.45 ACP stopping power

[Jack Package]

Okay so as we all know the .45 ACP packs some heavy punch. Is that really true tho? Because one of my buddies went to a CHL class and the instructed said that at 10 yards a man was shot with a .45 that hit him right in the forehead and it didn't penetrate the skull is went between the skull and skin and came out at the top of his head leaving him virtually unharmed. Then another that at about the same distance a man was shot with a .45 and it was deflected of his front teeth. Both are hard to believe but stranger things have happened. Though I would ask and hope someone who is more knowledgeable on the cartridge would comment.

 

[TMCCOY]

Here is everything you need to know:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po4nZTO3ES4

 

[1911 guy]

Strange things happen when bullets hit tissue. Some folks have been dropped in their tracks, stone dead, with a .22 long rifle. Other people have taken multiple hits to the torso with .357 magnum rounds and continued the fight for a while.

There are NO promises or guarantees. Carry a decent caliber loaded with decent ammunition and be mentally prepared if things don;t play out like an action movie where the good guy always get it right the first time.

And the Colin Noir videos are pretty funny.

 

[MarkDido]

Good video.

 

[BigBL87]

Strange things happen when bullets hit tissue. Some folks have been dropped in their tracks, stone dead, with a .22 long rifle. Other people have taken multiple hits to the torso with .357 magnum rounds and continued the fight for a while.

There are NO promises or guarantees. Carry a decent caliber loaded with decent ammunition and be mentally prepared if things don;t play out like an action movie where the good guy always get it right the first time.

And the Colin Noir videos are pretty funny.

This. Any bullet can kill, but when it comes to defending myself and the ones I love, I'll take the bigger bullet as long as I can shoot it well.

 

[Zaydok Allen]

Weird things happen, but as has been described over and over, for the last 100+ years, it's an effective round.

If anyone questions that, tell them the stories you just relayed second hand, and see if they volunteer to be shot in the face to prove it. If you video it, and proove to me that someone could deflect a 45 with with their teeth, let them know I have three .45 acp pistols that I will give to them free of charge, no questions asked..... seriously.

That being said, I don't advocate anyone volunteering to be shot in the face.

 

[Midwest]

Strange things happen when bullets hit tissue. Some folks have been dropped in their tracks, stone dead, with a .22 long rifle. Other people have taken multiple hits to the torso with .357 magnum rounds and continued the fight for a while.

I was just reading a story earlier about someone who got shot 9 times and survived. The caliber was not mentioned.

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/West-Philly-Shooting-273308381.html

"A man fought for his life overnight after being shot up to nine times along a Philadelphia street.

Philadelphia Police responded to the unit block of N Edgewood Street in West Philadelphia around 11 p.m. Friday to find a 34-year-old man suffering from eight to nine gunshots wounds to his torso and legs."
.

 

[dprice3844444]

my buddies went to a CHL class and the instructed said that at 10 yards a man was shot with a .45 that hit him right in the forehead and it didn't penetrate the skull is went between the skull and skin and came out at the top of his head leaving him virtually unharmed.

this all depends on the angle of trajectory of the bullet,shape/angle of the forehead,and how much of a hard head the person had.

Then another that at about the same distance a man was shot with a .45 and it was deflected of his front teeth.

here's another question that depends on distance and at what angle the shot was taken at and if head was turned.

i have a video here at the house somewhere that shows a 50bmg deflected off course by a small branch

 

[Skyshot]

Several years ago, we had cow that had been mauled by a pack of wild dogs and she was chewed up severely. I had a full size 1911 with me and a mag of 230 gr. ball. My father inlaw asked me to go ahead and put her down. I fired a round from the left side of head at about 5 yards. The round didn't penetrate, just bounced off. I fired another with the same result. So I hopped in the jeep, went back to the house and retrieved some 230 gr. +P HP's, I think they were Hornady mfg. and also took a .223 rifle. I was surprised that the ball ammo wouldn't penetrate the cow skull. I fired one of the +P hollow points at the same distance and it was a pass through. You can draw your own conclusions.

 

[200Apples]

Okay so as we all know the .45 ACP packs some heavy punch. Is that really true tho?

