Im just curious as to why everyone is so happy to toute FBI testing standards that are horribly faulty?

Why doe everyone think a 10% ordnance gelatin desert block with 1 layer of denim on top properly simulates a human body?

Where be the rib bones... the meat on top....

Sure a guy named mike or mark herril on youtube tries to deal with the rib cage via the use of pork ribs taped to a bag of oranges,,, but there still leaves no good internal structure standard.


If someone took a sheep rib cage, put the lungs in it, and filled it up with 10% gelatin. HOW many of you would actually WANT to see how well your micro semi auto matics in 380 or 9mm actually do on it?

Textbook gunfighting theory makes for a lot of (worthwhile or worthless?) Internet discussions and probably gets a lot of YouTube mileage. Learning to shoot well has always been more important and somewhat neglected in comparison with shooting through jello, old blue jeans, and animal bones.

Many years ago before all the "Tree hugger" type people got their power and made people stop what they were doing.....

Pistol & revolver loads were tested on "Live" animals
to find out how long it took them to expire, along with other data.

It let everyone know what a certain caliber and gun could do
when the bullet went to work.

I don't know how to look it up or find it but it was very interesting, reading.

Because the vast amount of possibilities are endless. Every person is different, every shot angle can change. We can't test for everything and how a bullet would do in every single separate situation.

So, they use gel tests to see how well the rounds will do in a controlled situation that can be used as a general baseline of what SHOULD work and at the very least, SETS THE MINIMUM CRITERIA OF ROUNDS TO BE CONSIDERED OR ACCEPTED IN THE FIRST PLACE. It doesn't qualify rounds as effective, but it sets a bare minimum of what isn't good enough to be considered AT ALL.

Rounds passing gel testing and minimums aren't necessarily the best choice. But, anything that fails SHOULD be DISQUALIFIED from personal consideration.

That's why, in the endless discussions on the subject, it has been shown why certain rounds with known failures and defaults are a bad choice and most often have been replaced professionally. Things like too many rounds failing to make the 12 inch MINIMUM pass or fail mark means the rounds aren't trustworthy. Rounds with too many average over 18 inches shows a propensity to over penetrate. Rounds with high rates of failure to expand can be considered a poor choice, because they can't even be relied upon to expand in the easiest settings.

The denim is only there to see if, again, a regulated amount of cloth can clog the hollow point and cause failure to expand. Again, a minimum. If this is enough to prevent expansion, it only goes downhill in more difficult situations.

They are good tests, and the criteria is correct. It was developed by the IWBA, not the FBI. The assembly of people who came up with it were the best combat surgeons and experts of the matter of the time, and their test and standards are just as good as today.

Your rounds may be expected to fare far worse in combat than in the gel tests, with bones and difficult shot angles, ect. So, a qualifying round may not be the best choice, or always perform great.

But, any round that fails the standard is automatically garbage and not for consideration.

Keep this in mind, and the tests are of great value. The best objective standard we have today.

Continually forget what they are and what they are for, and they become worthless, like every other science. Defending rounds that fail to hit the minimum 12 inches of gel, making excuses for high failure to expand rates, high rates of fragmentation, low weight retention, ect defeats the usefulness.

Defending rounds that barely pass the tests as "just as good as anything else that qualifies" negates the usefulness of the test and standards.

By the way, the "shooting live animal" tests were totally and utterly worthless. Unless you shot a goat through the lung in the same exact manner as the testers in the test, you were never going to get the same results as they did.

With apologies to Sir Arthur Conyan Doyle, the 10% solution is not intended to exactly equate at all times with standard human physiology. It is intended to allow an agreed standard by which to allow independent verifiable testing to determine the relative usefulness of various pistol rounds fired from a variety of pistols.

It is not unlike click adjustments on a rifle rear sight. From one shooter to another, with various loads, the rear sight will require adjustment. The repeatable known value adjustments do allow some basis for comparison.

It is likely that during the heyday of buffalo hunting, there were folks who compared various cartridges/rifles and drew conclusions based on their own and others reported results in the field. The 10% solution is not any different. JMHO. Sincerely. bruce.

__________________
<><

Nobody thinks gelatin simulates a human body. It's just a consistent medium that is close enough. Adding other random items into the test will skew results and the results will not be repeatable. Unless the medium is consistent for each bullet strike your results are useless.

I am surprised by how much variation there is within batches of the same rounds in gelatin. Throwing in ribs and oranges might make the results more interesting but the results are not repeatable or consistent.

Normally, I don't trust anyone who wears business attire; Especially how G Gordon Liddy described them.

__________________
"Don't Give Up the Ship"

I'm fairly sure the denim is there to see if the HP will clog and prevent the bullet from expanding as advertised.

