9mm enough power?

[plumbum]

For me personally, I accept a .38 special as ?enough? for the majority of situations I may encounter - the 9x19 level of performance is even better.
I gotta say that if you try to be prepared for all situations, all the time - you will always doubt yourself. Better to know and accept your limitations and work to operate within those boundaries as much as possible.

[arrix]

I'll take more rounds in the mag, all day, any day. If you're up against multiple bad guys, you are going to want that extra capacity of 9mm.

[oddball]

Stopping power = shot placement + penetration.

Good shot placement trumps poor shot placement/bigger bore EVERY time. EVERY time. Seen it.

The most powerful round won?t help you if you don?t hit your target.

Meanwhile, a weak 22LR will put the hurt on someone if you hit him at the right spot.

I agree. Folks place too much of an emphasis on caliber.

Thinking of sigfan91's post, here is what a .22LR can do to a group of people. John Hinkley used a .22 revolver, firing all six shots in less than a few seconds. He instantly stopped, put down on the ground, three fully grown men, and almost killed a fourth one with near fatal injuries. All four suffered deep penetration wounds.

[TrailerparkTrash]

Are you hard of reading? Silvertips have nothing to do with the 147 gr Hydra-shocks I was talking about.

EVERYONE in the shooting game knew 9mm Silvertips were crap for penetration years before the Miami shooting. Either you weren't around then or you weren't paying attention.

Federal’s Hydra shocks had nothing to do with the Miami shooting, let alone “bowling pins” either. Your tangent went off about your experience with gun fighting a bowling pin using hydra shocks, when the topic was about Winchester’s silvertip and shootouts with human bad guys. C’mom man, stay with me. Focus, don’t let shiny things distract your concentration.

Your claim about silvertips being crap back in 1986 is false as well. Tons of law enforcement agencies carried those rounds until after the Miami incident occurred. Then the switch came about, as everyone was blindly following the FBI switch and blame game. Then many LE agencies went to the 147gr subsonic round. However it took a while for them to realize that it too was a failed performer in shootings with humans (not bowling pins). That’s the short end of the history lesson anyway.

[TrailerparkTrash]

I don't think they they are issued/allowed to load slugs in patrol shotguns. I seem to remember being told that LASO wasn't allowed to either.

Sir your source of information is incorrect. LASD has carried slugs in patrol at the option of the individual deputy for decades and decades.

[Carcassonne]

Did you mean "Magazines"

Magazines over 10 rounds are banned, but not clips over 10 rounds. That's is why I have clips instead of magazines.


.

[ShastaCola]

I wish I can find this youtube vid I saw, but a brainaic actually took 30 years of data from police shootouts and the different calibers they used, and compiled it, quantified it and put the data in graph form. The results were that the lethality of all calibers were pretty much the same.

They showed us a dashcam vid at the academy of a SC state trooper in a shootout. The suspect fired once with a .22. Trooper returned fire with his .357 and hit the suspect all six times in the torso...guess who lived and who died?

As another commenter said, it's all about shot placement and luck.

[Scratch705]

I only carry a 40mm bofors as my SD caliber/gun of choice.

Nothing says 1 shot stops like a proximity fused 40mm. They would need to use dna tests on the blood splatter to find out who it was.

[OCEquestrian]

Spoke with an ER doctor. He said the two most common rounds he sees that cause fatality are .45acp and 5.56 .

That's because

1) Guys who carry/shoot .45 ACP are clearly better trained or they'd carry high capacity 9mm's in anticipation of all their misses.
2) Guys who carry .45 ACP have limited round capacity and focus on accuracy with their limited rounds.

[Scratch705]

Spoke with an ER doctor. He said the two most common rounds he sees that cause fatality are .45acp and 5.56 .

Wouldn't 7.62x39 be top of list? The rappers love to talk about AK's. And it is the quintessential "thug life" gun of choice

[Sailormilan2]

Hopefully I don't offend anyone with this picture, or break any rules. Photo taken from the 1980 Edition of STREET SURVIVAL, written by Ronald J. Adams, Thomas M. McTernan, and Charles Remsberg. p. 215.
STREET SURVIVAL book was written with the idea of teaching officers with survival tactics and ideas. It has multiple photos of dead officers and suspects.

Short story is that the subject was shot 33 times with a 9mm before stopping. Article does NOT say what type of ammunition was used. Later, another source, speaking of the photo, claimed that the subject was also hit with 3 12 gauge rounds. Now, it's been a very long time since I read the 2nd article, so I am not sure, but I believe it said he was hit by 3 12 gauge slug rounds. I cannot confirms this.
However, this article(STREET SURVIVAL) does mention subjects requiring multiple shotgun hits to go down, and another subject who took 21 9mm hits to go down.
Note" In none of these was the type of ammunition mentioned, other than the caliber. Back then, the selection of JHP type bullets was much more limited than it is now. I never felt under gunned when I carried a 9mm.

[TrailerparkTrash]

Spoke with an ER doctor. He said the two most common rounds he sees that cause fatality are .45acp and 5.56 .

Seems like just about everybody knows an “ER” doctor these days. You know, the old “…I know a guy…”


Neither the .45acp nor the 5.56 performs any better nor worse than any of the other popular weapons calibers (9, .40, .357) used on two legged creatures.

[champu]

Was in the middle of supper when I posted that, thus, couldn't recall the actual quote. So, like most people nowadays, I turned to AI...

I think the key for this quote to hold true is understanding what level of accuracy is necessary. If you can put 3-4 shots on a paper plate faster than you can put two in an x-ring, then the former is probably the way to go in a gun fight.

[RAMCLAP]

I've seen all the videos and read many of the studies. 9, .40, and .45 all have roughly the same penetrating power. Also, a study of trauma surgeons suggests that they cannot tell the difference in wound channels between the 3. After all that I went back to 9mm. Cheaper to shoot and manage recoil for follow ups.

[BigPimping]

I went to a lot of gunshot wound victim calls as a paramedic. I can tell you that 9 mm rounds, especially the hollow points and personal defense rounds were pretty devastating.