Magazine Capacity for Self-Defense

[English]

Gabe,
This is in response to your latest and excellent News from Suarez International.

I agree with all of it apart from cartridge choice. In particular, I have argued for a long time that the stress on reloads in most trainer's courses is excessive because in most circumstances if you have to stop for a reload you will be dead before you have completed it. That leads directly to the need for more than six shots. There is not likely to be time to place perfect shots in realistic scenarios. What the shooter must do is place telling shot with minimum delay until the threat ceases to be a threat. If this means going to a smaller caliber to get more shots in the magazine then that is what you should do. For all this I am cheering you on.

You point out that the .45 is not the hammer of Thor that many believe it to be. Here, here say I! (or is it hear, hear?). As you say, pistol rounds are iffy. All can fail and so can many more powerful rifle rounds. You give the example of the .45ACP G36 with six round magazines and compare it to the .40S&W G23 with a 13 round magazine. I have often offered the same comparisson! To be precise the G23 is 0.08 inches longer though its barrel is 0.24 inches longer. It is 0.24 inches taller. It is 0.05 inches, that is 1/20th of an inch thicker. The real down side is that it weighs about 4oz more with a loaded magazine, or about 3oz more if you take the G32 instead, but for that you get 7 more shots. That doesn't seem like a hard decision in a holster rather than pocket carry pistol.

That works realy well for the single stack G36 versus the double stack G23 or G32. In comparison with the double stack G30, all the dimensions are the same as the G36 apart from weight and thickness and 9 rounds instead of 6. The thickness goes up 0.14 inches, that is a sixth of an inch but the G36 fans say it makes a real difference. The weight goes up nearly six ounces and I think six ounces is significant for carry but that it is is a clear victory to the G23/32 again. I think that the .45 is just that critical bit too fat to get enough in a reasonably sized grip frame for concealed carry.

When we compare the G23/32 to the G19, obviously the linear dimensions stay the same and the G32 is about 1/5th of an ounce heavier than the G19 and the G23 just over an ounce heavier. No difference there worth bothering about so all that is left is 15 round magazines in the G19 versus 13 rounds in the G23/32. Is the extra whatever in the .40 and 357 over the 9mm enough to compensate for two more rounds? That is 15% more rounds per 9mm magazine or 14% more in the pistol if you top off!

The force on force evidence is that people pull the trigger twice or even three times after the pistol stops firing and before looking to see that the pistol is not jammed or empty. In contrast to that, your good friend with the 9mm one shot stop that you witnessed did not have time to pull the trigger a second time before the BG dropped. (It has to be worth noting that whatever caused that rapid drop it was not the lack of flow from the heart because that takes a lot longer and it is aslo worth noting that the 115gn 9mm+P+ is a lot closer to 357SIG performance than to ordinary 9mm)

The difficulty with these two pieces of information is that someone shot with a real handgun bullet will usually react far more visibly than someone shot with a BB and the person firing the real handgun is much more aware of the recoil, or lack of it than the person firing the airsoft. If we are fighting multiple adversaries, the important question is the average number of shots that it takes in real circumstances before we see an obvious indication that the BG is out of the fight and whether we have time to stop the next shot after that and transition to the next BG? (Or are we better firing a pair on one and then a pair of the next and so on before coming back to finish off?)

What this comes down to, more or less, is whether, say, 2 shots with .40 or 357 will be as good as 3 shots with a 9, or is 3 equivalent to 4, or 4 to 5 or even 5 to 6 or 6 to 7? Even at a six to seven equivalence the magazine capacities are equivalent in the 23/32 to 19 comparisson against two opponents. The 4 to 5 equivalence is good enough for three opponents and the 3 to 4 is needed for four opponents though that leaves you with two spare rounds in the 23/32. It is my guess that the true equivalence is quite a way down the scale. Maybe 3 to 4 or even close to 2 to 3.

We can be in no doubt about three things. One is that there are no magic bullets and the second is that some cartridges are better than others though it is very hard to decide by how much. The third depends on what different people mean by a one shot stop. I think it is clear that there are some one shot stops and you give an example of one. I think some people think that some cartridges produce all one shot stops and that is clearly nonsense. The only thing to dispute is not whether one shot stops exist but whether a cartridge will produce more of them than some other cartridge and if it does, how often does it happen. This might be an interesting question but we can agree for now that it does not happen often enough to rely on so we won't rely on it. That means that the third thing with no doubt is that one shot stops exist but we know of no way to rely on them with any cartridge we know that is likely to be fired in a handgun.

You talk of there being little difference between 9mm, 10mm (.400), and 11.25 mm (.45) as sizes of holes in bodies and still I agree with you BUT I don't think that bullets make caliber sized holes in people and this is my disagreement.

