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Welcome to this issue of the Minuteman Monthly Newsletter.
This is the monthly communication from my Web site at www.SaveTheGuns.com.
Thank you for reading this month's issue and for passing it on to a friend.
This is likely my longest and most informative Minuteman Monthly
Newsletter I've ever published. Reading it to the end will
take less than a half hour, but I really think you're going to end up
being a much better informed gun owner.
There have been many books written on the subject of stopping
power. Topics like bullet caliber, bullet weight, velocity and
shape are all a part of this controversial and fairly deep
subject. The following Minuteman Monthly Aiming Point below
is a republishing of a nine-part article by permission that is one of
the most informative and I think accurate treatises on the subject of
stopping power with a firearm.
Read on...
SaveTheGuns.com Quotes of the Month
"Address Gun
Violence in Cities: As president, Barack Obama would repeal the
Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement
to access important gun trace information, and give police officers
across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the
illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that
respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns
away from children and from criminals who shouldn't have them. They
support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country
childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons
Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on
our streets."
(From a section of
BarackObama.com which has since been pulled down off the Web) Many
uninformed firearm owners thought President-Elect Obama would support
and defend the Second Amendment, merely because he said he would.
I hate to say it, but I told you so. It seems as if the 1994
Clinton-Reno Semi-automatic ban is coming back. Thank you America
for not listening or paying attention to his anti-gun voting
record...
"Every time that we try to lift a problem from our own shoulders,
and shift that problem to the hands of the government, to the same extent we are sacrificing the liberties of our people."
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) 35th US President
"[T]he importance of piety and religion; of industry and frugality; of prudence, economy, regularity and an even government; all ... are essential to the well-being of a family."
Samuel Adams, letter to Thomas wells, November 22, 1780
"[T]he people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them."
Zacharia Johnson, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 25, 1778
"There exists a law, not
written down anywhere, but in our hearts; a law which comes to us not by
training or custom or reading; a law which has come to us not from
theory but from practice; not by instruction but by natural intuition: I
refer to the law which lays it down that, if our lives are endangered by
plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of
protecting ourselves is morally right."
Marcus Tullius Cicero
(106 BC-43 BC) Roman Orator and Statesman at the trial of T. Annius Milo
in 52 BC
"Honor, justice, and
humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received
from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a
right to receive from us."
Thomas Jefferson (Declaration
of the Causes and Necessities of Taking up Arms, 6 July 1775)
Some visitors to my Web
site have asked me why I continue to fight for the Second Amendment's
protection of the right to keep and bear arms, when there are so many
other worthy causes that I could dedicate myself to. Jefferson's
quote here sums up my response. My innocent and yet unborn
grandchildren have a right to inherit the rights that were preserved for
me by my ancestors. I am personally related to John Adams, Samuel
Adams and John's son John Quincy Adams, who helped establish this great
country and I tenaciously refuse to attempt an explanation to my
grandchildren on why I let these rights fade away under my watch.
That's why I fight.
"Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and shew the whole world, that a Freeman contending for Liberty on his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth."
General George Washington
SaveTheGuns.com Gun Safety Tip of the Month
My gun safety tip of the month is in response to something that
happened very recently. It seems to occur almost at least once a
year. When it happens though, it certainly makes the news.
It's the "Dog Shoots Hunter" headline...
This year a dog jumped into a boat when two men were getting ready to
go hunting. Apparently the dog stepped on the shotgun's trigger
guard in such a way that the trigger was pulled and the shotgun
discharged injuring one of the men in the boat. The lesson here is
that there was a lack of vigilance. Owning and using a
firearm safely for an entire lifetime demands vigilance and
watchfulness.
Obviously there were basic firearm handling that were ignored.
The hunters were getting prepared to launch their boat and the shotgun
should probably have not been loaded and ready to fire during the boat
launching process. Yes, I know that wild game shows up when you're
not ready, but you should unload your firearm unless you're prepared to
fire it and you're not prepared to fire it and in complete control of it
during a boat launch.
The other thing of course is the manual safety, assuming there was
one, was likely not engaged. The barrel of the shotgun was pointed
in such a direction that a discharge injured someone. Absolute
vigilance, absolutely all the time, is the only thing that will prevent
a freak accident from occurring.
Please
contribute this month if you have not done so before. More
than 90,000 children have learned something about gun
safety from my Web site. Please
contribute when you can so I can reach another 90,000 in the future.
NRA Memberships as holiday gifts
As this newsletter is released, there is just twenty four shopping
days until Christmas. You can easily give memberships
in the National Rifle Association as gifts for the coming holiday
season.
Go here:
http://membership.nrahq.org/default.asp?campaignid=XR017807
(choose the middle link that says "Give an NRA Membership to a friend or family member")
You can expect the welcome package and membership card to arrive at
the recipient's home in four to six weeks. The welcome package
could be picked up at the mailbox by a family member and be presented to
the recipient as a gift on Christmas morning.
Giving a young child a gift of a Junior Membership in the National
Rifle Association would make a great holiday gift. A yearly NRA
Junior Membership is only $15.00.
NRA Membership Recruiter Corner
http://membership.nrahq.org/default.asp?campaignid=XR017807
This link above will take you directly to the checkout page at the National
Rifle Association to make it easy for you to renew your current
membership, give an NRA membership to a friend or family member or join
the fight for the first time.
