The Best Handgun Caliber - A Real World Study

[GoodSam]

Two points:

1.) Working in the trauma unit at the Washington (D.C.) Hospital Center I remember a guy -- a 6'4" 325 pound guy -- coming in with multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and still breathing.

After they cut off his shirt, the surgeon laughed, asked for a pair of large tweezers, and pulled four .25 caliber rounds out of the patient. None had penetrated the chest wall.

2.) It is anti-gun, but the attached article which just appeared in the on-line edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association demonstrates "the strong positive association between caliber and fatality rate . . . summarize the overall effect of larger calibers by simulating the effect on outcomes if all the guns had been small caliber. The result is a 39.5% reduction in the probability of death, implying an equal reduction in the gun homicide rate if the same shootings had occurred but with small-caliber weapons, rather than the actual mix of small, medium, and large calibers."

In normal English that means that in this large study of shootings in Boston getting shot with a large caliber round (.357 magnum, .40, .44 magnum, .45 ACP, 10 mm, and 7.62 × 39 mm), increased the victim's chance of being killed relative to being shot in the same location with a small caliber (.22, .25, and .32) or medium caliber (.38, .380, and 9 mm) round by about 40 percent.

A very informative post and it goes to show how these studies can be manipulated in one way or another to achieve whichever bias the writer wants to present which is why they must all be taken with a very large grain of salt.

Bigger is better, even after factoring in shot placement.

Sure it is, only a fool would believe otherwise.

Having said that, penetration is more important then size. I've seen 9mm FMJ's go straight through a steel pan whereas a .45acp FMJ fired from a gun with a similar barrel length failed to penetrate that same pan. Which would you rather have in a gun fight?

It's when you are using a larger round that has real power to penetrate like the .40S&W or .357Mag. were the advantage of size really comes into play which is why LEO's have used these calibers for so long.

 

[Gulfecho]

He had me up until he started on the .410 ga. round for a handgun, then his argument starts to unravel. It is well known that these guns are nearly useless beyond 8 to 10 feet when loaded with shot. They are horribly inaccurate and the spread is such that you are likely to miss someone's head by more then 10 feet. If you hit them in the mid-section and they are wearing a thick enough coat it may not even penetrate enough to reach the skin much less anything else. I have seen .410 ga. shotshells fired from a Taurus Judge that failed to penetrate a tomato juice can at 10 feet.

The narrator then makes a point of mentioning how much more effective long guns are then handguns but then turns around and makes the .410 revolver out to be the answer to everyone's prayers when in fact it is that short barrel that so badly hinders the effectiveness of shotshells more then anything. No serious expert would recommend carrying these guns for SD using .410 shotshells for anything other then snakes and small critters. A .410 slug or a 45LC is another story but then you are approaching normal handgun stopping power which wouldn't be much different from the more common calibers.

Also, I must ask the question: if caliber doesn't matter then why doesn't everybody just carry .380acp and call it day? But we don't see that being implemented in our LEO and Military. These organizations have unlimited resources and thousands of hours of testing and have chosen to carry what they do for a reason. In fact, most LEO's won't even allow their personel to carry .380's because they have found that they don't quite cut the mustard in many cases.

I've heard stories of .380's being found stuck in the middle of shooting victims leather coats that didn't even penetrate the flesh. Massad Ayoob did some extensive studies on shooting pigs in a slaughterhouse and the .380 often failed to penetrate their skulls while the larger rounds went through. Are we supposed to just discard all these studies over a period of decades and just go with what a handful of YouTuber's are now reporting?

Also, the video fails to answer questions like in what season and with what amount of clothing were the victims shot? People tend to carry small pocket .380's in summer and the vast majority of people shot with them are probably during that season. How does this round fare in winter where the victim was wearing heavy winter clothing?

Are these statistics only for those shooting victims that were not shot by LEO's or individuals who were not using state of the art JHP ammo? In the case of the .38spl were they shot with a WWB standard pressure FMJ or a Remington Golden Sabre +P round? It could be that many of the shooters may have been using FMJ rounds which may account for the leveling of the playing field. I'd agree there is probably little to no difference between a .380acp FMJ and a .38spl standard pressure FMJ as far as stopping power goes.

