Evaluating your defensive weapon capability

[Hummer70]

Evaluating your weapons Terminal Ballistic Performance (TBP)
THE GREAT TRUTHS:

1. Never tug on Superman's Cape.


2. Never take a knife to a gunfight.


3. Never ever take a handgun to a rifle match.


4. General Nathan Bedford Forrests CSA quote for winning a fight, "Get there the firstest with the mostest."


The Army Surgeon General ordered a Wound Ballistic's Lab set up at the Presidio in 1981. Col. Martin Facker,MD was commander. Pigs were anesthetized (as being closest to duplicating the human body) and shot with various munitions and X rayed to determine wound trauma, bullet path, bullet integrity, penetration etc. They were then dispatched and sent to the Presidio dining facility for barbecues.


He quickly came to the conclusion that handgun rounds were worthless at producing permanent wound cavatation and most of them lacked enough penetration to get to where they would do the most good.


Fackler came to the conclusion that a center fire rifle 6.5MM or larger would incapacitate an assailant quicker with a non lethal wound faster than a lethal wound from any handgun.


Then the disaster happened. In April 1986 in Miami Dade County Fla there was a shootout between 8 FBI Special Agents and bank robbery suspects. Two agents were killed and five were wounded as one of the suspects was killed instantly and the other used a Mini 14 in 223.


Fackler's work was known by the FBI and there was a big conference at Quantico FBI facility Sept 15-17th 1987 to conduct a Wound Ballistics Workshop. Fackler sent me the minutes and I provided my original copy to the Assn of Firearms & Toolmarks Examiners (AFTE) who scanned it and published it on their site.


Here it is: https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...Ta?usp=sharing Scroll down and click on DOWNLOAD.

Note: some folks can't open above. It is in the gmail cloud and is a PDF and the green light is lit so it can be downloaded. I get to it via google as I have a gmail account I don't use.


Below is the first sentence of the summary of the workshop.

"Wounding - Except for hits to the central nervous system (CNS) reliable and reproducible instant incapacitation is not possible with any handgun bullet."


There was a presentation at the Fed Law Enf Tng Center I attended shortly thereafter. We were told first shot delivered was from a S&W Mod 459 using Winchester 9MM Silvertip ammo by an FBI Agent that struck one of the bank robbers in right arm then continued into thoracic cavity as he crawled out drivers window and with no "instant incapacitation" thus allowing him to initiate and sustain fire for several minutes killing two agents and wounding five more.


The bad guy ran out of ammo, got in another vehicle to leave when one agent ran up to car and fired multiple shots killing him. If FBI had used 6.5MM or larger initially those deaths and injuries would have been reduced if not eliminated.


Fackler was asked by the FBI what the minimum round would require to accomplish sufficient penetration and Fackler ran the numbers and recommended 10MM but few women and some men could not handle the recoil and S&W came up with their 40 Cal as being close but less penetration.
From the Workshop Minutes: "Given equal penetration a bigger bullet will disrupt more tissue and hopefully cause greater bleeding. Barring a CNS hit incapacitation can only be forced by blood loss and that takes time as well as sufficient penetration to hit major blood vessels through intervening musculature, fat, clothing, arms etc." It was very clear that no handgun will produce such a wound.


Fackler basically said that it is extremely rare that a person sustaining a solid thoracic cavity wound from a high power rifle will survive. I know of no one that ever heard of such a person surviving a solid thoracic cavity and surviving.


All the above is made more critical if one does not possess enough skill with a handgun to deliver a shot where it's needed in a hurry

Per the FBI Data on shootings I have read the vast majority of handgun shootings occur between 3 and 5 yards at night. I have never seen time/distance data on shootings with a rifle but Fackler testing determined the 5.56 rounds (M193/M855) loses lots energy when they pass 95 yards.


Obviously in a self defense scenario the first hit will generally determine the outcome so the idea is to develop accuracy first and then speed. US Border Patrolman Bill Jordan wrote a excellent book and he had some unique advice : "Take your time in a hurry.", "No one has ever been killed as the result of a loud noise." In other words misses don't help you, only hits count and with a handgun the miss factor is way up there. Thus threats surviving a hit from a handgun is pretty good but your missed shots will definitely lower the odds of your own survivability.


