Actually last time i saw the use of that pistol mentioned in historical documentation. The pistol was not meant to be used as an offensive weapon. it was meant to be used to prevent the officer from being captured. It was meant to be used by inserting the muzzle into the mouth, up against the base of the tonsils and rapidly pulling the trigger.

I'm in the .32 / .380 / 9mm / .45 crowd. I carry for the location and what I think I might encounter. Most of the time I'm only carrying a .32. For me it's not so much the caliber as it is the style of my pistol. All of my EDC pistols are M-1911 style, and the reason for that is they are what I prefer to carry. I'm very familiar with the platform, I trust the platform, and most of all the platform has never failed me on the range or elsewhere. They are made by different makers but they all function the same. Cocked and locked, if I need 'em after drawing and as I present my thumb drops the safety if present on the slide. The only exception is my M-39 and M-59 which I have practiced with enough that it's reflex to squeeze the trigger first after charging the chamber at home. If you have one you know the drill.

I carry this quite frequently, with nary a concern...

Marshall and Sanow looked at multiple hits in their later work.

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But you are also missing the larger point that any research relying on field reported data will have methodological flaws from things like a failure to have a common report form, resulting in different elements being reported or failed to be reported by different agencies.

But again, when you have a sufficient body of data, common threads do emerge and accurate conclusions can be made from the aggregate data.

And those conclusions are where the FBI’s ballistic gelatin standards came from. Ballistic gel just allows for a reliable test media to see if individual loads and load and pistol combinations achieve established standards. But those standards were derived from field performance data.

Was there cherry-picking of the field data used? Absolutely. That’s also where a lot of the mud got thrown at various researchers when arguments and debates about different incapacitation theories were being promoted and argued. It’s worst noting the FBI also got it incredibly wrong, not once but twice, first with a shallow penetration energy dump approach and then with an opposite end of the pendulum swing penetration approach that resulted in an extremely ineffective 147 gr 9mm load.

In each case it was field results and field data that prompted the corrections.

No, they don't.

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Now go make God proud...

In each case, not until one eventually hit a vital target on a follow-up shot. In three of the cases I'm remembering (without digging out my boxes of notes), a single ball round would have ended the situation on the first shot.

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Now go make God proud...

While caliber isn't as important as shot placement and penetration, bigger is generally better so long as it doesn't seriously degrade accuracy and speed. Speed faster than one well placed shot per second allegedly isn't that important.

While there are literally millions of people who do risk/reward analysis that generally supports your assumption, your less than logical assumption (nobody) ignores numerous documented cases of folks who are both goal driven and highly motivated. Check out post #26 at 9mm vs 45. M&P 2.0

It was the National Institute of Justice's Relative Incapacitation Index, not the DOJ's. The DOJ funded the research looking for how to improve incapacitation. The study was flawed on the effect of the temporary wound cavity, something what should have been obvious to anyone who'd ever viewed an actual wound track. Apparently, that didn't include anyone on the medical panel.

Still, there was actually a lot of outstanding information that came out of that study if anything but the RII rankings were read. Maybe if they'd put the ranking charts at the end of the report instead of the beginning? But different ammo was an easier way to "be doing something".

The bullet in question that took all the blame actually severed the right brachial artery in the chest. Mattix was a dead man walking-and shooting-before Agent Mirales killed him with a revolver. Ammunition type unknown, but it worked. BTW, the Silvertip was already in production to have been tested by the NIJ. So, unless the design or the velocity was changed, it wasn't "the bullet they wanted" after the testing.

I know people who were involved in the development of the later FBI ammunition testing system. One outstanding thing that came out of it was the determination that 10% ordnance gelatin better simulated human tissue than 20%. Being very careful here, the standards are not entirely objective. However, the test methods are. But, if you don't feel a need to shoot through car bodies, windshields or various other chance barricades, you don't need ammunition that passes those tests.

They have in every FBI Spec Gel Test I've seen on YouTube. The only times I've ever seen them fail are in tests with that cheapo Clear Ballistics stuff, otherwise in proper tests they always get full expansion, between 12"-18" in organic ballistics gel through heavy denim.

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Shooting Comfort is bilateral.