Also, did the attackers keep on fighting, inflicting more harm or damage before collapsing several blocks away from blood loss? The video isn't really clear on that. If two people are shot, one with a .380 and the other with a .357mag and they both die at some point then the end results are the same for the purpose of the video, but which one was stopped faster and more effectively? There may be a whole lot of variances that may explain why some larger calibers don't seem to do as well as the smaller ones just by looking at the percentages on paper.

One constant I have noticed in similar studies which I agree on is that the .357Mag, at least out of a 4" barrel or larger revolver seems to have the best track record of all for one shot stops and general overall stopping power, even more so then .45acp. Have you ever seen what a .357Mag can do to a human head at very close range? Tell me caliber doesn't matter upon seeing the results of that. I have never seen a .22LR or .380acp do that kind of damage.

I have shown the terminal ballistics of my favorite .410 round the Federal 000 buckshot. The first video demonstrates tight grouping and penetration of all 4 projectiles from 10 yards fired from a .410 revolver. The second video does not specify range but clearly demonstrates terminal ballistics of the Federal 000 buck round. Watch from 6:10 in the video.

No extrapolating here, just a particular .410 shell vs ballistic gel.

http://www.410handguns.com/410_gel_results.html

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AmjsiXT0YM[/ame]

 

[Bullseye 2620]

A very informative post and it goes to show how these studies can be manipulated in one way or another to achieve whichever bias the writer wants to present which is why they must all be taken with a very large grain of salt.

The problem with the study I referenced isn't the data or the methods -- it's the author's conclusion that we would be better off banning large caliber firearms. You and I can look at the same data and come to a totally different conclusion.

 

[GoodSam]

The problem with the study I referenced isn't the data or the methods -- it's the author's conclusion that we would be better off banning large caliber firearms. You and I can look at the same data and come to a totally different conclusion.

True, you can have one side that is pro-gun and just wants everyone to carry whatever caliber they can get their hands on by telling them it doesn't really matter, then you have another side who is anti-gun who wants to paint the picture that all larger calibers are "cruel and unusual punishment" and they need to be banned ASAP.

Both sides have some truth to their arguments but can skew data and leave many unanswered questions in order to push their narrative. This is why I don't trust many newer studies on these things because everything has become so extremely political nowadays.

I remember reading about terminal ballistics in gun magazines 20 years ago about how devastating and traumatic certain handgun rounds were and now those same magazines seem to be in the habit of downplaying the effectiveness of handgun rounds in general, some to the point of absurdity.

I believe there is a movement underfoot by some pro-gunners, perhaps unconsciously, to downplay the effect of handgun rounds, perhaps in an effort to sugarcoat it to an increasingly anti-gun public? I don't know what it is exactly but I think it's a bit dishonest as well as dangerous.

 

[SATX]

I thought the same thing GoodSam, how are you going to equate 12 gauge 00 Buck from an 18 inch barrel to 410 gauge out of a three inch barrel, and only subtract a little from your numbers. Whatever!

What he did get right was don't bring a handgun to a long gun fight.

 

[bronconagurski]

I had a puny .25 pocket pistol I carried when driving my overnight route to deliver auto parts. I had to pull it out twice and "incapacitated" both people without firing a shot, thank goodness. that was back before all these new semi auto carry pistols, but I was glad to have it in those days.

 

[00 buck]

Although I'm a large caliber fan, without question, the ABSOLUTE BEST caliber is the caliber of handgun that you have with you when you need it!

Over a police career spanning 41 years, I've witnessed a number of victims succumb to their wounds after being shot with puny .22 LR, .32 and .380 caliber handguns.

Yes .....but rather slowly

 

[Popeye77]

A very informative post and it goes to show how these studies can be manipulated in one way or another to achieve whichever bias the writer wants to present which is why they must all be taken with a very large grain of salt.

Sure it is, only a fool would believe otherwise.

Having said that, penetration is more important then size. I've seen 9mm FMJ's go straight through a steel pan whereas a .45acp FMJ fired from a gun with a similar barrel length failed to penetrate that same pan. Which would you rather have in a gun fight?

It's when you are using a larger round that has real power to penetrate like the .40S&W or .357Mag. were the advantage of size really comes into play which is why LEO's have used these calibers for so long.

