Stopping Power

[rogerwilco]

Article By Chuck Hawks:

The famous 125 grain .357 JHP bullet, the most effective one shot stopper of all handgun loads, penetrates 13.25" in ordinance gelatin and produces a football shaped stretch cavity. This is how the very best bullets perform. And bullet performance has a great effect on stopping power.

For example, the .40 S&W has higher one shot stop percentages in the real world than the 10mm Auto. Yet both use exactly the same caliber bullets, and the 10mm Lite load has exactly the same velocity as the .40 S&W. What gives?

The difference is a function of the terminal performance of the bullets involved. The FBI adopted the 10mm Lite load and became the main driving force behind 10mm load development. The FBI protocol calls for more penetration, and therefore less expansion, than is desirable to maximize stopping power in most shooting situations. They are more concerned about shooting through car doors, barricades, and so forth than putting criminals down with one shot in the typical frontal shooting situation that homeowners and civilians are most likely to face. The FBI essentially wanted ammunition designed for extended gun battles with perps hiding behind cover, and that is what they got. But as a result most 10mm ammo has less actual stopping power than the lighter, faster expanding bullets used in the best .40 S&W loads.

I wrote this article, not as a diatribe against big bore handguns (indeed, some of them--using JHP bullets--are near the top of the stopping power list), but because I have grown weary of hearing and reading the same old misinformation endlessly repeated. My opinion is no better than anyone else's unless it correlates with reality. Read the actual studies, not what others say about the studies, and decide for yourself. For those concerned with the problem, handgun stopping power is too important a subject to be left to urban legend.

[gmoney]

The 357 sig round has very good stopping power and is a very overlooked round.... not to mention a much more accurate round than 9mm or 40 calibers

[Handy]

not to mention a much more accurate round than 9mm or 40 calibers

A reference, perhaps?


Rogerwilco,
Do yourself a favor and kindly ignore "one shot stops". This concept is based on a terrible misunderstanding of statistics and a study performed by people who didn't know the difference. Because of the amount of data thrown out (like TWO shot stops), this method can never provide anything more than very precise numbers that reflect an impossible real-world situation.

There are lots of ways of estimating terminal ballistics, but no one has found a fair way of extracting that information from real shootings.


Really, all we can do is look at expansion and usable penetration and make some educated guesses.

[Double Naught Spy]

You gotta love the article. It suffers the same shortcoming crap that many other studies seem to suffer. Nobody has any freakin idea just what the actual data are, how they are derived, and where exactly they came from. Many of the folks who write about such things seem to conveniently leave out all the relevant incident by incident citations to substantiate claims. Hawks' work has the same problem.

Just what actual studies are all of us not in law enforcement supposed to review? Where do we get the reading list and where do we find the reports?

Hell, we can't even verify Marshall and Sanouw or the goat tests. All that still remains up in the air with people making claims on both sides. Then, one of the writers that often does mention specific incidents, Massad Ayoob, does so without mentioning actual names, dates, or places such that the casual reader would have a devil of a freakin' time tracking down the stories he recounts.

Hawks little article is interesting, but fails worst than the rest in that he doesn't even actually present case information we can't verify, but suggests we go and find said information. How freakin' convenient. If he knows so much, why didn't he give us sources to help us?

[thralduro]

To be honest, the Marshall and Sanow books are probably the most widespread study of police shootings available to us. The "goat shooting" or "cattle killers" are just not the same at all. I put some credence to these type of statistics, but they are not Biblical.

The .357 Sig round is accurate and packs a lot of foot pounds energy, which is probably the key to ballistics...however the 9mm +P and +P+ is about in the same neighborhood, and the 9mm is a heck of a lot more flexable...such as 115 gr. 90 gr. 125 gr. 147 gr. all different speeds, energy, penetration.

The .357 Mag is just about as flexible.

The .40 is more flexable than the .357 Sig and seems to be becoming the Law Enforcement standard.

