The Federal 125 gr .357 Magnum is rated as a 96% one shot stop round.Just wondering how can a 125gr 357 magnum have more Stopping power than a 240gr 44 magnum rated at I think 87% ? Might sound like a dumb question but I would like to know.

Different stats from a different sample group.

Depending on what stats you use, even OO buck and 30-06 aren't 100% one stop rounds.

Not dumb at all, just points out the problem with anecdotal colection of data such as the Marshall and Sanow "statistics."

I teach statistics, which is a math discipline with definite rules about data samples and errors of estimates. The data on street shoots, while extremely interesting and valuable, do not pass muster on using the numbers as absolutely accurate.
The sample size on shootings with .44 magnum is very low, and does not take into account multiple shootings or where the bullets hit. We would say that statistically the two numbers for .357 and .44 are essentially the same.

Like the polls on political races, small differences are often statistical "noise."

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Science plus Art

it may also point to the legacy designed function of the rounds in question.
357 was designed for law enforcement as an upgrade to the wimpy 38 special. 125 grains is on the light side of the 357 spectrum which trades penetration for rapid expansion.
44 magnum is a purebred hunter designed to bringeth down the hammer of Thor upon mid to large size game where the typical loading of 240 is designed to favor penetration.
Im my research the 240 grain in a target of human dimensions tends to be through and gone before it gets into its best work.
200 grains on the other hand .... I'd like to see a 357 match that meat grinder.

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it just needs more voltage

Exactly. (Not precisely, but exactly...) Well said!

Simple, Marshall and Sanow didn't really know what they were doing. Ed Sanow is the guy that wrote at length about how bad 147gr JHP was in a 9mm, claiming that it wouldn't even cycle the slide. A patently false assertion, and incredibly easy to test, yet he suggested using even NATO ball instead of the 147gr JHP.

A little over 20 years ago the FBI issued what is still arguably the best work on the subject. To keep it simple, one wants adequate penetration to reach vital organs. This is necessary to reliably disrupt the central nervous system. That's one way to "stop". Another is for someone to run out of blood. Physically, that's about it. Thus pentration is good, and once you achieve that, then expansion to create the biggest hole.

Energy transfer is generally not considered a primary means of causing a "stop".

There *may* be a sweet spot circa 1250 to 1450 fps where upon circa 9mm projectiles in the 124/125 grain weight class do begin to work rather well.

Humans are like roaches, hard to kill and quick to adapt. Nothing will be 100 percent.

[QUOTE=GatorFarmer;135647514 Nothing will be 100 percent.[/QUOTE]

Claymores are closest.

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Lost it all in a boat accident

My first centerfire handgun was a beautiful S&W M-39 9m/m that I bought brand new when I was around 19 back in 1980, and I loved that gun and it was accurate, reliable, had a great feel. But then I started reading in all the magazines and Keith, Cooper, and other gunwriters would act like you might as well throw rocks at someone as use a 9 m/m and a gun needs to be a .45 ACP or .44 Special to have signifigant stopping power. One shot was all that would be needed from a big bore to end the fight, but anyone using a .38 or nine would have to fire many rounds and still probably not have the desired effect. Cooper admitted the .357 was an O.K. stopper, IF fired from a long barrel, but it was still inferior to his beloved fourty-five auto. I listened to their wisdom and sold my M-39 and I'm a lot more skeptical now about the experts and their facts and figures.

FWIW, Elmer considered the .357 to be an adequate manstopper.

Shot placement is everything and it is impossible to overstress that point. No amount of velocity, caliber, bullet weight, or expansion can make up for poor shot placement.

One shot stop percentage is a shooter's statistic, not a caliber statistic. Just because there were multiple shots doesn't mean it wasn't one shot that did the job. It may not have been the first shot. A BB to the Adam's apple at 480 fps is capable of acheiving a one shot stop.

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sticks-n-stones&hollowpoints

Any comments about caliber, shot placement and such are speculative. I have been on the scene of many shootings and saw what happened to whom. I have seen people bleed out from a .22 wound in the thigh and I have seen people walking around after being hit in the face with a .357 from a foot away. I have photos of a man shot directly between the eyes with a .44 mag and lives today with a bad facial scar (and only spent four hrs in the ER after the shooting.

When the man upstairs calls B-15 and that is your number, you are history. Until then, you are just lucky.