FWIW, just one person's anecdotal experience, but i carried an LC9 for quite a few years and was very comfortable with my choice.

Until it fired out of battery, causing a case-head separation, that turned my EDC into a paperweight - since Ruger not longer had the parts to replace the extractor that got launched into low-earth orbit.

FWIW, I replaced it with a P365 and was pleasantly surprised to discover that it shot softer than the LC9, I shoot better with it than I did with the LC9, PLUS there is the added advantage of it having 50% more capacity than the LC9.

So now I'm a P365 fan. It would take something pretty special to be good enough to replace it in my EDC rotation.

All that being said, when I need even more discreet carry than my P365 in an IWB holster, I don't feel out-gunned carrying a Keltec P3AT in a pocket holster, and I choose the P3AT over the P32. They are the exact same size and I have nothing against the P32, but IMO the 380 is a better SD choice than the 32ACP.

I have a few guns chambered in 32ACP, a Beretta Tomcat, a Keltec P32, a Colt 1903. Nothing wrong with any of them, I just feel like the 380 is a better choice - especially since there are a lot more options for good SD ammo in 380 vs. 32ACP.

JMO and YMMV...

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

Hmmn, well, in that role and used in that manner there is no doubt in my mind that it would be quite effective...

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

Their methodology is nonsensical. They deliberately failed to count situations where one shot was fired and it failed to stop someone so that more shots needed to be fired.

How can they possibly claim to calculate one-shot stops when you deliberately exclude situations where one shot was not enough to effect a stop so that additional shots needed to be fired?

How can you arrive at the percentage of successes without factoring in the number of failures?

It is beyond that. They are completely discredited. They were discredited in the 1990s.

Many agencies who Marshall and Sanow claim to have gotten their shootings from have come forward and said that not only did they not provide any information to Marshall & Sanow, and that the shootings that Marshall and Sanow have attributed to them do not match any of the shootings that they have on record.

Marshall and Sanow have zero credibility.

Here are some examples:

The July 1992 Law and Order Magazine has several letters to the editor, as well as a statement by the magazines’ editor, further illustrating the lack of truth and serious errors in the Marshall and Sanow's “data”. Several papers have been published in the peer reviewed IWBA Wound Ballistics Review which have discussed the lack of credibility of Marshall and Sanow. The review wrote that "It was clear in our review and in from the investigations by others that Marshall & Sanow had lied, fabricated data, and did not follow scientific protocols. Their information is fraudulent and meaningless. Please do not stake your life on this garbage.”

In response to Sanow’s criticism of the 9mm WW 147 grain JHP bullet, SGT Mike Dunlap, Rangemaster at Amarillo, TX, PD contacted every department for which Sanow claimed poor results with this bullet in his “anti-subsonic” articles. Mike submitted his results to Law and Order: they showed that Sanow had misrepresented what these departments found.

In the November 1992 issue, Law and Order published three letters contradicting Sanow’s “data” (p. 90). SGT William Porter, head of the Michigan State Police Marksmanship Unit wrote, “I hope that those who read this article will not be influenced by what Sanow wrote about what happened in the Michigan State Police shooting, because it didn’t happen that way.” In a note introducing these letters, Bruce Cameron, Editorial Director of Law and Order wrote, concerning Sanow’s article, “...we do apologize for printing information that has proven to be in error.”

Their work has been refuted by the International Wound Ballistics Association.

Go to Update your browser to use Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Sites, Slides, and Forms - Google Drive Help

and download download the 1997 issue, volume 3 number 1 and read pages 26-35 which contain the articles:
Fackler, Martin L., MD.: "Book Review: Street Stoppers: The Latest Handgun Stopping Power Street Results." Wound Ballistics Review, 3(1); 26-31: 1997.
MacPherson, Duncan: "Sanow Strikes (Out) Again." Wound Ballistics Review, 3(1): 32-35; 1997.

and download 1999 volume 4 no 2 which contains the following articles:
Van Maanen, Maarten: "Discrepancies in the Marshall & Sanow 'Data Base': An Evaluation Over Time." Wound Ballistics Review, 4(2); 9-13: Fall, 1999.

