The Caliber Wars! Myths Vs. Reality.

Status
Not open for further replies.

Jath

Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2011
Messages
159
Location
Phoenix, AZ
I made up a little comparison chart for the temporary wound tracks created by each of the 4 major calibers. I used results from brassfetcher.com

I paused the video at the largest possible point and took a screen shot of it. I tried to stick to ammo types that would most likely be used by law enforcement, IE, Gold Dot, Gold Sabre.

All ammo is standard pressure. The .40 is shot from a short barrel, so it's traveling about 100 ft/sec slower than it should be, and therefore is likely less impressive than it should be.

9mm = 147 grain Golden Sabre,
.40 s&w = 180 grain Gold Dot,
.45 acp= 230 grain hydrashok,
.357 mag= 125 grain Gold Dot.

302677_2000794227424_1470617107_31656303_1062947749_n.jpg
 
Not really a fair comparison, 147gr 9mm, 180gr .40 cal, and 230gr .45ACP are all the very heavy end of the spectrum, the 125gr 357 mag is the lighter faster end of the spectrum hence the larger TWC. There are faster 9mm and .40 loads that make for much more impressive TWC then those heavy slow standard pressure loads. The most important aspect of terminal performance is ignored on those charts as well, the permanate wound cavity is the vital part of handgun bullet performance. Just my .02.
 
I wanted to stick to a certain grain weight in terms of high low, but those results simply weren't available on brass fetcher. I had to use what was available. I think that the data is still fairly useful for comparing the actual ballistic differences between calibers. If you want to compare grain differences of the calibers, that would probably show a smaller difference between the individual tests.

As for temporary cavity being important, it is. The experts say that its directly relative to knockdown power. Size of permanent wound cavities are also generally directly proportional to the size of the temporary wound cavity anyway.

Temporary cavity relates more to the immediate effects of the bullet.
Permanent cavity relates more to the long term effects of the bullet.
 
This isn't much about "reality" when it is just superimposing gel tests in relation to a human torso.
Humans are not made of ballistic gel.
Here is an x-ray of a fragmented 38 Special Glaser "Blue"

You won't see such an extensive fragmentation pattern in a gel test, I haven't yet.
 
I know, my goal wasn't necessarily to show the effect of the rounds in the human body, but to show a relative comparison between the calibers themselves. It's one thing to see these gel tests close up in a block, you don't know how big the cavity really is, but to see it in a body relative to the other calibers, it provides a good comparison to the calibers themselves.

I would love to cast a skeleton into a gel bust with a pig heart, but I can't do that at this time.
 
I was looking at the results, and the 115 grain 9mm wound track isn't a whole lot different from the 147 grain 9mm wound track. There is a difference, but the .357 mag out preformed just about everything in just about every grain anyway, so the difference was marginal in comparison.

I would love to test each grain in each caliber to each grain in each other caliber, but the results simply aren't available on brassfetcher.com. I did the best I could with what was available, and I think they all give a pretty good comparison.
 
Last edited:
I wanted to stick to a certain grain weight in terms of high low, but those results simply weren't available on brass fetcher. I had to use what was available. I think that the data is still fairly useful for comparing the actual ballistic differences between calibers. If you want to compare grain differences of the calibers, that would probably show a smaller difference between the individual tests.

As for temporary cavity being important, it is. The experts say that its directly relative to knockdown power. Size of permanent wound cavities are also generally directly proportional to the size of the temporary wound cavity anyway.

Temporary cavity relates more to the immediate effects of the bullet.
Permanent cavity relates more to the long term effects of the bullet.
Not even close to being true.
125gr Federal JFP 357 magnum has a TWC of 79.8 cu in. The PWC is only 4.0 cu inches
230gr Gold Saber 45ACP has a TWC of only 25 cu in, and a PWC of 6.32 cu inches
Clearly no direct relation at handgun speeds.
"knockdown power" in a handgun is a myth that has been tested over and over again, Newton's law still works.
While TWC is a real secondary wounding effect, it is only a minor effect in comparison to PWC according to the FBIs handgun ballistics and wounding effects handbook.
 