Shooting targets is fine for practice but that is all it is, just practice. Substitute the targets for a 6', 220 pound man shooting at you first from 20 feet away and your practice shots just went out the window. Been there, done that, wore the hat and bought the t-shirt. Most of the time, a person gets shot at before he can return fire. This puts a good guy at a disadvantage up front. If LEO knew who was going to pull a gun and immediately open fire, they would not be as many shot as currently are now. We cannot shoot until we are met with deadly force first. Walking up on a front porch of a home does not justify having a sidearm drawn and aimed. A man opening a front door with gun in hand is a situation for which there is no immediate action plan.

Remember that an armed bad guy knows what his intentions are, how far he is willing to go in an effort to achieve his goals while the good guy has to handle things after the fact.

Calibers are important. I personally carry a .45 and feel comfortable. Would I use a .22, 9mm or such? Yes, if that was all I had at the time. I have witnessed a shot from a .45 in the leg from 75 feet drop, but not fatal to a fleeing felon. The desired effect is to stop someone, not kill someone. The lighter calibers seem to take more shots to stop but there is no telling how many shots any gun will use before the stopping takes place.

I like your thinking!

It's just a little bit difficult to conceal wearing jeans and an untucked shirt...perhaps a light jacket...

cept for HE and incendiary type rounds.

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it just needs more voltage

In circa Vietnam war issues of Guns and Ammo that I read (1967 and 1968) Jeff Cooper actually had good things to say about Smith and Wesson Model 39. He also liked the Model 58 revolver, claiming it to be the perfect thing for those "still wedded to the revolver concept".

Circa 1980, Cooper would have a good point about the .45 ACP. 9mm JHP technology wasn't exactly mature whereas .45 FMJ has stayed the same for a long, long time. Since a 1911 had the same capacity as the old 39s, eh...

These days it is more complicated.

yeah "complicated" is a good term for it.
throw in the rise in obesity today and all that authoritative research from the good old days becomes less valid.
With a whale blubber layer to deal with before it can even get to the stopping zone ... this fact may require a revision of all firearm thinking.
even fashion trends can influence ideal bullet design

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it just needs more voltage

I've heard it said that anything man portable did not have fail safe stopping power!

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Stay safe people!

What was the OP's question... ?

"Numbers is numbers," as they say. If the facts are correctly reported, the numbers are what they are. But there is such a limited number of shootings and the surrounding circumstances vary so enormously it hardly seems worth even discussing this round or that. We might as well just sit in our armchairs and come to our own conclusions. I doubt there is any way to make any sort of mathematical sense of what goes on with humans and gunshot wounds.

I'm sure that every caliber has failed to stop the bad guy at one point in time. I like to compare two incidents, Lee Harvey Oswald and Wiley Lynn. Lee Harvey Oswald was dropped dead by a single .38 Special, 158 grain lead bullet that took out his spleen, diaphragm, kidney, and a couple of ateries. Wiley Lynn was shot four times at point blank range by Oklahoma Bureau of Investigations Agent Crockett Long. Wiley was able to draw his .38 and shoot Crockett Long four times at the same time he shot Wiley Lynn four times with his Smith .44 Special. More than one of those .44's caught Lynn's vitals. Crockett Long lay on the floor and died an hour later, Wiley staggered out the door, walked across the street and died the next day.
The moral of the story, there isn't a handgun caliber or rifle caliber or shotgun gauge made that has every single time put down the game or man in a fight. Shoot the one that you can accurately hit the target with accuracy. If its a .38, .357, .44 .45 than so be it.

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Vaya con Dios

Ha! I stand corrected.....

Maybe, but if I had to stop a bear... :/
The .357 mag is mighty fine, but the sheer brute 240 grain horsepower
of the .44 mag is much more likely to get a bear's attention.

Kinda depends upon which "work" you're refering to. There was the equivilent of the Papal Bull which stated the official position that agents were not to question upon pain of vast displeasure from on high. It was more of a political statement than a scientific treatment of the subject There was also the ammunition test protocol, which was quite good. (BTW, at the time I shot matches with the guy that ran their R&D department. We had some interesting discussions. Including the fact that the penetration spec was partially based upon the percentage of their suspects being in vehicles. The concept of heavier weaponry to deal with that issue wasn't well received by management.)

I'd also point out that there have been major developments in ammunition design in the last 20 years. I do agree on there being a sweet spot for .357/9mm performance, starting around 1250 fps, with a good bullet design.

Some early 147 gr 9mm was optimized for performance in supressed subguns with 8 inch barrels. The performance in pistols left an awful lot to be desired. I had some that barely ejected from a BHP, it piled up in front of my right foot. I don't have any records of velocity or pendulum performance, I expect it wouldn't have been noteworthy.