Richard Mann in American Rifleman, January 2010

There are a number of reasons the .45 Auto cartridge has become one of the most trusted defensive handgun cartridges of all time. Arguably, the legacy began in 1903 when Army Capt. John T. Thompson and Maj. Louis Anatole LaGarde conducted tests to determine the most effective military handgun cartridge. By shooting live cattle and medical cadavers they developed a rating system for various cartridges and came to the conclusion that the bullet used should not have a caliber of less than .45...

Over the last 100 years we have seen major advances in communication, air travel and medicine, but our handgun cartridge of choice is one we were using in World War I. That pretty much sums it up; if something does not work, it won't hang around for 100 years. The .45 Auto cartridge is kind of like a hammer; most often it's the best tool for the job.

Gary, from the above article's Comments section, January 2010

Jeff Cooper summed it up perfectly: "This is the biggest of the small-case rimless, smokeless-powder, military type auto pistol cartridges, and it is one of the outstanding developments in small arms. It combines accuracy, stopping power, and mild manners in a way only duplicated by the .44 Special. The military load is both a bit light, at 860(?,810 fps given above) foot-seconds, and attenuated by its Geneva-Convention bullet, but military ammunition is useful mainly for practice. Loaded 100 foot-seconds faster and with a proper combat bullet, the .45 auto comes on like a well-trained rhinoceros. Stopping failures are rare even with the military load; they're just about out of the question with proper ammunition."

Was he referring to .45ACP +P hollowpoints? I have some.

Cooper was also of the opinion (contrary to the renowned Agnes Herbert) that when hunting game, if one thought they might need higher velocity, they simply needed a heavier bullet.

Either way, I like the way my .45ACP Springfield 1911 shoots. I feel I'd need little else in a self-defense situation.

 

[Black Knight]

I have seen a photo of a criminal shot by police several times with 9mm. That in itself is nothing of note but one thing did stand out. One bullet was sticking out of his upper lip. It appeared his teeth stopped the bullet. No distance or more information about the bullet was given. Bullets can do some strange things from time to time even when human tissue is not involved.

 

[coloradokevin]

Okay so as we all know the .45 ACP packs some heavy punch. Is that really true tho? Because one of my buddies went to a CHL class and the instructed said that at 10 yards a man was shot with a .45 that hit him right in the forehead and it didn't penetrate the skull is went between the skull and skin and came out at the top of his head leaving him virtually unharmed. Then another that at about the same distance a man was shot with a .45 and it was deflected of his front teeth. Both are hard to believe but stranger things have happened. Though I would ask and hope someone who is more knowledgeable on the cartridge would comment.

Bullets can do strange things, and I know of cases where this kind of stuff has happened involving most common handgun calibers.

There's still a vocal element within the shooting community who believes that the ".45 ACP is the only REAL man stopper". Those folks are often repeating the same old lines that probably date back to the first world war.

The truth? Whether you are shooting a 9mm, .40 S&W, .357 Sig, .45 ACP, .45 GAP, etc, shot placement and bullet design are the two keys to stopping the fight. The other truth is that all handguns are rather weak when it comes to "stopping power" if compared with centerfire rifles and shotguns. They exist in two totally different worlds when it comes to getting the job done.

Having attended some wound ballistics classes, I'll say that cartridge choice is a rather individual thing, and most of the well-known ones will work just fine, and about equally. For every .45 ACP failure you can find, I can point you to one with a 9mm, and vice versus.

In my department we authorize the .45 ACP and 9mm. When I started in my career all of the gun guys were carrying .45's. I did too. Most of us have switched to 9mm handguns by now. Why? By my estimate they give the same odds of stopping a fight, but I can carry nearly twice as much ammo in a cartridge that provides less recoil (meaning faster follow-up shots). I can also practice much more cheaply with it on my own time.

 

[Field Tester]

I was just reading a story earlier about someone who got shot 9 times and survived. The caliber was not mentioned.

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/West-Philly-Shooting-273308381.html

"A man fought for his life overnight after being shot up to nine times along a Philadelphia street.

