Ballistics tech has changed a lot since the early 1900s; but most of all, a "good-seeming rule of thumb" is weak second to lab testing and a poor, distant cousin to results on the street.
+1. Street results rule the game.
This is why ballistic testing of handgun cartridges is often reduced to simple things- like shooting a block of calibrated balgel with intermediate barriers in front of it. It's hard to dispute things like the distance traveled into the block, the expansion and retained weight of the bullet, etc. The thing people don't like about this is most handgun calibers end up in the same realm from 9mm through .45. .357 Sig and 10mm make "interesting" things happen to the test fixtures once in awhile, but 9, .40, and .45 are close enough for it to be somewhat of a wash. (Look at Terraformer's balgel pic above... ) There is a huge advantage with .357 Sig for intermediate barrier penetration, but that's another topic altogether, and isn't necessarily linked to wound ballistics. (EG, good bonded core .357 Sig punches through auto glass with minimal deviation in trajectory; other handgun calibers have "issues" with auto glass, especially windshields. )
I'll confess, I'm a .357 SIG guy, I like it a lot, aside from the price and ammo selection.
But look at the 1319 FPS 125 grain .357 SIG load in the picture terraformer posted:
But really, do you want to be shot with any of these rounds?
I remember I shot some DoubleTap .357 SIG 125 grainers over your chrono at the range out of my 3.5 inch Glock 33 barrel and they were doing 1325-1350 FPS! I want to know what kind of nuetered .357 SIG loading they were using for that round.
I have a theory. I think that most of the major manufacturers want all of their defense ammo to perform the same. Look at the Winchester website and their posted results...it's like they loaded everything to perform exactly the same. Why? My guess is to sell lots of every caliber.
If .380 properly loaded with a quality JHP blew every other caliber out of the water when it came to wound channels, barrier penetration, etc., everyone would want that new wonder cartridge. Yes I'm using hyperbole to illustrate my point.
But I think that a lot of gun owners forget that these companies are trying to market a product to a wide range of people. They want the 9mm guys, the .45 guys, the .38 guys to all use their brand. So what do they do? They level the playing field. They make 10mm recoil like a 9mm for recoil sensitive folks, and make 9mm as fast as a down-loaded .357 SIG to corner that market. Then they bundle it all up and market it to every PD and civilian gun owner as the best all around.
Maybe I'm crazy, but it's like Stalin said, "It doesn't matter how many people vote, what matters is who counts them."
I'd just like to know who's scoring these tests.
I'd rather know what trauma surgeons won't carry.
Awesome! Me too!
A shot to the head will usually put someone down (failure drill, or, for those who knew it from a while ago, the Mozambique Method). So, logic would dictate that to stop someone immediately, you would puncture their squash. 9, .40, .38, .357, .45-I think all these would do. Hell, even a .22 would, with a good shot.
Not quite true. A ton of people survive GSW's to the head, and are ambulatory for days afterwards.
We were actually encouraged to engage the pelvis in failure to stop drills.
Yep! Break them bones, and no matter how high they are they can't charge you.
"What the police use" is hardly relevant. Caliber selection by PDs is based on a variety of factors, terminal wound ballistics is only one of many factors.
BTW, the P11 is a 9mm.
Yeah, the money a department like NYPD saves using 9mm duty pistols over .40 is astounding when you consider that there's 35,000 or so officers. That's also why they use the cheapest frickin' OC on the market, not because of quality, but becuase of their price.
And think of the double-tap time w/ that 10mm kick?
I've shot full house 10mm loads out of a Glock 29, and they felt like 9mm out of a G17 to me. But like everything, YMMV.
The .45 acp however was designed because it would pick you up and throw you down, taking the fight out of the target, narcotics or not.
Not even remotely. I've seen video of point blank shots from 5 inch barreled .45 pistols that did nothing to the perp, and spoken firsthand to people who've shot people with the .45 that were unfazed. Unless you shoot a squirrel with it, nothing's picking you up and throwing you down. All handgun calibers are weak.
Then of course you do not want over penetration....
I do. If they're bleeding from two holes instead of one, they'll lose blood faster, which will be one more factor in taking them out of the fight.
The best reason to carry a particular gun or caliber!!
+1
In the infamous shoot-out with bank-robbers (armed with long-guns), the FBI had several agents killed and more wounded. They commissioned a study to find out what went wrong. The study determined that their marksmanship had been good, but the terminal ballistics of their rounds had been too slow to incapacitate the bad guys.
Look at how many rounds were fired vs. how many even hit the guys they were aiming at. It doesn't matter how good a caliber is if basic marksmanship isn't down pat.