their experience they shoot it better and it performs as well.

In the links I put up earlier you see that there are a number of loads and calibers that impact the gelatin as dramatically, and some more so, than the 125 gr. .357 Mag loads that they show.

How any particular bullet reacts when it hits bone does not solely depend on it's weight. It is not true that a 125 will bounce off bone while a 158 will break bone. It depends on the bullet type and construction, the velocity when it strikes, the energy when it strikes, what bones it hits and what angle it hits them at, etc. Either weight will punch through a bone if conditions are right.

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Old November 16, 2012, 12:58 AM   #62
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I wonder if the authors of the long ago debunked "study" chortle, when they read their fiction being quoted as fact on the interwebz.....
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Old November 16, 2012, 11:53 AM   #63
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Thanks Tipoc, the only thing that really gets me when watching gel vids, whether its Tnoutdoors or brassfetcher etc (scubaoz has a lot although not as good) is that the results dont account for bone. Which is where my quandary comes into play.
10% ballistic gelatin is supposed to approximate the average density of human tissues including bone into one homogenous test media. By inserting bone into the gelatin block, you throw off the average and create a test media denser than that of human tissue. This does, of course, bring up one of the primary problems with ballistic gelatin in that unlike it, humans are not homogenous. Ballistic gelatin is, however, still the best test media that can be ethically and morally used.
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Old November 16, 2012, 12:02 PM   #64
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Most modern defense projectiles exhibit nearly the same expansion in ballistic gel, water, wet newspaper and meat. The projectiles recovered from shooting game animals and humans with SD handgun projectiles, look basically the same as those recovered from gel.

The proof of the above fact is readily available on the net.
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Old November 16, 2012, 01:52 PM   #65
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Originally Posted by Webleymkv:
10% ballistic gelatin is supposed to approximate the average density of human tissues including bone into one homogenous test media. By inserting bone into the gelatin block, you throw off the average and create a test media denser than that of human tissue. This does, of course, bring up one of the primary problems with ballistic gelatin in that unlike it, humans are not homogenous. Ballistic gelatin is, however, still the best test media that can be ethically and morally used.
Good post. It seems that many folks tend to forget over time that ordnance gelatin is meant to serve as a homogenous test medium that permits an "apples to apples" comparison of any two (or more) bullets against one another. Tossing bone into the mix serves only to confound the process.
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Old November 16, 2012, 01:58 PM   #66
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What it amounts to is that the way a bullet acts/performs in gel isn't necessarily going to be duplicated in a human body.
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Old November 16, 2012, 01:59 PM   #67
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You have spoken with these people personally?

After being shot with a .357 did they cry out "oh lord why did I have to get shot by the dreaded .357, why couldn't he have shot me with just a lowly 115gr 9mm instead. Oh lord why did that .357 round have to have that extra 10 grains of weight and couple hundred FPS, if it was moving a tad slower I would probably be fine and this hole in my lung would be no big deal".
Actually? yes I did speak with lots of them, and work the crime scene, and see them at the hospital and / or morgue. There is no reason for you to be a smart ass.
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Old November 16, 2012, 04:07 PM   #68
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Originally posted by Dragline45
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The point I was trying to make is 9mm and .45acp do not reach the decibel levels of the .357 magnum, not even close considering just a small rise in the decibel levels is a huge increase in sound. It's pretty obvious the higher the decibel level the more potential to cause major hearing loss so I don't know what you mean it cant be quantified. The point I am also trying to make is the .357 magnum isn't a magic round that will do anything the .45 or 9mm cant do as a self defense round. The .357 magnum is punishing to your ears so if I can decrease the chance of major hearing damage while still using a capable round like the 9mm or .45 I see no reason not to.
You said that one should use a 9mm or .45 ACP in order to "save your ears". We already know that to be factually incorrect since 9mm and .45 ACP also generate decibel levels high enough to cause permanent hearing damage from a single exposure, but I figured I'd give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you meant 9mm and .45 ACP would simply cause less hearing damage than a .357 Magnum would. So, the question remains how much less hearing damage will a 9mm or .45 ACP cause than a .357 Magnum would?

You also said that a 9mm or .45 ACP will "get the job done just as well" as a .357 Magnum. So, one can only assume that since you're able to pronounce one cartridge just as effective as another in such absolute terms, you must have some way to measure cartridge effectiveness. So, the second part of my question is exactly how do you measure cartridge effectiveness to such a precise degree that you can pronounce 9mm and .45 ACP to be just as effective as .357 Magnum in such absolute terms?