Col Fackler told me that he had determined from the data he collected over the years that 75% of assailants will go down with one shot from about anything. NOT DIE, JUST COLLAPSE. The next 20% will take multiple shots and 5% will only be stopped by a round crushing or severing the spinal cord or penetration into the cranial vault with enough energy to cause trauma. He went on to say if they are on drugs the pain from the shots will not register in the brain and are very likely to be active/dangerous for several minutes.


I worked with a guy who shot a guy 7 times with 45 ACP dead center chest and he was still coming and he stopped him cold with 8th shot in the cranial vault. The thing you must remember is that if you shoot someone with a handgun don't be surprised if they don't even react or run off.


Fackler said in the home the hands down best is a 12 ga shotgun with "Number 0 Buckshot" He went on to say the shotgun has a very limited effective range. I conducted testing with Buckshot on silhouette targets and at 25 yards the pattern will cover expand to about 16" to 20" and terminal performance is thus degraded.


The best training I have knowledge of was developed by Col Jeff Cooper USMC retd at his Gunsite Ranch Training Facility utilizing electronic timers.
Rifle: You put up one 6" paper plate at 25 yards and you stand with your rifle at the port arms ready and the timer beeps, you raise the rifle and you fire one shot as quick as you can in 1.5 seconds or less. You do this for five one shot runs. When you fire the timer hears the shot and stops and shows you elapsed time. You reset for each additional shot. If you do not fire in 1.5 seconds the shot is considered a miss. Obviously if there is no hole in the plate that is also a miss.


There is a second level, same target, same time requirement fired at 50 yards. Then the third level 10" plate, 2 seconds allowed at 100 yards.
Do a Bing search for "Art of the Rifle Snap Shot Rifle Test" That should bring up a youtube of this training.


Handgun: Put up a 6" paper plate at 7 yds. When timer beeps draw and fire one shot in 1.5 seconds or less. Most shootings occur at 3 to 5 yards at night per FBI data I have read. 10" plate at 25 yards in 2 seconds or less.
Fackler started the International Wound Ballistics Assn made up of MDs interested in TBP. Journals were published for several years, there were no ads in the Journals from any vendor. Our member fees paid for publishing them. Subscriptions were available and they have many very interesting articles. Obviously they were out of print many years ago with first issue Fall of 1992 and went for many years.


https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...3pWYVVJeGlGaFE
Copy and paste the above and you can download every issue published as they were all scanned by AFTE and you can download them all for free. If you read all of them you will gain an amazing knowledge of Wound Ballistics and evaluations. You might want to put these on a separate thumb drive. You will also save about $600.00 by not having to subscribe but these have been out of print and the IWBA dissolved with Fackler's passing several years ago.

[TXAZ]

Your first link is improperly formed and does not work.

Interesting study but at relatively close range compared to a rifle ... there are 10s of thousands of dead that might disagree with the premise or tone.

In the US I expect handguns are used significantly more often in personal defense than long guns.

[JERRYS.]

one of the most common mistakes made is over thinking things.

[peterg7]

Buckshot 16-20” at 25 yards, I’m guessing that’s without choke?

Choke is a great invention and a choke tube is even better.


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[Hummer70]

Testing done with 20", 18" and 14" barreled 870s.

TXAZ go to google and approach it from that way. It is in a gmail cloud.

Was talking with retired cop last week who shot a guy with 45 ACP 230 gr. point blank, dead center and he turned and ran off and was never seen again.

He doesn't remember where he read it but the estimate is 72% of folks shot with handguns survive.

I know a woman in Alabama that shot a home invader dead center forehead with a Ruger 22 auto at about 8 feet and he ran out of house. Three weeks later he died. Cops called my paramedics who got the call that he was unconscious and noted healing wound in forehead so autopsy was performed and they found the bullet. He lived a mile down the road the woman lived on. It all happened so fast she did not know she hit him or anything about him. The SO had been called and they could not find a bullet hole. Sheriff told her she needed a bigger gun.

I had a cop buddy who witnessed a guy in a pool room shot with a 45 at about 10 feet in the mouth. He got knocked backwards up against the bar, spit out three teeth and the bullet.

I keep hearing on TV of how many are shot in Chicago on weekends 30-60 and very few of them die.

