Hand guns and Wound Ballistics

[Vikram]

One often reads on hand gun calibre choice for self-defence on IFG. Of course it is a bit only for academic purposes but it is good to know about calibres and their effectiveness in a self-defence/combat situation.

It does make a bit of a gory reading about wounds etc,but it's quite handy to know.

In this link, you will find a wealth of information about various calibres,wound profile illustrations for handguns,rifles and shotguns of different calibres,various articles etc.

http://firearmstactical.com/wound.htm



Also attached to this post is the PDF article by the FBI Academy on Handgun calibres and effectiveness.

When you finish reading them,please come back and we can have some interesting discussion.

Best-
Vikram

[tingriman]

Thank You for a very good reading material Vikram. After reading this material, and similar stuff on the subject of wound ballistics, it sucks when we, in India, have no decent calibre choice. Ideally thinking, (my own belief) 9 mm P is minimum calibre, for effective self defense, although some say it is .380 ACP or worse .32 ACP. When it comes to stoping power and wound ballistics, most of the people don't trust handguns irrespective of their calibre (as read on various boards) as shots of the same calibre and make of ammunition sometimes yeild different results even under similar lab conditions. Thus making it quite difficult to access the extent of damage by a particular calibre under normal SD situation where the stress is an important factor to be considered. Under stressful situation, the Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action loop is affected; different people observe, orient and take different decisions depending upon different levels of stress. And remember, the targets are moving aggressively on you (no paper targets), every shot fired is different and has different wound impact, thus the net output: the data collected from So Called Actual Street Fights is also no good to draw a clear conclusion as to which calibre is perfect or better. In other words, the lab results and actual street results of performance of different cal. are mere the indicators not necessarly the exact information.

Anyhow, when it comes to effective stoping power of handguns, some people believe the theory of shot placement, some believe the power of higher calibre, some believe in deeper penetration plus bigger wound size, some believe in combination of all the above factors and still there are some, who believe that Handguns Don't Have Stopping Power.

And Still, Some (like us in India) Are Made To Believe, To Feel Well Armed With .32ACP


cheers

[jaz]

vikram this cut paste material regarding ballistics was good but the peice of information which I required is difference in ballistic of IOF .32 rev & IOF .32 pistol, Inputs from senior members required.

[timmy]

Vikram, you have provided access to quite a bit of information here. I am not done reviewing all the links, but I will confess that the FBI paper sent me scurrying to the Golden Loki site... I'm going to rethink my normal alternate mix of Cor Bon and ball ammo in the magazine of my .32 ACP. Also, I'm going to rethink my .38 Special loads, which have been 110 gr Sierra hollow points over a stout charge.

One statement in the FBI paper mystified me:

A review of law enforcement shootings clearly suggests that regardless of the number of rounds fired in a shooting, most of the time only one or two solid torso hits on the adversary can be expected.

I'm not sure what this means. Is the author saying that there is no need for large capacity magazines, such as comparing a 6 shot revolver with a 14 or 15 round magazine in a pistol? Or is the large capacity of such a pistol useful in getting the one or two hits? This statement is interesting and raises my curiosity, but it isn't very helpful!

Thanks for sharing this!

[tingriman]

I'm going to rethink my normal alternate mix of Cor Bon and ball ammo in the magazine of my .32 ACP. Also, I'm going to rethink my .38 Special loads, which have been 110 gr Sierra hollow points over a stout charge.

Dear timmy, I am also mixing Speer Gold Dot JHP and FMJ balls, that makes me to compromise in one way or the other; meaning that with SJHP i am compromising on penetration while with FMJ, the compromise is on wound impact/width. Apart from this, i am aware of the fact that this mix can (or maybe or the possibility is there) lead me to feeding and accuracy problem in real circumstances. Sometimes I feel, only FMJ is better choice, othertimes performance and ballistics results of Speer Gold Dot allure me. So what is good idea? I am also interested in your findings/logic /solution to the problem of mix of Car Bon and Ball ammu. Maybe many more like me can take benefit, if possible, please share your thoughts and findings in this regard.

cheers

[MoA]

Timmy I just think they are acknowledging the fact that most cops are crappy shooters.

Also in the US context I would only load 'factory manufactured' ammo, in order to limit the possible legal liabilities arising from your own 'overly lethal ammo loads' in the event you actually need to use the weapon, god forbid.

Jaz: One way to figure out the ballistics of IOF .32 would be to make a bucket of gelatin, and shoot into the blob from varying ranges. Would give you an idea. If you do a search for ballistic gelatin recipies you will find tons of them. It isnt difficult to make.

[Vikram]

Tim,

I think MOA is right.

vikram this cut paste material regarding ballistics was good but the peice of information which I required is difference in ballistic of IOF .32 rev & IOF .32 pistol, Inputs from senior members required.

Jaz,

The post is about wound ballistics and calibres. Not about ballistic differences of revolver and a pistol of the same calibre.

If you want to know about the IOF models, this may give you some idea.You can work it out roughly.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=b5b ... q=&f=false

If you can get hold of a Chrono and the handguns, you can do it yourself.


Best-
Vikram

[timmy]

He he! I would guess that the cops and their shooting is a little bit like a scene in the last John Wayne movie, The Shootist. In the movie, John Wayne's character takes a young man out to teach him how to shoot. They shoot at a tree. After each has shot, the young man notes that he shot more accurately than John Wayne's character did. To this, John Wayne notes that it is how one shoots when somebody is shooting back that counts.

I don't like the idea of people shooting at me very much.

[lazybones]

Timmy: I think the line in question acknowledges that the "spray and pray" school of marksmanship has branches everywhere now

Ashok