Philadelphia Police responded to the unit block of N Edgewood Street in West Philadelphia around 11 p.m. Friday to find a 34-year-old man suffering from eight to nine gunshots wounds to his torso and legs."
.

Sure Knight was just shot 6 times, released from the hospital a few days later.

 

[1911Tuner]

Several years ago, we had cow that had been mauled by a pack of wild dogs and she was chewed up severely. I had a full size 1911 with me and a mag of 230 gr. ball. My father inlaw asked me to go ahead and put her down. I fired a round from the left side of head at about 5 yards. The round didn't penetrate, just bounced off. I fired another with the same result. So I hopped in the jeep, went back to the house and retrieved some 230 gr. +P HP's, I think they were Hornady mfg. and also took a .223 rifle. I was surprised that the ball ammo wouldn't penetrate the cow skull. I fired one of the +P hollow points at the same distance and it was a pass through. You can draw your own conclusions.

That can happen easily when two hard convex surfaces make contact. Fired straight on, .45 hardball will glance off a steeply raked windshield. The edge of the jacketed hollowpoint bit into the cow's skull and went on through.

In the future, if you're ever called on to put an animal down with a gun...please do it correctly.

Magnums and hollowpoints aren't necessary. Properly done, standard .38 Special LRN will do for all but the thickest skulls.
For larger animals, I prefer .45 Colt with a hard cast bullet.

Place the muzzle into firm contact with the back of the skull...just above the occipital bone on a slight downward angle so that the bullet will traverse the skull from rear to front, exiting in line with the lower mandible. This insures maximum brain tissue destruction and instantaneous death.

It's important that the muzzle be in firm contact so that the maximum gas volume enter the cranial vault under pressure. It literally scrambles the brain and destroys the brain stem to insure that there's zero chance that the animal suffers for even an instant.

I once put a huge Black Angus bull down with .45 hardball using this technique. His nose hit the ground while the gun was still in recoil, and he barely kicked.

 

[Frank Ettin]

Okay so as we all know the .45 ACP packs some heavy punch. Is that really true tho? Because one of my buddies went to a CHL class and the instructed said that at 10 yards a man was shot with a .45 that hit him right in the forehead and it didn't penetrate the skull...

I've said this several times before, and this looks like an opportunity to repeat it:

There is data, and there are studies, and we have a good deal of knowledge about wound physiology. But we keep getting into these "ring-around-the-rosie" discussions because, I guess, a lot of people are dissatisfied that there really is no definitive answer.

Perhaps the real conclusion(s) with regard to self defense could be summarized as follows:

1. Pretty much every cartridge ever made has at times succeeded at quickly stopping an assailant.
   
   
2. Pretty much every cartridge ever made has at times failed at quickly stopping an assailant.
   
   
3. Considering ballistic gelatin performance, data available on real world incidents, an understanding of wound physiology and psychology, certain cartridges with certain bullets are more likely to be more effective more of the time.
   
   
4. For defensive use in a handgun the 9mm Luger, .38 Special +P, .40 S&W, .45 ACP, .357 Magnum, and other, similar cartridges when of high quality manufacture, and loaded with expanding bullets appropriately designed for their respective velocities to both expand and penetrate adequately, are reasonably good choices.
   
   
5. And that's probably as good as we can do.

I've posted the following before and might as well post it again here:

Let's consider how shooting someone will actually cause him to stop what he's doing.

• The goal is to stop the assailant.
  
  
• There are four ways in which shooting someone stops him:
  
  
  • psychological -- "I'm shot, it hurts, I don't want to get shot any more."
    
    
  • massive blood loss depriving the muscles and brain of oxygen and thus significantly impairing their ability to function
    
    
  • breaking major skeletal support structures
    
    
  • damaging the central nervous system.
  
  Depending on someone just giving up because he's been shot is iffy. Probably most fights are stopped that way, but some aren't; and there are no guarantees.
  
  Breaking major skeletal structures can quickly impair mobility. But if the assailant has a gun, he can still shoot. And it will take a reasonably powerful round to reliably penetrate and break a large bone, like the pelvis.
  
  Hits to the central nervous system are sure and quick, but the CNS presents a small and uncertain target. And sometimes significant penetration will be needed to reach it.
  
