Hey you have your opinion and I have mine!

Joel, please accept my apology for the worshiping at the altar of DM. Anyways, my premise is that the vast majority of instructors or trainers are just out there riding the coat tails of the the law, to make a quick buck.

Stopping power involves way too many variables, and I will take rounds on target vs some majic bullet or super duper caliber.

In order to get rounds on target the person has to be able to shoot the gun! If that means shooting 9mm or 38 special rounds I say bravo! HP bullets do fail to expand, so they become in essence a RN bullet.


I order to terminate aggression, you need to cause damage to the pump, damage the large vasculature, or cut the motor.

Ignorance is no excuse for breaking the laws of physics!

If you want to physically knock down the bad guy, you'll need to shoot a cannon at him.

The reality is that no handgun round is going to apply more force to the bullet than it does to the hand holding the gun -- that's just basic physics.

Handgun bullets stop a bad guy in one or more of several ways:

1) He stops at the sight of a gun
2) He stops at the sound of the gun
3) When shot, he is conditioned to give up or decides to make a career reevaluation
4) His central nervous system is taken offline by a direct hit to the brain or spinal cord
5) His circulatory system shuts down due to blood loss or heart damage
6) His respiratory system shuts down because of damaged or fluid-filled lungs
7) His skeletal system fails with a shot to the pelvis or a major leg bone

I think that's about it.

Okay, let's try this again: are you deliberately trying to irritate me, or is it accidental? Have you never apologized before in your life, or just not learned to do it acceptably?

I don't at all mind you disagreeing with me; I do mind you repeatedly -- and either willfully or recklessly -- mischaracterizing what I've written and said, and I'd very much appreciate it if it stops right about now.

There's plenty of other forums where you can do that if you want to, and where you can, if you'd like, make all sorts of accusations against a late friend of mine.

This isn't one of those.

I'd really dislike banning you. You bring an interesting viewpoint here, and while I disagree with much of it, that's fine. But you really must stop mischaracterizing what I'm saying, and taking slams at a late friend of mine. And that doesn't mean you get to do it with other people, as a substitute.

signed,

The Management

I did a little math: a 124-grain 9mm +P bullet at 1155 fps packs about the same punch as a regulation baseball at 45 mph.

A 230-grain .45 +P at 950 fps packs about the same punch as a regulation baseball at 60 mph.

While either baseball would smart, neither would knock over our hypothetical 300-pound crackhead.

(Yes, there are other issues like expansion and energy dump and penetration and all that, but you get the idea.)

Newton's laws are only repealed on dramatic television. Knockdown power? Nah. In fact, Mark Koscielski was recently, through moderately bad luck, within 8 feet of a perp shot by cops -- two shotgun blasts to the chest -- who collapsed, sure, (not "knocked off his feet", but collapsed) and was able to get up, only to be shot again, four times, by another cop with a .45. (My own theory is that the final four shots were, in practice, just decoration -- not unreasonable to do under the circumstances, but probably didn't make any difference.)

Bartleby: IMHO your doing very good on the shooting side of self defence. If you shoot that much year round your using around 6000 rounds of ammo a year.

Or another way to look at it, you shoot more in a month than almost any LEO would in a year.

I think your on A correct path.

Only thing I would suggest is some training & practice on empty hand techniques, because in the real world bad guy often gets to start things and it is usually really close when it starts. Empty hand skills can buy you the time to get gun into action, they are also a great way to drill your body into moving when attacked. Something that is hard to do safely on a gun range.

Well, that gives me a lot to think about ... haven't seen these kind of comparisons in previous weight VS velocity discussions. Jeff Cooper always used to say that the perp "going down" was more due to "wimp factor" than anything else ... you used the word "conditioning" for this. I'd hope that the extra energy ... due to weight or velocity or whatever would make it harder to "stay up" upon being hit but would have to agree that neither of your baseballs would put me down and I'm a long way from 300 lbs. Well ... I'll abandon the 'notion.

I've not taken physics for longer than I care to admit, but isn't it true that any gun delivering enough of a blow to knock somone down from the force of the bullet alone would also push back on the shooter with the same knockdown force?
It's not so much knock down in that sense, but as said earlier, you go down due to shock, blood loss, or.........

Well, as a nurse in the ER, I have seen gunshot wounds. I have seen people shot with a .45 and live, and I have seen people shot with a .25 and die. The sum of my personal experiences as an RN is that, like real-estate, location is the key as long as there is adequate penetration to hit the vital organs or spinal colum.

In the marines I saw people shot up close. I was personally not too impressed by hits with a .223 across a room in a bunker unless the brain or spine was hit. My personal experience in the corps leads me to believe that ANY easily carried and concealed handgun is going to prove to be woefully inadaquate in terms of raw "stopping power" unless, as stated above, you actually hit the brain or spine. If you know you're going to get into a gunfight, bring a rifle and at least a fire-team of friends with rifles.

My conclusion: carry what you can shoot well enough to hit the brain, spine, or vital organs with. Actually, I am not a fan of trying to hit the brain, as it is small and likely to be moving, but you get the point.

goalie: I had a ME from Minneapolis in a forensic class with me in college (he was taking the class, part of on going ed) and talked to him about failure to stops with a gun and what he would suggest head, pelvis, or what.

