Stopping power by round
15 Responses to “Stopping power by round”
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June 3rd, 2011 at 10:19 am
It looks like a .32 beats a .45 in average rounds to incapacitate!
June 3rd, 2011 at 10:28 am
Did some less scientific work, but let’s face it with handgun rounds there’s a lot of dumb luck involved over anything else.
http://www.weerdworld.com/2011/lets-talk-caliber-war/
June 3rd, 2011 at 10:45 am
Some of that was VERY enlightening.
“The .38spl probably has the slowest rate of fire (long double action revolver trigger pulls and stout recoil in small revolvers) and the fewest rounds fired to get an incapacitation (1.87). Conversely the 9mm can probably be fired fastest of the common calibers and it had the most rounds fired to get an incapacitation (2.45).
…
It could be that fewer rounds would have stopped the attacker (given enough time) but the ability to fire more quickly resulted in more hits being put onto the attacker. It may not have anything to do with the stopping power of the round.”
June 3rd, 2011 at 10:46 am
Those “street” figures include folks shot by the po-po, yet there is ZERO differentiating factor which takes experience into account.
Obviously, Ellifritz is a little too close to his work to have forgotten to factor in actual ability to fire a weapon at a human target in a combat situation.
So, the shootings involved with the small calibers are probably NOT police-predominant, whereas those with the “duty” calibers probably ARE predominantly police shootings.
I would say that the best use of Ellifritz’ collected data is to tell you to get to the range and practice at least as often as cops do. Any other derivations from that data are purely co-incidental, with experience factored out.
The best data out there is still ballistic-gel penetration tests and the old Navy “goat” data, both of which Massad Ayoob used when he wrote up the subject.
I trust Ayoob. I’m not sure I can trust someone who leaves the most important statistical factor out of his derivations.
Bottom line: carry something between .380 ACP and .45 ACP, practice heavily with it, work on your situational awareness ALL the time, even when not shooting on the range. Do that, and you’ll win that gunfight you have a very small chance of ever being involved in.
June 3rd, 2011 at 11:15 am
Um, he lumps all the .22’s together, as well as .357 magnum and .357 sig How is the sig in any way comparable to the magnum?
June 3rd, 2011 at 11:40 am
I have a 9 mm and a .45, but I always feel a little better with my .357 mag 7 rd. revolver. Carry wise, as I’ve heard someone else say, “it may not be comfortable, but it’s comforting.”
June 3rd, 2011 at 12:55 pm
“How is the sig in any way comparable to the magnum?”
The name…and well that one Magnum load that the sig kinda-sorta duplicates.
If anything they should lump .357 Sig with 9mm +P loadings because those two are very comparable.
June 3rd, 2011 at 1:59 pm
That matches when I’ve heard from people who’ve shot people a bit in the services.
Most of the time, if you shoot someone, they fall down and scream a lot – even if it’s a .22 rimfire or a .25 ACP.
Turns out being shot hurts a lot and damages stuff, especially if it’s in the torso or head (note the difference in average incapacitation; limb shots are about 1/6 of the time, head shots 3/4).
How big the “most” is depends on what you shot them with, but it’s still a “most” (or damned close to it).
Weer’d and Mr Evilwrench: Looking at ballistics tables for the two (the ones at Ballistics 101 were the ones that came up), they look a lot more similar than that, and .357 SIG looks more powerful than 9mm +P in the vast majority of loadings.
June 3rd, 2011 at 2:01 pm
It’s looking to me that the results from this particular study show us that Double Taps are the way to go, no matter the caliber. Interesting. I know Clint Smith (among others) teaches that one should shoot until the threat is stopped, but perhaps 2 shots is the “Magic Number”? Food for thought.
June 3rd, 2011 at 2:20 pm
I am not asserting that the wisdom is divine, but the CQB training in the US Army has moved to “stop shooting when the threat is eliminated”. An instructor that had the experience to know told our troops shoot until you achieve the WQ. When asked what WQ stood for, his answer was Wiggle Quotient. When your threat quits wiggling, you can attend to other things.
There is no magic caliber. But there are better choices of calibers and better bullets. The military is not in love with ball ammo. It is using ball ammo due to international treaties. As a previous commenter stated, training and experience of the shooter must be taken into account. Otherwise, who got shot with which caliber how many times is not really a good benchmark.
There are recorded hits on insurgents with .50cal ammo. Because of shot placement, the insurgents were able to flee. Most (if not all) bled out very soon after.
June 3rd, 2011 at 6:05 pm
What I took away from this is the same thing that Tom Givens said.
Shot placement
Shot placement
Shot placement
From those numbers, it seems that if you hit the right place, it matters little what you shoot it with.
June 3rd, 2011 at 6:39 pm
I recall a recent review of WW I handguns that (paraphrased) concluded the Nagant revolver, “Was probably sufficient for shooting kneeling prisoners in the back of their heads.”
Which situation would, of course, up the Nagant’s one shot incapacitation rate significantly.
So I agree with cargosquid on this one.
June 4th, 2011 at 1:01 am
.380 ACP
Average number of rounds until incapacitation- 1.76
One-shot-stop %- 44%
% actually incapacitated by one shot (torso or head hit)- 62%
.357 (both magnum and Sig)
Average number of rounds until incapacitation- 1.7
One-shot-stop %- 44%
% actually incapacitated by one shot (torso or head hit)- 61%
How can they be so similar?
June 4th, 2011 at 8:11 pm
The reason the smaller calibers do better is primarily control… Shot placement is nothing and caliber is nothing if you cannot control your weapon…. The easier to control a weapon the easier it is to get the shot placement you desire. Hence why the smaller calibers do better under real world versus power statistics….
Remember many shooters who do not practice a lot are given to flinching from the recoil they know is coming. Doing that totally spoils the shot placement. The larger the caliber the larger the flinch factor…
June 6th, 2011 at 4:22 pm
“It looks like a .32 beats a .45 in average rounds to incapacitate!”
Shots-until-incapacitation numbers are pretty heavily influenced by weapon capacity. A typical engagement has either one round fired or a lot with maybe a double tap in there somewhere. The upper limit of “a lot” is often defined by weapon capacity, especially for single stack autos and revolvers which force a reload between 5 and 7 rounds.
His data bears this out. All the revolver rounds have about 1.7 rounds fired. .32s and .380s are small too. Highest capacity? 9mm. Most rounds fired? 9mm. Followed by .40S&W, followed by .45 acp.