Using my link will save
you TEN BUCKS ($10.00) on a one year membership. The normal one
year membership is $35.00, but it's only $25.00 through my special link
above.
A 10% discount to the services
of LifeLock Identity Protection Services to protect against identity theft has recently been added to
membership in the National Rifle Association.
SaveTheGuns.com is one of thousands of
NRA Membership Recruiters across America. As an NRA Recruiter, I'm
officially a subcontractor for the National Rifle Association of America
and not an employee.
I make a small commission whenever you join, renew or give an NRA
Membership as a gift. Please use the link above for all your NRA
Membership needs. If your NRA Membership expires within ten weeks, I encourage you to renew your membership early using my
convenient link that lands right on the appropriate
page at the National Rifle Association.
I have written a Web page with more information on membership in
the National Rifle Association. It has a list of benefits as well
as membership options and prices. For your convenience the above
NRA Membership link is there as well.
http://www.savetheguns.com/nra_membership.htm
P.S. Remember, my link goes directly to the NRA Membership
check out page. Using my special link is a lot more convenient
than trying to find the page yourself.
As of this issue of the Minuteman Monthly Newsletter, I've
recruited 452 NRA Members through this
link. 288 NRA
Members recruited in 2008 alone!
In my quest to be one of the top ten NRA Recruiters for the twelve
state Northeast Region which includes Connecticut, Indiana,
Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York,
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont, I have become one of the
TOP TEN NRA Recruiters in the United States, in fact at the moment, I
stand in 7th place in the United States for Independent NRA Recruiters.
Please use my convenient links for all
your NRA membership needs and pass it around to others.
http://membership.nrahq.org/default.asp?campaignid=XR017807
Contributions to SaveTheGuns.com
Please use the following convenient link to securely use a credit
card online to give SaveTheGuns.com a voluntary contribution:
http://www.amazon.com/paypage/P3GXU3PIEM5ST1
(After giving a contribution of at least $5.00, you'll receive an
e-mail with a link to download my e-book entitled How to Choose a
Handgun.)
To write me a personal check, it's almost as easy!
Write out a personal check made payable to Marc H.
Richardson. Sign it and put it into a stamped envelope addressed to:
Marc H. Richardson
P.O. Box 424
Shapleigh, ME 04076-0424
My contributors have kept this informative Web site going for
more than eight years. Become a contributor today... please?
Active contributors are the only thing keeping www.SaveTheGuns.com
online.
Thank you very much for your support!
E-mail me with suggestions
or comments
Item of the Month
This is the Minuteman Monthly Item of the Month.
Amazon.com Gift Card
An Amazon.com Gift Card is my Item of the Month. Are you
stressed out a bit on what to get someone for Christmas? They
don't have a hobby, they don't like games, fancy clothes or
jewelry and you're stumped... Well the answer is here, an Amazon.com Gift Card
The Amazon.com Gift Card can be given by mail, conveniently printed
at home or even, get this, sent by e-mail. That's right, an Amazon
Gift Card can be used for literally millions of items in more than forty
major categories and it does not expire. Isn't that just perfect
or what?
Amazon.com
Gift Cards can be given in any amount from $5.00 to $5000.00.
Heller News
Here is a link to the NRA's political action arm called the Institute
for Legislative Action or NRA-ILA. They have created a special
page for District of Columbia v Heller updates.
From the following Web page, you can visit a link to hear the oral
arguments in the case, read all of the Amicus Curiae Briefs, download
the opinion of the court and much more.
www.NRAILA.org/heller
Did you know that
President-Elect Barack Obama's choice for United States Attorney General,
Eric Holder signed an Amicus Curiae Brief in the D.C. v Heller case
that stated clearly that the Second Amendment does not apply to
individuals who are not active members of the United States
Military? Thank you America for electing Barack Obama who can
appoint a United States Attorney General who can't even manage to read
the Second Amendment properly!
"Amici disagree with the current position of the United States Department of Justice that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for purposes unrelated to a State’s operation of a well-regulated militia."
From the D.C. v Heller Amicus Brief signed by Eric Holder, who
will likely be our new United States Attorney General in the upcoming
Obama Administration. America voted for change and boy oh boy are
we going to get change...
President-Elect Obama News
Okay, America has spoken with a loud voice. They believe Barack
Obama during his presidential campaign when he said that he supports the
Second Amendment. I believe that we will have to deal with an
Obama Administration starting on January 20th, simply because he was
able to dupe gullible American gun owners into believing that he has
abandoned his gun control efforts.
American gun owners, either by directly voting for Senator Obama or
by staying home on Election Day, are responsible for placing him in the
White House. Let me state this as clearly as I possibly can...
Barack Obama has advocated many times for serious gun control in the
past. A total handgun ban, a total semi-automatic ban, a total ban
upon concealed carry of handguns and more, have been typical positions
of President-Elect Obama in the past. His Vice-President-Elect Joe Biden was
one of the authors of the 1994 Clinton-Reno semi-auto ban.
