Any firearms experts over here?

[macelena 1,070]

Hi all. I´ve been researching a bit about the US police departments in the 1970s for a possible job, learned some interesting info, but there is something yet i don´t get, and it is about weapons and ammo. I think there were quite a few members informed about it, so i guess i should ask here.

 

I can tell the difference between an M16 and an AK47, and learned a bit about our Army´s gear, but i´m kind of ignorant on some other issues and i couldn´t really find out on the web. I´m particulary interested in wich cartridge has a better chance of taking down a man (not killing, just putting him out of combat) with a single shot: the 357 Magnum, or the .45 ACP?

 

 

Regards

Edited August 25, 2011 by macelena

[Icarus999 70]

It really all comes down to the choice of ammo you use and shot placement. The 357 magnum loaded +P(high pressure) with a 125 grain hollow point has proven to be the best handgun man stopping load statistically. However a very hot loaded .45 +P 185grain HP does amazing work as well. Both cartridges are proven fight stoppers The biggest issue is shot placement ....there is really good ammo available these days so shoot a cartridge you can control and shoot well.... it is much better to hit the target with a hot 9mm load than to shoot off center with a .45 or a magnum cartridge. A .45 double stack magazine creates a very thick pistol grip... how large are your hands ? people with smaller hands must consider this.

 

Personally If I had to choose between those two calibers I would go with a .45 acp Glock and load it hot. However my recommendation to you is neither of those calibers .. I would go with a glock 22 in .40s&w cal and use 135 gr +p and buy an extra barrel in .357 SIG caliber and use 125 gr +P both of those loads are the ballistic equal of the .357 magnum.

 

Also I need to point out a fundamental flaw in your thinking- If a man can still move his trigger finger you have not taken him out of combat. The human body can withstand massive damage yet the attacker will still advance on you and cut you to ribbons with his knife ...or club you to death. he may die later... from blood loss and shock ...but very often men are shot 7 to 10 times before they go down. There are many cases where it took more than 10 hits to stop a man who was on drugs.

Edited August 25, 2011 by Icarus999

[+streakeagle 866]

back in 1997, Federal Hydrashock 230 grain 0.45 ACP was the best 0.45 round with a 94% single shot knock down success rate excluding vital shots like head and heart. Other 0.45 hollow points were in the 80-92% range, standard ball 0.45 was in the 50% range. You would be hard pressed to find a round in any hand gun caliber that would score better than 94%. Now how far has the ammo tech come since then? Doesn't really matter to me as long as I know I am going to take a guy down better than 90% of the time with a single shot that hits ANYWHERE, much less the effects of hitting a vital area.

[Lt. James Cater 62]

Yes, shot placement is of utmost importance in many situations. Someone wired on crank or pcp will keep right on coming if you don't hit anything crucial. People can also reach a beserker like rage that makes them pretty much impervious to pain for a short while.

 

Seeing as it's 1970s US police Macelena is studying, the most common cop round was .38 Special. Good luck with that round in a fight unless you get a head or heart shot.

 

As for the .45 vs .357 question? Can't really give an opinion as i've only used M1911s with standard ball ammo.

[+NeverEnough 78]

Everyone has given pretty good advice so far. This link will let you compare the effectiveness of pretty much any currently available handgun ammunition: http://www.handloads.com/misc/stoppingpower.asp

The 125 grain 357 Magnum load has historically had the best recorded one shot stopping statistics in actual reported police shooting incidents. Streakeagles 230 grain Federal HydraShock 45 ACP pick has been the recommended load for security personnel guarding U.S. nuclear facilities for some time. I would think that was pretty high praise!

[Lt. James Cater 62]

Found something interesting while looking up one round stops.