You see, it seems to me that, in order to make an informed decision about decibel level vs. effectiveness, one would have to be able to quantify how much hearing damage a given decibel level is likely to cause and how effective different cartridges are so that we actually have something to compare. Even if we assume that the .357 Magnum causes more hearing damage due to it's higher decibel levels, we cannot resolutely say that the cartridge has no benefit over 9mm and .45 ACP unless both the levels of hearing damage caused and the terminal effectiveness of the compared calibers can be quantified in some way.
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Old November 16, 2012, 04:42 PM   #69
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From a personal stand point I am a firm believer in shot placement. No amount of expansion will make up for a poorly placed shot in a non critical area.

Either round will do well if they hit a critical area. Poorly if not regardless of velocity, weight, or diameter.
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Old November 17, 2012, 06:41 PM   #70
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As far as .357 Mag is concerned for SD, if I used it I would favor 158 gr Gold Dots @ 1250 fps. They should be slightly ( ) easier on your ears and eyes, but not easy at all on the poor wretch hit by them.

The "nuclear" 125s @ 1450+ fps are simply murderous on your ears, too much to be practical IMO. Some of the tamer 125s like Golden Sabers are still very, very deadly and not quite as punishing to the shooter.

I do have some custom loaded 158s @ 1450 fps, they are fun for destroying things.
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Old November 18, 2012, 03:14 PM   #71
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how much less hearing damage will a 9mm or .45 ACP cause than a .357 Magnum would?
"noticeably less"
Unfortunately, I have no data beyond that generalization.

Just from lots and lots and lots of range experience with a lot of different firearms, including multiple 9mm's .45's, and .357's. I can say that there are 2 main things which are going to give you a really dramatic drop-off in muzzle sound:

1) not having a barrel-cylinder gap (and no porting either! I have a .357 with both and it's abusively loud)

2) subsonic projectiles are "substantially" quieter.

.45 at subsonic speeds is really not all that loud. Probably the quietest of the 'effective' load options.

9mm at subsonic speeds is unbelievably quiet... unfortunately I'm not impressed with the effectiveness of subsonic 9mm. I recall being roadside with an officer who (at my request) was putting a wounded dear out of it's misery. I was curious about his terminal ballistics, and he was a rural cop who didn't care if i stood right there with him while he put the deer down. First round I had my ears covered, and I heard a pop that made me wonder if he had an under-charged round. Second shot I didn't cover my ears, it was still pretty quiet. 3rd shot, still very quiet, louder than a .22, but not by a lot. I surmised that he was using 9mm subsonic. I also surmised that it shouldn't take 3 shots point blank to kill an already mortally wounded fawn. If they made a highly effective 9mm subsonic (and maybe they do, i'm skittish about the idea though), then that would be your ideal round for avoiding hearing loss.

Worth pointing out, the pitch of the sound is as important as the total decibels. Towards that end, slower moving rounds tend towards lower pitched reports (particularly subsonic rounds which lack that high frequency 'crack').

And I'm sure the basics of reflected sound are a factor as well. For example: you'd be better off firing in an open room than in a narrow hallway.

If the bad guy shoots at you, then your hearing is probably screwed. Because the sound of a gun when you're forward of the muzzle is much much louder. Which is why reflected sounds indoors are such a problem in the first place. And why barrel-cylinder gaps or porting are so loud for the shooter.


One of the reasons I changed my HD gun is noise. I was using a ported 4" .357 8shot. After a mishap with a 9mm hydrashock and a faulty S&W safety de-cock lever... I had some permanent hearing damage (I was downrange of the gun that went off). Later, at the range, I noticed that my .357 was MUCH louder than anything else I was shooting, and most most of the other stalls too, and I began to worry if my HD gun choice would make me deaf if I needed to use it indoors. I started loading it with golden sabers which are a very mild load in .357 (only 430 ft-lbs). This was better, but still louder than any of my other guns. Eventually I decided I wanted to get away from having a barrel-cylinder gap and ported barrel. I picked up a glock 34, and once proficient with it, switched the 2 guns for HD role. I'm using supersonic ammo in the 9mm, it's not "quiet", but it's less loud than my ported .357 wheelgun firing cheap .38 reloads, yet has more punch than the .357 golden sabers.

But all this probably goes in the hearing thread. this is the 125gr/158gr thread
_______

I still say 125's, because higher velocity means more explosive/reliable expansion, and if you're shooting at humans, 158's will over-penetrate quite a bit. that's just thinking about it logistically, above and beyond the 1-shot-stop stuff which seems to also favor 125's as well.

