No hate please, I am not trying to start an argument, but I was doing some thinking today after listening to someone speaking once again about why the FBI went back to 9mm, and I just had to get this out. In my opinion, and that's all I am qualified to give, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies returning to the 9mm had little if anything to do with any actual advancements in bullet technology. And I believe I have evidence which demonstrates that likely to be the case (and more).
I've been quoting a study on various forums and on social media for many years that came out almost nine years ago which was conducted by LEO Greg Ellifritz and published by the Buckeye Firearms Association in my state (https://www.buckeyefirearms.org/alte...stopping-power). Personally I am very grateful that he took ten years of his life to assemble this data (which sometimes required him to personally attend autopsies to obtain it). I've also been dismayed at how it's hardly ever mentioned. The Luckygunner only mentioned it after I left a comment he responded to about it. And then only one or two others followed that video from other channels, but these came out only within the last year or two but I've been citing this study for close to a decade.
The Buckeye Firearms study takes a look at approximately 1,800 people shot with various calibers to help take a lot of the guess work out of what ammunition works best (rather than leaving it to the FBI's use of what might have been someone's old Whitesnake denim jacket and a block of Gelita Ballistic 3 gelatine). However, it also raises some other questions that I won't get into too much here, but at the very least I think it might dispel this myth about bullet technology and perhaps more. Although I don't 100% agree with all of the author's conclusions, Ellifritz was mostly right about shot placement being more important than caliber, and one particular aspect of this study that I think he glosses over too quickly is where I started to find my evidence for my claim (and again, perhaps more).
Out of all the metrics Ellifritz broke down for us, the one I feel is the most important is how often various calibers fail to incapacitate someone. Yes, it's useful to know which ones are better for one-stop-shots, which calibers are the most accurate, which ones are more lethal, etc... but the whole purpose of a defensive firearm is to stop an attack, so the failure to incapacitate rates are paramount in the comparison (above all others in my opinion). The failure rates were as follows (again, this comes from 1,800 people shot with various calibers and not gel tests):
.22LR - 31%
.25 ACP - 35%
.32 ACP - 40% (very small sample of 25 people, so it may be skewed if you're wondering about it doing worse than .25 ACP)
.380 ACP - 16%
9mm - 13%
.357 SIG - 9%
.38 Special - 17%
.357 Magnum 9%
.40 S&W - 13%
.45 ACP - 14%
.44 Magnum - 13%
Centerfire Rifles - 9%
Shotguns (80% 12 gauge) - 12%
Clearly there wasn't much of a difference between anything beyond .32 ACP (demonstrating that shot placement is the most important aspect); however, aside from .380 ACP which will be apparent for obvious reasons (typical ammo selection), 9mm had one handicap that none of the other calibers suffered from in the data.
The majority of the 456 people who were shot with 9mm handguns were shot with FMJ bullets (likely thanks to those darn gang bangers that have traditionally made up most of the gun-related homicides)! The 9mm Parabellum was designed in 1901 and started becoming popular after WWI for a reason, and our military finally realized its advantages over the .45 ACP in 1985 when it was adopted, and it has remained in service ever since despite the FBI giving up on it for many years.
I know what some of you may be thinking, if it's not bullet design, it must be better powders. Certainly 9mm's today are loaded much warmer & hotter than the 9mm's the FBI tested in the late 1980's (3/5ths of them were subsonic), but look at the results of .380 ACP. They weren't anywhere near as powerful as the 9mm rounds the FBI tested all those years ago, yet they are virtually as good, especially when compared with .22LR, .25 ACP and .32 ACP. In fact, .380 ACP was arguably within the margin of error of 9mm, .40 S&W, .45 ACP and even .44 Magnum, and shotguns (though perhaps not .357 SIG/Mag & centerfire rifles)! What's going on? (Note: shotguns and centerfire rifles are certainly significantly more lethal, but their failure to incapacitate rate is not much better, and it is understandable considering a person can continue to attack for more than 15 seconds WITHOUT A HEART. If you don't get a direct hit to the CNS of an attacker, that possibility always exists.