  The most common and sure physiological way in which shooting someone stops him is blood loss -- depriving the brain and muscles of oxygen and nutrients, thus impairing the ability of the brain and muscles to function. Blood loss is facilitated by (1) large holes causing tissue damage; (2) getting the holes in the right places to damage major blood vessels or blood bearing organs; and (3) adequate penetration to get those holes into the blood vessels and organs which are fairly deep in the body. The problem is that blood loss takes time. People have continued to fight effectively when gravely, even mortally, wounded. So things that can speed up blood loss, more holes, bigger holes, better placed holes, etc., help.
  
  So as a rule of thumb --
  
  
  • More holes are better than fewer holes.
    
    
  • Larger holes are better than smaller holes.
    
    
  • Holes in the right places are better than holes in the wrong places.
    
    
  • Holes that are deep enough are better than holes that aren't.
    
    
  • There are no magic bullets.
    
    
  • There are no guarantees.
  
  
• With regard to the issue of psychological stops see
  
  
  • this study by Greg Ellifritz. And take special notice of his data on failure to incapacitate rates:
    
    
    
    ​
    
    
    As Ellifritz notes in his discussion of his "failure to incapacitate" data (emphasis added):

    ...Take a look at two numbers: the percentage of people who did not stop (no matter how many rounds were fired into them) and the one-shot-stop percentage. The lower caliber rounds (.22, .25, .32) had a failure rate that was roughly double that of the higher caliber rounds. The one-shot-stop percentage (where I considered all hits, anywhere on the body) trended generally higher as the round gets more powerful. This tells us a couple of things...
    
    In a certain (fairly high) percentage of shootings, people stop their aggressive actions after being hit with one round regardless of caliber or shot placement. These people are likely NOT physically incapacitated by the bullet. They just don't want to be shot anymore and give up! Call it a psychological stop if you will. Any bullet or caliber combination will likely yield similar results in those cases. And fortunately for us, there are a lot of these "psychological stops" occurring. The problem we have is when we don't get a psychological stop. If our attacker fights through the pain and continues to victimize us, we might want a round that causes the most damage possible. In essence, we are relying on a "physical stop" rather than a "psychological" one. In order to physically force someone to stop their violent actions we need to either hit him in the Central Nervous System (brain or upper spine) or cause enough bleeding that he becomes unconscious. The more powerful rounds look to be better at doing this....

    
    
    1. There are two sets of data in the Ellifritz study: incapacitation and failure to incapacitate. They present some contradictions.
       
       
       • Considering the physiology of wounding, the data showing high incapacitation rates for light cartridges seems anomalous.
         
         
       • Furthermore, those same light cartridges which show high rates of incapacitation also show high rates of failures to incapacitate. In addition, heavier cartridges which show incapacitation rates comparable to the lighter cartridges nonetheless show lower failure to incapacitate rates.
         
         
       • And note that the failure to incapacitate rates of the 9mm Luger, .40 S&W, .45 ACP, and .44 Magnum were comparable to each other.
         
         
       • If the point of the exercise is to help choose cartridges best suited to self defense application, it would be helpful to resolve those contradictions.
         
         
       • A way to try to resolve those contradictions is to better understand the mechanism(s) by which someone who has been shot is caused to stop what he is doing.
       
       
    2. The two data sets and the apparent contradiction between them (and as Ellifritz wrote) thus strongly suggest that there are two mechanisms by which someone who has been shot will be caused to stop what he is doing.
       
       
       • One mechanism is psychological. This was alluded to by both Ellifritz and FBI agent and firearms instructor Urey Patrick. Sometimes the mere fact of being shot will cause someone to stop. When this is the stopping mechanism, the cartridge used really doesn't matter. One stops because his mind tells him to because he's been shot, not because of the amount of damage the wound has done to his body.
         
         
       • The other mechanism is physiological. If the body suffers sufficient damage, the person will be forced to stop what he is doing because he will be physiologically incapable of continuing. Heavier cartridges with large bullets making bigger holes are more likely to cause more damage to the body than lighter cartridges. Therefore, if the stopping mechanism is physiological, lighter cartridges are more likely to fail to incapacitate.
       