He said just keep shooting them in the chest so many vital things there.

I agree about hunting giving you an idea about what happens when a living creature is shot. The results can vary wildly, and more often than not they don't obey the laws of physics. I've seen deer shot through the hearts that have ran .25 miles then drop dead, and I've seen gutshot deer collapse on the spot. I've seen a .223 pass straight through a raccoon and the raccoon ran away. Sure, it most likely ran off and died somewhere, but the point is that we didn't get its hide to sell. I've never seen a raccoon get away after being shot with a .45 ACP.

I'm not sure what this says about stopping power, but for slowing-down power, the big, slow round seems like it might be a bit better than a smaller, faster round. Humans seem to be a bit softer and weaker than most animals. Put a big enough hole through the main artery of a human being, he's probably going to make it five steps before collapsing. Put a big hole through his stomach or lung, chances are he's not going to have enough wind to get very far. I think several good hollow points in most common calibers placed in the center of mass should at least slow the bad guy down enough to give you an edge over him.

How many raccoons have you seen shot with a .223? How many with a .45? Where was the coon shot with each?

Me, I've seen someone shot in the head with a .45 and live, and I've seen someone shot in the head with a .22 and die. It sure doesn't mean that I would rather have a .22 than a .45, it just means that the .45 is not some magic talisman that, delivered like a little bundle of American pride to a target, will drop said target instantly.

I've seen one raccoon shot with a .223, and maybe half a dozen shot with a .45, for whatever that is worth. When we used to hunt them for their hides, my cousin carried a 1911 and sometimes used that to shoot them out of trees. If we could reach them, we'd sometimes just beat them to death with a baseball bat to avoid putting holes in the hide. Some guys used .22s, but that was a pretty unreliable method. I've emptied entire 16-round magazines from 10-22s into raccoons and skunks and still had them get away. If I'd have had a 9mm at the time, I would have used that, but this was the 1970s and where I grew up 9mms weren't that common.

When we weren't shooting varmints for their hides I'd go for maximum overkill. My gun of choice was my Model 99 Savage in .300 Savage caliber. We didn't get our dogs rabies shots back then--the idea of taking a dog to a vet was completely foriegn in that world--so I shot any critter that came into our yard. I shot dozens of skunks and raccoons with my .300 and every last one of them died.

But like I said, there is very little logic in what happens when you shoot something, especially a larger mammal like a deer. I grew up in one of the most deer infested parts of the planet (northwestern Minnesota), and I've seen more deer shot than all other animals combined, and I've seen enough crazy things happen to not be surprised by anything, whether that's a one-shot kill with a .22 or an animal run away from a seemingly perfect shot from a high-power rifle. If you think I'm saying the .45 is a magic talisman, you really didn't grasp my point and I apologize for not making it more clear. Still, from my experience I'd rather defend my life with a .45 than a .22, and at the types of close ranges statistically encountered in a self-defense situation I'd rather have a .45 than a .40 or a .223.

Not that it matters. I have a Glock 21 and have carried it, but it's too big to carry comfortably. I feel my Glock 26 provides more than enough protection for any situation I might encounter. If three or four 9mm hollow points shot into the center of mass don't kill the attacker or at least stop him, they should slow him down and distract him enough for me to make a hasty exit.

The basic prinicipals of stopping an aggressor are simple!
Cut the motor, ie the brain - but that requires bullet placement! Only real way to stop an arregessor wearing body aromor. But, not really something to rely on.
Wreck the pump, ie the heart - that means COM bullet placement!
Wreck the pipes, ie aorta that is protected by the spine and breast bone, or wreck the pelvis with perhaps multiple projectiles to penetrate the femoral arteries.

Now, what does this all add up to! Shot placement, and what does shot placement require? The ability to put rounds on target! Shred the aortic arch and job done! Punch a hole in the left ventricle, job done! Give a guy a pneumo, and he will have plent of fight left in them! Break a guy's leg they can still pull the trigger!

Your objective is terminate the aggression! And, as Goalie can attest to that people are capable of many things as long as the brain is still functioning with an intact heart feeding it oxygen! Hell I have seen a fellow shot in head walk into the stabe. room at local level one ED!

All the rounds that punch a thigh, or an arm or where ever mean diddly squat! Marksmanship counts! No one can convince me otherwise! And, all a person has to do is look at Bills, BVP, Metro, and Dakotah indoor ranges and see that people miss at very close range. Marksmanship is perishable skill, no matter who asserts otherwise!

Good post. Even if you don't rip a hole in something vital, a good COM placement shot will at the very least disrupt the bad guy's focus on his aim.

I do wonder about one thing:



Fortunately most of the gang bangers hanging out in the park near my house don't appear to be wearing body armor. I have to wonder how common it is for a bad guy to wear body armor? Perhaps this is more of an issue for LEOs who have to deal with armed robbers in institutions like banks, but for the types of bad guys the average citizen is most likely to encounter, is body armor an issue? Are there any reported cases where a citizen has been unable to successfully defend him or herself because the assailant was wearing body armor? Or is this more of an Internet hypothetical-type situation?[/quote]