[TXAZ]

Originally Posted by Hummer70

He doesn't remember where he read it but the estimate is 72% of folks shot with handguns survive.

That is such an 'out there' statistic. There are significantly more reliable sources than that. You can Google them or go to Moms demand action, they've got a whole page of statistics that would contradict that number.

"Official" Chicago murder statistics are notoriously bad, as the city (Mayor and former police commissioner McCarthy changed the definition of murder, location and dead. (If you were killed in downtown Chicago on the 90 or 94 freeway, they didn't count it as a "Chicago Murder" since it happened on a federally designated freeway (but CPD would still give you a ticket for speeding there).

[lamarw]

Yet many bleeding hearts ask why police shoot a suspect so many times.

[Hummer70]

TZAX, yeah and I bet if they find a body next to a gun they rule it suicide to keep the numbers down.

Did you get the link open? If not send me PM with your email address and I will send you a copy directly.

I used to work with Jimmy Cirillo at FLETC and they had two different guys hit with 12 ga slugs, one took a second one to put him down. The other hopped in a cab and was leaving. Both dead center shots.

[Nanuk]

I keep hearing on TV of how many are shot in Chicago on weekends 30-60 and very few of them die.

Lethality is not the goal in SD, stopping the aggression is. Modern medical science and rapid care saves lives.

Fackler did good work on military rounds, not a huge fan of his testing with civilian cartridges. He totally discounted rounds that fragmented such as the 357 magnum.

[TXAZ]

I had no problem getting to the download Hum, but others might not be as nimble web wise with your bad link

And I'm not impressed with Fackler's data from a realistic US perspective, it's not reality considering the diversity of hollow points and other non-ball ammo, and diversity of training (or lack thereof in most thug-based incidents)

Yea, I've also worked with several professionals with hundreds of kills, most mid-range 1-shot 1-kill, but many are "2+1" or "3" shot clusters closer up and notable BMG shots at 1 mile+ OCONUS.

If the thugs in Chicago trained like these professional guys do the death rate would be close to 100% and CPD would have a beyond-very serious problem. But few of those have the skill, patience and drive, and clearly not the funding. If they did, they wouldn't be thugs.

[44 AMP]

Amazing how time marches on and things "improve". The Thompson_La Garde tests shot live goats (and presumably full conscious). Fackler's tests shot pigs. Anesthetized pigs. Pigs that (one assumes) couldn't feel being shot.

That certainly tells us about stopping power....

No handgun is enough, you need a 6.5mm rifle or larger..but hey, the 10mm auto is ok...

Extremely rare to survive a solid thoracic cavity hit from a high power rifle...
Rare, ok, but it does happen. I met a couple of them in the Army. one took a burst from an AK across the chest, and survived, (and while one can argue if the AK isn't a "high power rifle" the other guy survived a burst from an RPD, and no one will argue that isn't a "high power" round. (and both had at least 3 sets of bullet wound scars, entry and exit!!)

If you look enough you can find cases of instant incapacitation by the very smallest rounds, and failures by the very biggest. And the opposite is also very true.

Anecdotal evidence is discounted by the statisticians, but every shooting is its own anecdote. Every one is different in some details, and often those details are very important.

I think shooting doped up pigs and looking at the autopsy results will tell you a lot about shooting doped up pigs.

I don't think it tells you as much about shooting doped up people, or ones that aren't.

[FrankenMauser]

Extremely rare to survive a solid thoracic cavity hit from a high power rifle...
Rare, ok, but it does happen. I met a couple of them in the Army. one took a burst from an AK across the chest, and survived, (and while one can argue if the AK isn't a "high power rifle" the other guy survived a burst from an RPD, and no one will argue that isn't a "high power" round. (and both had at least 3 sets of bullet wound scars, entry and exit!!)

If you look enough you can find cases of instant incapacitation by the very smallest rounds, and failures by the very biggest. And the opposite is also very true.

Anecdotal evidence is discounted by the statisticians, but every shooting is its own anecdote. Every one is different in some details, and often those details are very important.

I agree.
It's great to look at statistics, averages, outliers, and freak occurrences; but when analyzed more closely, they're all outliers. Some are just more unbelievable, incredible, or freakish than others.

