Interesting observation regarding caliber differences...

[Nnobby45]

Hydrostatic shock, temporoary wound cavity, etc. are BS. The only wounding factor from a bullet is the tissue it contacts and destroys directly.

Another one of those fellows who denies the existence of a factor because it's hard to measure.

In rifle ballistics, the temporary cavity stretches tissue beyond it's ability to recover and tears blood vessels. It's possibly the most important factor in incapacitation where rifles are concerned. If it didn't exist, the diameter of the bullet would be less than most pistol calibers, and the actual tissue destroyed would make the round no more effective than pistol rounds.


However, when we talk about pistols, the stretch cavity is not reliable with re: to incapacitation. We all know that. But to say rifle stretch cavities produce a high level of incapacitation and pistols produce zero is a little silly. Some people are incapacitated instantly without damage to the CS or blood pressure. What's the factor that produced that?

And don't say wimp factor or psychological surrender, since some who have been so instantly incapacitated were not wimps--- as demonstrated by Chuck Karwan. Some punches to the body of experienced marshal artists did the trick. Right now. Some did not.

Summary: There are factors at work we don't understand, and we can't measure them. A little silly to deny their existence. Also silly to suggest that pistol rounds can RELIABLY incapacitate without major damage to CS or hemastasis.

Oh, one more thing to get back on track:

Even with my mathematical deficiencies (I struggled through Algebra) I can figure out that a .45 ACP bullet with twice the surface area of a 9mm has a better chance of hitting a major blood vessel.

OK, IF the 9mm hit the same place and ruptured the same vessel, then the results would likely be the same. Gotta give ya that. LOL.

But to measure the amount of "body area left in tact"--- ok, you got me laughing again.

 

[.357SIG]

Nnobby45, first, I will say some of your info may have merit in different applications. Now that I say that, lets discuss this in proper context:

Another one of those fellows who denies the existence of a factor because it's hard to measure.

No, I acknowledge it when it is meaningful, but this is not the case for the scope of this argument. The scope of this argument is common self-defense pistol and revolver calibers.

9mm through .45 have similar possible wound cavities. I say 'possible' because the gelatin tests are about as far from simulating a human body as shooting into a pitcher of lemonade. The fact is we aren't comparing .22 Short from a revolver to .50 BMG out of a 4' long rifle here.

Some people are incapacitated instantly without damage to the CS or blood pressure. What's the factor that produced that?

Yes, and it's unpredictable at best. See my very last paragraph. Everyone's built differently. Some are stronger in areas of the body (or overall) than others, but the shock wave of your .40 isn't stopping them, otherwise a shot to a decent-size blood vessel in the shoulder or side would do it, right?

Even with my mathematical deficiencies (I struggled through Algebra) I can figure out that a .45 ACP bullet with twice the surface area of a 9mm has a better chance of hitting a major blood vessel.

Basically, you have .05" of available area on any side to hit any given tissue over the 9mm, and .025" over the .40. Surface area may be increased, but you aren't using the full ~1.6x surface area difference to knick an organ or vessel, which likely isn't going to stop a fight anyway. Five hundredths of one inch is not going to mean the difference in total destruction of an organ vs. leaving it completely untouched in more cases than not. I'd say the detriment of higher recoil and lower round count FAR outweighs the benefit.

I assume you meant blood loss, not hemostasis, which is a clotting process. Blood loss between equal hits of a .35 cal or .45 cal bullet are negligible at best. Your body contains about 5L of blood at any given time. The body has a complex network of vessels that would take forever to drain to a point it would help you without a hit to a major blood transport/storage area, it's not going to happen faster due to a .1" difference in hole diameter. Though there is no correlation of the following experiment to effects on a living being, you can even test this to an extent on two 2.5 gallon bottles of water to simplify it. Poke one with a 3/8" drill bit, and the other with a 1/2" bit. You can even pressurize it to ~2 PSI to simulate blood pressure. Now, tell me how significant the difference is for water loss over time. Then, consider the differences between a cleanly drilled hole in a bottle and a hole in an elastic blood vessel that has a small fraction of the amount of liquid in it.

My issue is the ability to stop the fight, not what can kill over the course of minutes, hours, or days. To stop a fight, shot placement is really it. All this physics stuff is real, I don't deny the laws of physics, but they do not play a part of any significance when it comes to stopping a person in this argument...sorry. Reason being is there is MUCH more than enough energy, etc. out of a 9mm/.38 to kill any organ in any human body. Adding 50 ft/lb and .1" isn't going to do much else.

Don't forget the huge differences in responses between people. Some people can take dozens of rounds COM and still stand, while others are dropped with a single .22lr round to the chest. That throws another huge wrench in the works that damn near brings theoretical testing to a halt.

 

[warrior poet]

I've been doing a lot of thinking and running a lot of basic physics on this issue.

First, I'm not a scientist, I'm a U.S. Marine. I was an engineering major at PSU before my first wife died (Don't ask, please.) and I ended up as a very angry young man in the perfect place for an angry young man... Parris Island.

I've seen a lot of people talking about the 'size of the wound,' the 'energy of the bullet,' the 'percentage of the tissue damaged or destroyed,' and I think we're all dancing around the same issue.

Here's my two slugs o' copper; feel free to run it through your brain housing group and draw your own conclusion.

Here's hitting the terms and the problems with them:

Lb-ft of energy: Very misleading, as all total energy figures will be. If a 50000 lb force is applied for a tenth of a second (like being hit by a car) or a 10 lb force is applied for 500 seconds (like walking against the wind) the total energy is the same. Which hurts more?

Permanent and temporary wound cavity: (or % tissue destroyed) is also misleading because it has no accounting for WHAT tissue is hit, and often varies greatly depending on common everyday variables (like clothing, angle of impact, et cetera.)

I'm stating again... I'm no scientist BUT... Here's my conclusion:

The RATE of energy transfer is far more important than total energy. This is why hollowpoints (which "slow down" in the body much faster... and hence "dump their energy" faster) do more damage.
Hollowpoints are NOT perfect. They can be filled with clothing, and can get radically diverted by impact angle.

To overcome their possible failures, send more than one. Statistically, multiple rapid shots to roughly the same area (acontrolled pair or hammer pair) have a much greater incapacation effect than ANY single shot. Still hollowpoints may not be ideal for your situation.

The 'ideal' bullet would do the following: Stay a true path regardless of impact angle (ball rounds are better than hollowpoints at this), dump all their energy within the BG (hollowpoints are better at this), not overpenetrate and waste energy, and have sufficient structural energy to not 'frag' apart if a shot must be made through tempered glass (auto glass)- especially at an angle, like a windshield.

Call me crazy, but don't SWCs do all this stuff pretty well? They penetrate and hold up well at angles like a ball round- not quite as good, but close. They expand in "soft tissue" like a hollowpoint- not as good, but much better than ball rounds. AND... they aren't maligned by the media like some hollowpoints (Black Talons anyone??) are.

So load up a revolver you can easily control (for that hammer or controlled pair) with SWCs and send two (or three) shots at Mister BAD GUY- preferrably somewhere around 'center mass'

Bullets are cheap. Your life is priceless. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting more than once.