Lets Talk Punch!

[Delmonico]

One problem, the question you are asking has no real proper answer.  Yep a bullet that exits can hit something besides the intended target.  How ever a bulltet that does no penatrate deep enough because of heavy clothes, to much expansion of the bullet, lack of weight or any other reason, might not do a good enough jop to stop the target quick enough.  Like what happened in Miami in te 80's with the FBI.  

In that one, the bad guy had an aorta damaged, no tramua room could have saved him, yet in the 3-4 minutes he lived he did a lot of damage to the robbery team that had shot him.  But it is said if the bullet would have went deeper he would have been stopped much quicker, can't remember, but I think it was 2 FBI killed and 2 crippled as in forever after he was shot.

So really it's as simple as plan ahead, figure out the size of the person yer gonna have to shoot, decide how much clothes he'll have on and of course decide where you will shoot him.  After that choosing the right bullet should be made easier.

[Fiddler Green]

The question was about knockdown power. I like the .45 ACP for that very reason. The same reason J.M. Browning desiged it for; to take men off their feet. Yes, their are cases where a bullet will not penetrate something. If you look hard enough, you'll probably find a case where any bullet didn't do the job. But, if you want to knock a man down without killing the person behind him; I'll go with the .45 ACP.


Besides, you have 7 shots, if he gets up.....shoot him again! If you can't shoot him again, at least you have a very heavy gun to beat on him with.

If that dosen't work......feel free to come back here and tell me "I told you so". 

Bruce

[Raider2000]

One problem, the question you are asking has no real proper answer.  Yep a bullet that exits can hit something besides the intended target.  How ever a bulltet that does no penatrate deep enough because of heavy clothes, to much expansion of the bullet, lack of weight or any other reason, might not do a good enough jop to stop the target quick enough.  Like what happened in Miami in te 80's with the FBI.  

In that one, the bad guy had an aorta damaged, no tramua room could have saved him, yet in the 3-4 minutes he lived he did a lot of damage to the robbery team that had shot him.  But it is said if the bullet would have went deeper he would have been stopped much quicker, can't remember, but I think it was 2 FBI killed and 2 crippled as in forever after he was shot.

So really it's as simple as plan ahead, figure out the size of the person yer gonna have to shoot, decide how much clothes he'll have on and of course decide where you will shoot him.  After that choosing the right bullet should be made easier.

I was there when it went down '86, "was back in my Surfing days" Let me tell ya when you hear gun fire in a neighborhood & don't see any camera crews shooting a movie all you think about is getting down &/or getting  the **** out a Dodge.

Yeah the FBI did a real sit back & think on that one when those .38's & 9mm wasn't putting the BG's down & their agents were getting killed.

[Bryan Austin]

The question was about knockdown power. I like the .45 ACP for that very reason. The same reason J.M. Browning desiged it for; to take men off their feet. Yes, their are cases where a bullet will not penetrate something. If you look hard enough, you'll probably find a case where any bullet didn't do the job. But, if you want to knock a man down without killing the person behind him; I'll go with the .45 ACP.


Besides, you have 7 shots, if he gets up.....shoot him again! If you can't shoot him again, at least you have a very heavy gun to beat on him with.

If that dosen't work......feel free to come back here and tell me "I told you so". 

Bruce

Thanks FG! I figured as much!

[Delmonico]

Don't kid yourself, bullet selection is the most important aspect of such things, the 45 ACP got it's reputation with FMJ bullets and this is compared to the other two popular rounds, the 9mm Lugar with FMJ and the 38 Spec with roundnose lead bullets.

There is no such thing on a live target as knock down till you get into guns large enough to need wheels.  A living target stops when you either stop the brain or tear up the frame work to the point is no longer is a threat.

As long as the brain is sending signals, and the bone and muscle allows it to attack a 2 or four legged animal can damage you when fatally wounded, that is unless it decides to just give up.

