Stop Worrying About Overpenetration

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REELDOC

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This is about wound penetration so get your minds out of the gutter...šŸ™„

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Stop Worrying About Overpenetration

Written by: Greg Ellifritz I've written in the past about some ballistic testing I observed at one of the past Rangemaster Tactical Conferences I attended. The bottom line of the article was that one
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I see what I mean......for years......Your "Practice Ammo...Range Ammo....Match Ammo....Reloaded Ammo....." will do all you can do with your handgun....I have seen this hashed around for 60 years.......New Ammo, a marketer's dream. The Only exception I have seen is the Phillips Screwdriver rounds that Mike and J.D. started the design work on a L O N G time ago.
If a man the size of @Johnny or @Burt Gummer or Cousin Jerry or @303hunter or @hp468 or well you get it...mean to do you harm and the only shot you have is from the side...Whoooo ooo ooo...you got a problem you gonna need 24 inches of muscle and mass to be penetrated. The conclusive medical data says between a .380 and a .45 Colt if the Dr. doesn't find the bullet you can't tell one from the other.

I was at a pistol match many years ago and the target frames were made out of 2x4s turned sideways....I can't tell you how many 185 SWC with 3 grains of BE in 45 cal I saw whizzzz through a 2x4 turned sideways. Same with a 148 WC with 2.8 grains of BE. Stop worrying about the newest and latest Defensive ammo that retails for $1.50 a round. Fill that critter up with Ball and let the good times roll....oh yeah....pistols are pitiful...but they are Portable.....
 
303hunter said:
I watched @BatteryOaksBilly shoot through a 2x6 a couple weeks ago to make mounting holes for a new base for the bowling pins target that I messed up, and he used a 380. Decided then that whatever feeds through my pistol is gtg.
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Guess I'll throw these old drill motors away.
 
I stopped worrying about it a while ago. I still like federal HST, Speer Gold Dots, and Hornsby Critical defense/duty. Not because I think they are magical or anything, but because Iā€™ve carried them for years and have never had a failure. But in my new pocket rocket LCP Iā€™m fine with ball ammo.


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Iā€™m not worried about over penetration. Iā€™ll carry a g40 with some hot hand loads and worry nada about over penetration.
 
Notacop said:
Does the PD have a criminal bird problem?
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Nope. Just use it in houses where they don't want to use buck. I've been told it works just fine. Not that they have a huge pool of evidence to prove it one way or the other.

I'll ask my standard question in these instances. You want to stand in front of it?

Also, some breaching charges designed to not be fatal at distance are made up of #12 shot in a capsule. It's not always about shot size if you can maintain a good pattern you maintain a large percentage of the charge weight. And weight at speed can do some serious damage on it's own.

In the end, make your own choice. For me, I tend towards #5 shot and have lots of OO around as well.
 
chiefjason said:
Nope. Just use it in houses where they don't want to use buck. I've been told it works just fine. Not that they have a huge pool of evidence to prove it one way or the other.

I'll ask my standard question in these instances. You want to stand in front of it?

Also, some breaching charges designed to not be fatal at distance are made up of #12 shot in a capsule. It's not always about shot size if you can maintain a good pattern you maintain a large percentage of the charge weight. And weight at speed can do some serious damage on it's own.

In the end, make your own choice. For me, I tend towards #5 shot and have lots of OO around as well.
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I don't want to stand in front of a bow and arrow or even a pointed stick
 
BatteryOaksBilly said:
I was at a pistol match many years ago and the target frames were made out of 2x4s turned sideways....I can't tell you how many 185 SWC with 3 grains of BE in 45 cal I saw whizzzz through a 2x4 turned sideways. Same with a 148 WC with 2.8 grains of BE. Stop worrying about the newest and latest Defensive ammo that retails for $1.50 a round. Fill that critter up with Ball and let the good times roll....oh yeah....pistols are pitiful...but they are Portable.....
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Very good points.

I unloaded THOUSANDS of .22 LR and .22 WMR rounds through rifles when I was younger and even those buggers will penetrate a LOT more than the average person would think.

Deep penetration isn't as difficult to achieve as a lot of people would have you think.

Now, I will admit that it's all relative...one round/caliber/bullet design will penetrate differently than another and things like mass, bullet design, and more can make a big difference in terminal ballistics. And certainly, this means that some rounds are better at self-defense than others.

