American Rifleman Article About Stopping Power

[WildBill]

I love my 1911 .45's. But the king of the hill is still the .357mag!

This is why, even though I love me some .45 ACP, I do not feel particularly underarmed with a 5 shot snubbie stoked with .357 magnum Critical Defense ammo.

Yep, I feel warm and fuzzy with my SP101 3" with 125gr Golden Sabers for short trips out and about in the rural areas.

Yep, and if you miss, the noise will scare the heck out of them.

If you miss, you'll still set their clothes on fire.

They do have a fireball!

[MoJo]

Those of you who haven't seen THIS VIDEO should view it before accepting any numbers on stopping power published in any gun magazine as gospel.

Of those 100 loads tested there were some historically high performing loads over looked and there were some historically poor performers made to look like the cat's pajama's. Do lots of research before settling on a particular load.

Some bullet designs are awesome in some calibers and not much better than FMJ in others. Gold Dot, HST, DPX and Golden Saber are, across the caliber spectrum, all top performers in actual street use. Some others are lacking in performance; a notable one is the Hydra Shock there isn't a better bullet for .45 ACP but, in 9mm and .38/357 the performance is lacking. Don't buy into the hype of Madison Avenue - - - "New is better." New is just new, until proven better.

[CC Italian]

I went back and read it again based on your 10mm statement. Their 10mm performance doesn't make sense. It's penetration has to be a misprint. The 40 with the same bullet did better with a much lower muzzle velocity!

Richard Mann is the same guy from Shooting Illustrated. Here is the actual test he did. http://www.shootingillustrated.com/inde ... osler-jhp/
All of these tests are on the shooting illustrated website. He just took the info and averaged it all up for you.

Double tap says it does 11inchs but I doubt it. I have shot that load in 10mm and it is all for show. The bullet is way to light for all that powder. It just fragments like crazy!

In fact TN outdoors on you tube just did some new 10mm tests if you want to check them out. After seeing his 180 grain Underwood gold dot test it makes me realize how few hp bullets stay together in 10mm unless they are heavier like the 200 nosler or xtp. I would have jacket separation from the 165 grain gold dot load from double tap with a 6inch barrel. I currently carry the Underwood 165 grain gold dot with the 6inch barrel and I think I am going to have to rethink that after seeing this with 180 grain gold dot and a factory barrel.

P.S. It is not uncommon for 10mm to penetrate less then .40S&W because all the extra velocity makes the bullet expand farther and sometimes too much. Check out this video to see what I mean.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl_n_miLfbY&feature=plcp

[2farnorth]

I went back and read it again based on your 10mm statement. Their 10mm performance doesn't make sense. It's penetration has to be a misprint. The 40 with the same bullet did better with a much lower muzzle velocity!

Richard Mann is the same guy from Shooting Illustrated. Here is the actual test he did. http://www.shootingillustrated.com/inde ... osler-jhp/

P.S. It is not uncommon for 10mm to penetrate less then .40S&W because all the extra velocity makes the bullet expand farther and sometimes too much. Check out this video to see what I mean.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl_n_miLfbY&feature=plcp

Thanks for the links. The specs in the article show 1.23 expansion on the 10, 1.35 on the 40. Maybe that was the biggest piece remaining of the 10 since none of the loads showed retained weight.

[philbo]

The highlighted portion is what I thought was "new". All of the articles that I have read in the past talk about caliber, kinetic energy, penetration, wound path, blood loss, tissue damgage, etc. I don't recall any of them talking about physical pain.

Maybe all the articles in the past assumed that physical pain was implied by penetration, wound path, blood loss, tissue damage, etc?

How did the writer determine how physical pain was to be measured? He couldn't, and after a rather lengthy discussion came back to using the same old standards that have been trotted out before... velocity, penetration & expansion with inflicted pain as a secondary goal that can't accurately be determined or relied upon. Still seems like the same old debate as before with more bullets fired into the selected medium and then those elements that can be measured get placed into a chart and compared. If it seemed to offer new insights for you, that's good I guess. At the very least it sells magazines.

Bottom line, when I've used a firearm in self defense I wasn't concerned if the other party was going to feel any pain... at most I hoped he'd stop feeling everything all together as quickly as possible so I could go home at the end of it all.

[WildBill]

The highlighted portion is what I thought was "new". All of the articles that I have read in the past talk about caliber, kinetic energy, penetration, wound path, blood loss, tissue damgage, etc. I don't recall any of them talking about physical pain.

Maybe all the articles in the past assumed that physical pain was implied by penetration, wound path, blood loss, tissue damage, etc?

How did the writer determine how physical pain was to be measured? He couldn't, and after a rather lengthy discussion came back to using the same old standards that have been trotted out before... velocity, penetration & expansion with inflicted pain as a secondary goal that can't accurately be determined or relied upon. Still seems like the same old debate as before with more bullets fired into the selected medium and then those elements that can be measured get placed into a chart and compared. If it seemed to offer new insights for you, that's good I guess. At the very least it sells magazines.

Bottom line, when I've used a firearm in self defense I wasn't concerned if the other party was going to feel any pain... at most I hoped he'd stop feeling everything all together as quickly as possible so I could go home at the end of it all.

I don't if other authors implied physical pain with penetration, blood loss, etc. That is why this particular statement caught my attention. I don't suppose the author could find many volunteers that he could shoot and then measure the pain.

That's the trouble with all articles about "stopping power". It's all rehashing the same information. That is one reason that I don't buy gun magazines. I can get it for free on the forum.

[SRH78]

I have always been surprised that this point hasn't been made more. Service cartridges are far less potent than many seem to believe. I don't know if it is too much tv or not enough time in the woods but most people don't seem to realize how overpowered handguns are when it comes to physically incapacitating a threat. I would expect that a large percentage of threats are stopped by pain and fear and incapacitated results afterwards.

My thoughts are to hope that bullets to the chest or, better yet, the mere sight of a muzzle cause the threat to retreat but to be prepared for them to be determined.

[stroo]

If you look at the studies by Lott, Kleck and others, handguns are used somewhere between 750,000 and 3 million times a year in self defence. In the vast majority of those cases, 80-95% depending on the study, the handgun is not even fired. Just showing the gun is enough to stop the BG.

In the remaining cases, just shooting, whether or not the BG is hit, stops almost all the rest of the BGs. That's the pain function this writer is talking about.

But there is a very small percentage of BG's, probably around 1% or less, who do not stop when shot, sometimes even multiple times. To defend against them, shot placement, a good defensive round, and shooting them to the ground are critical. Most of the stopping power studies you see in ballistic jell or otherwise are concerned with stopping this guy.

So if you can pick your bad guy, pick one of the 99% and your round won't matter much as long as you have a gun. But since it isn't really possible to pick your assailant, I generally carry a handgun and round that gives me a decent chance of stopping one of the 1%.