Pervasive .357 magnum "wisdom" I keep seeing tossed around.

[lazs]

I don't think it matters what the officers perceive to be true. the more objective tests still show the .357 as a superior stopper. It not by a huge margin in any case.

And.. no.. I do not fire my 340 pd often. I have shot plenty of j frame smiths over the years and know them pretty well.. I will run 5 125 grain federal .357's through the 340 every 6 months or so and it will shoot the same every time. It really is no fun to shoot though. I didn't buy it for plinking.. I might get a steel j frame 38 for plinking though just for fun.

[elSquid]

I don't think it matters what the officers perceive to be true. the more objective tests still show the .357 as a superior stopper.

The CHP reference had three parts:

based on officer perception, objective crime scene measurements, as well as the physiological damage described in the relevant autopsy studies

-- Michael

[lazs]

I would say that a study that took all firearms and had some parameters like that of the marshal study would be more useful.

Overall.. the .357 still has the lead. There really is a lot less difference than most would think when you talk about handgun rounds and placement seems to be important... I would go for accuracy and penetration over one or two percent.. You might have to shoot through something.

http://www.chuckhawks.com/handgun_power_chart.htm

[Mofo-Kang]

Basically, when you buy a .357 magnum gun, you are getting two rounds for one gun. That's why I like them. Sort of like having a .22lr/.22 WMR revolver with switchable cylinders, but no cylinder to switch.

And that goes double for my Ruger Blackhawk... one cylinder is .38/.357, the other is 9mm. Talk about versatile...you can go from the most anemic .38's up through the full spectrum of 9mm and into the hot .357s, and pick one that's nice and comfortable for you. Plus, ammo is very plentiful!

[elSquid]

I would say that a study that took all firearms and had some parameters like that of the marshal study would be more useful.

I agree, a scientific study would be useful, but it's a very difficult problem to get meaningful data for.

As for the Marshall numbers, it's probably best to simply ignore them.

-- Michael

[redcliff]

I agree, a scientific study would be useful, but it's a very difficult problem to get meaningful data for.

As for the Marshall numbers, it's probably best to simply ignore them.

-- Michael

I will ignore them as soon as Massad Ayoob does; the Combined Models quoted in http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/ayoob93.html shows police departments using and reporting good results with most of the the top rated rounds in Evan Marshall's studies http://www.handloads.com/misc/stoppi....asp?Caliber=0

[elSquid]

I will ignore them as soon as Massad Ayoob does; the Combined Models quoted in http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/ayoob93.html shows police departments using and reporting good results with most of the the top rated rounds in Evan Marshall's studies http://www.handloads.com/misc/stoppi....asp?Caliber=0

What's your take on the various criticisms of Marshall's work?

One of my favorites ( and I am lazy so I'll link... )

http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showpost.php?p=4825989&postcount=88

Others include the lack of open data - which pretty much damns the numbers from being scientific - or the fact that M&S appear to have misrepresented the results of various LE agencies...

http://www.m4carbine.net/showpost.php?p=379191&postcount=20

http://www.firearmstactical.com/afte.htm

-- Michael

[redcliff]

Interesting read and much of the criticism appears well founded. But we're still left with the fact that much of what Marshall concluded is matching real world police department reviews of their ammo selection as quoted by Ayoob.

I"m not sure how to properly tabulate some cases; like sympathetic fire where several officers fire at once..did the first shop stop the attacker and the rest of the shots hit him on the way down? Or were numerous hits required. What about cases where a single officer kept firing while the suspect was still on his feet and unable to fight but may not have dropped his gun? Was that a one shot stop or not?

I don't know that there is an extremely precise way to turn this evidence into statistics, (obvisouly more accurate data collection would be a good start) but it seems the anecdotal conclusions of the major police forces pretty closely resemble Marshalls conclusions.

It ain't perfect but seems to be the best we've got to work with, and certainly real world results are the proof to any theory and are preferable to conclusions based upon jello shooting.

[elSquid]

Interesting read and much of the criticism appears well founded. But we're still left with the fact that much of what Marshall concluded is matching real world police department reviews of their ammo selection as quoted by Ayoob.

OTOH, DocGKR wrote that CHP has found the 180 gr 40S&W load to be a better performer than the previously issued 125gr 357 Magnum - opposite what Marshall numbers say.

