9mm. vs. rottweiler

[shamus005]

If you can kill a wild boar with a bow and arrow, a 9mm can take down a dog.

[casingpoint]

If the primary problem is over penetration, why are there HP's?

Hollow points may be just so much marketing hype.


Call me stupid for asking but aren't HP's supposed to expand quickly and be far superior to ball ammo is SD situations?

Yes, but apparently they are not expanding in many of the shooting victims seen by these medical personnel, one of whom stated best I recall that if a bullet was found within a victim's body, it invariably was not expanded. It is possible they are seeing primarily small caliber FMJ and ball wounds, or hollow point wounds which are either not reaching enough velocity for expansion or are prevented from expanding by the accumulation of clothing, skin, bone and cartilidge in the front cavity of the bullet. Ammuniton manufacturers have been quick to point out these problems have been overcome in the new rounds, but the people examining these bodies are not it seeing in the ER according to their posts. One guy was a federal prosecutor, another a cop who went to lots of autopsies over the years.



For that matter, why not just buy a round that is a little slower?

There may be little need to shell out more for high velocity hollow points. Somebody cited a couple of LEO?s whose basic position was hollow points are unecessary.



IWSTM that as long as your hitting the vitals it doesn't matter if the bullet exits the threat, dead is dead.


Again, a good argument for smaller caliber FMJ sufficient for adequate penetration, and better shot placement.

I am puzzled that this situation, if true, has not been resolved long before now by a product liablity action. Surely if hollow point bullets fail for the most part to expand, someone somewhere has been adversely affected enough to seek damages from a manufacturer.

We don't have enough imput here to make a sound factual determination on this matter, but as message board experts, it is our duty to forge ahead anyway, right or wrong, and hope that one day science will catch up and validate our claims.....or that nobody will remember any of this and have it bookmarked.

A few days ago a guy posted that he liked to buy his bullets pre-expanded, so he shot .45 ball or FMJ's. Hard to argue with that.

[Musketeer]

Put it this way,,,,,, The majority of law enforcement dept in this country move to the 40SW for a reason.

Coorect, it is called MARKETTING

9mm, .40 S&W, .357 sig, .45 ACP are all about the same when you are using the best ammo for each. I'll be the latest to say PLACEMENT.

SOme guy who posts annonymously on a board saying he is a medical practicioner and never sees HPs expand must be taken with a grain of salt. There is a reason every proffesional who can is using a modern HP design...

The choice of caliber/bullet should be based on, in the following order.

1. PLACEMENT (can you put it on target)
2. PENETRATION (For chosen target, bear is different than human. Not goign deep enough is useless.)
3. PERMANENT WOUND CHANNEL (how big a hole will it make?)
4. ENERGY TRANSFER (If it hits, penetrates to the vitals, does lots of damage on the way through it would be good to transfer as much kinetic energy/shock as possible incase Temporary Wound Cavities mean anything.)

[hula bum]

Don't be too confident that your weight or height will prevent an angry or trained dog from taking you down and shaking you like a ragdoll. I've worked with many a k9 who made a big man look like a little weak kid when they went in for the bite, dogs are incredibly strong.
9mm can also kill a dog just fine, it's taken out a few of our service dogs in recent years.

[SemperKnight]

I once shot an attacking saint bernard with my PT-99 loaded with 124gr star fires. Aimed (about 20 feet away)for the chest but hit it in the neck just below the jaw. That fist shot put it on the ground yelping and rolling around. Second shot to the torso finshed it off. I was very pleased with the stopping power of my inadaquate 9mm round. I also dropped a 97lb doe where she stood from about 30yrds out with a neck shot. Same round same pistol. Dug the round out of the doe. The star fire round flowered just fine. Say what you will about the puny 9mm, but I have full faith in its capabilities.

[croyance]

I recall reading from several sources that most street shootings involve small calibers like the .22 LR. The guns are not picked by knowledgable gun people, but people who carry guns purely as a tool.
I haven't seen studies on what criminals use, but I wonder if they take the time to get hollowpoints. Do they even distinguish one type from another?

[Rob96]

the 10mm and 40 cal were created because of the 9mm failures

It was a tactics failure. The caliber bullet was used as the scapegoat.