His
Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emanuel was very instrumental in the Clinton White
House for pushing this firearm and magazine prohibition through
Congress. He has chosen big-time anti-Second Amendment stalwarts
for important posts in his administration. As mentioned above, he
has chosen Eric Holder to be his U.S. Attorney General who was
instrumental in the 1994 Clinton semi-auto ban, the unlawful abduction
of Elian Gonzales from his Florida home to be shipped back to Cuba and a
D.C. v Heller brief that says the Second Amendment does not apply
to you unless you're an active member of an organized military force.
If the average American firearm owner thinks for even a minute that
Barack Obama is going to keep his promise to support and defend the
Second Amendment during the next four years, there's tens of millions of
gun owners who really need their heads examined by a mental health
professional. This coming administration will surely push for at
least one major gun control bill in the first few months of 2009.
We pro-gun warriors will be very closely watching the
Obama Administration's efforts to control firearm possession, transfer,
carry, purchase and storage. I will let you know the first moment
he breaks his promise to support and defend the Second Amendment and I
really don't think I'm going to have to wait very long at all...
www.NRAILA.org/obama
Also see www.gunbanobama.com,
which is the Web page about Barack Obama from the NRA-PVF.
Minuteman Monthly Newsletter Aiming Point
The following is a complete copy of a nine-part series on the subject
of stopping power, by Grant Cunningham. Grant is a gunsmith who
specializes in double-action revolvers. The complete series can
also be found on his Web site at: http://www.grantcunningham.com/blog_files/stopping_power_series.html
Stopping Power Series- Part One of Nine:
I've gotten a
bunch of emails recently regarding the choice of an appropriate
self-defense caliber and/or bullet. Around this one topic swirls more
misinformation - and outright inanity - than any other I can think of.
And now, here's mine!
What follows is a layman's understanding, backed by research of
available literature and years of hunting and shooting experience, of
the practical mechanics of wound ballistics. It is not intended to be a
complete and exhaustive study of the subject. Instead, I hope to give my
readers - who are, in all likelihood, laypersons themselves - a solid
base of information to help make good decisions when choosing self
defense ammunition.
Let's start by understanding that in a self-defense scenario our goal is
simply to cause the perpetrator of a crime to cease immediately his/her
antisocial activities. That's it - we want the miscreant to quit doing
whatever it was that caused us to draw our gun in the first place. The
closer to "immediately" that this occurs, the better for all
concerned.
There are two mechanisms by which this can be accomplished:
psychological incapacitation and physical incapacitation.
The first - psychological incapacitation - is the least predictable of
the two. Some people will stop and run when grazed by a well-thrown
rock, others will soak up all manner of chemical, electrical, and
physical deterrents without so much as flinching. Since it's all in the
mind, and minds vary significantly (especially when intoxicated in some
form), we cannot count on delivering a reliable jolt to a criminal's
psyche. We must instead focus on doing enough physical damage to cause
cessation of action through reduction of motor skills.
On this subject has been constructed all manner of measures, each
attempting to quantify the unquantifiable: "One shot stops."
"Knockout index." "Wound channel volume." There are
more, and none of them ever seem to agree (at least most of the time) on
what actually works.
Well, folks, hunters have known something for a very long time, and it
has been proven in the field again and again: to reliably put the brakes
on a living entity, a bullet must do what I call The Twin
Tasks.
1) It
has to get to something the body finds important, and
2) It has to do rapid and significant damage to that thing when it
arrives.
That's it. Either, by itself, simply won't deliver the results we seek
(at least, not in the physical sense.) If the projectile fails at either
of these Tasks, any success that occurs is in fact a product of
psychological incapacitation, which we already know to be both
unpredictable and unreliable.
Keep in mind that as the bullet traverses the target, it may repeat the
Tasks; in other words, it may encounter more than one thing the body
finds important. The more times that it does, and then completes the
second Task, the faster the incapacitation is likely to occur. (Note
that I didn't say "will", only "likely to". Handgun
rounds are underpowered things, and with them nothing is ever certain.)
Within certain limits, it doesn't really matter what the caliber is or
what the bullet is made of or how fast it travels, as long as it does
both
of the Tasks. That's
why there seems to be such a wide range of calibers, weights and
velocities that have shown "good" results in self defense
shootings, and why arguments about "stopping power" rage on
the gun forums: there is, as the saying goes, more than one way to skin
a cat.
Remember, as long as both Tasks are accomplished, the envelope of
"how" they are is large enough to encompass a variety of
approaches.
The reason that the "heavy and slow" and "light and
fast" bullet camps exist is because, generally, their choices just
happen do both of those Tasks on a fairly regular basis. Arguing about
which is the "better" approach is really quite silly, because
when they work it's because they did both Tasks, regardless of the
actual mechanism; when they fail, it is simply because they didn't do
one (or both) of the Tasks, again regardless of their physical
attributes.
It's at this point that someone invariably chimes in "but my cousin
is engaged to a girl whose brother-in-law heard about a guy who saw
someone shot fifteen times with a 9mm, and the victim was still able to
walk into a French restaurant, order a 5-course meal, eat, chat with the
sommelier, and stiff the waiter before finally collapsing on the
sidewalk while waiting for his cab! That's why I carry a .467
Loudenboomer Ultra Grande - if it hits them in the pinky the hydrostatic
shock wave will knock them down!"