I"m not sure how to properly tabulate some cases; like sympathetic fire where several officers fire at once..did the first shop stop the attacker and the rest of the shots hit him on the way down? Or were numerous hits required. What about cases where a single officer kept firing while the suspect was still on his feet and unable to fight but may not have dropped his gun? Was that a one shot stop or not?

It's a very difficult problem from a data collection standpoint. Which emphasizes the importance of 3rd party review of the dataset.

It ain't perfect but seems to be the best we've got to work with, and certainly real world results are the proof to any theory and are preferable to conclusions based upon jello shooting.

If it's wrong, it's wrong. If the methodology is wrong, the data is not open for review, and the authors have been caught playing fast and loose with the truth...I'm not sure what else can be said. If you can't trust the OSS percentages, then that defeats the whole purpose of the exercise.

As for jello, it never was positioned as predictive. You aren't going to see any OSS numbers from it. What you do get is the ability to compare rounds in an open and user reproducible format. Ammo companies can actually run standardized tests to improve the state of the art. This is real, science based progress.

-- Michael

[inbox485]

The OSS stats are pure nonsense. Take note that many of them lack proper penetration. The only way a handgun round forces a person to go down is by disrupting the CNS or causing enough blood loss that they pass out. Anything else is a psychological effect. In other words the person is choosing to go down. So then why on earth would the rounds less likely to be able to force a guy to go down be rated higher?

As for the lack of data, there is data out there. Lots of it. If our government spent half the money they have spent on anti gun propaganda, you would have definitive answers on what has a more reliable effect than another. In the mean time you have studies that couldn't be repeated today thanks to animal rights groups and studies that have been shown to have all the integrity of global warming studies.

[lazs]

I really don't know how good the data from the marshal study or the CHP one is.. They could both be wrong or badly done or even made up.

The real difference seems to be that there is one hell of a lot more data and shootings from all around the U.S. in the marshal study. There are not that many shootings in the CHP study and some are simply perception.

I think any study that involves nothing but police shootings is lacking. Ones that involve only one department are even more lacking. I would say that people who shot it out with cops might be a tad different than the rest of us and vary wildly in state of mind. You would need a very large number of shootings to come up with anything that made sense.

No matter what the situation or state of mind.. after about 500 or so shootings you would have some useful data. what you did with it being the only questionable thing.

[Red Devil]

Well...

For many decades, ...all I had (big bore wise) was a Ruger Blackhawk .357...

...and several Police pistol ranges with inexpensive .38 reloads available.

Fifty rounds of lead 38 specials twice a week, ...followed by one load (6) of ultra hot 125 gr. jacketed hollow-point hand-loads to scour the lead, and readjust the aim-point and situational awareness settings.

In application, ...gun control and sight picture are what matters, ...not recoil.

Practice the basics with the 38 Specials, ...lots, ...and save the good stuff for the goblins...

[elSquid]

I think any study that involves nothing but police shootings is lacking. Ones that involve only one department are even more lacking.

It depends, in one way you are right, but in another you are wrong.

Let me talk about the wrong.

The advantage of data coming from a single entity, where you really are only changing 'one' variable ( the firearm and load ) allows one to draw conclusions about said change. If CHP says that the 180gr 40S&W is a better performer than the 125gr 357, they can state with some certainty that the difference is due to the change, if all the _other_ variables are essentially more-or-less consistent between the two 'experiments'.

Granted, that doesn't answer questions about the effectiveness of .32ACP Silvertips or 9mm Glasers... but the CHP info is more of an interesting data point, rather than the last word in terminal ballistics.

-- Michael

[lazs]

Well.. like you say.. it is one data point really.. you are leaving out all but one departments experience with nothing but police shootings. Now.. I am not police nor do I intend to shoot at police to save me from a life in prison.

Any data that does not include civilian shootings would be lacking. Any data that had only a dozen shootings would be lacking and any data that had no set definitions for "stop" would be lacking.

What I did like about the marshal study was that it went across the entire spectrum of shootings in the U.S. and it defined what a "stop" was and stuck to that definition.. even if every guy shot with a 44 mag died.. if they staggered around for a few feet they were not "stopped" for instance.

It also had one hell of a lot of shootings to look at. If you only have a dozen.. all sorts of things can happen to make the data not relevant.

In my opinion.. the CHP data should be a data point and thrown into some sort of overall mix like the marshal one.

Perhaps the real deal here is that no one has done a good study. But.. even more important.. in every study it seems that most of the more powerful or big bore rounds with effective bullets seem to perform within about a 5% range or so. That in truth.. placement is the most important factor.