Oh yeah, incapacitation effects are dependent upon bullet placement. The other stuff doesn't matter much at all. You cannot compensate for poor shot placement with either magic bullets or raw power. The late, great, Jack O'Conner once told a story about shooting poorly and gut shooting a 40 odd pound antelope with a .375 H&H. They chased the poor little critter around for about 3 hours before putting it out of it's misery. He told the story as an outstanding example what results from failure to place the bullet properly.

Excellent points Mr. Moore.

Another point we need to consider when discussing bullet and caliber performance is the mental state and/or the amount and type of drugs that have been ingested by the shootee. The effects of adrenaline and chemicals (meth, lsd, angel dust, etc.) can't be disregarded in the equation of one shot stops.

Kenny

Humans are actually easy to kill, but hard to immediately incapacitate... which is really what you are looking for

This may seem odd, but I also think that a person or animals will to live is also something to factor into the equation. I have shot a pitbull while at work with a 165 gr .40 S&W from a very very short distance, and it lived for 4 days before dying......this dog was dead set on eating me. I have also shot a perp from a close distance as well with the same gun and same bullet and he died instantly, it is debated that this might of been a "suicide by cop" scenario. who knows......I agree that you can't fairly use real life shootings for statistical research because too many factors are different. By no way am I advocating this, but the only way to get useful information on stopping power would be to test bullets on the same gender, that is identical in weight and body fat, from a exact distance, and have the shots placed in the exact same spot......and this study would never happen because of the obvious reasons.

Statistics are wonderful! (when they agree with you) If a .22LR has been shown to be 40% effective for 1 shot stops, and I shoot someone 3 times it will be 24% more effective then that old .357mag. (96%)Right?

Has anyone (unarmored) not been quickly stopped with a close range, center chest hit with 12 gauge 00 Buck?

Marshall 357; A city policeman used #4 buck in a 20 guage to immediately incapacitate an armed man. The demise took place by the time he hit the ground. I know one late bar room fighter (bully) who went to whip a guy he had previously beaten. He ran the guy off the road in front of witnesses. The fellow shot the fighter point blank through the heart with a 22 LR. The fighter took the gun away from the guy and beat him severly with it. The fighter then dropped dead probably never knowing he was shot. It was ruled self defense. Same result, different incapacitation time frame. I shot a rabid dog with a 158 gr 38 Special and a chicken killing dog with a 240 gr 44 Mag. Both were large and shot through both lungs, they ran about 65 to 70 yards. I've bagged around a 100 deer and some Elk, through the lungs they run about 80 yards. If it is not a head or spine shot one will work after 60-80 yards. I have 125 gr loads in my house guns to prevent over penetration here in the suburbs. I would prefer my 44 Mag.

Has anyone here taken a deer with a 357 using the 125 grain defense load?

Statistics are like loose women--you can do what you want with them.

My statistics professor stated that 87% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

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'Merica!

When is the last time you crossed paths with a bear? He may have looked like a bear.

Marshall & Sanow's work has nothing to do with statistics, except that they misapply various calculations used by statisticians on mostly randomly acquired data. M&S hand-select what occurrences will be included in their database, then perform calculations on them as though they were statisticians. They simply don't understand the mathematical basis of the calculations, and, more important, don't notice how they are causing the results by their selection process. Give me a large enough set of data, and I'll cherry-pick the data to "prove" that .357 Mags work on women but not on men, and .44 Mags the other way around. Meaningless. The .357 Mag 125 gr load is not a 96% one shot stop round, and that should give you a hint as to the usefulness of M&S "statistics." It has nothing to do with sample size or confidence levels or any of that. Statistics is a methodology that does not apply to Marshall and Sanow's data sets.

Simple (to me), the Federal 125gr .357 hollow point is just the right speed and construction to reliably expand for the resistance the average human body offers. It has a fairly large hollow cavity with thinner jacket and lead around that cavity. The bullet expands rapidly , dumping it's energy.

Most .44 mag bullets have thicker jackets and thicker lead cross sections , and are optimized for much bigger , thicker skinned , heavier boned critters. So they basically go right on through a thin skinned , light boned human like a solid , with little resistance.

I read the first post and realized how old it was, then jumped to the recent posts without reading most of what was said, so this is probably covered already.

The Marshall~Sanow tests are more commercial than scientific and don't mean diddely. I remember reading about them when it was just Marshall, and he said the 210 gr. LSWC .41 magnum load was only 68% effective with three one shot stops out of four shootings. He adjusted the figure from 75% because he felt it wasn't that good. I read his writings very close after that to look for other inconsistencies, and found a lot.