I'm exaggerating, you understand, but if you regularly haunt the gun
forums you'll recognize that it isn't all that far off.
Yes, small caliber bullets fail. Guess what? Large caliber bullets fail,
too. As someone once told me, "put on your big-boy pants and deal
with it!"
A good friend gave me a first-hand account of a battle incident wherein
a fellow absorbed several very large caliber, solid torso hits, and was
still able to jump from his vehicle and cross a road before finally
collapsing.
The gun in question? A .50 caliber heavy machine gun.
Yes, you read that correctly. Sometimes, folks, nothing works.
Our job is to choose those calibers and bullets which seem to do the Two
Tasks fairly reliably, and prepare to deal with the times that it just
isn't enough. With handgun rounds, those times are more common than the
gunshop commandoes would have you believe.
In the next installment, we'll take a layman's look at the physics
involved.
<<END
OF PART ONE>>
If it
doesn't get somewhere, it can't do something.
OK, so we know about the Twin Tasks, the two things that a bullet has to
do in order to stop an attacker:
1) It has to get to something the body finds important, and
2) It has to do rapid and significant damage to that thing when it
arrives.
Today we'll be taking a look at Task #1: getting to something important.
Let's start by pointing out that the user of the bullet must be capable
of putting it on a course that will lead it to something important. If
the cartridge in question presents too much of a challenge for the
shooter to handle with the requisite accuracy, it doesn't make any
difference how "good" the cartridge is!
This is only given lip service by trainers and enthusiasts; they'll
repeat the mantra "a hit with a .22 is better than a miss with a
.45", then in the same breath give some arbitrary limit on
"acceptable" calibers for self defense. Folks, there are
people in this world who do not wish to, or simply cannot, practice to
become proficient with a "correct" caliber. When the time
comes that they need the weapon, wouldn't it be better that they possess
a bullet that they can send where it really needs to go? Of course!
Step One, then, is pick a cartridge that is within your ability to
control.
Once the bullet is in the air, it has to negotiate all obstacles to
reach a vital organ of some sort. This requires that it get through any
outer shell (clothing), past the skin (which is a lot tougher than you
might believe), and alternating layers of bone and muscle. It has to
have what's known as 'penetration'.
Penetration is dependent on several things: the weight of the bullet,
the diameter (caliber), the velocity, and the shape. If we were to take
two bullets of different weight, but of the same caliber and shape and
traveling at the same velocity, the heavier one would penetrate further.
We can do the same comparison for any of the factors, as long as the
others remain the same. If we had two bullets of different shapes - a
round nose and a wadcutter - with everything else the same, the more
streamlined bullet (the round nose) would penetrate further. Simple,
right?
When we look at expanding (softnose or hollowpoint) bullets, which
increase their diameter at some point in the target, the situation
changes. The increased frontal are of the expanded bullet acts like a
parachute, slowing it more rapidly and reducing penetration. Sometimes
penetration can be reduced so much that the bullet will not reach
anything important, and we're back to that unreliable psychological
incapacitation thing again.
Remember that too much penetration can be as bad as too little. Having a
bullet that sails through the target without doing much work, or (worse)
encountering another (possibly) innocent target beyond, is not a good
thing. Hence it behooves us to have a bullet which demonstrates
sufficient penetration, but not an excessive amount.
It's not uncommon to find a cartridge that, when loaded with
streamlined, roundnosed bullets, goes through multiple targets - but
when loaded with expanding bullets stops inside the desired one. As it
turns out, this behavior has major benefits in terms of terminal
effects, which we'll cover next time.
<<END
OF PART TWO>>
Once it
gets there, it has to do work.
In today's installment, we're going to look at the second of the Twin
Tasks:
2) The bullet has to do rapid and significant damage to that thing
when it arrives.
It may not be self evident, but kinetic (moving) energy is either used
or conserved (stored.) In the case of a bullet, it starts being used
simply by fighting the friction caused by traveling through the air.
Unless it encounters a target, the bullet will use all of its energy in
flight and gravity will pull it to the ground. We're interested in using
that energy for lawful purposes before it's wasted in the atmosphere!
I usually refer to the second Task as "doing work", because
that's exactly what is expected of the bullet. From the perspective of
the target, the kinetic energy in a bullet can only do one of two
things: it can be used to do work, or it can be wasted beyond the
target.
(There is no such thing as an "energy dump" in a target, no
matter how many times you see that nonsensical term. The energy does
some sort of work, whether doing damage to tissue or pushing the bullet
through the air. The bullet may use up all of the energy available, and
stop inside the target, but it doesn't "dump" anything. The
energy in such an event is depleted in expansion/deformation and in
forward movement, both of which are work. Whether or not the work
performed was useful to the goal depends on what it encountered along
the way, which brings us back to the First Task.)
As the bullet traverses the target, its energy is used to push it
through material more dense than the air it previously encountered. The
amount of energy used in this endeavor is dependent upon the shape of
the bullet; the more streamlined the projectile, the smaller the frontal
profile, the less energy is expended in pushing it through the target.
Conversely, the "flatter" the bullet profile, the more energy
is necessary to move it through.