The .45 is the old reliable standby. Some argue that it is as effective as a magnum, some don't buy it for a second. Personally I believe that light weight mandates a quick bullet, but slow bullets mandate a heavy weight. It's always gonna be some kind of compromise unless you carry a .44 Magnum or .454 Casull.

[JohnKSa]

There is no such thing as stopping power.

Barring people with a psychological predisposition to stop immediately when shot we have the following situation.

If you don't hit the central nervous system or the locomotive mechanism (knee/hip/etc) the person will not stop regardless of the caliber used.

If you do hit the central nervous sytem or the locomotive mechanism then the person will stop regardless of the firearm used unless it has insufficient power to sufficiently damage said components.

There is no such thing as a handgun which will allow you to make peripheral hits and still get stops. Kills? YES--after they finally bleed out or die of infection. Stops? NO--not unless you don't mind waiting for them to bleed out--a process which could take much to long of a time if they're shooting at you while they do it.

Therefore there is only marksmanship*

*as long as you don't choose something that's not got the penetration or damaging capability to disrupt the central nervous system or the locomotive mechanisms of the body.

[Lancel]

The full article is at http://www.chuckhawks.com/beginners_stopping_power.htm

In the same article, Hawks states, "...read the books by Ed Sanow and Evan Marshall, which are the most important works on the subject..."

That pretty well establishes the article's value. Especially since Sanow and Marshall's data collection has been shown to be poor at best, imaginary at worst.


Larry

[thralduro]

techy techy subject.....

[BillCA]

At the risk of feeling some heat, there are only 3 ways I know of to shoot a human being and obtain an immediate cessation of hostilities.

1. A direct head shot that completely disrupts the brain pan. Turns out the lights instantly.
2. A direct hit on the central nervous system (spinal) cord above the level of the heart. Interrupt the control inputs and he stops cold.
3. Hitting a vital arterial blood vessel and dropping the blood pressure by 50% or more. Such vessels, like the vena cava are on the back of the chest cavity but require a large opening in them.

The last one can be dependent upon the amount of oxygen and/or pharmacuticals in the subject's body. Rupturing these large arteries results in "bleeding out" in a manner of seconds but the drop in pressure usually disorients the subject much faster.

Having a one-shot-stop by hitting other organs, even the heart, is essentially chance. Surprisingly, the heart muscle can often withstand a direct hit and keep on beating since the spongy tissue can close around the bullet hole and prevent bleeding out. (Isn't nature wonderful?)

[ceestand]

Pretty sure stretch cavity was found to be irrelevant to stopping an attacker. Well, at least with the cavity that could be produced by any conventional round.

I agree with you JohnKSa, and that opinion leads to choosing the heaviest bullet in a chambering (ex:147gr in 9mm).

[Danindetroit]

Hitting a vital arterial blood vessel and dropping the blood pressure by 50% or more. Such vessels, like the vena cava are on the back of the chest cavity but require a large opening in them.

The vena cava are veins, there is the superior, and inferior. The superior brings back blood with low O2 to the heart, at low blood pressures. The inferior brings it up from the legs.

The big arteries, are the aorta, which has high pressure. It goes down the body in front, to the right of the spine. At around your belly button and a couple inches lower, it the splits into the iliac artery, and that splits into the femoral artery, and another artery that runs behind your femur. If you shoot a round nice and quick into the soft belly of an attacker, slightly to the right of the midline on his body, you have an uninterrupted shot to the aorta, no bones, no ribs which will drain a person in seconds, the illiac artery will do it, the femoral will take longer,but they will pass out quick. Shoot low and to the left, on the same side as the heart, and then as your muzzle rise, keep the gun straight, and slightly to the right, the aorta drops almost vertically from the heart. You will probably get a good shot with no bone through the gut, and at least disrupt spinal nerves, and the attackers legs might go unsteady, then one in the chest for the heart, maybe lower, then one in the head.