Thanks for the comparison.

Even 9mm hollowpoints make a pretty big hole from what I have seen, and the smaller calibers often have much larger magazine capacity and lower recoil, making followup shots far more likely to connect well.

In essence, I'd rather get three shots in with 9mm than a single shot w/ a 45, as there is a greater chance of inducing massive trauma.
 
You have to keep in mind that these images are 2-dimensional representations of 3-dimensional cavities.

Where you might have an average cavity of 2 inches in 9mm, and the average .40 cal cavity is 2.5 inches, that doesn't seem like a huge difference, until you do the math.

9mm -> pi*2^2 = about 14" squared

.40cal-> pi*2.5^2 = about 20" squared

multiply that by the length

14*10 = 140 cubic inches

20*10 = 200 cubic inches
 
Last edited:
I have come to the conclusion that " handgun knockdown power" is a myth. There, I went and said it in front of everyone. Handgun calibers suck. Handguns are a last effort to save your life, they are not always effective.
 
Maybe so, but there's no major caliber war going on in the rifle section, and most people don't carry a rifle as a sidearm, and most people who carry a gun at all carry a pistol most of the time.

I will agree with you that a handgun is really just something used to fight your way back to the rifle/shotgun... but that's not what this post is about.
 
The relationship of temporary wound cavity size to handgun stopping effectiveness has been demonstrated repeatedly in the real world, and is shown in the chart below.

Listed in order of importance:

1) Bullet placement
2) Bullet placement
3) Bullet placement
4) Bullet placement
5) Bullet placement
6) Bullet placement
7) Bullet placement
8) Bullet placement
9) Bullet placement
10) Bullet placement
11) Bullet placement
12) Bullet placement
13) Bullet placement
.
.
.
98) Bullet placement
99) Bullet placement
100) Bullet placement
101) Bullet placement
102) Temporary wound cavity size

At least you've demonstrated that handgun temporary wound cavity size is good for something. It gives you a good excuse to play with Photoshop placing little triangular pictures over an anatomy picture.
 
Of all the ballistics tests I have seen I have come to the conclusion that temporary cavity does not exceed it's elastic limits and turn into permanate wound cavity untill speeds of about 2100fps with quickly expanding bullets. For this effect to reach the vitals of a human or deer sized target you must be using a bullet of reasonable SD/penatration. No handgun shy of a high powerd magnum revolver can hope to approach these figures.
 
before you post about the bullet effects not being important, or handguns not being useful, or whatever else you wanna post to try and negate what you're seeing and make it irrelevant, chill out. This is only a comparison chart to the four major calibers. It may show something you don't like, get over it. Yes I know it's not a perfect representation of the human body, but we didn't exactly have any Japanese slaves around to test our blades on. The doctors say that the wounds in the gel are pretty close to the real thing... so I think as a comparison between calibers, its just fine. If you don't agree with what I'm saying, go look at the raw data yourself:
http://www.brassfetcher.com/index_files/Page1950.htm

They have the permanent wound cavities at the end. The .357 mag PWCs look bigger than the .45 PWCs to me. if you don't agree, measure it out yourself. The blocks on the bottom are 1" inch wide, as are the air spaces between them.
 
Interesting graphic. Too bad you stirred the hornet's nest and and drew out all the negatrons living on here. Some people can only be negative. And don't worry too much about all the Newton quotes on here, very few people have actually read his Principia anyway.

As far as temporary wounds, who knows? I guess it sort of matters what gets compressed. A collapsed lung could be a result, or nerve damage. When the one fellow on here said it doesn't do permanent damage, so what? With a handgun in a self defense scenario, the object is to end the fight, not to kill or put the bad guy in a wheelchair for life. So if temporary cavity does anything, anything at all, then all the better.

But what I noticed is that the bigger temporary cavities are associated with fast moving rounds. Rifle rounds. Fast handgun rounds. Slow 12ga. slugs have almost no temporary cavity (but we all know how effective it is). Now what I noticed in the pictures is that the 125gr. .357 has a huge temporary cavity. The 125gr. bullet is known as an almost magical round for defense when fired from a 4"+ barrel at full magnum strenght. But the bullet is no different than the 9mm, really.