Think of a rowboat paddle - easy to move through the water edge first,
much harder face first. If the bullet expands in the target, some of the
energy is used to deform the bullet itself, and the rest is used to push
the much larger, flatter profile through the target. In some cases, it
uses up all its energy trying to get through the target and never makes
it out the other side. This is why, as we touched on in Part 2,
penetration can be controlled through the use of an expanding bullet.
At some point, we hope that the bullet finds something that the body
deems necessary for function - and disrupts that functioning. That item
could be structural (skeletal) - where disruption causes collapse; It
could be electrical, where interruption of signals causes instantaneous
nervous system malfunction; or it could be vascular (plumbing), where
large leaks cause a loss of pressure that eventually results in
unconsciousness.
Whichever system is compromised, the bullet needs to use some of its
energy to do the necessary work of disruption. This is why I say that
the bullet has to do rapid and significant damage to something when it
arrives; if it gets there, but has so little energy left that it is
incapable of inflicting necessary damage, then it might as well have not
gotten there to begin with.
(This is not to suggest that the bullet's wound in such a case is benign
or trivial! Remember, we have a task for that bullet to accomplish; if
it doesn't do so in the necessary time frame, then it is useless to us.
The classic example is the attacker shot with a .22 but still able to
complete his assault. He might die of peritonitis a few days later,
proving that the wound is not unimportant. However, it didn't complete
our goal of stopping the criminal before he could harm an innocent,
making it irrelevant to our situation. Keep the end in mind!)
Now that we understand the Twin Tasks, we'll take a look at the
mechanisms by which all this might be accomplished. Until next time!
<<END
OF PART THREE>>
The
bullet is more important than the caliber.
We know that our bullet needs to do damage to whatever important thing
it manages to find. How, exactly, is that going to occur? It just so
happens that most animal tissue (including that of the violent felon who
has just attacked you) is remarkably elastic, and consequently difficult
to damage. Most tissues have a tendency to "close up" around
puncture wounds, in the same way that they close up after a hypodermic
needle withdraws. If they didn't, every time we get a booster shot we'd
spring a leak!
The upshot (pardon the pun) of this is that our bullet needs to die-cut
or crush the tissues in its path, rather than sliding cleanly through.
The reputation of the old .38 Special 158 grain round nose bullet as a
"widow maker" was well deserved, as it often went in one side
and out the other with very little blood loss. That smooth, aerodynamic
profile travels through water-filled tissue about as cleanly as through
air, for all the same reasons. It neatly parts that tissue in a way that
facilitates immediate closure and minimal blood loss. In our sefl-defense
scenario, that's what's known as "A Bad Thing."
In fact, round nose (or "ball") ammunition is an unremarkable
performer in just about any caliber; "they all fall to
hardball" is right up there with "the check is in the
mail" for statements you should never believe, no matter how
authoritatively (read: arrogantly) delivered.
If we can get a bullet to cut or crush a non-closing hole in the target,
we stand a better chance of doing the kind of work necessary to cause
that target to stop in its tracks.
The amount of disruption that a handgun bullet delivers to the target is
dependent on its shape/construction and on the overall diameter
(caliber.) A shape that encourages efficient travel through the target
is to be avoided; a shape that is non-aerodynamic will generally produce
the kind of result that we seek. All other things being equal,
flat-faced bullets usually beat pointy bullets.
(Personally, I pay more attention to bullet construction than caliber.
Hunting and shooting experience, plus a lot of research with those more
knowledgeable in the field of wound ballistics, has convinced me that
there is more variation in effectiveness within calibers than between
them. In other words, you're more likely to see performance differences
by changing your bullet type, rather than changing calibers. )
This isn't news to any old-timers out there! Hunters in bygone days were
always told to use flat-pointed bullets over round-nosed varieties,
because they delivered more "shock" to the quarry. That was
their non-scientific way of explaining why the bullets obviously
performed differently, and what they lacked in technical jargon was more
than compensated by their acute observations.
Of course there just isn't a free lunch; those flat bullets don't
usually work in autoloading actions, and they make speed reloading of a
revolver more difficult. There is an answer: the expanding bullet. We
can actually enhance the terminal results by using a bullet (usually a
hollowpoint of some sort) that grows in diameter as it goes through the
target.
A hollowpoint bullet works because, as it enters the target, it expands
to a greater-than-caliber frontal diameter and assumes a very flat-faced
shape. This means that the bullet can crush a much larger hole than
normally possible for the caliber, ensuring the kind of target damage
necessary to complete the task at hand.
There are, of course, issues in making these things perform as desired:
first, the work of deforming the bullet takes energy. This energy can
only be come from the bullet itself, which means there is that much less
available to enable the bullet to continue its travel. Second, the
resulting increase in drag from that wide face also uses energy at a
tremendous rate, and thus also drastically limits penetration. Because
of these factors, shallow wounds from hollowpoint bullets are not at all
unheard of, both in hunting and in self defense.
The solution is to a) use a different cartridge that has enough energy
to spare to begin with, or b) increase the energy of the existing
cartridge. We'll tackle those issues next time!
<<END
OF PART FOUR>>
More
energy can be a good thing - as long as it actually does something
useful.