Fackler, Martin L., MD.: "Undeniable Evidence." Wound Ballistics Review, 4(2); 14-15: Fall, 1999.
MacPherson, Duncan: "The Marshall & Sanow 'Data' - Statistical Analysis Tells the Ugly Story." Wound Ballistics Review, 4(2); 16-21: Fall, 1999.

Their methodology is nonsensical and their data is grossly inaccurate and made-up.

Marshall and Sanow's work is useless. Utterly, unredeemingly useless.

IIRC, 80% of those shot with handguns actually survive their wounds.

As did the people with Sirhan Sirhan who actually shot RFK.

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Live long and prosper

What was the source document for that?

Before I had my Seecamp 32acp, I'd say I left the house armed less than 20% of the time. Maybe I didn't feel like changing out of my athletic shorts to run to the store and therefore didn't slip my Hi Power into an already struggling waistband. Perhaps I was headed to a function where concealing a standard sized pistol wouldn't be easy, or appreciated. Mostly I just didn't want to be bothered with the inconvenience of it all. Buy a pocket sized 32 and a decent holster, you'll never leave home without at least it. You can always carry something bigger when necessity dictates or clothing allows. I've got an RM380 that gets some carry time as well, but most days the Seecamp is more than adequate for my needs. Anyone that thinks otherwise has probably never been shot with a 32. I've got options in small DAO pistols (the only thing I'll carry these days), from 25acp to 357mag, the Seecamp runs away with it by far... and size has everything to do with it.

Any deer hunter with a lot of experience would find this thread pretty amusing.

Either a 32 or 380 Seecamp is always with me.

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Sure you did

Never a believer in "one shot stops"; ya it can happen but a double or triple tap is much more likely to stop an aggressor!

And as said before no one likes to get shot with anything.
How many times a year does the appearance of a firearm stop a confrontation.....IIRC the claim is a couple million times a year!
So even the threat of getting shot has a strong deterrence.

No I'm not encouraging "brandishing" of a firearm.

Better a "mouse gun" than no gun!

I’m honestly not sure what the original question is, but I *assume* it is, “why is one caliber more popular than another?”

I’d propose that at any given time in history (including the present day) caliber choice had much to do with availability (both of guns and ammo), and what is in vogue at the moment.

I don’t think the question of “which caliber is most effective?” had, nor has, a great deal to do with the decision of most buyers of guns intended for self-defense. “Good enough” seems to be the standard.

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Mark Lathem

There have been times when I cannot carry a pistol and then I resort to a KT P32, loaded with the hottest Euro FMJ I can find. If may be a small hole, but it should poke through to the vitals.

Lately I have been enamored with the new 432UC. I call mine "Leroy". One round of Doubletap DT Snakeshot indexed (more for dogs than for snakes) and five rounds of Buffalo Bore JHP.

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Only a cold warrior

"I’m honestly not sure what the original question is, but I *assume* it is, “why is one caliber more popular than another?”"

I too am not sure of the original question however it is, “why is one caliber more popular than another?” my guess falls to what is the most comfortable firearm to carry with the most potent round available? To that answer I'd have to say it's more about where you live, how you live, and what situations you are most likely to encounter.

For me, if you break into my house at night after taps, there is a real possibility you are going to be met with a shotgun as you come up the stairs. Gauge doesn't matter there because you will be found at the bottom of the stairs with a huge hole in your head, and most likely the back of your head. The wall behind where you were when the shotgun made all its noise will be splattered with your brains, or other organs depending how fast you were coming up the stairs. Regardless, you will be carried out, most likely feet first.

The cost of ammo is too high for me to waste any with a warning shot, thus the only warning you will get are the two locked doors between the exteriour and the interiour of my house.

Yes. Of the two DRT handgun shootings I worked - shootee dropped at the shot and never moved again - one was a .22 LR HP that did exactly as described above. The other was a .45 ACP between the eyes. Other died at the scene or were DOA but these two were immediate incapacitation.

That being said, if the .22 had deviated by an inch or so, it could well have been survivable, the .45 I doubt. Which is why I used a .22 magnum as a last ditch 3rd gun rather than a primary.

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I need ammo, not a ride.