       
    3. And in looking at any population of persons who were shot and therefore stopped what they were doing, we could expect that some stopped for psychological reasons. We could also expect others would not be stopped psychologically and would not stop until they were forced to because their bodies became physiologically incapable of continuing.
       
       
    4. From that perspective, the failure to incapacitate data is probably more important. That essentially tells us that when Plan A (a psychological stop) fails, we must rely on Plan B (a physiological stop) to save our bacon; and a heavier cartridge would have a lower [Plan B] failure rate.
  
  
• Also see the FBI paper entitled "Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness", by Urey W. Patrick. Agent Patrick, for example, notes on page 8:

  ...Psychological factors are probably the most important relative to achieving rapid incapacitation from a gunshot wound to the torso. Awareness of the injury..., fear of injury, fear of death, blood or pain; intimidation by the weapon or the act of being shot; or the simple desire to quit can all lead to rapid incapacitation even from minor wounds. However, psychological factors are also the primary cause of incapacitation failures.
  
  The individual may be unaware of the wound and thus have no stimuli to force a reaction. Strong will, survival instinct, or sheer emotion such as rage or hate can keep a grievously wounded individual fighting....

• And for some more insight into wound physiology and "stopping power":
  
  
  • Dr. V. J. M. DiMaio (DiMaio, V. J. M., M. D., Gunshot Wounds, Elsevier Science Publishing Company, 1987, pg. 42, as quoted in In Defense of Self and Others..., Patrick, Urey W. and Hall, John C., Carolina Academic Press, 2010, pg. 83):

    In the case of low velocity missles, e. g., pistol bullets, the bullet produces a direct path of destruction with very little lateral extension within the surrounding tissue. Only a small temporary cavity is produced. To cause significant injuries to a structure, a pistol bullet must strike that structure directly. The amount of kinetic energy lost in the tissue by a pistol bullet is insufficient to cause the remote injuries produced by a high-velocity rifle bullet.

    
    
  • And further in In Defense of Self and Others... (pp. 83-84, emphasis in original):

    The tissue disruption caused by a handgun bullet is limited to two mechanisms. The first or crush mechanism is the hole that the bullet makes passing through the tissue. The second or stretch mechanism is the temporary wound cavity formed by the tissue being driven outward in a radial direction away from the path of the bullet. Of the two, the crush mechanism is the only handgun wounding mechanism that damages tissue. To cause significant injuries to a structure within the body using a handgun, the bullet must penetrate the structure.

    
    
  • And further in In Defense of Self and Others... (pp. 95-96, emphasis in original):

    Kinetic energy does not wound. Temporary cavity does not wound. The much-discussed "shock" of bullet impact is a fable....The critical element in wounding effectiveness is penetration. The bullet must pass through the large blood-bearing organs and be of sufficient diameter to promote rapid bleeding....Given durable and reliable penetration, the only way to increase bullet effectiveness is to increase the severity of the wound by increasing the size of the hole made by the bullet....

  
  
• And sometimes even a .357 Magnum doesn't work all that well. LAPD Officer Stacy Lim who was shot in the chest with a .357 Magnum and still ran down her attacker, returned fire, killed him, survived, and ultimately was able to return to duty. She was off duty and heading home after a softball game and a brief stop at the station to check her work assignment. According to the article I linked to:

  ... The bullet ravaged her upper body when it nicked the lower portion of her heart, damaged her liver, destroyed her spleen, and exited through the center of her back, still with enough energy to penetrate her vehicle door, where it was later found....

 

[1911 guy]

Agree, Tuner. Growing up on a farm, "Jes' choot 'em" rarely if ever works correctly. Either back of the skull, like you said, or at the imaginary line that crosses ears to eyes. Again, with an angle that makes the longest traverse of the cranium. We always used a single shot 12 gauge with slugs. Grandpa had no problem killing an animal, but it must be done as quickly as possible. Overkill was acceptable, screwing it up wasn't.

 

[Hurryin' Hoosier]

Freak things can happen. It probably had a lot to do with the angle of the shot. (Or it might be a crock of bovine excrement.)