Last time we discussed the concept of the hollowpoint as a way to
increase the frontal diameter of the bullet in the target. I also
introduced the idea that it takes energy to expand the bullet, energy
that is also needed to push the projectile into something that it needs
to reach.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. If we want the bullet to expand,
it doesn't happen by magic. Somewhere the energy has to be found to
deform the metal used in the bullet, and that energy can only be found
in the bullet's own movement. If there is too little to start with, then
there won't be enough to continue the bullet on its path.
If the cartridge has insufficient energy, when the bullet expands it
will stop forward movement too rapidly, resulting in very shallow wounds
that may or may not be effective. This tends to explain the lack of
expanding bullets for the venerable .38 Special cartridge - there just
isn't enough energy to drive a bullet deeply into the target and
expand it at the same
time.
How do we get around this problem? Well, the first alternative is to
simply switch to a cartridge with more energy. In the case of the .38,
we could bump up to the .357 Magnum. The .357 certainly has enough
energy! Of course, that energy reserve comes at a price: greatly
increased recoil and muzzle blast.
The other alternative is to make a higher energy version of the
cartridge we already have. This time-tested tactic results in what's
know as "+P" ammunition, which is the designation for a
cartridge loaded beyond what is considered "normal" pressure.
The idea is to increase the energy delivery of that cartridge to
accomplish a specific task. Generally, it works pretty well!
You'll see criticisms on the internet of some +P loadings, usually
centered on the idea that "it's not much of an increase in
power." If you consider what we've explored in this series so far,
you'll realize that it doesn't have to be a "lot" - it just
has to be "enough"! If a cartridge at normal pressure can't
quite deliver an expanding bullet to where it needs to, but a +P version
does, then that is sufficient for the task at hand.
Remember: if the energy doesn't do something useful, then it is wasted
from our perspective.
Get away from the idea that you need vast increases in power for
defensive applications. You simply need enough
power to perform the
Twin Tasks. Is it better to have an large reserve amount of energy on
tap? That's a question that only you can answer, after being honest
about your own abilities and needs.
In the next installment we'll bring together the things we've discussed,
and look at the tradeoffs you need to consider to pick your
"ideal" self defense cartridge.
<<END
OF PART FIVE>>
"What
would I want with a reputation? That's a good way to get yourself
killed!" - Jason McCullough, "Support Your Local Sheriff"
(my favorite
movie of all time!)
What about "reputation"? Some cartridges or loadings have
reputations for better effectiveness than others. Sometimes that's
valid, but other times it may not be.
Let's take the mighty .357 Magnum, one of my very favorite cartridges.
The 125 grain semi-jacketed hollowpoint loads have the reputation of
being superbly effective; some believe that they are the
"best" manstoppers ever made. I've talked with people who have
actually used them in real shootings, and they were very happy with the
performance. But there are instances of stupendous failures.
For those who hold that energy is everything, this may come as a shock.
How could all that power possibly fail? Simple - if it doesn't do both
of the Twin Tasks!
Let's consider what happens with the 125 grain Magnum loads. Leaving the
barrel at nearly 1500 feet per second, the bullet enters the target with
a huge reserve of energy. As the hollowpoint fills with fluid and starts
to expand, it uses up some of that energy to grow dramatically in
diameter. The increase in diameter means more resistance in the tissues,
which uses more energy and further slows the bullet. Because the
relatively light weight of the slug doesn't have great momentum, and
thus not a lot of stored energy, it doesn't travel very far before it
finally runs out of steam. The result can be a shallow wound - one which
doesn't reach something the body finds important.
This is the "ugly secret" that proponents of the .357 125
grain JHP don't want to talk about. Shallow wound profiles with these
"barn burner" loads are not unheard of, and occasionally prove
to not be as effective as expected. As one noted trainer once told me,
when they work they are superb - but when they fail, they fail
spectacularly!
Suppose you've decided that you'd prefer something a bit more
predictable, but want to retain the superb performance of the round - is
there a solution? Yep! Simply go to a slightly heavier bullet, one which
carries a tad less velocity and a bit more momentum. Winchester, for
instance, has the 145 grain Silvertip bullet, and Speer is now making a
135 grain Gold Dot Magnum load. Both are obviously designed to retain
the Magnum's reputation as a fight-ender, but do so on a more consistent
basis.
This is a good illustration of the tradeoffs involved in cartridge
selection. Speed isn't everything; bullet size isn't everything; bullet
weight isn't everything. It's a combination, a concert of all of those
(plus good handling qualities as defined by the shooter) that make a
round effective. One can't simply say "I've got a Magnum" or
"I carry a .45" and smugly claim that one has the
"perfect" self defense gun. While it may work, there is always
the chance that it may not; handguns, after all, are underpowered
things.
Through intelligent selection, you can dramatically improve the
performance envelope of your chosen gun, regardless of the cartridge it
shoots.
<<END
OF PART SIX>>
There Is
No Such Thing as a Magic Bullet
What does that mean, you ask?
One of the last bastions of the snake oil salesman is in the field of
ammunition promotion. Claims that would make Professor Harold Hill blush
are the norm, and are repeated in gunstores, shooting ranges, and deer
camps across the country. They sometimes even make their way into
magazines and the internet - though the latter's instant exchange of
information has helped to quell the worst of the hyperbole.