[JohnKSa]

Shooting at veins & arteries?

Might as well aim for the spine. Quicker stop, bigger target and easier to visualize.

[Danindetroit]

What do you shoot for?

[arp415]

I shoot their trigger fingers, and then retrieve their fallen guns with my bull whip.....

[P-990]

Having a one-shot-stop by hitting other organs, even the heart, is essentially chance. Surprisingly, the heart muscle can often withstand a direct hit and keep on beating since the spongy tissue can close around the bullet hole and prevent bleeding out. (Isn't nature wonderful?)

But haven't you seen that episode of CSI where the Medical Examiner states a bullet to the heart pulverizes it like a ballon and is instant death? (Please don't think I seriously think this BS is true.)

I will always stand by the belief that a determined attacker is going to do me harm, no matter how big of a gun I hit him with, unless the CNS is hit. No?

[Double Naught Spy]

At the risk of feeling some heat, there are only 3 ways I know of to shoot a human being and obtain an immediate cessation of hostilities.

A direct head shot that completely disrupts the brain pan. Turns out the lights instantly.

A direct hit on the central nervous system (spinal) cord above the level of the heart. Interrupt the control inputs and he stops cold.

Hitting a vital arterial blood vessel and dropping the blood pressure by 50% or more. Such vessels, like the vena cava are on the back of the chest cavity but require a large opening in them.

What is the difference between a direct shot to the head versus and indirect shot to the head? Are you talking about penetrating versus glancing?

Head shots are not as great as you make them out to be. First of all, just what function does the "brain pan" perform? If you are talking about the skull itself, holding the brain, its disruption does not guarentee anything as people can suffer a lot of cranial trauma and still function.

Next, just because a person is shot in the head does not mean there will be any cessation of activities. There is a lot of head volume that can suffer severe trauma without cessation of activities. Facial shots are classic examples.

The bottom line is that head shots need to actually be brain or brainstem shots where enough trauma is produced by the projectile to temporarily or permanently severely impair or stop CNS signals. Usually, such forms of trauma are more likely to be produced by shots that penetrate the brain, but not always and not all penetrating shots do the required damage.

Also, I would not even remotely count on large blood vessel damage to produce immediate stops. Hell, people have been shot in the heart and the blood pressure drops to nil with the cessation of the heart, but they manage to still carry on the fight for several seconds. That is not immediate.

--------------

I took a look at the article. Sure enough, no real data or sources for the data. It is just another synthesis about data that the reader doesn't get to see. As such, the reader can't verify or refute the information.

[Kik'nFortiFiv]

I personally ascribe to the Added Weight Theory. A little known study involving personal fitness and weight transfer. The large caliber and heaviest bullet weight also comes into play here. The theory requires the respondent to be carrying the maximum amount of ammo possible, perhaps a large cap. mag. So we are supposing that you have 10 in the mag and one in the tube of .45, 230 grain. As the bad guy approaches, you would therefore empty all eleven rounds into the torso, if possible. Shot placement or marksmanship is beneficial but not neccessarily required just as long as all bullets are deposited into the body. The bad guy at this point is going to possibly be surprised that you have just unloaded that many rounds into him and may hesitate as he tries to adjust to the situation. This should give you a reasonable amount of time to drop your clip and load a fresh one of the two spares that you are carrying. Now you would commence to unload this clip as well, but with this one, go ahead and try some varying placement to the arms and legs as well. Repeat procedure with the third clip. At this point you will have distributed over one pound of lead to the attackers' body. You on the other hand, have divested yourself of the same amount. So now, you are one pound lighter and perhaps have an advantage of now succeeding in a foot race with your aggresser. He will feel more sluggish dealing with the added weight and the thirty-one holes in his body may cause some discomfort. The theory remains that you now have a greater advantage in mobility and speed. At this time, should the bad guy not have fallen down, you are advised to sprint away to a safe distance because this particular bad guy is remarkably tenacious and more distance between him and yourself is strongly recommended. I am not sure of the verocity of this study so it is to be taken at face value only. Just my .02.
After re-reading my post I feel it may be advised that there may be some legal ramifications in applying this type of defense. Just be aware.