I'm not a fan of hydrostatic shock or anything, but you do want to transmit the bullet's energy onto the target (preferably in the form of a permanent wound cavity as wide, deep, and violent as possible). 125's will release most of their energy in a target, while still having enough left over to make an impressive exit wound (increased bleeding, etc). The higher velocity round has a better chance of making hollopoints perform correctly through clothing and such. Meanwhile the 158's will have more penetration, and likely carry a great deal of the round's energy beyond the target, meaning less of the energy is "used" effectively to create wound trauma.



Against humans .357 ranges from excellent penetration to overpenetration. use faster-lighter loads with less sectional density to keep it leaning towards "excellent penetration" and not overpenetration. Unless you plan on shooting people through obstacles, then use 158's. But shooting at someone who's hiding behind cover is not considered "home defense" in most states.

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Old November 18, 2012, 07:04 PM   #72
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You said that one should use a 9mm or .45 ACP in order to "save your ears". We already know that to be factually incorrect since 9mm and .45 ACP also generate decibel levels high enough to cause permanent hearing damage from a single exposure, but I figured I'd give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you meant 9mm and .45 ACP would simply cause less hearing damage than a .357 Magnum would. So, the question remains how much less hearing damage will a 9mm or .45 ACP cause than a .357 Magnum would?
When I say save my ears, I am not implying 9mm or .45 will not cause hearing damage, I mean that those calibers have the potential to cause less when compared to higher pressure rounds like the .357. I guess there really is no way to officially say how much less damage one round causes to another. The only way to officially quantify it would be to compile results of hearing tests of people who went in for single shot exposures and how much hearing loss or damage to the cilia in the inner ear. Even without that information it's still pretty safe to assume that the higher the DB levels, the more potential for damage from shot to shot.

Quote:
You also said that a 9mm or .45 ACP will "get the job done just as well" as a .357 Magnum. So, one can only assume that since you're able to pronounce one cartridge just as effective as another in such absolute terms, you must have some way to measure cartridge effectiveness. So, the second part of my question is exactly how do you measure cartridge effectiveness to such a precise degree that you can pronounce 9mm and .45 ACP to be just as effective as .357 Magnum in such absolute terms?
When I say the 9mm and .45 acp can get the job done just as well as the .357 magnum, what I really mean is that I don't think there is any self defense situation where a .357 will get you out where a 9mm or .45 cant. Now that doesn't mean each caliber is equal, just that they can all serve the same purpose successfully. Say a building is demolished with 1lb of C4 and a building is demolished with 5lb's of C4. The 5lb's of C4 may have resulted in a bigger more powerful explosion but they both did the job equally as well.

Quote:
You see, it seems to me that, in order to make an informed decision about decibel level vs. effectiveness, one would have to be able to quantify how much hearing damage a given decibel level is likely to cause and how effective different cartridges are so that we actually have something to compare. Even if we assume that the .357 Magnum causes more hearing damage due to it's higher decibel levels, we cannot resolutely say that the cartridge has no benefit over 9mm and .45 ACP unless both the levels of hearing damage caused and the terminal effectiveness of the compared calibers can be quantified in some way.
I think it's pretty fair to say that the higher the DB level the more potential for damage from shot to shot. Since there is no information out there for what DB levels cause how much damage vs cartridge effectiveness, one must make an informed decision based on what information is available. We have plenty of info on the net for ballistic tests for each caliber, and we have charts that tell us the DB levels of each caliber. Seeing as I have first hand experience with how loud a hot 125gr .357 is out of a snub indoors I can make a pretty informed decision that it is loud as heck, and as a result I have high frequency hearing loss and a mild case of tinnitus in my left ear. Because of that incident I choose not to use the .357 for home defense or carry use.
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Old November 19, 2012, 12:38 AM   #73
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Originally posted by Dragline45
Quote:
When I say save my ears, I am not implying 9mm or .45 will not cause hearing damage, I mean that those calibers have the potential to cause less when compared to higher pressure rounds like the .357. I guess there really is no way to officially say how much less damage one round causes to another. The only way to officially quantify it would be to compile results of hearing tests of people who went in for single shot exposures and how much hearing loss or damage to the cilia in the inner ear. Even without that information it's still pretty safe to assume that the higher the DB levels, the more potential for damage from shot to shot.
I don't think you're understanding the importance of quantifying such things before making absolutist statments. If the .357 Magnum causes only a small increase in hearing damage while also having a great deal more terminal effectiveness, then the extra hearing damage is likely a worthwhile tradeoff. However, if the .357 causes a great deal more hearing damage while only having a small increase in terminal effectiveness than it is not a worthwhile tradeoff. If these attributes cannot be quantified in some way, however, then such comparisons are impossible to make.