[Texas Lawdog]

After that shoot out, the FBI went to S&W to have them come up with a more powerful round, hence the 10 mm was born.  The Model 1006.

[Leo Tanner]

Then the Feds knocked it down to the 40 S&W.  Said the 10 was "too hot".

[Delmonico]

Then the Feds knocked it down to the 40 S&W.  Said the 10 was "too hot".

They down-loaded it at first, 10mm lite.  S&W figgered they didn't need the bigger case so the shortened it, fits on a 9mm platform that way.

What they did with the original 180 gr bullet was to reinvent the 38-40.

The FBI specs demanded enough penatration to do car doors or take a person out through either the windshield or back glass, remember lack of penatration was what got them in trouble in Miami. 

Just a thought, if "knock down" really exists why don't a hit in a vest toss the guy off his feet.

It exists only in movies, Dirty Harry is one that comes to mind.  Heck if a pistol will knock a man off it's feet why don't a high powered rifle knock a deer off it's feet.   More power there, lots more KE.

Most heart shot deer that are standing run about 50-100 yards while they bleed out and the brain can't ell them to run no more cause it's out of O₂ and stops working.

[Leo Tanner]

Very true.  Not many hunters pick up their kill where it was shot, there's usually a chase that follows the shot.

[Delmonico]

Very true.  Not many hunters pick up their kill where it was shot, there's usually a chase that follows the shot.

Unless you shut off the central nervous system, then they go down like a rock, but sometimes fall the direction that the bullet came from, guess it's their mood.

[Fiddler Green]

The FBI specs demanded enough penatration to do car doors or take a person out through either the windshield or back glass, remember lack of penatration was what got them in trouble in Miami. 

Just a thought, if "knock down" really exists why don't a hit in a vest toss the guy off his feet.

It exists only in movies, Dirty Harry is one that comes to mind.  Heck if a pistol will knock a man off it's feet why don't a high powered rifle knock a deer off it's feet.   More power there, lots more KE.

Most heart shot deer that are standing run about 50-100 yards while they bleed out and the brain can't ell them to run no more cause it's out of O₂ and stops working.

Well, not sue what the FBI and Miami have to do with all this. They were armed with 9 m/m and were very poor shots. While your looking at history, take a look at he gunfight between James Butler Hickok and Davis Tutt. Hickok shot Tutt at a range of about 75 yards. Some said Tutt fell dead on the spot, so said Tutt had stumbled for a few seconds and fell down dead. That was with a .36 Caliber, 86 grain ball from an 1851 Navy model at 75 yards. Wonder if he would have "stumbled" from a 230 grain bullet from a 1911?

Humans tend to walk on two legs, Deer walk four legs: it makes them harder to knock down.  Also, their heart is in a similar position to ours, which is to say, at the front of their chest and between their shoulders. But, since their shoulders support their fore legs and not arms like ours do, they are very muscular in comparison to a (non-steroid taking) human's. Most shots on dear at not the ideal quartering shot from the rear passing just behind the shoulder and hitting the heart: most miss the heart.

High powered rifles have the problem that I talked about, lots of penetration sometimes to much. You want the energy to be dissipated in one massive deceleration. This causes massive traumatic shock and instant death. Otherwise, they may bleed out or they may die from the next round.

As far as whether or not "knock down" really exists. Ever see a guy take a shot in the vest? I'm guessing that you have not. If it's at close range and you've got something heavier then a 9 m/m they will go down. They may not stay down, but, they will go down. For those of you that have watched the LA Bank shootout, you'll notice that the 9 m/m hits, on Larry Phillips, from the police Berettas caused the him to stager and nearly go down before he shot himself. He was into weight lifting and body building and probably steroids. Yet, he was staggered by hits from 9 m/m at a range of about 100 feet.

At less then 10 feet, with a .45 ACP, I have seen normal size human "subject" go down with surprising regularity.

Bruce

[Wills Point Pete]

 Anyway that FBI shoot in Miami had nothing to do with stopping power. The whole mess was one big screwup. But since the Feebs are never wrong we got new cartridges and bazillion dollars worth of testing.

