Magazine Capacity An Asset In A Gunfight

[macktruckturner]

I'm not going to respond to the entire thread obviously, but serious consideration needs to be given to a tried and true battle drill any time you make contact. First, and foremost - you react to contact, however as contact continues you've got to make an assessment of the situation, and if need be break contact. In an individual scenario, this is not going to take nearly the time, or ammunition it would take me if I were manuevering my soldiers through a building. Reacting to contact might simply consist of drawing your sidearm. That will likely be the end of it, if you've never shown direct intent and will to use deadly force, you simply do not understand how quickly that changes things for whoever is on the receiving end. Even jihadists start to ponder things at an accelerated pace.

Quite frankly, if I find myself in a situation in which many magazine changes will be required - and my team consists of me, myself, and I - breaking contact becomes priority #1. The Elephant is an ugly beast, and if/when you see it, your brain is still the best tool you've got for surviving. Fail to use it appropriately, and 300rds of .45ACP +P+ exploding tip 185gr 2000fps magic bullets aren't going to make a single difference.

[frankie_the_yankee]

For many months now, my health, the weather, and just plain bad timing have kept me from doing any IDPA matches. That changed this weekend, when I shot the Texas Tactical IDPA match at the Cedar Ridge Range out west of New Braunfels.

First and foremost, I had a great time. I also got to test out my new Para Carry 6.45 after having spent the last few months wringing the bugs out of it. (Result: The gun worked great. One feed failure, but it was caused by my mag pouch having messed up the position of the first round.)

Secondly, muscle memory is a good thing to have, and my lack of it showed up prominently in the results. Even though I practice on my own range, some things are difficult for me - especially shooting while moving laterally - because I do not have a good 3-sided berm. So most of my home practice is shooting while stationary, at a stationary target. This is not a realistic street scenario. I found shooting while moving similar in a way to trying to sing while playing guitar. It sounds like it would be simple, but for some strange reason it takes a conscious effort to do both things at the same time, especially if you are not used to it.

I found the RO constantly yelling, "Move! Move!", at me. Oh well.

So I can easily see where practicing this, in addition to shooting at targets that are moving, can be VERY valuable in the event that a street encounter occurs.

Of course, most of the scenarios involved 3, 4, or 5 BG targets that had to be neutralized. And most of them were to be treated as if they were shooting back. (Hence the need to utilize cover, etc.) While I did not find this at all realistic with respect to most street encounters, no one would want to shoot the match if each scenario only involved shooting 2 or 3 shots at 1 or 2 targets. And developing the skill of seeking and using cover is obviously of tremendous value if a BG actually is shooting back. So I can see why they set up the scenarios the way they do. (Like I said, first and foremost, I had a great time shooting this match.) Still, like shooting while moving, changing mags while "on the clock" are obviously good things to have muscle memory for, just like clearing the occassional malfunction.

The bottom line for me is that each of the different ways to gain knowledge has its uses. Reading about actual street enounters is great for gaining knowledge about how such things occur and the "dynamics" involved. Studying the general topic of "self defense and the law" as taught by Ayoob and others has its obvious benefits. And actually exercising shooting skills is an essential part of the whole mix. You can't learn to shoot by just reading about it, just like you can't learn about the law by just walking down the street.

And finally, shooting these matches is a lot of fun!

[ELB]

Gee, everyone else has had a whack at this pinata, my turn I guess.

Why I Lean Prefer the Higher Capacity Guns
- I prefer a higher capacity 9mm over a lower capacity .45, hardball, hollowpoint whatever. Thus I carry a Browning Hi Power. I have found it to have excellent ergonomics, conceals very very well, and carries twice the capacity of its brother, the 1911. I generally agree with Mr. Suarez, could nitpick some things, etc, but I like the higher cap magazines.
- From all the available literature I can find, I do not think a single 9mm round is as effective as a single .45 ACP round, but I am not convinced that the DIFFERENCE between 9mm and .45 is significant enough to give up the extra capacity.
- I personally have not seen anyone claim that the newer 9mm loadings are equivalent to .45 ACP, I have only seen it as a strawman argument. I do see people note that the later 9mm loadings, e.g. Winchester Ranger, Corbon, Gold Dot, Hydrashok, etc, are superior to the original 9mm rounds when hi-cap 9's became all the rage, so comparisons should be to more modern 9mm rounds.
- My readings of case histories and others experience lead me to believe multiple hits of any self-defense caliber are in general superior to single or fewer hits. Respected SD instructors, John Farnam among them, teach multiple, aimed hits, regardless of caliber. I think this logic is reflected in the fact that the newest polymer .45ACPs are coming in much higher capacities than the venerable 1911.
- I see no fundamental reason that a 7 or 8 round gun is more accurate than a 14 round gun. If somehow you think that having more bullets available means you can be less accurate, I doubt that .45 1911 is going to improve your accuracy any. And you will run out just that much faster. [Late-breaking thought -- I wonder if in the "old days" when cops and citizens generally only used 6-round revolvers and 7- round 1911s, if people weren't any more accurate, they just didn't have as many rounds to miss with -- and this just became more noticeable when people got more rounds to work with? ]