Still, many hold on to their belief in "magic bullets", hoping
that there really exists something that will transform their .25ACP into
an elephant killer. (I exaggerate, of course, but one ammo maker used to
claim that their product for the little .25 had the same "one shot
stop" percentage as a .45. That, my friends, is a true belief in
magic.)
Like many fables, the legend of the Magic Bullet has its roots in
reality. As Arthur C. Clarke said, "any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable from magic." In the bullet world,
that advanced technology is the hollowpoint bullet.
The hollowpoint, as we've learned, is a good mechanism to control the
penetration and wound profile of any given cartridge. Sometimes, it can
work what seems like a miracle - transforming an otherwise unremarkable
cartridge into a respectable "stopper."
One of the best examples of this is the .30 M1 Carbine cartridge. Many
servicemen had experience with the little Carbine in World War II and
Korea, and they either loved it or hated it. Those that hated it often
complained about a lack of "stopping power" - enemies who were
hit often didn't go down with alacrity. (Some even claimed that the
rounds "bounced off" the heavy wool coats worn by the
opposition. That wasn't true, and was easily shown as such, but when
someone is running toward you screaming his head off, a lack of
convincing ballistic effect makes the distinction unimportant.)
The .30 Carbine, as it turns out, is a penetrator. Its sleek bullet
usually went straight through the target, making a quick-closing wound
and doing little damage along the way. (Sound familiar?) After the war,
one of the ammo makers got the bright idea of stuffing a semi-jacketed
hollowpoint into the casing. When they did that, the entire complexion
of the carbine changed.
The penetration was now more controlled, and the expanded bullet had a
much larger frontal area that did more damage along its path. So changed
was the round that Jim Cirillo, the famous member of the New York
Stakeout Squad, proclaimed it one of the two most effective weapons in
their entire arsenal - the other being the formidable 12 gauge shotgun.
High praise indeed!
He wasn't the only one who made note of the "enhanced"
Carbine. The late Gene Wolburg, wound ballistics expert and one of the
most knowledgeable people in the field, once said that his home defense
weapon of choice was the M1 Carbine loaded with that semi-jacketed
hollowpoint.
It may have seemed like magic to the servicemen who had bad experiences
with the round, but the effect of the hollowpoint loading was simple
physics. It did its job better - it just happened to be a lot better.
A "magic bullet", in contrast, appears to violate the laws of
physics, or so skews its sales copy that you think it does. For
instance, magic bullet purveyors play up the "energy" of their
load, to the exclusion of everything else.
Now, understand that energy is the result of multiplying the mass of the
projectile by the square of it's velocity. Without boring you with the
math, what that means is that a small change in velocity makes a big
change in the energy of the projectile. In other words, if you drop the
projectile weight you can up the velocity, which will make a huge
increase in energy figures. Sounds great, right?
Well, as we've already studied, energy isn't everything. A light
projectile might be moving very quickly, but when it contacts solid
matter it loses velocity quickly. That translates into shallow wounds.
(Remember the last installment, where we looked at the .357 Magnum? Same
thing, only worse.) The projectile needs weight as well as velocity in
order to penetrate well, and if you sacrifice enough weight for more
speed, you'll fail at the First Task: reaching something important.
Exotic bullets that claim to do something others can't should set off
your B.S. detector. Any cartridge that proclaims a "massive energy
dump" as the wounding mechanism or pushes velocity over everything
else is probably vying for a magic bullet award. Personally, I'm not
going to trust my life to that kind of ammo!
What I'm getting at (and have been for this entire series) is that there
is nothing mysterious, nothing magic about the way a bullet works. It
has to get to something important, and it has to do rapid and
significant damage when it gets there. That's it. Any claims that seem
to skate around the topic should be looked at with great skepticism, for
there is truly no such thing as a "magic bullet."
<<END
OF PART SEVEN>>
"So,
smarty pants - what gun should I get?"
I receive many emails asking, in essence, what the "best"
self-defense caliber might be. (Those emails, in fact, have served as
the motivation behind this series.) The correspondents are probably
expecting sage advice, the wisdom of years, a sort of Ballistic Oracle.
What they get is a non-commital "it depends!"
If you take nothing else from this series, take this: there is no such
thing as "best" - there is only "suitability for
purpose."
Why is that? As we learned in the first parts, there is a pretty large
envelope - caliber, weight, and velocity - of performance criteria that
have shown themselves to work well. Thus, any cartridge you select
within that envelope is likely to do the job, as long as you do yours.
That's the most important part: that the gun in question enables you to
do your job. It is the first place you should start. You need to be
honest with yourself, accurately assess what you can and cannot handle.
Remember that a self-defense scenario often will call for multiple,
rapid, precisely-placed shots. Can you do that with the guns that you're
considering? Really?
Be honest with
yourself!
I see many people who are talked into a gun that is touted as a
"better stopper", but who are unable to handle it to the
standards given above. Most of this is technique, and technique can be
learned, but everyone has some upper limit. Remember: only accurate hits
count, and you should strive to maximize your hit potential. As we've
explored, power is irrelevant if it doesn't get to something important!