A few years ago I took all the ammunition listed on ballistics101.com and averaged out their muzzle energy ratings to get an idea of what the averages were across the market (since they list a ton of ammo). I got the following averages:
Average Muzzle Energy in Foot Pounds:
.25 ACP - 72
.32 ACP - 143
.380 ACP - 217 (far below FBI 9mm rounds tested)
.38 Special - 260
9mm - 379
.40 S&W - 447
.45 ACP - 447 (yes, it happened to tie .40 which I don't think is an accident)
.45 GAP - 448
.357 SIG - 526
.357 Magnum - 574
10mm - 650
.44 Magnum - 964
Yes, the 9mm rounds tested by the FBI all those years ago when they selected the 9mm were only averaged 288 ft. lbs. (ranging from 273 ft. lbs. to 311 ft. lbs.), but the .45 ACP's they tested only averaged 302 ft. lbs. Both were still much better than even today's average .380 ACP, yet that little round is arguably within the margin of error of even today's loads given their ability to incapacitate (Note- margin of error is typically 3-4 points). In fact, the energy of the FBI's 135 gr. +P load is below the average at 369 ft. lbs. If 9mm is as good as the bigger calibers and .380 ACP is essentially as effective as 9mm at 217 ft. lbs., is it really about bullet technology at all especially when these two rounds do so well with FMJ's? No wonder why more people don't mention the Buckeye Firearm Association study. Maybe it's bad for business. (Note: the FBI also obviously didn't feel the ballistic advantage of 10mm, if there was one, was worth the size and recoil of 10mm handguns. The 10mm loads they tested at the time averaged 416 ft. lbs. ranging from 340 to 696 ft. lbs.).
Now I know what some of you still may be thinking, the FBI based their decision on penetration and expansion, and that may be so, but the truth is that that seems to be part of the problem. Certainly if 9mm can be just as good or better at stopping people than the larger calibers merely using cheap FMJ's, minimum penetration wouldn't have been an issue which also explains why the military was fine adopting the 9mm FMJ despite not being a signatory of the Hague Convention of 1899 (which prohibited expanding/flattening bullets). In other words, their compliance for political reasons was probably understood and accepted by the military brass because their testing obviously demonstrated how effective these 9mm FMJ rounds were even back then. I don't doubt what happened in the Miami dade shooting (with the 9mm bullet missing Platt's heart by an inch), but how do we know that shot wouldn't have reached his heart of it was an FMJ? In fact, it's pretty safe to say it would have. In other words, if the FBI had been using what the military had been shooting then or now, it's likely that shot would have reached Platt's heart. Remember, up to this point, most were using heavier bullets (.357 Magnum & .45 ACP). The HP design was important because it prevented over penetration of these heavier bullets (more on that in a minute).
I think for various industry (business) reasons, and perhaps to save the FBI from having egg on its face, using technological advancements has been an excuse and perhaps part of a marketing scheme at least when it comes to mild 9mm bullets which appear to do as well as virtually anything else (at least short of 357 SIG, 357 Magnum, or centerfire rifles). In my experience, the manufacturers in the gun world aren't as forthcoming about various products as they could be, and perhaps this has something to do with it (we don't wont consumers that are too well informed, do we?). We can talk about ballistic gelatin all day long, but it is never going to be better than observing what happened to 1,800 people actually shot with various caliber bullets. But once with the help of the advertising industry an idea is placed in people's minds with enough repetition, it's almost impossible to change (and you're always going to invite hostility challenging the status quo). Like I said, this is just an opinion so there is no need for hate or to resort to ad hominem attacks. People are encouraged to logically and respectfully disagree, but this possible obscurity of relevant facts pertaining to the truth about bullet technology may also explains a few other things to me.
I always wondered why people in the gun world are so preoccupied with velocity. Doing chronograph tests to compare velocity between calibers and different bullet weights within calibers is utterly useless if they're not mentioning energy because velocity only tells a part of the story, and certainly not the most important part. Sure, velocity affects energy more than mass (hence K.E. = 1/2 mass x velocity SQUARED), but balancing mass and velocity is about arriving at and ideal energy level that is hopefully deposited into an attacker as efficiently as possible (again, it's no a coincidence 40 S&W, .45 ACP, and .45 GAP essentially averaged the same ft. lbs.). It also solves our preoccupation with expansion. I can buy into finding ways to slow bullets down after hitting tissue to dump as much energy in the body, but these permanent wound cavities/channel are very similar among the calibers and much larger than the diameter of the expanded bullets, so that tells me that as far as creating a PWC, expansion doesn't matter at all unless we're talking about slamming on the breaks (to prevent a bullet from leaving the body). Well apparently it's more important to slam the breaks on .40 S&W and .45 ACP because their hollow points didn't work any better than the numerous 9mm FMJ's (and 9mm may even be in the margin of error of .380 ACP which has far less energy than the old 9mm cartridges). The truth is, until we really get a grip on the data, most of us merely repeat what others have said, but where does most of this information come from? People paid to do research, marketing departments, sales people, etc. Conversely, the United States military seemed to be fine running 9mm FMJ's. Certainly we can make a case for HP bullets in particular circumstances, but Miami Dade also makes a case for FMJ. But when we average things out, it seems to be a bit odd that 9mm FMJ seems to do so well.
