Stopping Power by Caliber Part 2

[mtn_shooter]

I think the basis for effective stopping power (killing) is a round that is powerful enough to get through common barriers (cars, various types of walls, soft body armor etc..), and still be able to penetrate through most of the body of whatever you're shooting at. At the same time, it can't be so dedicated to armor penetration that it just punches tiny holes in soft targets. Bullet construction is key, IMO. I tend to stray away from anything smaller than 6mm because small light bullets shed energy too quickly for my liking. On the other hand, if you go above about .40 cal, the wide, rounded bullets don't penetrate so well, and you have to increase weight (decrease velocity in standard sized cartridges) significantly to get anything out of them.

With that said, rounds like the 7.62x39mm, 7.92x33mm, 6.5 grendel, .280 british etc. are all good to go in my book for "assault" rifle rounds. The 5.56 in my opinion is on the weaker end of the spectrum, and while it does do the job, I feel other rounds do it better. 6-7.5mm is my personal ideal range for rifle rounds. For pistols, I prefer big and heavy bullets if they have to be slow. 40, 45, 10mm.

I also agree 100% with what LRRPF52 has said. As a USMC 0311 cross trained in physical security (share many police tactics), we're on about the same page. As soon as that guy's rifle broke the plane of the doorway he should have been done. Hell before that, as soon as he charged the police officer he should have been OC'd and cuffed. Actively resistant subjects are not who you want to let do what they want to do-- while watching that video I immediately picked up on the Deputy's voice pitch change and defensive behavior. When people try to get dominant to you, you have to get real mean real quick. Speed, surprise and violence of action is what we're taught. And even since boot camp "Mission of the Marine Corps rifle squad: To locate, close with, and DESTROY the enemy by fire and maneuver, or to repel the enemy's assault by fire and close combat!". As long as you have a weapon that is capable (semi-auto preferably, with a decent caliber, atleast 20 round mags) and the right mindset and training, that's emensely more important than minor caliber variations.

[LRRPF52]

I think that situation could have been calmed a little better from the start, but the Deputy was well-within his right to ask the guy to remove his hands from his pockets. I can tell you that ordering him to put the gun down would not be on my to-do list, as he would have become a bullet magnet at that point until fully-ventilated.

As far as officer survival goes, mag capacity could have yielded a different outcome in that situation, but the willingness to close with and destroy ultimately ended the fight. That is not taught in many civilian circles that I know of, and is bread and butter for 0311's and 11B's.

Sorry I didn't mark the link as graphic. That was an oversight on my part, and I hope no children were traumatized as a result.

LRRPF52

[bwaites]

I think that situation could have been calmed a little better from the start, but the Deputy was well-within his right to ask the guy to remove his hands from his pockets. I can tell you that ordering him to put the gun down would not be on my to-do list, as he would have become a bullet magnet at that point until fully-ventilated.

As far as officer survival goes, mag capacity could have yielded a different outcome in that situation, but the willingness to close with and destroy ultimately ended the fight. That is not taught in many civilian circles that I know of, and is bread and butter for 0311's and 11B's.

Sorry I didn't mark the link as graphic. That was an oversight on my part, and I hope no children were traumatized as a result.

LRRPF52

No problem. The officer seriously made a mistake, asking someone to put a gun down that is swinging towards you is far too late. He should have been firing at that point. But its a knife edge issue for police officers. I don't know if you followed the Utah case of the officer that shot at the suspect driving at him, but the DA has decided that he used unnecessary force, so sometimes the LEO's are screwed regardless of what they do!

Bill

[RangerRick]

Joe:

Oh yes, that 9mm service round may have a statistical MV of 1200 fps from an M-9 but my bet is that by the time it goes ten or fifteen feet is is well below that level. And even if it hits someone at that level, it will be below the same once it passes through clothing and skin.

LR1955

I can tell you from personal experience that clothing slows shrapnel down. It's not a bullet but the shrapnel I got hit with was the filler of an anti personnel mine. It consists of a steel rod cut into short pieces at an angle to create sharp points on both ends. It's about the size and weight of a bullet.

Even though it isn spinning, air resistance causes it to orient one or the other pointy end first over short distances. I had very few oblong holes in me.

When the docs gave me a jar of souvenirs from the surgery, I was surprised to see so much cloth in the jar with it.

They took strips of my outer uniform and my tee shirt into the wound with them. That's got to use up a lot of energy

Any of you guys who have been shot found this to be true too?

[LRRPF52]

Yup, LEO's do have to walk a very fine line, and rightfully so...rules of a civilized society. A second can mean the difference between unnecessary use of deadly force, and your life, which is why I couldn't do that job. Too many people would complain about me exiting the cruiser with an AR15 SBR slung for traffic stops, but I would want nothing less if it turned out to be a carload of narco-traffickers. They will not hesitate one second to shoot you in the face and then bolt.

When watching the video, at the point you realize things are really going south, do you notice how even your own body reacts to the events in the situation? Notice the adrenalin dump and endorphin surge, as well as the stinging tightness on your skin? Those are elements missing from 99% of the firearms and martial training for professionals. Just doing PT or stressful physical exercises is not enough to deposit that component into the equation. True fear...

LRRPF52

[LRRPF52]

I can tell you from personal experience that clothing slows shrapnel down. It's not a bullet but the shrapnel I got hit with was the filler of an anti personnel mine. It consists of a steel rod cut into short pieces at an angle to create sharp points on both ends. It's about the size and weight of a bullet.

Even though it isn spinning, air resistance causes it to orient one or the other pointy end first over short distances. I had very few oblong holes in me.

When the docs gave me a jar of souvenirs from the surgery, I was surprised to see so much cloth in the jar with it.