All this is usually a matter of "sufficient penetration" or "minimum penetration" required to be deemed minimally acceptable (by FBI standards) as a self-defense round. FBI standards are what...12 to 18 inches in calibrated ballistics gel under a variety of tests?


"Over penetration", however, has galled me for a long time the way people get worked up about it.

How many people do we all know who are ACTUALLY bigger, front to back in the torso, than 12 to 18 inches? That's not all that large a number of people. Lean back in your chair and tuck a 12 inch ruler in your arm pit. How much sticks out beyond the plane of your chest? Now do it with an 18" ruler. Even at the stomach level, that's BIG.

The over concern about over penetration is particularly galling to me when the plain fact of the matter is that the vast majority of rounds fired NEVER HIT THEIR INTENDED TARGET IN THE FIRST PLACE. So why be concerned about over penetration of the human body?

People need to be more concerned with exactly what you posted above...poking as many holes in that critter as you can until the critter is stopped.

Handguns are a trade off in power versus portability/concealability anyway. They're the most underpowered of firearms. You don't HAVE to load up with super-whamodyne, magic armor piercing, heat seeking, incendiary, explody bullets...but you shouldn't be talking yourself into some kind of underpowered snap-cap loads, either. Pick something that will reliably penetrate and go with it.
 
RetiredUSNChief said:
"Over penetration", however, has galled me for a long time the way people get worked up about it.
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The last stats I saw was about 3 years ago...All LE stats showed a 78% MISS rate....What's worse the Chance of over penetration or an AIRBALL??? Chief, I have just about given up on even having a conversation with folks about this ridiculousness. You can't convince people that are subject to Marketing.....Come see us....
 
BatteryOaksBilly said:
The last stats I saw was about 3 years ago...All LE stats showed a 78% MISS rate....What's worse the Chance of over penetration or an AIRBALL??? Chief, I have just about given up on even having a conversation with folks about this ridiculousness. You can't convince people that are subject to Marketing.....Come see us....
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You convinced me and at a time that I doubled my money on my holler points.
 
RetiredUSNChief said:
Very good points.

I unloaded THOUSANDS of .22 LR and .22 WMR rounds through rifles when I was younger and even those buggers will penetrate a LOT more than the average person would think.

Deep penetration isn't as difficult to achieve as a lot of people would have you think.

Now, I will admit that it's all relative...one round/caliber/bullet design will penetrate differently than another and things like mass, bullet design, and more can make a big difference in terminal ballistics. And certainly, this means that some rounds are better at self-defense than others.

All this is usually a matter of "sufficient penetration" or "minimum penetration" required to be deemed minimally acceptable (by FBI standards) as a self-defense round. FBI standards are what...12 to 18 inches in calibrated ballistics gel under a variety of tests?


"Over penetration", however, has galled me for a long time the way people get worked up about it.

How many people do we all know who are ACTUALLY bigger, front to back in the torso, than 12 to 18 inches? That's not all that large a number of people. Lean back in your chair and tuck a 12 inch ruler in your arm pit. How much sticks out beyond the plane of your chest? Now do it with an 18" ruler. Even at the stomach level, that's BIG.

The over concern about over penetration is particularly galling to me when the plain fact of the matter is that the vast majority of rounds fired NEVER HIT THEIR INTENDED TARGET IN THE FIRST PLACE. So why be concerned about over penetration of the human body?

People need to be more concerned with exactly what you posted above...poking as many holes in that critter as you can until the critter is stopped.

Handguns are a trade off in power versus portability/concealability anyway. They're the most underpowered of firearms. You don't HAVE to load up with super-whamodyne, magic armor piercing, heat seeking, incendiary, explody bullets...but you shouldn't be talking yourself into some kind of underpowered snap-cap loads, either. Pick something that will reliably penetrate and go with it.
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Concerning the bolded part. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like you're drawing a direct correlation to the FBI gel block penetration testing parameters. It's my understanding that gel test medium is simply used as a constant that allows comparison between different loads and bullet designs. It's not intended to represent a body. 12 inches of penetration on gel doesn't translate to 12 inches on a body.
 
Notacop said:
I've seen some amazing feats of crack cocaine
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Or LSDā€¦.