When it comes down to it, it's possible in my opinion that .380 ACP's are virtually as good as 9mm (and they were only 1 point off from .45 ACP). In fact, it may be as good in longer barreled pistols since we typically see .380's being shot out of pocket pistols. When a .380 ACP passes through someone there isn't likely much in the way of energy left over, and the same can be said of 9mm as well. But when you get into justifying larger more powerful calibers which pass through people more easily, HP's make a lot more sense (which is why they probably got so popular when larger calibers were in vogue).
I was watching Hickok45 shooting a 2 liter bottle with a Ruger 57 (5.7x28mm) and he made the comment that it doesn't do much to the bottle (there's no explosion like we typically see). That's because those were created to penetrate body armor so even the weaker ones pass through the bottle so easily that most of the energy follows the bullet out the other end. Larger more powerful calibers are going to do the same thing though less obviously (but remember the diminished capacity of the .44 magnum).
So for example, suppose a 9mm passes through a leather jacket [or more recently beef tripe skin] followed by pork steak pectoral, pork ribs, a bag of oranges to simulate lung tissue, more pork ribs on the back, four layers of t-shirt on the front and four layers of t-shirt on the back BUT it does NOT make it past the first layer of the new & improved high tech fleece bullet stop of Paul Harrell's "meat target", is it really wasting a lot of energy? Probably not, and that may be what makes 9mm great rather than all the allegedly high tech improvements made over the last few decades. Even 9mm FMJ's don't seem to have trouble penetrating car doors and still delivering enough energy to stop someone. If the results of 456 of the 1,800 bodies observed by Ellifritz was accurate, there seems to be a lot to answer for in my opinion, and this brings me to my last point: my favorite cartridge.
Instead of going up to a slower but heavier 135 grain 9mm bullet like the FBI, why not go with a lighter faster 9mm bullet? Obviously the FBI couldn't find a lighter 9mm Parabellum bullet to do the trick that would satisfy all their criteria, but I am sure they could find another .355" caliber bullet under its other pseudonym (.357 SIG) which would do the trick (and better). A lighter faster bullet coming out of a bottlenecked case will also reduce recoil, chamber more reliably, arrive at the target more quickly, shoot FLATTER, and penetrate even better while not leaving the body (or at least without expending to much energy if it just barely exceeds the 18 inches of the FBI gel tests). As one mortician claimed, he never personally saw a .44 Magnum stay in a body, but he also never saw a ".357" leave one (I'm not saying they don't, every caliber can and does, but the reputation is good for .357).
Moreover, certainly the 13+1 capacity of a Glock 32 chambered in .357 SIG can't be a disadvantage over the 15+1 capacity of a Glock 19 when, on average, it takes only two .357 SIG bullets to incapacitate someone while requiring three 9mm Parabellum bullets to do the same thing, especially when dealing with multiple targets (if you have three or four people to deal with, would you rather stay ahead of the curve shooting two or three bullets each?).
.357 SIG also gets a bit of a bum wrap in my opinion because we might not be focusing on the right loads. Does 5.7x28mm or 22 TCM, or .223 or 5.56x45 for that matter, have a lot of recoil or excessive muzzle flip? No, because they use very fast and very LIGHT bullets. Similarly, a 65 grain Underwood Xtreme Defender bullet traveling at 2100 fps has a similar advantage over heavier grain 9mm Parabellum bullets. Yes, .357 SIG can be harder to handle even even with relatively light 125 grain bullets traveling as fast as they do, but the 65 grain is approximately half the weight and is completely manageable (and builds more energy relying on speed like a rifle). Moreover, the phillips screwdriver design of such bullets are literally barrier blind and not just essentially barrier blind like the Hornady Flex-lock bullets (i.e. its simple one-piece design eliminates the need for expansion needed on heavier bullets). Like I said, .357 SIG also arrives quicker on target, it's more accurate than 9mm, and it has a failure to incapacitate rate tied with center fire rifles. It can also perfectly replicate a 9mm Parabellum bullet since it is a 9mm bullet. It's just a 9mm with an option to go faster (and everything that goes along with that).
Anyway, feel free to point out my error in logic so long as it is done respectfully. I freely admit I am not an expert, and I would be happy to discuss this further (I just don't wish to partake in an ego-fueled debate).
Originally Posted by Navin Johnson