Once you've passed that hurdle, the choices almost make themselves. In
any given cartridge, if you pick a hollowpoint load in the middle of the
caliber's normal weight range, you'll generally have most of what you
need. There are exceptions, of course: at the lowest ends of the energy
spectrum (say, standard .38 Specials) penetration becomes an issue, so
you should tend to the heavier rounds. At the other end (the heavy
magnums), the more powerful loads often need lighter bullets to limit
penetration and enhance expansion.
For everything else, stay away from the lightest and heaviest bullets,
pick a decent hollowpoint, and you'll most likely be just fine.
The most important part of this whole selection process is to practice
with the load that you've chosen. If the cartridge/gun combination is
"too much" for you to do so, that's a sign that you need to
pick something else. You need to practice with your safety/rescue
equipment, and if you can't or don't want to, then you will be less
prepared to face a deadly encounter. The old trick of practicing with
Specials while carrying Magnums on the street has been thoroughly
discredited, because it doesn't allow the user to get used to the
dramatic difference in handling between the two.
(This isn't to say that you have to do all your training this way; I do
a lot of work with light loads when I'm diagnosing a trigger control
issue, or to help develop a specific skill. When I've got them down,
though, I switch to my carry load and train extensively with that.)
So, what do I carry? Most of the time, I load up the trusted and proven
.38 Special +P 158 grain all lead semi-wadcutter hollowpoint. I've
spoken with many people who have actually used this load against an
adversary, and to a person they were all very satisfied with the
ballistic effect. Massad Ayoob tells me that his research showed police
agencies who switched from that load to hot autoloading cartridges did
so not to get "better" bullets, but to get "more
bullets." I'm confident in it's abilities, and in my ability to
handle the cartridge from any gun under any conditions.
This is a tradeoff for me. For instance, I really like the .44 Special.
It's a great round, but in a concealable gun I just don't handle it as
well as other calibers. I'm honest with my limitations; increasing joint
pain, particularly in my elbows, is beginning to limit what I can
handle, which means that the sweet .44 Special is no longer a good
choice for my primary caliber.
In fact, a hot .357 Magnum from a Ruger SP101 is easier for me to
control than a .44 Special from a small gun, and the Magnum has become
to be too much for me in a normal range session. I like the .357 too,
but I have to admit to myself that if I want to live relatively pain
free, I can't shoot it from my carry guns any more.
The result is that I've picked the most effective round that falls
within my limitations, and practice with it extensively. I think that is
the most rational way to approach this whole topic!
Next time, we'll explore some less obvious considerations when picking
your "ideal" self defense cartridge.
<<END
OF PART EIGHT>>
Stick
with what works
You've all heard of the "Gun of the Week" club, right? That's
the term used to describe an "enthusiast", the guy (gals are
too smart to engage in such nonsense) who carries or competes with a
different gun every time he goes out. (Closely related is the
"Holster of the Week" club. I'll post an amusing story about
that, soon.)
There is also the "Bullet of the Week" club. Some folks read
the gun magazines assiduously, loading up with the latest and greatest
"stopper" from the current issue. The next issue (or possibly
a competing magazine) tells them about yet another new bullet, and off
to the gunstore ammo shelves they go!
There are problems with this approach. Aside from the fact that one is
unlikely to see any major performance differences between modern designs
from major makers, there is a reliability issue. If you're shooting an
autoloader (an affliction which elicits my sincere sympathies), you need
to fire a minimum of 200 rounds of your chosen ammunition to ensure
reliability. That's a lot of ammunition to buy and shoot every time you
change loads!
Even with a revolver, you should shoot a full box of that ammo to ensure
ignition reliability in your gun, especially if you've had action work
performed.
The other issue is with the sights on your gun. Fixed sights, as
featured on both revolvers and autos, will not shoot all ammunition to
the same point of aim, necessitating on-the-fly windage or elevation
corrections. Trying to remember whether this week's ammunition choice
shoots up or down, right or left, relative to the sights is hard enough.
Imagine trying to do that with someone lobbing rounds into your personal
airspace!
If you have fixed sights, you should regulate them to match the load
you'll be using - then use that load, and only that load, for
"serious" use in that gun. If for some reason you change the
standard load for that gun, have the sights adjusted to shoot to
point-of-aim for that load.
That's why I say "stick with what works." Pick a decent load
that proves itself to be reliable in your gun, have the sights regulated
properly, and just use it. Constantly switching between different
bullets gains you nothing, and may in fact cost you in a dynamic
self-defense incident. Pick one load, practice with it, and use only
that bullet in that particular gun.
I go even further - I've standardized on one load for all my .38/.357
guns, and I've regulated all of them to shoot that load. That way, I
don't have to maintain a huge stock of ammunition to fit a bunch of
different guns.
I think this finally does it for the "Self defense, stopping power,
and caliber" series. I'm just about "talked out"! I hope
that it has given you some insight into the task of selecting a
gun/cartridge for your self defense needs.
Stay safe, make sensible choices, and practice. It's all you can do -
but, as it happens, all you can do is enough!
-=[ Grant Cunningham ]=-
Revolvers for Sport & Defense
"The world isn't flat, your gun shouldn't be either!"
---
http://www.grantcunningham.com
---
(503) 307-9746
<<END
OF REPRINTED ARTICLE>>
Grant Cunningham is a professional gunsmith who specializes in
double-action revolvers and has his own Web site at http://www.grantcunningham.com/index.html
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