Which would I rather have in a gunfight? .45 hands down I am not trying to kill or stop a frying pan. All that shows is the .45 dispersed it's energy into the pan. Which I would rather have than punching a neat little hole through it. Frying pans and flesh are somewhat different in their reaction.

 

[Dpris]

Not to engage in a caliber war, but some observations:

The .25 Auto has not killed hundreds of thousands of people.

My wife still laughs about the mugging report she came across at her PD years ago.
Muggee pulled a .25, shot mugger in forehead at close range.
Bullet did not penetrate skull, deflected, but angle & position was shallow enough, scalp was strong enough & elastic enough to restrain it briefly. Bullet traveled around the top of his head, under the skin, and exited the back of his scalp.

Mugger & muggee both froze.
Muggee waiting for mugger to drop.
Mugger processing the fact that he'd been shot.

Mugger reached up, explored head with his hand, found entrance wound up front & exit wound in the back, decided he'd been shot clean through his brain, and fainted.

Arriving officers arrested without difficulty.

A fellow cop was involved in a buy-rip, during his undercover days.
In a motel room, the dealer & cohorts were scuffling with him with the intention of subduing & leaving him dead.

The only gun he'd gone in with was a Browning .25, small enough to avoid detection.
He managed, during the scuffle, to get it out & fire one round directly into the chest of one of his attackers, which slowed things down enough for his backup team, listening in on the wire, to crash the door.

During the cleanup, the one who'd been shot kept trying to tell officers he HAD been shot, but in the aftermath of a violent arrest situation nobody paid any initial attention.
No visible blood, and the guy was still very active.

I just offer these incidents as observations on the caliber.
And I worked with the Taurus Judge when it first came out.
I was distinctly unimpressed with what it did.

When you see the rapid pattern spread on ALL shot charges, and remember that nobody recommends a full-length .410 shotgun for self-defense, you might reconsider the very limited utility of reduced velocities and rapid shot column expansion in a handgun.
Denis

 

[BAM-BAM]

Two points:

1.)
2.) I

In normal English that means that in this large study of shootings in Boston getting shot with a large caliber round (.357 magnum, .40, .44 magnum, .45 ACP, 10 mm, and 7.62 × 39 mm), increased the victim's chance of being killed relative to being shot in the same location with a small caliber (.22, .25, and .32) or medium caliber (.38, .380, and 9 mm) round by about 40 percent.

Bigger is better, even after factoring in shot placement.

But wait; aren't .357,.38,.380 and 9mm basically the same 'caliber" ??

Maybe there's more to it than just "the caliber"???????

 

[wnderr]

Everybody knows pigs have very hard heads, and we routinely dropped them for butchering with ONE .22 short! Killed em deader than a frozen mosquito!

And even with a small gun (or large) just keep puling the trigger until the threat is neutralized - end of fight!

Anyone who thinks a .380 won't hurt- didn't do their homework. You definitely don't want to be shot with one!

Yeah, .44s and .45s are fun, but 9mm is lots more practical!

MHO - the only .44 or .45 I have any longer is my GI 1911, purely for long ago memory reasons.

 

[Wee Hooker]

I used to have a college professor that would say like: "To really BS someone, takes supportive statistics. To get those statistics, you need to know how to twist your process."

He was a Statistics Professor BTW.

 

[WuzzFuzz]

Hmmmm...All this supposes is, only one shot being fired at X distance...A .22 into the back of the head, vs a .45 to the back of the head. Or a .22 at 30 feet vs .45 at 30 feet.

Too many variables for me to put a dog in this fight.


WuzzFuzz

 

[wnderr]

Hmmmm...All this supposes is, only one shot being fired at X distance...A .22 into the back of the head, vs a .45 to the back of the head. Or a .22 at 30 feet vs .45 at 30 feet.

Too many variables for me to put a dog in this fight.


WuzzFuzz

When shooting pigs, it was one forehead shot with a .22 short. Drop like a wingless helicopter!

One more thought - I was a US Army Medic way back in Vietnam, and frequently saw a Soldier out of action after one small caliber wound, sometimes a plain ole .22! I've also seen Soldiers remain in the fight with one or more AK rounds where they shouldn't be.

It's all in bullet placement, or enuf lead to weigh em down!

MHO