Interesting observation regarding caliber differences...

[tipoc]

There is nothing emotionally charged about this topic. Well aside from your insistance that it is.

tipoc

 

[JohnKSa]

This thread has been remarkably civil, and everyone participating deserves commendation for that.

But as the experience recounted in post #50 on this thread demonstrates, and as some other threads here and on other forums show, some people can definitely get quite emotional about it.

 

[Teuthis]

An excellent set of information that demonstrates any handgun caliber is about equal in overall lethality. Big wounds might bleed more, but deep wounds might too. It all evens out with handguns. I feel underarmed, but safer with any caliber handgun. Thanks!

 

[warrior poet]

At the Combat Marksmanship Coach's Course (MOS 0933), they stressed to us that REGARDLESS OF CALIBER, multiple rapid shots to the torso achieve the greatest effect. My experience in the USMC has shown this to be correct, so my personal philosophy (the one I pass on to those who ask me about firearms) is this: Use the most reliable, highest power handgun you can easily control for a follow up shot.
What works for me, a 5'11" / 195 lbs jarhead might not work so well for a 5'2" / 102 lbs single mom like my sister. I like my XD40, and shoot it well. She does not like it, and does not shoot well with it. But with her K frame .22, she does just fine- and has the targets to prove it.
What I mean is this: If you can't reliably control it, caliber won't matter. Five hits from a .38SPL stubbie stop an intruder better than 14 misses from a double stack .45ACP. I think that's JohnKSa's point.

 

[JohnKSa]

What works for me, a 5'11" / 195 lbs jarhead might not work so well for a 5'2" / 102 lbs single mom like my sister. I like my XD40, and shoot it well. She does not like it, and does not shoot well with it. But with her K frame .22, she does just fine- and has the targets to prove it.

An excellent example.

I've seen people buy and use guns that were miserable choices for them because someone convinced them (or they convinced themselves) that if they didn't use at least caliber X or did have at least gun Y it would be totally ineffective in a self-defense situation.

The result was that their shooting performance was equally miserable. They would have been far better served with a gun they could shoot better and that they were more likely to practice with.

Terminal performance isn't a non-issue, but it's important not to place more weight on it as a selection criterion than is warranted by a realistic perspective.

An excellent set of information that demonstrates any handgun caliber is about equal in overall lethality.

I look at handgun terminal performance as being divided in to general performance classes. Within a general performance class, terminal performance is more similar than it is different. But when you compare one performance class to another, or a caliber in one performance class to a caliber in another performance class then there are some significant terminal performance differences.

In other words, comparing one pocket pistol caliber to another pocket pistol caliber won't typically show practically significant differences in terminal performance, but if you compare a pocket pistol caliber to a service pistol caliber or a magnum/hunting pistol caliber then there are going to be some signficant terminal performance differences.

 

[Don P]

Which means, among other things, that a handgun bullet from any of the common self-defense calibers listed above will, on average, leave a human 99.9% intact.

The above quote should hopefully put the caliber war discussions to bed once and for all.

Thanks JohnKSa for the time involved to put all this together. Who would have thought the results would have been so close.

 

[ScottRiqui]

The above quote should hopefully put the caliber war discussions to bed once and for all.

I disagree. All John's done is taken a group of figures (wound volumes) that do differ significantly when compared to each other and trivialized those differences by comparing them all to a much larger and tangentially-related figure (the weight of an average man.)

It's like saying there's no significant price difference between a Hi-Point, a Glock and a Kimber, since their prices all round to the same number when expressed as a fraction of my annual income.

These kinds of calculations are mathematically true and correct, but any mathematical exercise designed to obscure differences in the data is automatically suspect in my mind.

John's calculations shouldn't be used to try to "end the caliber wars", because they don't show that all calibers are equally-effective at incapacitating a victim. All they show is that very little of the total mass of a man is disturbed by the impact of handgun bullets of any caliber.

It's a true fact, and if my aunt had testicles she'd be my uncle - so what's your point? While it's a curious little factoid, it doesn't really address any concerns or answer any questions.

 

[OldMarksman]

The above quote should hopefully put the caliber war discussions to bed once and for all.

Actually, since the above quote really doesn't mean a whole lot by itself, it has served primarily to start a very thoughtful discussion. which may or may not have proved useful to others depending upon their respective backgrounds and upon how much research they had already done.

 

[tipoc]

John,

The central point of criticism I and some others have raised against your "figures" is that the mathematical hocus pocus you felt compelled to resort to, because they are inaccurate and irrelevant, detract from the points you have been trying to make. Points, by the way, you refuse to acknowledge that you share with many of those criticizing your op.