A reasonably high speed bullet produces a pressure field in front of it and to the sides of it as it pushes tissue out of the way to make room for its passage. This pressure field squashes the cells in front of it roughly in line with lines radiating out from the middle of its nose. At right angles to those lines it stretches cells. This bursts the cells close to the bullet and turns them to mush or puree. This liquid then flows round the sides of the bullet and adds to the sideways pressure field. This pureed volume is what makes up the permanent cavity and it is often called the crush cavity because the tissue is crushed to puree. For part of the bullet track this is almost invariably larger in diameter than the expanded caliber of the bullet. All that tissue thown to the side has inertia and it keeps going till the surounding flesh bounces it back. The limit of this movement makes up what is generally called the temporary cavity.

The flesh around the temporary cavity has some elasticity but it also tears. In effect all torn muscle is muscle that is out of action for weeks or months or for ever. The important thing is that it is no longer in the fight NOW. Beyond that zone there is tissue that is not torn but is bruised and probably numbed. That is tissue which is out of the fight for maybe only a second or two or maybe quite a number of seconds, depending on how close it is to the tear zone. Its nerves sending and receiving messages stop working and take time to recover. As far as we are concerned those few seconds are of critical importance in a fight that last 3 to 5 seconds where we want to disrupt as much of our oponent's fighting capability as possible.

So as far as we are concerned the damage done by a bullet extends some way out from the permanent or crush cavity and we can see from ballistic gellatine tests that the permanent cavity damage is not at all well related to the caliber or the expanded caliber of the bullet. This is because the damage done is caused by a combination of velocity and expanded caliber. As illustration of this the typical pictures of 357SIG and .45ACP in gellatine are remarkably similar. What is equally clear is that the 9mm tracks, and especially the 147gn 9mm tracks show a lot less damage - perhaps less than half as much. My calculation comes to a ratio of 2.2:1 in favour of the 357SIG. It is also significant that these pictures also show consistently that the end of the track is narrower by something like half of the expanded diameter of the bullet. In other words, at lower speeds the bullet tears the tissue in front of it, passes through the tear with some stretch of the tissue and the tissue then closes up behind it.

It is hard to determine the relationship between volume of damage done per shot and the cumulative probability of being enough to stop a fight but I would guess that it is quite close. If, as seems to be the case, the 357SIG does about 2.2 times the damage of a 147gn 9mm I would gues that about half as many sound hits with the 357 as with the 147 gn 9mm would bring the fight to an end even though sometimes that would be one shot and somtimes it would be six shots. At a guess the relationship between the 357 and the 115gn 9mm is about 1.5:1 and so I would guess that two 357s would do as well as three 115gn 9mms.

I am a little less accurate with the 357 than with a 9mm but not enough to matter at majority combat type distances and I can certainly fire two shots of 357 a lot faster than three shots of 9mm. The first shot obviously gets away in the same elapsed time for both and the second shot from the 357 is only marginally behind the the time for the 9mm. This does not make the 357SIG a magic bullet but to my mind it does make it a better compromise and well worth the drop to 13 round magazines from 15 round magazines.

English

[Tex]

Do you know what you're talking about when you're discussing temporary and permanent wound cavities and how they relate to the photo in question?

Not trying to be an A. hole, I'm honestly asking.

[English]

I believe the photos posted in another thread show the pernanent cavity. The colouration is cause by introducing coloured liquid into the cavity. Lapse time photography showing temporary cavities also shows the bulge in the outside of the gelatine block and here coloured light shining up through a transparent base allows us to see the shape of the temporary cavity.

English

[Karl Kasarda]

The point is simple - if you're putting rounds into the adversary, their will and capability to fight diminishes. If the rounds are accurate and hit the essential targets, their capabilities will diminish faster.

The difference between any of the average, comparable handgun cartridges is minimal enough that it is almost irrelevant.

What matters are hits on target. Good hits on target matter more. Good hits on target are harder to achieve when you're on full adrenaline dump, moving and attempting for them to not get good hits on their target (you).

As a result, more ammo = better chance.
Better and more training = better chance.

Temporal versus permanent wound cavities and crush damage = interesting but almost unimportant with modern ammunition and bullet designs from any standard self-defense caliber.

[Denny Crane]

English, here's the thread link you need, (I think).

http://www.warriortalk.com/showthread.php?t=49748

Gabes thread with/
The gel photo's with various caliper impact is shown.





The Best

DC

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Karl Kasarda

The point is simple - if you're putting rounds into the adversary, their will and capability to fight diminishes. If the rounds are accurate and hit the essential targets, their capabilities will diminish faster.

The difference between any of the average, comparable handgun cartridges is minimal enough that it is almost irrelevant.