 

 

"In Street Stoppers by Evan Marshall & Ed Sanow, they reprint the results of 5 different studies of handgun ammunition effectiveness:

 

The infamous Strasbourg Goat Tests

The Navy-Crane 9mm ammo test

The Police Marksman/Fairburn study (not Fairbairn)

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police test

The Secret Service test

 

The Navy-Crane test involved 10 types of commercial 9mm hollowpoint ammunition, and was used to determine the issue ammunition for the Naval Investigative Service in 1991. Functional reliability was 50% of the criteria (not totally objective, some subjective opinions were counted); penetration into bare gelatin and bare gelatin after going through glass was 25%, expansion in gelatin and group size at 50yds were worth 10% each and retained bullet weight was 5%. (Note, I do not recommend these exact percentages for selecting personal defense ammo). The conclusion was to select a Federal 147gr JHP. And it was a bad decision, due to unrealistic weighting and the inclusion of subjective data in the weighting. When the data is analyzed with more realistic weighting and no subjective observations, 115gr and 124gr JHP ammo performs best.

 

Police Marksman magazine published a 4-year study of ammo performance in 1993. It wasn’t a test; they solicited information on shooting incidents from police officers. While the man who conducted and tabulated the survey was a proponent of slow heavy expanding bullets, his study showed them to be inferior to lighter faster expanding bullets.

 

The 1994 RCMP tests compared the performance of 9mm and .40S&W ammo (in 4″ pistols and a 9mm HK MP5 with 9″ barrel) to the then-issue .38+P 158gr LSWCHP (lead semi-wadcutter hollowpoint, fired from a 5″ barrel) in gelatin, in clothed gelatin, and in gelatin with a section of pig rib embedded in it. The tests were conducted at 3 meters and 50 meters. The researchers were looking at total penetration, recovered bullet diameter, weight retention and % of retained weight. Penetration of less than 12″ or more than 18″ into bare gelatin disqualified a round, as did expanded diameters less than the issue .38 round. While the researchers did not recommend a specific replacement ammo, the results were interesting; the issue .38 ammo overpenetrated bare & clothed gelatin when fired from a 2″ barrel. Light 9mm rounds that tend to fragment (and have excellent real-world performance) were deemed unacceptable based upon the test criteria.

 

The Secret Service (which does not share much information) tested .38 ammo in 1972 and did some testing of 9mm ammo in 1987. Bear in mind that the Secret Service and the FBI have different roles and are likely to have to use their weapons in different environments. The FBI overreacted to the Miami Shootout and overemphasized penetration in setting its criteria for ammunition testing. Conclusions: hollowpoints are most effective, FMJ were least effective, and JSP fell in between the two.

 

The Strasbourg Goat Tests (which some claim were a hoax) took place in 1991, and used goats (with bone composition similar to humans, unlike pigs which have more fat and less calcium in their bones causing them to affect bullets differently) wired for electroencephelography (EEG) and arterial transducers to record the animals’ responses before during and after bullet impact. The point of aim was the goats’ chest cavity, with the intent of hitting a lung. The goats were not anesthetized.

 

They tested .380, .38+p, 9mm, .357mag, .40s&w, 10mm and .45acp; ammunition designs included Black Talon, Hydra-Shok, Glaser, MagSafe, Silvertip, XTP, Nyclad and standard jacketed & unjacketed hollowpoints.

 

The conclusions:

1) prefragmented/frangible rounds worked best for an unobstructed lung shot.

2) rounds that expand and then fragment incapacitated faster than rounds that only expanded.

3) hollowpoints that expand immediately incapacitated faster than bullets designed for controlled/delayed expansion.

4) more rapid rates of bullet expansion caused more organ damage.

5) higher impact velocity that caused more rapid expansion led to the highest blood-pressure spikes and greatest blood loss.

6) non-expanding bullet designs took the longest to incapacitate, if they were even able to incapacitate.

7) bullets that struck a rib took longer to incapacitate (usually twice as long) than bullets that entered cleanly. Round-nose bullets and hollowpoints with small openings performed the worst after hitting bone; wide hollowpoints were least affected by bone impacts

 

 

Regarding Glaser/MagSafe ammo, they were part of the Strasbourg tests. The point of the tests was to see what ammo would incapacitate a target fastest.

 

For the calibers that were tested:

.380 – MagSafe and Glaser Blue were the fastest and second-fastest incapacitators

.38SPL (4″ BBL) – Glaser Blue was #1 and MagSafe was #2.