You see John you have used shaky math to attempt to illustrate a well known and widely agreed on point, or series of points. The shaky math though undercuts the valid points that we make regarding caliber, handguns and bullet selection. The "math" and your formula are the equivalent of saying "Shiva and the Easter Bunny told me this is so". It is this that detracts from the valid points you make and this that is misleading.

Had you simply said..."A relatively small amount of tissue is actually damaged by bullet wounds" there would have been less fuss. The majority of your critics here have told you this and you refuse to see it. You are invested in your "formula" it appears.

There are several reasons that caliber is should enter into the choice of a firearm, and the fact that you have to ask me what they are, as if terminal performance is the only reasonable factor to consider, is a perfect illustration of one of the primary points I've been trying to make.

You insult me here John.

tipoc

 

[brabham78]

John, my background, much to my chagrin this time, causes me to fixate on your statistical method of making the argument, rather than the actual intent of your argument. When I said earlier that I could make numbers say anything I wanted them to say, I didn't mean that I'd make them lie by altering the data, and I'm not saying you did that either. Technically your numbers are factual. As to their relevance in this discussion? There is none, whether you want to admit it or not.

On the point you're trying to make with your post, regarding caliber vs shot placement? I'm in agreement with you. While I don't believe that caliber is irrelevant (I know you are not saying that either), I do think it ranks well behind shooting accuracy / shot placement. From what I've read, I think you're a knowledgeable enthusiast, and I think the other poster OldMarksman is too, and I've actually picked up a few good things from him on this thread. But after your posting of what must be a record setting number of individual quote/rebuttals, I think you need to consider the possibility that you may have missed the bulls-eye in regard to the way you used those statistics. I don't claim to be a firearms expert, but I have a career's-worth of experience with testing, data and statistics. And in my opinion, even though they were technically factual, your use of those statistics in this case was not effective, and it detracted from the point you were trying to make. A point which I'll remind you again that I agree with. As far as your characterization that this was an emotionally charged topic? The only thing I saw that was emotionally charged in this thread, was your reaction to the opinions of others members (even to the members that agree with your original intent).

And I must confess, the wise crack that a few guys made about "Butter knife - 0.1%" - it got a chuckle out of me.

Feel free to quote me on this.

 

[Sarge]

I don't think so. I did, for years, but I don't now.

What cleared it up for me was shooting deer with handguns, and deer are at least a similar mammal (weight, etc.) to humans for the purposes of handgun terminal effect. Another interesting similarity is that they will rarely allow you a picture-book pose for a shot. And finally, they are untainted by media, advertising expectations or 'conventional wisdom' about how they will react to being shot.

I won't try to change your mind but I can tell you this- if I had to feed ten people with venison, with only 50 rounds of handgun ammo for an undetermined period of time, I would far rather those 50 rounds were .45 ACP instead of 9mm.

 

[OldMarksman]

Posted by Sarge: I won't try to change your mind but I can tell you this- if I had to feed ten people with venison, with only 50 rounds of handgun ammo for an undetermined period of time, I would far rather those 50 rounds were .45 ACP instead of 9mm.

I've never heard anyone recommend a 9MM Parabellum over a .45 ACP for hunting big game.

The Army had a choice between the .45 and the 9MM for cavalry use, where ability to disable the horse was of paramount consideration, and after testing both on steers, they eliminated the 9MM from consideration.

Elmer Keith hunted a lot of game with revolvers, and he recommended big bores.

I'm not sure what "weight" to put on the similarity of the body weights of deer and humans, but I will put a lot of weight on one big difference between hunting and self defense: in hunting, if the game keeps going for fifteen yards, or twenty five, or ninety, so be it; if an attacking criminal remains able to function for an equivalent amount of time, that can be a bad thing--very bad.

So--to stop the criminal effectively, you need (1) adequate (but not excessive) penetration, and (2) to hit something vital. Unless one wants to rely entirely on luck, the latter dictates putting multiple shots on target quickly, requiring that muzzle jump be slight and that capacity be adequate. Those requirements also come into play when there is a second or third attacker.

Given adequate penetration and a hit on something important, the bigger bullet is always somewhat better. However, it works to some extent against the second an subsequent shots and against capacity. Not only that, but because one load is more effective than another on large game does not mean that it will have any meaningful advantage at all in self defense.

I bought my .45 in June of last year after not having fired one for more than four decades. I made the decision for a number of reasons, but frankly, I had not done a lot of research, and legend, folklore, and commonly held misconceptions certainly influenced the choice.