[rogerwilco]

ROFL.......Great theory!!!! I just hope I'm the one losing weight and not gaining it.

[Kik'nFortiFiv]

Yes, the theory pretty much falls apart if you are exchanging equal amounts of weight. I beilieve that would closer resemble the "Cleaning Your Shorts" theory.

[abelew]

Best advice is to just get something you can shoot well, in a major caliber (.40, .357sig/mag, 9mm. .45 cap/colt, .50bmg) and just shoot the stinker. Most people will cringe at the mear presence of a gun, and if they dont then, shooting the punk might just get his attn. Guns are a large advantage, arguing about semantics in a handgun caliber is probably not going to change much. A gun that you can reliably put shots on target, even in a smaller caliber will do much more to stop the "attack" than a large caliber that you cant hit the broad side of a barn with. That said, I tend to choose a light round moving very fast with a well expanding hollowpoint (speer gold dot), or a slower moving heavier round. These have the most "ballistic energy" and being a larger individual who is used to recoil and can place shots on target with heavier rounds, works the best for me. However I would not hand my .357 sig to my wife, cuz she would prolly shoot herself in the nose with the thing.

[BillCA]

In response to Double Naught Spy's questioning mind...

Originally Posted by Double Naught Spy

What is the difference between a direct shot to the head versus and indirect shot to the head? Are you talking about penetrating versus glancing?

Head shots are not as great as you make them out to be. First of all, just what function does the "brain pan" perform? If you are talking about the skull itself, holding the brain, its disruption does not guarentee anything as people can suffer a lot of cranial trauma and still function.

Next, just because a person is shot in the head does not mean there will be any cessation of activities. There is a lot of head volume that can suffer severe trauma without cessation of activities. Facial shots are classic examples.

1. Direct head shot is exactly as you described - a non-glancing shot which, give the shape and relative thickness of the heads of some liberals, might be difficult to do.

2. "Brain Pan" refers to the skull volume. And "completely disrupts" means a hit which is violent enough to severely damage the brain. Some .357Mag rounds will exit at high speed, creating a vaccuum that pulls material along from inside the crainium. Any shot that scrambles the mudella (sp?) (motor cortex) or disrupts the connection between the brain and mudella.

[Machinist]

Sanow n Marshall

Instead of sticking to simple facts these particular authors would rather delude you with paragraph after paragraph of mystical concepts such as "energy transfer," "neural shock," "Fuller Index," "one-shot stopping power," "Strasbourg Tests," and "street results." Although this stuff makes for interesting and entertaining reading, it's really nothing more than a bunch of sophisticated junk-science.

[Derius_T]

As a few people have stated, the human body is a wonderful thing, and it can and has on several notable occasions, suffered clearly insane levels of damage and continued to function in some capacity. Add drugs into that mix and you can get a human body that may SEEM at first impervious to harm.

I assure you this is not the case. In MY humble, uneducated opinion, a quick double tap to the torso with an adequate round (ie. 230gr hollow .45) will
in MOST cases do QUITE NICELY to stop said assailant.

HOWEVER, if said assailant does not IMMEDIATELY CEASE ALL THREATENING MOVEMENT, I'm pretty sure that most semi-auto mags hold more than 2 rounds.

[Conservadude]

2 shots on centerline of upper torso. If adequate stopping has not occurred, then the shots may have been ineffectively placed or the perp is wearing body armor of some sort. 2 shots to the groin region should then work. After that, take what you can get if he/she is still a threat ...evaluate and shoot. Training.

Brian

[esldude]

Machinist,

I dare you to call Marshall and Sanow junk-science.

You know it doesn't deserve that term.

It is simply BS!