Lots of dead folk relieved of their existence by a .22 bullet that entered their body and then proceeded to pinball itā€™s way around their innards making lots and lots of tiny little wound channels. Study a map of the circulatory system. Not very difficult to find a vessel with fatal blood loss capabilities in the trunk of a human body


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Timfoilhat said:
Concerning the bolded part. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like you're drawing a direct correlation to the FBI gel block penetration testing parameters. It's my understanding that gel test medium is simply used as a constant that allows comparison between different loads and bullet designs. It's not intended to represent a body. 12 inches of penetration on gel doesn't translate to 12 inches on a body.
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You are 100% correct.

The gel testing is nothing more than a standard with which they can compare performance and demonstrate repeatable results. It eliminates all the other variables, such as bones, tissue densities, layers of varying tissue densities, elasticity, etc.

If you mix ballistics gel correctly, and stabilize it at the correct temperature, then you should be able to replicate the results that anybody else would obtain with the same ammunition/weapon who also follows the same criteria for ballistics gel.

A lot of people think that the particular "formula" for ballistics gel is supposed to be directly representative of human tissue. This is ONLY true in the most superficial way...it's an approximation of density and viscosity of soft tissue only...for muscle tissue. And that's it. The real charm is it's a standardized medium with which relative terminal ballistics comparisons can be made.

It's more "qualitative" as opposed to "quantitative".
 
BatteryOaksBilly said:
The last stats I saw was about 3 years ago...All LE stats showed a 78% MISS rate....What's worse the Chance of over penetration or an AIRBALL??? Chief, I have just about given up on even having a conversation with folks about this ridiculousness. You can't convince people that are subject to Marketing.....Come see us....
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Ed-zachery.

There are many ways to improve your chances of successfully defending yourself with deadly force, should the need ever arise. How you do this should be through some form of logical cost-benefit analysis.

Simple logic, or common sense, should tell people that the areas any given person can work on which would most improve their chances of doing this would be those which improve their ability to hit their intended target.

A magazine full of super-whamodyne, magic armor piercing, heat seeking, incendiary, explody bullets ain't gonna do a thing if they can't hit their target with them in the first place.

And operating under the fallacy over penetration is a major concern and that a magazine full of underpowered snap-cap rounds is capable of reliably penetrating enough to save their keister should they actually happen to hit their target is a recipe for personal disaster.

Buy a decent, reputable self-defense round that cycles reliably in your gun and be done with it.
 
BatteryOaksBilly said:
I have just about given up on even having a conversation with folks about this ridiculousness. You can't convince people that are subject to Marketing.....
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Yep. We've switched almost exclusively to flat points for handguns here, and away from hollow points.

We still have 1 or maybe 2 loaded with HP. Many many more more with FP. Mostly hard-cast, some semi-jacketed, and the mixture consists of "flat points", SWC, and WC depending on the platform and availability of the rounds. And then we have 1 or two loaded with ball.

Friends and visitors will sometimes ask why I have them loaded with what I do. And sometimes it falls on receptive ears. Often it does not. My voice is almost horse from "proselytizing" on the subject.

But it's not just us @BatteryOaksBilly . Thankfully the manufacturers are slowly creeping onboard and it's reflected in their new releases. And the military as well.

We've had around 40 years of good feedback/data on what we consider "modern" renditions of the hollow point. We are about to see a fundamental shift in what we consider to be "defensive" rounds for handguns. Been a long time coming. Especially since it partially reverts back to what the old timers carried when I was kid. Differences being hard-cast, heavier, and faster in a lot of cases.

But, like I say at the end of most of my in-person diatribes on the subject, it barely matters with handguns. Make sure the rounds feed, make sure they hit to point of aim, and then be prepared to shoot em more than what you thought you ought to have had too.
 
1911gobang said:
Or LSDā€¦.

Lots of dead folk relieved of their existence by a .22 bullet that entered their body and then proceeded to pinball itā€™s way around their innards making lots and lots of tiny little wound channels. Study a map of the circulatory system. Not very difficult to find a vessel with fatal blood loss capabilities in the trunk of a human body


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You can always be killed by someone you've already morality wounded. If you interrupt some high level cractivities, shooting to kill isn't good enough you gotta shoot to stop.
 
I've seen quite a few gunshots, pretty much all the body shots have stayed in the body, same with upper leg shots. I've seen a few shots in the arms go through and into the chest. About all the headshots from the front or back stayed in the head, the majority of headshots to the sides went through resulting in a loss of grey matter. Had a Big Black Girl, 400++, shot through her upper arm flab with a 223, it was probably like ballistics gel, went through her foot of upper arm flab and left a pretty spectacular exit wound. The 12ga slug under the chin definitely went through.
 
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