Most of those have been objectively challenged if not debunked by people who have done a lot of testing. Most qualified sources seem to have concluded objectively that with proper loads there is little, if any, real advantage in the .45 over the 9MM in terms of terminal performance on humans. By the way, that came as a real shock to me, and for a long time I was not inclined to accept it. I am old.

The FBI dropped the 9MM after a well publicized shoot-out, but it was later determined that the criticisms of the cartridge were unfounded. The FBI and many police forces have gone from the 9MM to the .40 S&W. Some Federal agencies use the .357 SIG. However, it is important to realize that the duties of sworn officers impose some requirements on their tools that civilians do not have. Try shooting someone obliquely through plate glass and see how far your defense of justification gets you. A sworn officer, on the other hand, may well have to do that.

The old school in me dies hard, and while I now accept rather reluctantly that for shooting people (god forbid), one cannot objectively substantiate that the 9MM Parabellum is not adequate, I'm still not sure about the .380 ACP even though Bill Hickock swore by something in the same power class. Patrick Sweeney's comment that the Army might well have adopted the .38 Super Automatic in lieu of the .45 had the new Super .38 been available at the time also raised my old eyebrows.

If I were to hunt game of any size with a handgun, I would go with .44 or maybe a .41. But--I remember a lot of people denigrating the even more powerful .30 WCF for deer hunting. And that brings up something else, mentioned, by the way, in the FBI report to which I referred previously: most knowledgeable people consider the handgun to be a last ditch defensive weapon. People who don't have probably been watching too much television. The rifle is simply a lot more effective.

Of course, you can't have a rifle with you all the time.

 

[JohnKSa]

John's calculations shouldn't be used to try to "end the caliber wars", because they don't show that all calibers are equally-effective at incapacitating a victim.

If we ignore the "all calibers" which is clearly way off base since I only listed a handful of calibers in the calculations, then you are correct.

The numbers don't show that the listed calibers are equally effective. It would be closer to the truth (but still not fully accurate) to say that they show that the listed calibers are equally INeffective.

All they show is that very little of the total mass of a man is disturbed by the impact of handgun bullets of any caliber.

That is, indeed, the main point that folks should take away from this thread.

While it's a curious little factoid, it doesn't really address any concerns or answer any questions.

I think some people will find that it answers some questions and addresses some of their concerns.

For example, if a person is agonizing over the caliber selection of a self-defense handgun while laboring under the misapprehension that terminal performance differences are likely to be the deciding factor in whether he will be able to safely defend himself and his family then the original post will help address that concern.

The central point of criticism I and some others have raised against your "figures" is that the mathematical hocus pocus you felt compelled to resort to, because they are inaccurate and irrelevant...

The mathematics and the figures are accurate and it is not correct to refer to the calculations as "hocus-pocus".

There is nothing inaccurate in the way I did the calculations or in the way I described the process or presented the results. I haven't hidden anything nor have I engaged in anything that could be accurately characterized as "hocus-pocus".

The math is very simple and calling it "shaky" is simply not accurate. It's all very straightforward.

You insult me here John.

Not at all. I've seen enough of these discussions to know that sooner or later someone would ask the question you did and for the reason you did.

It's very common for us to get so fixated on terminal performance that other factors that are actually as important or more important get ignored.

As to their relevance in this discussion? There is none, whether you want to admit it or not.

Explain to me how viewing damage figures as a percentage of the whole item being damaged creates an irrelevant statistic/figure.

I don't claim to be a firearms expert, but I have a career's-worth of experience with testing, data and statistics. And in my opinion, even though they were technically factual, your use of those statistics in this case was not effective, and it detracted from the point you were trying to make.

You keep bringing up your career in testing, data and statistics but then rather than pointing out a technical problem you just finish up by stating an opinion. Rather than just making this about opinions, what's the technical problem that you keep implying exists?

You have my permission to use big words.

I've only got around 25 years of engineering background against your career's worth of experience so I may get lost, but I saved a lot of my old textbooks and I can look things up in them or on the internet or even ask the smart guys who work in the lab with me if that's not enough.

I can tell you this- if I had to feed ten people with venison, with only 50 rounds of handgun ammo for an undetermined period of time, I would far rather those 50 rounds were .45 ACP instead of 9mm.

Ok, now that's some experience I would like to delve into deeper. It's sort of rare to find folks who have shot game animals with various common self-defense calibers and can provide comparisons.

How many deer have you shot with 9mm?
How many with .45ACP?
What sort of differences in terminal effect did you see when shooting deer with 9mm vs. .45ACP?

