real world question

[hillbillychia]

hello everybody, i dont mean this to sound ghoulish or sick or anything, but is there a site somewhere where i can see actual testimonials or reports of actual cases where a person had to use a 9mm with sd ammo (maybe speer gold dots or federal hydro-shoks, just whatever) and they tell you what the outcome is, the bg took one centermass and bit the dirt,walked through it, whatever. i have all the respect in the world for the people that do the gelatin tests and all that, but can they really tell you what happens on the street and in your home when tha critical moment happens? i just want to know if im wasting my time or risking my life and my families on a 9mm or if i should upgrade to maybe a 45 and save the9 for the range. thanks for any answers i receive.

[fredj338]

Not really. Your best bet is to get a copy of the Marshall & Sanow books; Stopping Power. Their mthods of collectin data have come under fire but the stories are ture life reports taken from actual shootings. It's informative reading. You can take or leave the statistical results.

Amazon.com: Stopping Power: A Practical Analysis of the Latest Handgun Ammunition (9781581601282): Evan Marshall, Edwin J. Sanow, EVAN P. MARSHALL: Books

Amazon.com: Stopping Power: A Practical Analysis of the Latest Handgun Ammunition (9781581601282): Evan Marshall, Edwin J. Sanow, EVAN P. MARSHALL: Books

Amazon.com: Street Stoppers: The Latest Handgun Stopping Power Street Results (9780873648721): Evan Marshall, Edwin J. Sanow: Books

Amazon.com: Street Stoppers: The Latest Handgun Stopping Power Street Results (9780873648721): Evan Marshall, Edwin J. Sanow: Books

[Cuda66]

Long story short: As long as you have a full-powered caliber--9mm, .40, .45, etc...they all perform pretty much the same--assuming you do your part and put those rounds on target. Real life testimonials and all that fun crap really don't matter too much, since every situation is different. And I respectfully disagree with the M&S study, as their data was, at best, questionable.

Get a premium, modern JHP design that's been proven to meet the FBI penetration criteria, that feeds well in your chosen pistol, and shoots with what you deem acceptible accuracy and control. If you find that a .45 works better for you, step on up to it. There's no argument that--all things being equal--a .45 makes a bigger hole than a 9mm, and bigger holes in such a situation are better than smaller holes.

Personally, I use both 9mm and .45's as carry/HD pistols. I am confident in either one of them to get the job done as long as I can put rounds on target...and I practice plenty to maximize my chances.

[Blitzkrieg45]

I too have heard stories, locally in fact, of an assailant taking 13 rounds of 9mm to the torso and suffering from mere flesh wounds. As the story goes, he was fairly well armored wearing a heavy leather jacket. If the police had been using a larger caliber, I doubt that this would have happened. I know nothing of the truth to this, and I doubt highly a leather coat would stop or slow down a round enough to eliminate lethality, even the 9mm. I know that the 40s&w round and the 45acp are very powerful in comparison and I own several 45's and have shot many 40's to personally attest to this. I wouldn't discount the 9mm as too weak for personal defense, I just choose the 45 because I know for a fact that it is a tried and true manstopper. As with all calibers, shot placement is the most critical factor in any assault/defense situation.

[gumper]

Originally Posted by Blitzkrieg45

I too have heard stories, locally in fact, of an assailant taking 13 rounds of 9mm to the torso and suffering from mere flesh wounds. As the story goes, he was fairly well armored wearing a heavy leather jacket...

The 9mm round tends to penetrate better than a larger caliber round, although the shock at impact is considerably less. For fun, try shooting some phone books with a 9mm FMJ and then a larger caliber round like a .40 or a .45. The smaller rounds tend to go deeper. YMMV.

[hillbillychia]

thanks again, thats why i joined this forum, good people giving good advice. i am really going to step up my practice and try to find some advanced training to go through. i guess its sort of like with deer hunting, a 223 through the boiler is better than blowing its leg off with 300.

