Depth of Penetration

[JohnKSa]

Jeez Man, "worst case", I think that you forgot the moving tank and lining them all up in a row... wasn't Indie's hat was held on by double sided tape; most of the time!

Worst case means exactly that. Worst case. It doesn't mean the most likely outcome, or even a particularly likely outcome, in fact it makes no claim at all about the probability of such an outcome occurring.

The point is that the lethal potential of a non-expanding round from a miss or pass-through is significantly more than a similar miss or pass-through from an expanding round.

I would imagine that there are far more misses in the world compared to over penetrations...

Whether considering misses or pass-throughs, a non-expanding round is going to have a lot more lethal potential than an expanding round because it has so much more penetration potential.

Where I live penetration is the name of the game, Brown, Grizzly, and Black being some of the reason. Moose being another.

You know, it's an odd thing, but for some strange reason it seems that in situations where people carry handguns primarily for bear and moose defense, the odds of an innocent bystander being injured by a miss or pass-through are much reduced compared to what might be expected in areas where people carry handguns primarily for defense against criminals.

This is just not something that I am going to stay awake tossing and turning over at night.

That's wise. I wouldn't either. But I have thought about it, as I have thought about many other self-defense/firearm related topics. Thinking through topics is constructive and can be informative. Can't say the same for lying awake tossing and turning.

Here's an interesting self-defense story that highlights some of the issues associated with this topic. A neighbor's house accumulated 9 or 10 bullet holes during the encounter that took place inside the victim's home.

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=549273

[DannyB1954]

Penetration is small diameter + large amount of powder + a hard bullet material. What such a cartridge would be good for is debatable. Long distance shots are not the self defense norm, so having a flat trajectory is a moot point.

357 Sig is the FBI's answer to car doors and such. It has the powder of a 40 S&W and about the diameter of a 9mm.

5.7 x 28mm was made to go through body armor according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_5.7%C3%9728mm
That is pretty good penetration.