Sanow did write an article once claiming the CCI .45 ACP was 100% reliable, but like the rest of their work it sounded more like a paid advertisement.

YEA!!!!!!!

I am a biologist and, while not very proficient in math (BARELY got through baby calculus), I have taken several courses in stats and experimental design and have done actual filed work collecting data and using/interpreting them (the word "data", BTW, is plural). Every time someone quotes Sanow or Marshal and calls them "statistics", I gag. They are anecdotes, nothing more.

Thats why I like the Remington 38 Special, 158 gn LHP, +P+. Anything with a 175% one shot stop rating must be good.

175%? What ya' do load the revolver in a slingshot and shoot the bad guy in the head with it?

In 1979 or 1980 in Fremont, California, a man who was morbidly obese was shot in the chest with a 12 Gauge shotgun with 00 buck by a local police officer. The suspect immediately stopped shooting and dropped his gun. The wound was superficial because of the thick layer of blubber on his chest that didn't allow the pellets to penetrate into his chest cavity. The doctors only had to pick the pellets out of the blubber and stitch him up.

I believe that the difference lies in the rating of the "target" of the rounds fired.

Some hypothetical targets are rated GM (Girly Man)... others are rated MM (Manly Man).

Obviously it takes a lot more punch to stop a Manly Man.

These statistics are worthless without proper metrics definition.

Unless that Manly Man gets dinged in the right place with a small caliber. Then he will quit like a Girly Man.

It is really very simple, this "stopping power / One shot stop" stuff. Here's what you do.

Take an absolute one shot stopper like, say a 155mm howitzer,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoZ19...eature=related


and say a daisy BB gun. Then, work your way down from the howitzer, and up from the Daisy. I am thinking that the answer is somewhere in the middle. Perhaps a 600 nitro express round. Not sure if it comes in a handgun though!

Bottom line is that there is no current handgun round that will be a 100% one shot stopper every time. Shoot well with what you have. As metioned above, the Marshall / Sanow conclusions are flawed.


WG840

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Freedom above all else.

Here's part of the equation that probably wasn't included in what you read, did the person doing the shooting actually hit the target with the first shot? I've read that the main reason for most leo agencies to switch over to the 125 gr load in the 357 was primarily to reduce recoil hoping for fewer misses on the first round expended. The hit rate was abyssmal with the 158 gr loads.

Since human being differ so greatly on why/when they stop when shot your only real measure is shot placement. A .38 will do the job as well as anything if proper placement is achieved.

I take published statistics with a grain of salt. Also, if we have to fire a weapon to defend our lives, I will most likely be firing a quick pair. I try to look at anecdotal police-related shootings and avoid ammo that has a tendancy to over penetrate. I'm not worried about under penetration because that's what follow-up shots are for. FWIW, my go-to guns are: Model 19-3 DAO loaded with +P Hydra-shoks, backed up with a speedloader full of magnum 125 grain Golden Sabers. My Beretta 92 has a speedloader of Ranger 127 grain +P's handy. We can debate this til the cows come home. Incidentally, people whose closest neighbors actually ARE cows probably are less concerned with overpenetration than us urban types.

I'd think a 175% figure might indicate a little over penetration

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it just needs more voltage

Nope. Enclosed snake venom capsule. 100% DRT and three out of the first four EMTs to handle him.

Well, you could do a little experiment by trying to determine what caliber is most effective by measuring the calibers' in question cross section. Get a stop watch and a couple of goats. Then take the cross section measurments and apply it to an appropriately measured dowel rod and......

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Cheers!

Or you could just say you did...

There is no one stop caliber. That's why they now make handguns that shoot 16 or more rounds. The idea is you keep shooting at him until he quits shooting at you. I practice this more than the two required qualifications a year because I like me and those around me. If you're lucky, you won't get hit while this is happening. If he's not lucky, he will. I feel confidant carrying a 180 grain .40 cal. I've killed three deer with a Glock 22 after unintentionally hitting them with my patrol car and breaking one or more legs. I won't let them suffer, and besides the freezer was empty. One was dropped with one shot, one with a double tap, and one with a triple tap. In 42 years I've shot more dogs than I can remember, a few snakes, and the aforementioned deer. I have only had to shoot one human. He didn't die even though he deserved it. I'm glad for that because I've seen the psychological stuff officers have gone through after taking a human life. Bottom line is if I know I'm getting out on something hot I'm bringing my dozen gauge with me with plans for a head shot. If not, I feel OK with the .40...or some of the other stuff I carry off duty.