.45acp – MagSafe and Glaser Blue were #1 and #2

.40S&W – MagSafe and Glaser Blue were #1 and #2

10mm – MagSafe was #1 and Glaser Blue was #3

.357mag – QuickShok (prefragmented) was #1, MagSafe was #2 and Glaser Blue was #3

9mm – MagSafe was #1, QuickShok was #2, Glaser Blue was #3

 

Given the test methodology (straight-in, chest/lung shot placement, no clothing), the results are compelling"

[+suhsjake 11]

It does not matter how big or how fast the bullet is going, its how you the operator operates the firearm. It is not until the marriage of the firearm with and operator that make a firearm deadly.

 

Shot placement, shot placement, shot placement.

[Wrench 9,717]

you do know the history of the M1911 and the 45ACP ammo, no??

 

the gun and ammo was designed for one purpose, and one purpose only:

 

to stop PEOPLE. Dead.

 

during the Moro Uprising in the Phillipines in 1905(?), the standard .32 cal revolvers the US Army had would not stop Moro warriors, even when all 6 rounds were put on the target (some of this might be attributed to the drugs they'd use, similiar to modern times with suspects on crack or other "speed-like" stuff)

 

as a man-stopper, it couldn't be beat. But more modern stuff allows for more ammo carriage in the mags (15 on average for 9mm), and better training -always the key-

 

like suhsjake said -- shot placement. A 22 can be as deadly as 50 when placed properly

[mppd 16]

Shot placement, shot placement, shot placement.

 

Roger the above. These are the three key elements of the issue, according to a SWAT team instructor that I used to shoot with....anything else is secondary.

[Slartibartfast 153]

As a regard to Shot Placement I will agree as... I spent 10 years being paid to shoot by the UK military. But I will say this for my job I was fortunate enough to be able to choose my backup weapon and I chose a .45 simply because it puts a man on the floor. Granted I only had 8 rounds whereas my colleagues using the standard Browning 9mm had 13. The 9mm simply put doesnt stop someone unless your shot placement is damn good also with a .45 it will stop someone wearing light body armour with the correct load, it may not kill them but the energy from the round will knock them over and break bone. Personally I prefered a .308 from around 800metres... none of this close quarter stuff its seriously bad for your health...

Edited August 25, 2011 by Slartibartfast

[+Gocad 26]

Well, looks like everything has been said already.

 

In case anybody wonders though, I would have said six words only:

 

Shot placement, shot placement, shot placement.

[mdatelmi 124]

Some interesting stuff here...

 

http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/node/7866

[JediMaster 451]

Yes, because FPS games to the contrary, shooting someone in the foot with a powerful gun won't kill them. Shooting them 4 more times there will also not cause them to drop dead, although I suppose they could eventually bleed out.

 

However, I would think shooting both arms would indeed stop that trigger finger, or at least prevent any sort of holding/aiming of a weapon. Not that it's so easy to shoot someone in the arm on purpose.

[macelena 1,070]

Thanks everybody for your inputs. The issue with police in the 1970s is that i´ve got a chance to work on a comic. A book seller, relative of a friend, learned about my drawing, and told me that if i could make up that story and have it ready by Christmas, he would print, promote and release it, as i would work with his son (graphic technician). He told me what he wanted, an story in the 70s around something like Untouchables, in a fictional city, i am free to make the rest on my own. I thought of a mix of law enforcement, both local and federal, to make up the team. The fictional city would be a composition of San Francisco and Los Ángeles, and i´ve been asked to make it as detailed as possible.

 

The would be main character, not the leader of the group, would be inspired to some extent by the character of Harrison Ford in "Blade Runner", and Al Pacino in "Heat", a local cop. As it is to be an special detachment, i figured out they could get non standard issue weaponry, but i wanted to keep it close to the standards of the era. For this particular character, he would basically be not a gunslinger, but use his gun just to make sure that, if he is to shoot someone, he is to get him down. So i thought of an S&W Model 19 or 28 revolver in 357 magnum, however, if a 45 is better for that, i would think about it.

 

On the other hand, i thought of issuing M1911s or S&W 39, as main sidearms and Walther PPK and Colt Detective Special as back ups, just to mention some. Long weapons and all that would be M1 carbines, M3 or Swedish K SMGs, AR18s, Ithaca37 shotguns... And still working on vehicles, city layout, etc.

Edited August 25, 2011 by macelena