[croyance]

It is wrong to make it sound like two cartridges were created because of the performance of the 9x19.
First off, the .40 S&W was loaded to the original specifications of the 10 mm. The 10mm was continually uploaded because of too many people - including marketing people - having input.
Really the .40 S&W is a 10mm off steroids.
Second, the 9x19 did not fail in the Miami shootout. It performed exactly as specified by the FBI. Blame the specifications. Or chance, as I believe one BG's heart was missed by a fraction of an inch - after the bullet passed through an arm bone and rib.

I guess a second cartridge was created as a result - the 147 grain 9x19.

[odessastraight]

The little 9mm has been around since 1902 and has been proven, time after time, to be inadequate. Generation after generation learn the hard way of the ineffectiveness of the 9mm (regardless of the latest "gee whiz" ammo for it) and yet we forget the past and keep trying to believe it might be adequate. I was still on active duty when politics forced us to go with the 9mm and felt very insecure, indeed, when forced to be armed only with those pop guns. I would write letters authorizing SNCOs/Ncos to be issued rifles because they didn't trust the 9mm in a combat zone.

"In 1904 Thompson and Col. Louis A. LaGarde conducted tests to find the caliber most suited for military handgun ammunition. The tests included firing shots into live cattle at a Chicago slaughterhouse, and into human cadavers obtained from medical schools. The conclusion? Large and slow moving bullets of about .45 caliber were much more destructive than smaller bullets moving at high velocity. With this knowledge in hand, Thompson was instrumental in developing the .45 caliber rimless cartridge, later adopted for use in the Colt Model 1911 pistol designed by John Browning."

[casingpoint]

<Some guy who posts annonymously on a board saying he is a medical practicioner and never sees HPs expand must be taken with a grain of salt>

Message board experts abound on every subject. Still, there has been enough on posted on TFL to raise concerns about HP bullet expansion in human tissue. It's not the kind of thing you can just run out and do controlled studies on like with gelatin and cows. The "evidence" is necessarily anecdotal in the form of individual testimonies. But the making of a hollow point bullet involves some pretty fancy footwork in the way of glueing and bonding, then heating and separation and expansion within microseconds while passing through various media at extremely high speed. Sounds like some very wishful thinking along the lines of a space shuttle. Something can easily go wrong despite all the high tech hopes and dreams.

On the other hand, I did see some photos of HP's fired into pigs the other day, and they looked well expanded. Perhaps another message board expert bites the dust.

[trigger happy]

9mm is the victim of internet character assassins..the failures are urban legends

[High Planes Drifter]

posted by Rob96:
Tests have been conducted on bite strength and Rotties came in towards the bite strength of tigers, exceeding that of German Sheps, and Pitts.
----------------------------------------
Thats true. I saw that on Animal Planet where they tested a German Shepard, a Pit, and a Rottwieler. I was very surprised to see that the Pit didnt come in first with the reputation they have for being strong biters, but it was at the bottom of the 3 tested. Nowhere near the Rottwieler. I would be interested in knowing how much bite-force a large Mastiff like a Presa Canary, or Tosa-Inu is capable of.

[namnuts]

When I was stationed in KOREA they never had a dog problem, because they EAT THEM ALL!! Sorry just had to say it .
NAMNUTS
USMC RET.
Semper Fi

[p99guy]

I got my first colt .45 automatic for christmas at age 9 and I have owned one ever since(im in mid 40's...20 as a LEO) as well as plenty of 9mm/.357/.40S&W etc
and even though I love the 1911 ...the 3 to one statement above is
laced with rhetoric rather than truth. and about 70% of ALL people in the U.S. shot with handguns live over it. keep shooting what ever is about to harm you until it stops, regardless of what ubercaliber you are using ,is rule one.

[Musketeer]

First off, the .40 S&W was loaded to the original specifications of the 10 mm. The 10mm was continually uploaded because of too many people - including marketing people - having input.
Really the .40 S&W is a 10mm off steroids.

Where on Earth did you ever get such an ass backwards story fo the developement of the 10mm and .40S&W?

10mm was designed for the ill fated Bren Ten. The cartidge was intially establsihed by Norma as a hard hitting 200 grain projectile at 1200+ fps. It was to be the new Uber round, as heralded by many including Jeff Cooper who was partly behind its developement.

The FBI had a disasterous gunfight in Miami where bad training and tactics cost lives. Rather than lay the blame on the institution it placed it on the bullet. After a long search the FBI went for the 10mm as it would punch through car doors and windows with ease while retaining enough energy to deliver a stopping (hopefully) wound.