I used to work with a guy that took a bullet from M855 in an M4 ... to the back of the head, from six inches away. The bullet exited through his right eye. He was unconscious, bleeding profusely, and assumed dead. But, he was flown to a hospital, anyway. No one survives hits like that. No one.

...Except the lucky ones like him. Other than losing his eye and hearing on one side, he didn't really have much else in the way of complications, either - at least after initial recovery. There was a little bit of motor control confusion on his left side; but not even enough to warrant a discharge from the military. He remained on active duty with no restrictions, for at least as long as I was in. (He was still there when I got my DD 214 .... three(?) years later.)

[Hummer70]

Actually Fackler did do work with 357s. Two rounds I remember that he liked were a Remington 125 gr. scalloped HP and the Winchester 145 Fr. Silvertip.
He also liked heavy bullets in 357 that exited out the back.

The guy shot in back of the head from 6" is definitely in good with the Lord because as you say you don't survive that. Was that from a accidental discharge from one of us?

The Russians executed thousands using blank ammo to back of the head.

[MisterCrabby]

Mozambique. Assess. Repeat as needed.

[FrankenMauser]

The guy shot in back of the head from 6" is definitely in good with the Lord because as you say you don't survive that. Was that from a accidental discharge from one of us?

Iraqi Police pulled the trigger, while prepping for a joint mission. Whether or not it was accidental or intentional was hotly debated at the time, and still is occasionally today in the group of veterans I associate with.

[Hummer70]

Yeah I can sure understand that. Glad your friend survived and hope he won't have anything related to that come up with him the rest of his life. He has obviously had enough for three lifetimes.

[44 AMP]

After going back over the OP, I see a lot of information, but no question for discussion. Are we expected to evaluate our defensive weapon capability today, in light of 30year old studies and arguable conclusions? If so, HOW??

What if anything, am I missing?

[Don Dayacetah]

Folks do go on about "shotguns for home defense".
Did any of the testers actually shoot a shotgun inside a house?

Did they go deaf in only one, or both ears? Folks talk about having a
gun on the night-stand, they better keep earplugs with the shotgun.

[peterg7]

^ that can be an issue, for me a shotgun is an outside gun (with choke), buck and slug for use out to 50 yards.


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[Hummer70]

I was right next to a 357 Mag on a indoor discharge. Ears rang for a while.

[the possum]

Folks do go on about "shotguns for home defense".
Did any of the testers actually shoot a shotgun inside a house?

Did they go deaf in only one, or both ears? Folks talk about having a
gun on the night-stand, they better keep earplugs with the shotgun.

I have. Scores (or maybe even hundreds?) of times. They aren't near as bad to my ears as any fighting caliber pistol, and revolvers are even worse.

[Hummer70]

Frankenmauser, was reading through IWBA Journals the other night and read that the M855 round travels in the body about 6" before it starts to yaw so that explained how your friend was able to survive the head shot. If it had been M193 he would have been dead.

That explains why I saw this dumb ass in Iraq was not getting the word after he was hit. There were presspukes urging him to take his RPG, go out in the road and shoot at a advancing Marines who were coming up the street about 200 meters away.

He walks out and assumes a kneeling position and starts to aim the RPG and I could see him take three body hits and he just looked like he hiccuped a bit. Finally he turned to look back at camera operator and he had this -CENSORED--CENSORED--CENSORED- look on his face and at that instant he took one through the cranial vault and he rolled over just as he got to the 77 Virgins Welcome Home Party.

I noted that Fackler does not address the Miami Shooting until Vol 1 No 4 Page 15 in 1994 where he indicates the shot not getting to the heart. My source (firearms examiner) tells me that is about the time autopsy reports surfaced and Fackler commented on them which is two years after I retired and was not on line till 2000 time frame.

[RickB]

There's a lot of public hand-wringing when people are shot multiple times, but remember, "shoot until they think they're stopped, not until you think they're stopped."
Evaluate after the assailant is down.

[Hummer70]

Fackler told cops at Gainesville, Fla PD to back off, stay behind cover and do not approach until the world arrives.

[Skans]

The thing you must remember is that if you shoot someone with a handgun don't be surprised if they don't even react or run off.

I think this is the exception rather than the rule. If I can get to my .308 bullpup, I'll gladly use that for Home Defense, otherwise, it will most likely be a 9mm or 10mm gun that I happen to have near me.