So it must be velocity. Fine. But both rounds upon impact make a crush wound, and say that both bullets expand to the same diameter, then by virtue of what crush wounds and permanent wound channels are, we can agree that the wound delivered by the 9mm and the 125gr. .357 are the same, given similar paths and penetration.

Then the extra wounding ability of the 125gr. must be from velocity, and that is not that wound displayed as a temporary cavity? And even though this a temporary cavity, who is to say that some of that shock does indeed cause permanent damage? If you've seen a rifle wound vs. a pistol wound you know what I'm talking about. The rifle tears up the insides, it can split organs in half near the wound channel, and interestingly, along the temporary cavity.

Therefore, I have to assume that velocity is responsible for both the temporary cavity and the degree of permanent damage done along that cavity.

I think a lot of people may be overlooking something significant in the simplicity of these terms as well. "Temporary wound cavity" means that there was cavity created by the impact of a high velocity round that stretched the cavity and it closed back in due to pressure. It doesn't say anything at all, one way or the other, about the possibility of permanent wounds along the temporary cavity.

You know, a lot people will cite some bad work by a few people that wrote some academic looking papers on hydrostatic shock (the do indeed look academic, but that is abou it --the actual work done is not scientific at all). But I'm going to leave it at this and keep it simple: when you shoot a plastic jug full of water with a high velocity 10mm round, it blows it apart and splits it and just shreds it. That plastic is pretty tough, and we are made up of 70% water. I can only imagine what kind of damage that soft organs are receiving, but anything in there hit with a shock powerful enough to shred a milk jug is liable to be damaged to some extent, either temporary or permanent, either visible or not visible.

Just something to keep in mind. Don't bother attacking my opinion or asking me any questions on here, because I'm moving on. I just wanted to provide a thought other than a negative one.
 
Maybe so, but there's no major caliber war going on in the rifle section, and most people don't carry a rifle as a sidearm, and most people who carry a gun at all carry a pistol most of the time.

That's true, rifles do not suck. They tend to kill things dead right there, even if the shot placement isn't precise. We don't have to argue about temporary wound cavities because the element of hydrostatic shock is clearly playing a big role in the trauma. Anyone who knew they were going to be in a gunfight would most surely bring a rifle and only draw a handgun as a last effort to save their life. Why? Because pistol calibers suck. People don't like to think of their mighty pistol as a marginal man stopper so they make graphs, tables, shoot jugs of water, shoot phone books, they will even dig bullets out of dead animals to try and convince themselves they own a death ray. All the testing exists because pistol calibers are very marginal. Everyone wants to squeeze the last drop out of every round.

Knockdown power is a myth. Carry a quality pistol, chambered for a service proven caliber, with premium HP ammo, practice regularly, and pray to GOD you never need to use it.

It's that simple.
 
This test told me pretty much what every other test I have seen has and what I have already concluded bigger=better in most all cases. It also makes the critical assumption that the shooter will have a basic straight on shot into the chest for penetration despite the fact that this isn't always the case.

On another note, that glasser safety slug left a nasty looking xray pic, but we always tell the guys over in the shotgun portion of the board to never use birdshot for defense and I do believer that is what is within the glassers. So I'm gonna have to ask is that a post-mortum xray or did the person that was shot survive to be xrayed?

Maybe so, but there's no major caliber war going on in the rifle section

I about fell out of my chair when I read this, Try telling that to the .22LR VS 5.56nato VS 7.62x39 VS 7.62nato VS .30-06 VS .50BMG people over in the rifle forum. (sorry if I left anyones favorite caliber out, I'll try and do better next time)
 
from what I've seen, there is little debate on which of those rounds are more terminally effective considering the huge glaring differences, and the only real debate is what combination of capacity/weight/accuracy/damage trade-offs is the best. With pistols, there are people who think 9mm is just as damaging as the .45, and .357 is no better than a 9mm +p.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top