The large frame S&W autos that used the 10mm were hard for female agents and those with small hands to qualify with. Many other agents, who only shot to qualify, could not master the use of the 10mm because they did not practice. The result was the 10mm FBI load (10mm Lite).

10mm Lite (FBI) was a 180 grain projectile at about 950 - 1,000 fps. This solved the control problem for agents to lazy to practice. S&W then said, "hey, if we only need the 180 grain round to go 1,000 fps we don't need the same length case?" The result was the shorter .40 S&W (Short and Weak). With the shorter round they could use a smaller frame gun, allowing agents with smaller hands to hold the weapon properly. The .40S&W then took off.

10mm loads were most certainly NOT uploaded due to marketing people. If anything you are going to have a real hard time finding full power 10mm from a major manufacturer on the shelf anywhere. The closest is the Winchester Silvertip which is 175 grains at roughly 1200 fps. Rounds from companies like DoubleTap and Buffalo Bore are a return to what the 10mm was originally loaded to. Almost anything else on the shelf, Remington, UMC, even Federal Hydrashocks, are nothing more than the .40S&W in a longer case. They are significantly less powerfull than the round was supposed to be.

[error426]

I'm almost positive a 9mm will cleanly penetrate any part of a car (except through the engine block obviously), but it will definitely break apart. As well, I don't believe it will be able to really penetrate theother end, meaning if I shot through the driver's door, it wouldn't dig to deep into the passengers door (wouldn't go through, maybe in an inch or so). A 10mm would perform similar to a .45, and I would believe would pass through both.

Please correct me if I'm wrong here.

[Don H]

error426,

Here you go, a series of tests on exactly how much protection a car offers against various calibers: http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.htm...=461635&page=1

[Moloch]

The result was the shorter .40 S&W (Short and Weak). With the shorter round they could use a smaller frame gun, allowing agents with smaller hands to hold the weapon properly. The .40S&W then took off.

Hmm, if you call 180 @ 1000 or 165 @ 1150 ''short and weak'', how is the 9mm called?

[RGL01]

My formula: M1911 for around town, .44 Redhawk for the "Outback".

Because sometimes it is frowned upon to walk around carrying your rifle.

[BUSTER51]

FYI PITBULL MAX BITE 2000 LB PSI, ROTTIE 1200 LB PSI:

[Rob96]

I don't think so.

http://www.realpitbull.com/myths.html

[casingpoint]

"hey, if we only need the 180 grain round to go 1,000 fps we don't need the same length case?" The result was the shorter .40 S&W (Short and Weak). With the shorter round they could use a smaller frame gun, allowing agents with smaller hands to hold the weapon properly. The .40S&W then took off.

Hey, then somebody said "If we only need a 125 grain round to go like a bat out of hell we can just neck down the .40 case behind a 9mm bullet and shoot plumb though car doors and windshields. Thus the .357 SIG was born, the first automatic sold based on a revolver's sucess.

[JoshB]

If I had to mess w/ that dog, I'd want a 45!

[croyance]

The specification for the 10mm round to be 200 grains at 1200 fps was not the original specs. 180 grains at about 1000 fps was. The FBI had concluded that this was the most effective loading. When you looke at weight/surface area and compare velocities, you get numbers almost exactly that of the .45 ACP in 230 grains at _p velocities. Before the first cartridge was loaded, more people got their fingers in the pie and the numbers went up. Then as now, testosterone sells.
The Bren Ten became larger as a result, to handle the excess pressures.
Many people, not just women, had trouble with the large framed 10mm. It wasn't just the size of the gun, it was the recoil. Moreso than generations past, many had simply not grown up learning how to shoot.
So somebody went back to the original specs. While S&W was developing the new ammo and platform, Glock supposedly got their hands on a spent casing and quickly engineered their platform to accept the new round - and managed to beat S&W to the market.

As for the efficiency of the .45 ACP (or Lc), neither slowed down a drugged, rampaging Moro much - each was equally ineffective. But the larger gun and bigger bore gave more psychological comfort.
No matter how much this is proven, generation after generation doesn't learn that psychological comfort means crap to the object being shot.

[Socrates]

.45 Super?
230 grain hp @1100 fps.
200 grain @ 1200 fps.
185's @ 1300 fps?

Recoil isn't that bad, and, can be had in 1911 size guns...

PS
The ONLY reason I carry .45 Super, is they don't make a .50 Super