 

[ScottRiqui]

Your math is correct - no one is arguing that. You're just pointing out an obvious, trivial truth (that wound volumes are small compared to the total mass of a man) while minimizing the differences in wound volumes from various calibers that *are* significant if you compare them to one another.

Imagine this. You're a construction engineer, specifically the man in charge of blasting tunnels through mountains for highway projects. You evaluate five different blasting agents by setting off a "standard" charge of each and seeing how much rock is displaced by the blast. You test the five explosives ('A' through 'E') and find that they displace 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14 tons of rock, respectively.

So far so good. But then you go on to divide each of those numbers by the total mass of the mountain and conclude that all of the displacements equal approximately 0.00001% of the mountain's total mass.

What exactly is the point of that second calculation? It does nothing to illuminate the differences between the five explosives (which is undeniably significant). Rather, it mathematically trivializes those differences by comparing them to the total mass of the mountain.

The only thing the second calculation adds to our knowledge is the trivial, obvious fact that in order to blast a tunnel through a mountain, you don't need to destroy a large percentage of the mountain.

 

[JohnKSa]

The problem with your example is that you're not trying to affect the entire mountain with the blasting. You're only trying to make a tunnel through it. Looking at the damage in terms of the whole mountain doesn't make sense because you don't care about the whole mountain.

In the case of shooting an attacker, what you REALLY want is for the attacker to stop attacking. You want to incapacitate the entire attacker, not just 3 or 4 ounces of him. So what really matters IS the whole attacker and therefore it makes perfect sense to look at the damage you can do to the attacker in terms of the whole.

 

[ScottRiqui]

Here's a link to some FBI wound volume measurements (I don't know if they're the same ones you used.)

If you look at the average wound volume (combined bare gelatin and clothed), you'll see that the volumes for the tested rounds vary from 1.79 cubic inches to 6.79 cubic inches.

The largest volume is almost three times larger than the smallest volume, but that information is completely lost when you apply your second calculation (mathematically-correct though it may be.)

 

[JohnKSa]

The figures used were average wound volume measurements for each of the calibers listed. I made that clear in the initial post and made it even clearer in post #46.

I averaged all the estimated wound volume figures for each caliber providing an average estimated wound volume figure for each caliber.

 

[warrior poet]

I think the "it is poor math" group (and please correct me if I am wrong) is stating the the "relative weight" of various projectiles is misleading b/c of the differences in kinetic energy. For example: While my fist weighs a much higher percentage of my total weight than your .45ACP 200 gr +P JHP, I can swallow my pride and admit that the bullet is probably going to hurt more when it hits you.

However, "math guys" your JHP hitting the wall next to me does nothing, and I'd bet that after almost 30 years of martial arts, my punch will drop you.

This is JohnSKa's point (and I hope he'll correct me if I'm wrong). Hitting the target reliably is of OCEANS more importance than what bullet you use.

As a passing note, always remember: Bullet are cheap, life is expensive.

 

[ScottRiqui]

n the case of shooting an attacker, what you REALLY want is for the attacker to stop attacking. You want to incapacitate the entire attacker, not just 3 or 4 ounces of him. So what really matters IS the whole attacker and therefore it makes perfect sense to look at the damage you can do to the attacker in terms of the whole.

Just as you don't need to destroy much of a mountain to blast a tunnel throgh it, you don't need to destroy much of man's tissue to incapacitate him. But dividing the volumes by the total volume of a man (or the amount of rock displace by the total mass of the mountain) obscures the significant differences between the various calibers/loads (or explosive agents)

When you're trying to incapacitate an attacker, the fact that you're not damaging *all* of the tissue in their arms and legs isn't relevant. The weight contained in the arms and legs adds to the total mass of the man, but doesn't really affect the efficacy of gunshot wounds (torso wounds, at least.)

Do you deny that your mathematical process completely obscures the variance of almost 300% in the FBI's wound volume measurements?

Your exercise drives home the trivial point that you don't have to damage very much of a man's tissue to incapacitate him, but it ignores (and even hides) the large relative differences in the amount of tissue damaged by various loadings/calibers.

 

[ScottRiqui]

The figures used were average wound volume measurements for each of the calibers listed. I made that clear in the initial post and made it even clearer in post #46.

But nowhere in your initial post (or in post #46 that I could see) did you actually STATE those volumes (or even link to them). You just stated that you used the volumes and when you divided by the total volume of a man they were all the same to one significant figure. That's what I meant about the actual information regarding the wound volumes being hidden by your calculations.