I was interested to read about the guy shot 32 times with 9mm ammo. Is the argument here that a single hit? seven hits? 16 hits? of .45 would have been more effective if he was shot in the same location(s)? I believe there is a thread on this forum where one of our (perhaps former) prison guards commenters knew a prisoner named "Buckshot" because he had been shot in the chest with buckshot, and lived to go to prison. I have also been told by an LEO (via another forum), of a young lady shot more than once, I believe, through the chest with a .45 ACP, and she still RAN a couple blocks to get away, and survived. Interesting, but perhaps not typical occurences. Lesson: even multiple hits are not magic. But I would still bet on them over fewer hits. And I just prefer a handgun that gives me the option of more.

Argument/Statistics over the Number of Rounds Required for Civilian S.D. Shootings:
- As someone pointed out above, averages do not tell the whole story. Four shootings of 3 rounds each = 3 round average. One shooting of 9 rounds, and three shootings of one round each = 3 round average. Peaks are important.
- Reading Cramer's Civilian Self Defense blog, where he collects newspaper accounts of self-defense using a gun, multiple attackers are not the majority, but it seems far from uncommon, especially with home invasion type robberies. Again, peaks are important to me.
- Here's a quote from Jeanne Assam's statement to the Colo Springs Police after she stopped the guy armed with a rifle and one or two handguns at the New Life Church:

Jeanne estimated she fired nine or ten times...Jeanne described her pistol as a Beretta 92F 9mm...I asked Jeanne if she carried extra ammunition. She said she did not, but remembered thinking to herself that she should have been carrying extra ammunition in the event there were more shooters...Jeanne said she was comfortable with her pistol. She said she has had the pistol since 1993...

http://www2.gazette.com/pdf/NewLifePoliceReport.pdf
An ugly time to be wondering if you should have more ammo. Even uglier if another shooter is in fact present, as at Columbine. I wonder if she now carries additional mags? As someone noted earlier I have not read of anyone complaining they had too much ammo left over after a fight. [I read elsewhere that Ms. Assam scored four hits. Would her hit/miss ratio have been better with a different gun? In any case, she put down the assailant. The assailant then killed himself.]

Over-Penetration
Not exactly on the original topic, but I read the following quote early in this thread:

The concern that a bullet would pass through the body of a subject and injure an innocent bystander is clearly exaggerated. Any review of law enforcement shootings will reveal that the great majority of shots fired by officers do not hit any subjects at all. It should be obvious that the relatively few shots that do hit a subject are not somehow more dangerous to bystanders than the shots that miss the subject entirely.

Also, a bullet that completely penetrates a subject will give up a great deal of energy doing so. . . .

No law enforcement officer has lost his life because a bullet over penetrated his adversary, and virtually none have ever been sued for hitting an innocent bystander through an adversary. On the other hand, tragically large numbers of officers have been killed because their bullets did not penetrate deeply enough.

Oddly enough, couple days ago I read Massad Ayoobs column in the May 2008 issue of Combat Handguns. His column is on the danger of over-penetration by hardball ammo. I offer the following food for thought via some stats from his article:
- He quotes a NYT article:

"According to statistics released by the [NYP] department, 15 innocent people were struck by police officers using full metal jacket bullets during 1995 and 1996, the police said. Eight were hit directly, five were hit by bullets that had passed through other people and two were hit by bullets that had passed through objects," stated the Times.

- The Times continued,

"In that same period, 44 police officers were struck by gunfire using the old ammunition [FMJ]: 21 were hit directly, 2 were struck by bullets that ricocheted and 17 were struck by bullets that passed through other people."

- Quoting Ayoob:

"In Arizona some years ago, a peace officer fired his .45 service automatic a a large male offender rushing him with a knife. He couldn't see that brother officer was running up behind the offender to grab and restrain him. His gunfire dropped the offender...and passed through his body with enough force to deeply pierce the abdomen of the second cop...That wounded officer almost died from those injuries, inflicted unintentionally by a shoot-through with a 230-grain, full metal jacket .45 ACP.

As noted several times, scratch your itch however you want to. I am sticking with the 9mm Hi Power, even tho I have a .45 ACP 1911 on order, just for grins. I have looked at the XD and its higher capacity .45 cousins, and I really like them, but they bump up against another bugaboo of concealed carry -- they are just not as trim and sleek -- and concealable -- as my Hi Power. I do not have a house gun, a church gun, a truck gun, a gun for when I run to the store, another gun when I expect a full-scale attack by a street gang*; I have a Hi Power, and it goes EVERYWHERE with me, no matter what I am wearing. A 1911 would fit in the same space the Hi Power does, but with half the rounds. That doesn't scratch my itch.

elb

*I do have an SKS, but it is tough to find an IWB that works for it...