They took strips of my outer uniform and my tee shirt into the wound with them. That's got to use up a lot of energy

Any of you guys who have been shot found this to be true too?

I took a 9mm through-and-through. It was an FMJ, and was very clean. The wounds bled like drinking fountain faucets, but you can bleed like that for a long time and still be ok for the time it takes to win a gunfight. Fortunately for me, it was an accidental shooting, so I didn't have to beat anyone's face in at the time. I also have the projectile, and it has a flattened dent running diagonally off to the side of the bullet tip, from where it hit the lateral epicondyle of my right femur.

The grenade fragments I've been hit with burned right through my BDU's both times, and kept burning in my skin. I never sought medical care for them as the first was easily picked out with my hand (burned the tips of my fingers slightly), and the second probably worked itself out of my back (did something stupid on a grenade range and didn't want to face possible UCMJ).

Most FMJ wounds are pretty clean, except for 5.56 in my experience. If a round skips through ground debris into a person, there are sometimes rocks in the injured area as well. I've seen that.

If you do get any fabric and foreign debris into a wound, the debris needs to be removed ASAP. This is where debridement comes into play. Basically, you need to expose the wound, irrigate with saline solution, probably open/remove damaged fascia at the entrance/exit, and run gauze through it until the wound path is cleaned. They did that on my legs with the GSW. If you don't debride, the dead tissue and foreign debris will induce infection really quick, and then the muscle tissue will turn black, while skin turns dark and mushy, with no more nerve function, and will need to be removed. This is why mine injures are so effective when a soldier is wounded because he needs to be rushed through the echelons of care from the front to the rear ASAP.

With mine and explosively-launched fragments, you're looking at brissance velocities that start out at up to 34,000 fps if C4 is used, and well over 20,000 fps if TNT is uses. COMP B is closer to C4 IIRC, so explosively-launched projectiles will be going as fast as the atmospheric threshold will tolerate, and they are extremely hot from the initial explosion and air resistance. Bad ju-ju

LRRPF52

[LRRPF52]

To clarify, the explosive velocities are in reference to the heated gaseous expansion of the explosive reaction, while solid projectiles are limited to much slower velocities due to wind resistance and atmospheric pressure. I did read an interesting article in Small Arms Review that discussed how some of the most famous living small arms designers are just learning that lead-core projectiles morph into a plasma state when chamber pressure and heat are exerted on them. They said this accounts for much more barrel heating than they originally thought, combined with friction of the lead pushing outwards from within the confines of the projectile jacket. Adds a whole new understanding to the term..."hot lead".

[RangerRick]

If you do get any fabric and foreign debris into a wound, the debris needs to be removed ASAP. This is where debridement comes into play. Basically, you need to expose the wound, irrigate with saline solution, probably open/remove damaged fascia at the entrance/exit, and run gauze through it until the wound path is cleaned. They did that on my legs with the GSW. If you don't debride, the dead tissue and foreign debris will induce infection really quick, and then the muscle tissue will turn black, while skin turns dark and mushy, with no more nerve function, and will need to be removed. This is why mine injures are so effective when a soldier is wounded because he needs to be rushed through the echelons of care from the front to the rear ASAP.

LRRPF52

Yeah, in my case they stopped the bleeding and left the wounds open for about 10 days, a trick they learned in Vietnam. No sense stitching infection in. They changed my dressings every other day and just spackled Betadine paste into the wound holes with a tongue depressor. Then another trip to the OR for 300+ stitches and skin grafts.

I don't know what the relative speed of the shrapnel was but I suspect it was pretty slow. I was 10 or 15 feet from the blast. So I wonder if a slower or faster projectile would have a tendency to take cloth with with it rather than punching a clean hole in the cloth.

[LRRPF52]

Yeah, in my case they stopped the bleeding and left the wounds open for about 10 days, a trick they learned in Vietnam. No sense stitching infection in. They changed my dressings every other day and just spackled Betadine paste into the wound holes with a tongue depressor. Then another trip to the OR for 300+ stitches and skin grafts.

I don't know what the relative speed of the shrapnel was but I suspect it was pretty slow. I was 10 or 15 feet from the blast. So I wonder if a slower or faster projectile would have a tendency to take cloth with with it rather than punching a clean hole in the cloth.

When you have large wounds, especially traumatic or surgical amputations, it is smart to clean the wounds like that, and do a 10-day delayed primary closure as you described. I saw a pretty good video on this with a mine victim from Afghanistan in the 1990's. His legs were totally intact, but perforated with dozens of small serrated wire fragments from an AP mine. Both his legs were amputated in the video with interlocking "U" cuts, his femurs filed down so they wouldn't lacerate the internal tissues after closure, and he was given the same delayed primary closure protocol you got for 10 days.

The "U" flaps were then sutured together, and prosthetics fit to him. Had he received immediate attention for the small wounds, with a strong antibiotic drip and cleaning of the individual wounds, he would have likely retained his legs with no serious limitations on function, unless his joints were perforated.

The key thing with perforating injuries is proper medical care ASAP. The longer you delay, the sooner infection sets in, and then anything can happen.

LRRPF52

[warped]

Supposedly the slower fragments takes more cloth and other crap into the wound cavity, nasty stuff, consider using the civil war as an example.

[QuadCam]

10-4 on that Vascar! Unfortunately, carrying a shotgun into the movie theater tends to get people a little riled up!

lol.... i'm trying to visualize tha one!

[QuadCam]

just finished reading this whole thread.....man, did it take a serious right hand turn. Very informative, and very eye opening.

[LRRPF52]

If there is one concept that I would stress about the definition of stopping power...it is the will and resolve of the warrior to win the fight for life, not a caliber or physical tool.