Quote:
When I say the 9mm and .45 acp can get the job done just as well as the .357 magnum, what I really mean is that I don't think there is any self defense situation where a .357 will get you out where a 9mm or .45 cant. Now that doesn't mean each caliber is equal, just that they can all serve the same purpose successfully. Say a building is demolished with 1lb of C4 and a building is demolished with 5lb's of C4. The 5lb's of C4 may have resulted in a bigger more powerful explosion but they both did the job equally as well.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that not all self-defense situations fit into some sort of rule set. What we do know for certain is that a .357 Magnum is capable of performance that is substantially different than that of common service cartridges like 9mm and .45 ACP. Because there is no consensus on what makes a cartridge effective, or even which cartridges are most effective, there is also no consensus on whether or not the differences that the .357 Magnum offers are beneficial, undesirable, or irrelevant. I can only come to the conclusion that, because one self-defense situation can be so drastically different than another, a cartridge which is well-suited to one may not be well suited to another. Because of this, I see no way to rationalize that a 9mm or .45 ACP will "get the job done just as well" as a .357 Magnum in every possible situation.

Quote:
I think it's pretty fair to say that the higher the DB level the more potential for damage from shot to shot. Since there is no information out there for what DB levels cause how much damage vs cartridge effectiveness, one must make an informed decision based on what information is available. We have plenty of info on the net for ballistic tests for each caliber, and we have charts that tell us the DB levels of each caliber. Seeing as I have first hand experience with how loud a hot 125gr .357 is out of a snub indoors I can make a pretty informed decision that it is loud as heck, and as a result I have high frequency hearing loss and a mild case of tinnitus in my left ear. Because of that incident I choose not to use the .357 for home defense or carry use.
The problem is that we don't really have that much information on hearing damage or cartridge effectiveness. The dB level charts that I've seen only list a one number for each cartridge. Having shot many different loadings in many different cartridges (including a lot of .357 Magnum as it's one of my favorite cartridges), I'm here to tell you that certain loadings seem a lot louder than other loadings even within the confines of one cartridge. For example, a 158gr .357 Magnum doesn't seem nearly as loud as a 125gr .357 Magnum, a 115gr 9mm +P seems much louder than a 147gr standard pressure load, and a 230gr standard pressure .45 ACP seems much gentler on the ears than a 185gr +P loading. Because of this, I find it very hard to believe that every common loading of a given cartridge creates the same dB levels. Because we do not know which specific loadings are being measured for these dB tables, we cannot condemn entire cartridges as "ear killers" based on them.

As far as cartridge effectiveness goes, we certainly have a lot of data on that subject but unfortunately much of it is conflicting or of suspect reliability. As I mentioned earlier, there is no consensus on handgun cartridge effectiveness. Because of this, stating that one cartridge is just as good as another is a statement of opinion, though it may be an educated opinion, rather than one of absolute fact. Despite scientific advances over the years, the effects of a bullets energy and the human body are both things which are not completely understood. As such, nearly all the data that we have on firearm wounding mechanisms is, at best, educated guesses.
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Old November 19, 2012, 07:59 AM   #74
buck460XVR
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....and here I thought this thread was about 125gr or 158gr in a .357. Not another 9mm vs .45ACP vs everything else thread.
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Old November 19, 2012, 09:53 AM   #75
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Webleymkv
I don't think you're understanding the importance of quantifying such things before making absolutist statments.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Webleymkv
If the .357 Magnum causes only a small increase in hearing damage while also having a great deal more terminal effectiveness, then the extra hearing damage is likely a worthwhile tradeoff.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Webleymkv
What we do know for certain is that a .357 Magnum is capable of performance that is substantially different than that of common service cartridges like 9mm and .45 ACP.
I read your wall of text Webley and I know the point you were trying to make about hearing, etc. Regardless of that, I have a hard time letting the above slide. You warn against making absolutist statements, then go on to make one.

It is not know for certain that the .357 has more terminal effectiveness than a .45 ACP, or a .40 at all, or if it has more real world effectiveness than 9mm for that matter. In fact, anecdotal police evidence points to the 180 grain .40 S&W being every bit as effective, in fact more so than the old 125 grain .357 in the California Highway Patrol's hands. They used the 125 grain .357 from 1970-1990, they have used the .40 S&W from 1990-till today. Thats along time with a lot of shootings, autopsy and officer reports give the 180 grain .40 S&W higher marks.

Ballistic gelatin penetration test also show that the various .357 loadings don't preform substantially different than other handgun cartridges either.

In fact the only evidence that exists that the .357 is the ne plus ultra of street man stoppers. Is the thirty year old Marshall & Sanow book. Even if we disregard everything and go by their book, they give the 1450 fps 125 grain .357 a 96% OSS rating and the 230 grain JHP .45 Auto a 96% rating.
So no substantial difference there either.
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