__________________
Freedom is never free!!
SWCA #3437

Exactly. It isn't intended to be representative of what a given round will do when used on a live target, it is meant to give a comparison between different rounds under the exact same circumstances. A way to COMPARE their effectiveness - not PREDICT their effectiveness. When shooting live targets there are too many variables to control to fairly compare two rounds. One may nick a rib bone, and another may hit the bone squarely, and a third may miss the rib bones and hit the meat in between. Comparing the damage from those 3 rounds is pointless. When using gel blocks they are all hitting the exact same thing, with no other variables, so you can fairly compare one to the other.

That is correct, and unless I am mistaken the standard is FOUR layers of denim - not one.

__________________
Send lawyers, guns & money...

YOu have proven the issue in a more interesting manner... essentially the test as used is merely letting every projectile CHEAT by assuming it will have the idealized "slide between rib bone and just go through meat".

Consider the old Webley Manstopper round, massive wound damage that scared military doctors who trained on people injured by 12 guage musket balls.

Consider the 200 grain british 38 sw load, the tumble machine, thats going to do far more damage as it tumbles then if it goes through straight, but the test doesnt compute for it.

Cheating is not possible with the protocol as it now stands. A given bullet at a particular speed will act predictably, either performing well or not performing well, regardless of where or when a test is conducted. Anecdotal experience may be congruent with the test results. Often, it is. When it is not, the test results are to be preferred as variables are controlled so that the result is consistent regardless of what might be a personal expectation, preference, etc. Sincerely. bruce.

__________________
<><

To my understanding, ALL the test block gel is doing is allowing a consistent media to compare one load to another on a somewhat level playing field. I don't think the FBI thinks that the blocks themselves without bones, cartilage, veins and arteries actually simulates the human body. It is not a popular thing these days to use animals as test media, so what other option do we really have? Even if someone inserted bones into the Gel, each test block would be different.

I suppose cadavers could be used, but I know there would be many complaints from the public about that as well. At least the gel blocks are relatively consistent assuming ambient conditions are relatively consistent as well. I also assume that the FBI as well as other LE Agency's have concluded that what works well in gel blocks also works well on the street. At least I hope so!

If you want to rely on 150 year old bullet design, nobody is stopping you. Sure it can work but there's more than one reason people don't use the slow and heavy bullets mantra anymore.

If one actually reads the test protocols, by the FBI or the various ammo companies, they make it clear-as others have stated-so bullet designs A, B & C have exactly the same test medium. Any differences in performance are due to bullet design and velocity. They also make it clear that test results aren't predictive of real world results.

The FBI went further, noting that if you aren't interested in what happens if you shoot through auto windshields, sheet metal or whatever then you shouldn't bother with those test results when you're choosing ammo.

What have you developed to use as an accurate and consistently repeatable test of ammo performance that replicates it's effect on living tissue and bone?

FBI protocol has morphed into every wannabe internet commando with a phone camera whipping up a block of gel and asking us to take their word for it that it's all been mixed to the proper percentages and then shooting them. Usually, it seems, more to promote their preferred product or at least **** down one they decided they don't like, than anythingelse. The gentleman on YouTube is Paul Harrell by the way. And I would take his meat target tests every bit as seriously, actually more-so, than every Tom, Dick and Harry's gel tests on the Tube...

You do know that the 9mm Luger that has has been adopted by the FBI was designed before the 45 auto?

IIRC, the Army wanted a 250 gr. RN bullet whereas Browning started with 200 gr. RN. The 230 gr. was obviously ballistically superior which is why it was chosen. Of course the 9mm was designed earlier based on necking up a .30 Luger round to the continental king of military service calibers ... the ubiquitous 9x19 mm Luger Parabellum! Even more remarkable than when and how these two rounds were developed is that over 100 years later, both are ranked right at the top of the pile of effective handgun calibers, in spite of every effort made by umpteen designers and developers in the last century to come up with something... anything that would be more effective. Guess Mr. Luger and Mr. Browning were both pretty sharp to be able to take nothing but the issue gear between their ears and figure out that caliber business. Makes one wonder what they could have done if they'd had access to stop action photography, chronographs, testing laboratories, and great big heaping piles of cash money to buy these and other such toys to fiddle with while whomping up better bullets and guns for everyone to use. Sincerely. bruce.

__________________
<><

I know the info is dated, Evan Marshall went the other way. Start with a bullet that was proven effective and then use the jello to compare other rounds in the same caliber. Most people look at the titles and poopoo the thought of a one shot stop. That never was what they were saying. They took good data from those few rounds that did that and tried to figure out why and what other bullets might do in similar situations IF proper placement was achieved.

What does that have to do with .455 Webley manstopper load or 200 grain .38 S&W load?

The load and bullet the FBI is using was developed before 1905?

marshall and sanow used goats. as did the US Army when teaching Army nurses to deal with gunshot wounds before they went overseas to their duty hospitals in 'nam. My ex-wife's mom was told to keep them alive at all costs, so Americans didn't die overseas without a fighting chance.

Honestly, dress a 200# pig in a Carhart insulated jacket, and hang it up spread-eagled.

__________________
NRA RSO