[agalindo]

The Marshall and Sanow data is not only flawed but the information in the "real world" stories is inaccurate and has been altered to support their flawed data. Several of the LEOS quoted by M&S have come forward to state that what M&S wrote about a shooting incident was incorrect. I wouldn't trust anything from that book.

Bullets don't act the same every time, for example a COM hit by one bullet might penetrate the heart while the identical hit with the same type bullet on another target might push the heart aside as it traverses the body. There are no magical tables or spreadsheets that will tell you X bullet will bring down a bad guy in X seconds.

There is no X bullet taken COM will produce a 100% stop. There are too many variable involved to get that kind of data.

Here's what Doctor Gary Roberts says about ammo testing. It's not just gel but actual shooting incidents, autopsies etc.. that are done.

I am sorry you are so confused. A variety of equally important methodologies are used for terminal performance testing, including actual shooting incident reconstruction, forensic evidence analysis, and post-mortem data and/or surgical findings; properly conducted ethical animal test results; and laboratory testing—this includes the use of tissue simulants proven to have correlation with living tissue. Some individuals seem to be under the mistaken impression that one of these areas is more important than others--this is not the case, as each category provides important information to researchers.
The last several years of OCONUS GWOT operations have provided a tremendous amount of combat derived terminal performance information. The U.S. government gathered numerous experts from a variety of disciplines, including military and law enforcement end-users, trauma surgeons, aero ballisticians, weapon and munitions engineers, and other scientific specialists to form the Joint Service Wound Ballistic Integrated Product Team to conduct a 4 year, 6 million dollar study to determine what terminal performance assessment best reflected the actual findings noted in combat the past few years. The test protocol that was found to be correct, valid, and became the agreed upon JSWB-IPT “standard” evolved from the one first developed by Dr. Fackler at LAIR in the 1980’s, promoted by the IWBA in the 1990’s, and used by most reputable wound ballistic researchers.

The JSWB-IPT, FBI BRF, AFTE, and other organizations get to assess an extensive amount of post-shooting forensic data. The whole raison d'être of these independent, non-profit organizations is to interpret and disseminate information that will help LE and military personnel more safely and effectively perform their duties and missions. Physiological damage potential is the only metric that has been shown to have any correlation with field results in actual shooting incidents, based on law enforcement autopsy findings, as well as historical and ongoing combat trauma results. Again, I am sorry if these ongoing efforts in the support of U.S. military and LE personnel are confusing to you, however, they have been proven to work in the real world...

[Cuda66]

Originally Posted by gumper

The 9mm round tends to penetrate better than a larger caliber round, although the shock at impact is considerably less. For fun, try shooting some phone books with a 9mm FMJ and then a larger caliber round like a .40 or a .45. The smaller rounds tend to go deeper. YMMV.

Do you carry FMJ for SD? I sure don't.

Try it with premium JHP's sometime and see how little difference there really is.

[agalindo]

Originally Posted by gumper

The 9mm round tends to penetrate better than a larger caliber round, although the shock at impact is considerably less. For fun, try shooting some phone books with a 9mm FMJ and then a larger caliber round like a .40 or a .45. The smaller rounds tend to go deeper. YMMV.

The "Shock of impact" does not wound or stop an assailant. The two things that stops them is blood loss, or a Central Nervous System Hit.

[SpicyMcHaggis1812]

Originally Posted by agalindo

The "Shock of impact" does not wound or stop an assailant. The two things that stops them is blood loss, or a Central Nervous System Hit.

+1 on that! I hear people talk all the time of Hydrostatic Shock, or a fatal "energy dump" into the target. This is total bunk. If that was the case body armor would be totally useless because it functions to absorb the energy of the round. If you are intrested try this article...
Terminal Ballistics

the author is an engineer who designs anti armor munitions. Warning though it is really long and has a ton of technical info in it so it can seem like a physics lecture at some points. Great info though.