The reality is that in the car wreck when the Feebs tried to ram the bad guys one FBI agent lost his gun, the leader lost his glasses and couldn't see. This guy was the expert shot, too. With his glasses, without them he was blind as a bat. Meanwhile, the shotgun slid off the seat and nobody could bring it into action. And Pratt just kept pumping out those .223s.

The only one of the Feebs who's name I remember, Mirales, was the one crippled. He is also the one that ended the fight, knocking Pratt and whathisname off the count with that lousy old underpowered .38 Special, loaded with that old +P 158 grain lead hollow point. He did it by lumbering up, already wounded and putting the pills in the ticklish spot.

There were a lot of important lessons in that shootout, none having anything to do with "stopping power". Lessons like anchoring your long guns in the car. Wearing your seat belts when trying to ram a moving car. Wearing straps on your glasses. Don't be a damned fool and radio for local police and wait until they're on the scene before getting into a gunfight.

Pratt and whathisname would have been no danger to anyone if the Feebs had followed them, into a halfway decent roadblock. They would have surrendered or died without a chance to unleashed that Mini 14.

[Fiddler Green]

Anyway that FBI shoot in Miami had nothing to do with stopping power. The whole mess was one big screwup. But since the Feebs are never wrong we got new cartridges and bazillion dollars worth of testing.

OK since this has somehow become a post on a gun fight between some Government accountants and two ex-Army gunmen. Here is the acctualy results (from Wikipedia):

Agents
Richard Manauzzi: lost control of weapon in the initial vehicle collision, no shots fired. Minor injuries from shotgun pellets.
Gordon McNeill: S&W M19-3 .357 Magnum revolver, 6 rounds .38 Special +P fired. Seriously injured by .223 gunshot wounds to the right hand and neck
Edmundo Mireles: Remington M870 12 gauge shotgun, 5 rounds 00 buckshot fired, .357 Magnum revolver (S&W, model unknown), 6 rounds .38 Special +P fired. Seriously injured by a .223 gunshot wound to the left forearm.
Gilbert Orrantia: S&W (model unknown) .357 Magnum revolver, 12 rounds .38 Special +P fired. Injured by shrapnel and debris produced by a .223 bullet near miss.
John Hanlon: S&W M459 9mm pistol, 9 rounds fired. Seriously injured by .223 gunshot wounds to the right hand and groin.
Benjamin Grogan: S&W M459 9mm pistol, 9 rounds fired. Killed by a .223 gunshot wound to the chest.
Jerry Dove: S&W M459 9mm pistol, 20 rounds fired. Killed by two .223 gunshot wounds to the head.
Ronald Risner: S&W M459 9mm pistol, 13-14 rounds fired, S&W (model unknown) .38 Special revolver, 1 round .38 Special +P fired). Uninjured.

Suspects
William Matix: S&W M3000 12 gauge shotgun, 1 round #6 shot fired. Killed after being shot six times.
Michael Platt: Ruger Mini-14 .223 Remington carbine, at least 42 rounds fired, S&W M586 .357 Magnum revolver, 3 rounds fired, Dan Wesson .357 Magnum revolver, 3 rounds fired. Killed after being shot 12 times.

Note that Agent Orrantia had a 357 Magnum but they were loaded with 38 specials.

Platt did not die from a cu de gras. Platt bleed out from an earlier 9 m/m Fired by Agent Dove. The wound that collapsed his right lug and filled his chest with blood. This shot was fired early in the fight while he was climbing out of the car. Platt was dying but still managed to kill his killer (Dove) with two shots to the head. Agent Mireles fired the final shots of the shootout killing Matix and wounding the dying (or dead) Platt.

Knockdown power (or stopping power) would have saved lives. The lack of it is clear in the way this fight progressed.

Bruce

[Cuts Crooked]

<sigh> ok gang, this isn't about BP anymore. Time to close.