What matters are hits on target. Good hits on target matter more. Good hits on target are harder to achieve when you're on full adrenaline dump, moving and attempting for them to not get good hits on their target (you).

As a result, more ammo = better chance.
Better and more training = better chance.

Temporal versus permanent wound cavities and crush damage = interesting but almost unimportant with modern ammunition and bullet designs from any standard self-defense caliber.

Agreed and that is what I was getting at. The ratios posted to show a Sig .357 to cause incapacitation twice as fast as a the 147 gr. 9mm are off by quite a bit.

English, I'm afraid your work here is inaccurate by a large margin.

[English]

Originally Posted by Tex

Agreed and that is what I was getting at. The ratios posted to show a Sig .357 to cause incapacitation twice as fast as a the 147 gr. 9mm are off by quite a bit.

English, I'm afraid your work here is inaccurate by a large margin.

Tex,
What I am saying is that the 357SIG incapacitates more than twice as much tissue per shot as far as can be calculated from the pictures which Deny Crane has kindly tracked down and posted. I am going on from there to say that since the purpose of shooting someone is to incapacitate tissue with the intent to incapacitate the individual as a single or cumulative effect, it seems reasonable that the more tissue we incapacitate per shot, the more likely it is that we will eventually incapacitate the individual with fewer shots than with a bullet/cartridge which incapacitates less tissue. Not only is this consistent with common sense, it is consistent with the hunting use experience of the differences between cartridges ranging from 22LR to high power rifle cartridges. Why should this progression be inaplicable to different handgun bullets/cartridges in the the range from .380ACP to 10mm? These relationships hold in hunting and in handgun hunting. Where does the special dispensation this category come from?

There is a morturary worker in one of the big southern cities, allowing for the unverifiable nature of internet posts, who says quite clearly that he sees many bodies killed by hangun bullets and that there is a consistent relationship with victims of 9mms having far more bullet wounds than those shot with .40s or .45s. this might be that people who shoot .40s and .45s are just much more capable shots but it seems more likely on a statistical basis that it reflects a difference in bullet/cartridge performance.

You say that my work is inaccurate by quite a margin and it might be so for a variety of reasons but you don't give any of those reasons. Likewise, Karl Kasarda, who you seem to refer to as an authority, offers statements but no rebuttal by any kind of evidence of calculation.

In your other post you say you thought that the dye ws showing the temporary cavity around the cylindrical hole. If you think about it you will see that cannot be so. How could the dye be got in in time? The temorary cavity is literally temporary with a livetime of less than a second. The swirly veil like shapes and densities you see at the edges of those tracks are the tears produced by the expansion of the temporary cavity. The fainter they are the more the tears have closed again as the cavity closed up. The more solid they are the more the chaotic nature of their formation has prevented them from falling back into place. The realy small tears further out from the core will probably not show up at all.

English

[Dr John Meade]

Originally Posted by Karl Kasarda

Temporal versus permanent wound cavities and crush damage = interesting but almost unimportant with modern ammunition and bullet designs from any standard self-defense caliber.

Correct. Be very careful using data generated in a prior generation to today's ammo.

[Al Lipscomb]

While there should be little difference in different rounds, that is not always the case. What is being looked for is failure: If the round won't make it in the lab test, don't bother with it. That is not to say a given round won't kill someone, just that for the same money there are rounds that will give you more of a margin for error.

If a 9mm round meets the current (FBI | IWBA) specs then the difference in a .40 S&W(10mm) that also meets specs will be lost in the noise. Add in the other rounds and there you have it.

What often gets overlooked is consistency of expansion and retained weight after striking a barrier. One of the most simple barriers is cotton fabric, yet it foils many designs. This is an engineering problem that deals with how robust a design is.

So from 9mm to .45 (11.5mm) you don't see a huge difference. The .45 tends (that does not mean always) to do a bit better overall, but you sure trade a lot of capacity.

Use good quality ammo for self defense. Even if you carry ball, use quality stuff. Pick a gun that fits you and train like crazy. About 2 hours of decent training will make more of a difference than going from a .38 to a .44 magnum in a fight.

[English]

Karl,
I think I must try to answer this bit by bit.

Originally Posted by Karl Kasarda

The point is simple - if you're putting rounds into the adversary, their will and capability to fight diminishes. If the rounds are accurate and hit the essential targets, their capabilities will diminish faster.

I am inclined to the belief that the will to fight is not greatly changed by being hit unless the hit has an effect on the brain itself and produces an alteration in brain function. A fighting spirit is not limited to the good guys! Of course if the BG you are shooting didn't come for a fight or expect a fight then he will run if he can. He wants easy money not bullet wounds and there are plenty of easy marks around.

The evidence from many people who are shot is that they don't feel it or feel no more than a bee sting. I think someone who is fighting angry will feel even less. later is different but in the fight, pain is not something to rely on. The pain nerves that would carry the message to the brain are destroyed or numbed in the area of a bullet wound.