 

[AKElroy]

That can happen easily when two hard convex surfaces make contact. Fired straight on, .45 hardball will glance off a steeply raked windshield. The edge of the jacketed hollowpoint bit into the cow's skull and went on through.

Shooting pigs in a trap I had the same experience with ball ammo. Since I was only carrying the gun for follow-ups on a deer hunt anyway, I figured why waste my carry ammo on a head shot from 5'. Just like our friend with the cow, several rounds made a shiny spot on the biggest sow's forehead. Really pissed her off as well. After numerous attempts I finally got her to turn enough to get one behind the ear, and that was that. The cheap ball ammo dispatched a smaller sow and three piglets easily, but the experience with that big bullet-proof sow was really an eye opener for the importance of good ammo, and the limitations of pistol's in general.

 

[rcmodel]

Might be the reason bowling pin shooters don't use RN ammo.

A flat point or JHP will dig into a bowling pin edge and take it off the table.

A RN will often glance off the edge of a pin and leave it standing.

The same would apply to a sharply sloped skull surface.

rc

 

[1911Tuner]

Agree, Tuner. Growing up on a farm, "Jes' choot 'em" rarely if ever works correctly. Either back of the skull, like you said, or at the imaginary line that crosses ears to eyes. Again, with an angle that makes the longest traverse of the cranium. We always used a single shot 12 gauge with slugs. Grandpa had no problem killing an animal, but it must be done as quickly as possible. Overkill was acceptable, screwing it up wasn't.

Sounds like our grandpas were cut from the same length of timber.

Seriously...it's not the time to be proving marksmanship or satisfying our curiosity about how effective our carry load is. The beast deserves a quick death. Do it right or don't do it at all.

Frank's post is spot on. I've heard of instant one-shot stops from a hit in the hand by a .22 Short...and failures after multiple torso hits from a .357 Magnum. There are no guarantees. A wise man once noted that a pistol was a pretty ineffectual thing to trust your life to. He was right. About the only thing that it has going for it is that it's there on your belt.

And as far as believing that a heavy coat will keep .45 hardball from penetrating on a straight-on shot at average defensive ranges...well...I wouldn't want to don a heavy coat and put it to the test.

 

[Skyshot]

Boy, you guy's are quick to flame a person for trying to put a critter out of it's misery. If you would have seen the briars this hereford was in, it might have made you change your mind. Not hijack the thread here, I would have thought the ball ammo would have penetrated the skull, I was aiming between the eye and ear and that is a good area point blank but not at the distance I was at. The .45 acp is still my carry choice, and 100 fps makes a huge difference as well as bullet design.

 

[Field Tester]

I'd more say that it's advice than flaming.
Think of it like this. Some news blog comes across the thread and it turns into a article on how a Pro 2nd Amendment website supports the torturing of animals. It reflects very poorly on the community.
Their posts also serve as an opportunity to educate. I now know the correct way to dispatch a penned animal, where as before I was only somewhat aware. Now there's no doubt in mind.

 

[Panzerschwein]

I have heard both these stories. I think with a glancing hit the first one about not penetrating a skull might well be possible, but the second one... I just have a hard time believing it but stranger things have happened!

This might call for some tests on dead pigs or something!

 

[MCgunner]

It's a handgun after all.

But, if you cannot rely on the .45 or even the .357 magnum for self defense, just don't carry. Maybe get yourself a box cutter and learn Kung Fu box cutter fighting or something. That's all I got on this one.

 

[MCgunner]

This might call for some tests on dead pigs or something!

I shoot live pigs in my trap, wild ones. I've shot 'em in the head with an NAA mini revolver and a Federal .22 HP and it didn't bounce off. A head shot is lethal every time, no matter the caliber. The most impressive was the pig I head shot with a .357 140 grain JHP in the top of the head between the eyes and his eye ball popped out 3" from the pressure in his scull. I've put 'em down with the .45, too. Never THAT impressive, but the penetration is. Usually, a 200 grain SWC will penetrate right through the neck/body and out the sternum.

I can tell ya this, I ain't standing in front of a .45 and letting someone shoot ME in the head with it.