The myth of "shot placement - shot placement - shot placement"

[HCM]

Conventional wisdom abounds in shooter's forums. Everyday, I hear that trite phrase parroted.

"A well-placed .32 ACP is better than 4 - .45 ACP's that are not center-mass, yadda, yadda".

How many really think an adversary(s) is going to present a frontal, stationary, unobstructed target? We're not talking paper punching....caliber matters.

What is your basis for your opinion ?

How many people have you shot, seen shot, treated for gunshot wounds etc ? I'm at 30 plus combined. BBI is likely well beyond that.

Like everything else, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Handgun calibers matter up to the point you are into service caliber handgun rounds (9mm / 38 Special) that meet the FBI terminal ballistics testing standards (12-18" penetration in ordnance gel).

You get what you get in a fight, life is not fair. If al you get is a foot, shoot the foot. The difference between shooting a guy in the foot with a 45/10mm/40 and shooting them in the foot with a 9mm/38 is inconsequential.

The mirror image of what you are talking about is the people who believe a more powerful round will make up for poor shot placement. We see this locally with hunters who never practice marksmanship trying to make up for incompetence by shooting 130 lb deer with 7mm mags, which ironically reduces competence even further.

[Yung]

How many really think an adversary(s) is going to present a frontal, stationary, unobstructed target? We're not talking paper punching...caliber matters.

Wouldn't a quartered, moving, partial target behind concealment emphasize the importance of shot placement even more? Barrier penetration is not really a question of caliber either, to my understanding of the research people on this forum have done.

EDIT: You have likely seen DocGKR's stuff like this in the Ammunition subsection already, and likely a good chunk of the following links I'm about to list, but since there are/will likely be other people reading this conversation who are not participating in it, here's some of the stuff I usually refer to whenever this sort of thing comes up elsewhere, or in class:

2014 FBI White Paper on 9mm (thanks, jetfire)

Greg Ellifritz's blog:
Wound Ballistics Workshop - 2016
An Alternate Look at Handgun Stopping Power

Aaron Cowan's videos:
Critical Anatomy: The Head
Critical Anatomy: The Chest
Critical Anatomy: The Pelvis

P-F's most recent 9mm vs .45 ACP discussion

[Borderland]

I wish y'all would let this play out.

I have spent the day waiting to shoot a groundhog under my shed who never showed his face, and just now spent 2 minutes chasing a cricket around in my living room with a vacuum cleaner so I didn't make a mess of him but also don't have to listen to him tonight.

I'm bored and you should let the man speak. Let's hash this out.

We need a devil emoji.

[BehindBlueI's]

I can see that. On the other hand, what with this pandemic and the goings-on associated with it, my Derp Tolerance Tank is almost topped off as it is.

Since it's in General Discussion, I'm approaching this as it's at least as likely as not this is some sort of boredom relief thread, but we'll see.

[HCM]

I can see that. On the other hand, what with this pandemic and the goings-on associated with it, my Derp Tolerance Tank is almost topped off as it is.

I feel you but as the old saying goes, "every fool you suffer makes 3 more."

[ArgentFix]

There may yet be useful cricket hunting advice, so I'm following this thread.

[feudist]

Well into the 90th percentile the presentation of a gun chases off the bad guy. (Kleck)

A single shot that misses cause even more to disengage.

A hit, anywhere will psychologically incapacitate nearly any resource criminal.

At this point, a well placed hit that enter the upper thorax will stop all but the most determined attacker. Lots of gelatin testing indicates that .32/.380 ball

will zip right through and exit 16-20 inches.

Multiple hits, well placed but failing to end an attack is so anomalous as to be nearly unheard of. How many failure modes are left? Only the most crazed

or drugged up can withstand this.

We're into Black Swan events now, and we haven't reached 9mm ball.

There is a reason we still talk about Michael Platt 34 years later.

[Dan_S]

There may yet be useful cricket hunting advice, so I'm following this thread.

It’s vital, when hunting crickets and other small insects, not to use too *large* of a caliber. Use of a heavy caliber (especially the potent 2mm magnum class of insect safari guns) will mean there is very little left to eat, and renders the exoskeletons too mangled to bother taking them to the taxidermist.

[ccmdfd]

It’s vital, when hunting crickets and other small insects, not to use too *large* of a caliber. Use of a heavy caliber (especially the potent 2mm magnum class of insect safari guns) will mean there is very little left to eat, and renders the exoskeletons too mangled to bother taking them to the taxidermist.

Not crickets but close:

https://youtu.be/BHBbJAIcnBI

[Welder]

There may yet be useful cricket hunting advice, so I'm following this thread.

Well since you mentioned it. I always thought they pretty much kept hopping in a certain direction once you started chasing them. Turns out that if you stick a giant (to the cricket) suction stick down in their direction, they turn into maniacs and literally jump in every direction, spazzing out until they hop into something they can't hop out of faster than your slow human reflexes can react and redirect the suction wand. Until then though, you are randomly stabbing at your floor with the wand exactly 0.75 of a hop behind the cricket, who does not possess an OODA loop at all, apparently, while you do. The cricket, meanwhile, materializes next in the last place you expected it. It literally can do this over and over again while you are attempting, after each hop, to rationalize why it went that way, and now thinking you understand it's little cricket brain, where it might next attempt to go. Sometimes you even attempt a Chronicles of Riddick-type stab at the area you *expect* it to end up in, only to find that it's now 2 feet away and 270 compass points off of your guess.

I hope that this information is of some help in your hunt.