What you do achieve with rounds on target is a progressive degradation of the capability to fight and in the short term, 3 seconds remember, blood loss and even a heart shot makes little difference. What counts is the fact that you are putting muscles and bones out of action. That literally jerks him around a bit and puts him off his aim in an entirely physical way. Then as he tries to re-aim his body no longer works in the nicely co-ordinated way that it did before and he has to compensate for that. This buys you time and with some luck and lots of training you will be able to shoot him again before that time is up. This keeps stopping him from making a controled shot at you and with a little luck one of your shots or their cumulative effect will do enough damage to stop the fight.

You say that the rounds need to hit essential targets but we have to ask just what they are if we exclude the CNS. The FBI claims, and I do not doubt them in this, that a determined man with his heart shot out can continue to function at a lethal level for a further 15 to 30 seconds. So a heart shot is a good way to kill someone but not a good way to stop him killing you in a 3 second fight. We hear a lot about bleeding out and that's OK if you can wait around for 5 to 30 minutes.

In general you need to produce enough cumulative damage to give you time to make a head shot because nothing else is guaranteed. Shots in the knee, the shoulder joint, the groin and so on will all go a long way to achieve this result. Don't think that I am advocating aiming for the knee for a moment. I am just saying that all shots do not have to be COM to degrade the fighting capability of your opponent enough to let you finish the fight without being shot. In general we must think it a poor result if you kill him but he kills you as well. Think about what these essential targets are relative to you surviving rather than him dying.

The difference between any of the average, comparable handgun cartridges is minimal enough that it is almost irrelevant.

The range from ordinary 9mm to top 10mm goes from about 300ftlbs to about 800ftlbs. That is not a negligible difference. Energy is what does damage. If you want to say you mean difference in results then you need to show the evidence for that and such evidence is very hard to come by. Such evidence as there is suggests, and it is only suggests because it is not scientifically controlled, that the .357 magnum in 125gn and now the 357SIG are the most effective rounds in general use measured by speed of stop and fewest numbers of shots per stop. That is followed by .45ACP and .40S&W which seem to be close together. The 9mm in standard pressure is bottom but the +P+ in 115gn does quite well. It is interesting that lots of the 9mm advocates actually carry +P+ 115gn gold dots. In theory, and with evidence from hunting, the good 10mms do better than the 357s but their LEO use is so small that there are no statistics. The FBI 10mms were loaded to .40S&W levels so they offer no more information.

What matters are hits on target. Good hits on target matter more. Good hits on target are harder to achieve when you're on full adrenaline dump, moving and attempting for them to not get good hits on their target (you).

Yes and yes, but adrenaline does not make it any hardeer to shoot heavy kicking pistols because you don't feel any pain.

As a result, more ammo = better chance.
Better and more training = better chance.

It is easy to agree with that too. My post was very much about where you make the trade off between individual shot effectiveness and number of shots. If you wanted to spend the money and had the facilities you could probably get over 30 rounds of 22LR into a magazien that would fit into the mag well of a G19 and with an Advantage Arms conversion, which I hear is reliable you would have a 30 or 35 shot 22 instead of a 15 shot 9mm. I know which I would prefer and I don't think you would be any different. As George Bernard Shaw said to Ellen Terry, "We have established the principle. It is only a matter of deciding on the price."

Temporal versus permanent wound cavities and crush damage = interesting but almost unimportant with modern ammunition and bullet designs from any standard self-defense caliber.

Modern bullet design applies its benefits to all calibers but they all depend on the energy they have to work with and they are all looking for temporary and permanent cavity damage. The more expansion you have the more energy you need to get enough penetration. There is no free lunch in physics. The more energy you can feed into about 12 inches of penetration the more damage you will do. If you play safe and go for 14 inches to allow for fat individuals, the less you feed into the sides of the track in the critical zone.

Entertain a thought experiment. Imagine a long .40 caliber steel rod. You couldn't force it through someone's body very easily but if you put a decent cross piece handle on it you could almost certainly do it. It wouldn't take much energy to do it but it would not do much damage to either side of track. It would tear and push its way through and if you tried to pull it out it would be gripped quite tightly because the flesh would be gripping round it from elasticity.

Now drive the same rod through at 1000 ft/sec. The flesh would be crushed and forced aside by the speed of its passage. if you tried to pull it out there would be virtually no resistance because the flesh for some distance around the track would have been destroyed.

A speed boat traveling under momentum at 3 mph hardly disturbs the water. At 50mph the same boad rides on top of the water and throws a great wall of water out on either side. That is more or less what a bullet does. but it starts with tissue which is some 95% water tied together with thin cell walls.

English