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C-dub wrote:

SlowDave wrote:

baldeagle wrote: I take exception to this on two grounds. First of all, as I pointed out earlier the doctor got the 6 out of 7 number from CDC statistics for all gunshot victims across the US for one year. If you want to argue with that, then I don't know what to say. Do you really think the CDC is lying?

Second, to make a blanket statement like "Trust me, if somebody puts a +P+ round through at attacker's chest and/or head, he's going down, and for good" flies in the face of the very video that we're discussing, where the doctor showed a patient who was shot COM with a .45 and survived. Representative Giffords was shot in the head, and she's walking around, living proof that your statement isn't always true.

The entire point of the video, for me at least, was that gun shot wounds are very likely survivable if you get medical treatment quickly. Very few shots kill immediately. The vast majority kill through blood loss.

Did you even watch the video?

+1 on baldeagle's response. The 6 of 7 is not a blanket statement. It is a statistical reality. <snip>

I'm not sure I'm following you here SlowDave. You are agreeing with Baldeagle and disagreeing that the CDC's data on "all gun shot victims across the U.S. for one year?"

I am agreeing with Baldeagle and the CDC that the statistics are what they are. Baldeagle was disagreeing with the previous guy (which I cut out) who was shooting down those statistics in favor of a "trust me..." statement.

C-dub wrote: I don't see it as a caliber war. It's really more about rifle vs. handgun and very little about handgun calibers themselves. He only states that a bigger handgun caliber might give someone a slightly better chance of damaging something important. Otherwise, the effectiveness of a 9mm or .45ACP are roughly the same and just as ineffective if nothing important is damaged. He also made the same point with rifle rounds when comparing the 5.56 vs. the 7.62.

True... but I still enjoy a caliber war.

baldeagle wrote:

Ruark wrote: Nor does it account for the accidental injuries and the misses that hit non-vital areas. Statistically, looking at ALL gunshot wounds, that 6 out of 7 might be true. Trust me, if somebody puts a +P+ round through at attacker's chest and/or head, he's going down, and for good. In addition, there's the huge variability, mostly psychological, of how people react to being shot. Some fall to the ground in hysteria if they get winged by a .22. Others take a cylinder full of .357s and they're still standing up and running around. There are just a huge, huge number of variables here; it's really meaningless to make a blanket statement like "6 out of 7 people with gunshot wounds survive."

I take exception to this on two grounds. First of all, as I pointed out earlier the doctor got the 6 out of 7 number from CDC statistics for all gunshot victims across the US for one year. If you want to argue with that, then I don't know what to say. Do you really think the CDC is lying?

Second, to make a blanket statement like "Trust me, if somebody puts a +P+ round through at attacker's chest and/or head, he's going down, and for good" flies in the face of the very video that we're discussing, where the doctor showed a patient who was shot COM with a .45 and survived. Representative Giffords was shot in the head, and she's walking around, living proof that your statement isn't always true.

The entire point of the video, for me at least, was that gun shot wounds are very likely survivable if you get medical treatment quickly. Very few shots kill immediately. The vast majority kill through blood loss.

Did you even watch the video?

+1 on baldeagle's response. The 6 of 7 is not a blanket statement. It is a statistical reality. The "trust me..." is a blanket statement with no data behind it and much data against it. Back to my earlier post, if I put a .30-06 into a deer's chest and it runs 75 yards before dying, I think a chest shot with any handgun is survivable... at least for long enough for them to do some harm, and possibly long term depending on the specifics of a hit and how quickly they get medical care.

Good discussion, and I too must admit to enjoying the caliber discussion. Do we need a support group?

Some good discussion here, and I'd like to throw in my $.02 worth on two points.

I don't think the caliber is the end all, though as said, I'd choose the heaviest available. Velocity by pretty much irrelevant; the pertinent parameters are either energy [1/2 mass * (velocity)^2] or momentum (mass * velocity). From the data I've found, .40 and .45 are pretty much a wash on comparison of either of these parameters, with muzzle energy of around 500 lb.ft in the hottest factory loads in either caliber. 9mm can push close to 400 lb.ft on +P loads, or about 350 lb.ft in regular loads. .380 ACP comes in around 200 lb.ft, along with .38 special. The big hitters are .44 mag ranging up to nearly 1000 lb.ft muzzle energy with the .357 mag up near 600 lb.ft.

Now compare to rifles, the wimpiest of which start around 1100-1200 lb.ft (.222) and are quickly up in the 2000+ lb.ft for even light deer rifles (.243, .25-06, etc.). Most of the popular deer rifles are in the 2500-3000 lb.ft range for muzzle energy.

Now, combine that with my personal experience that a deer shot in the chest at a distance of 100 yards with a rifle of say 1800 lb.ft (@ 100 yards) will typically run about 75 yards at full speed before expiring. These are small deer that are roughly the weight of a human.

I think if you combine all that, you come away with:
1. We're splitting hairs on pistol calibers--they're all pretty wimpy. There are differences, just saying we're arguing about 200 lb.ft vs. 500 lb.ft when 1800 lb.ft is not enough.
2. It's unlikely to be like the movies, and unlikely for the bad guy to get knocked back 5' and die instantly from a well placed pistol shot.

No matter, if you can't hit the target under extreme duress, it doesn't really matter. And very difficult to practice that.