Probably you didn't understand the PDW concept. PDW was chosen for Soft Armor Penetration (f.e. of russian paratrooper) and way higher hit probability on moving targets as well as extended range of engagement (both due to higher velocity). While having a compact weapon, that can -in emergency - shot without instant hearing loss. Ever shot a 7,5" AR15 with 223 without hearing protection?
I love this topic because being a first responder in a violent city I get to see a lot of gunshot wounds from a lot of different bullets. I also see a lot of barrier penetration but that’s a separate discussion. A good example of pistol vs rifle in an actual human is leg wounds. pistol rounds (of all calibers and bullet types) often hit the upper thigh area without severing the femoral artery. Usually its a clean in and out leaving a hole about the size of the bullet. It was surprising to me how often people have close calls with the fatal femoral. But in the one case where I saw a victim hit in the thigh with a 7.62, the bullet took half the thigh with it on the way out and definitely severed the artery. I mean it looked like a softball size chunk of flesh was missing from the inner thigh. It wasn’t a direct arterial hit, but it didn’t have to be because of the huge area affected. Poor kid only survived because he had some training and put a good improvised tourniquet on immediately. He still left several liters of blood on the floor mixed with viscera I believed to be chunks of the muscle and fat the exiting bullet carried with it. That was the AK round after penetrating the thin barrier of a trailer wall, and which was likely fired from a “draco” short barrel AK pistol. The gangsters love those things. Another 7.62 draco hit I saw to the head similarly resulted in a massive gaping wound that opened the side of the skull up. Believe it or not that 15yo victim made it to the hospital still breathing and lasted almost an hour on the table with small chunks of brain falling out of his shattered skull. There is simply no comparison between a round that achieves a significant wound cavity and one which does not. That said, I have seen a lot of people get dead from a single well placed small caliber round, so carry what you can and shoot straight.
@@LuckyGunnerTo me, this reinforces kind of what we see in what I can find about real world statistics. None of us (I don't think!) Have a civilian EDC concealed rifle. The traditional "high performers" of 357 Magnum, 45acp, 357 SIG, and the very large caliber handguns produce more foot-lbs of energy, and tend to dump most or all of it in a body (person or animal). 9mm and similar seem to have measured poorer results, which seems to correlate to simply producing less energy. Not that I want shot with anything, of course. But that makes a case for yes, a revolver will be enough with six shots 95% of the time, or more. If a dozen shots of 9mm don't connect solidly, versus one or two equivalent hits of 357 Magnum giving the same or better stopping effect, I find the industry mantra of 9mm as the One Round to sound hollow.
@@DasGoodSoup 5.56/223, absolutely. Those seem to be a mixed bag, heavily dependent on the bullet and barrel length I expect, though I’m not seeing the weapon when I show up after the fact, based on trends I would guess most AR rounds I see are fired out of shorter barrels. The gangsters generally like AR pistols the same as they like the “draco” AK pistols. That might explain why some of the 223 wounds are pinholes akin to the pistol wounds, and others are pretty gnarly, probably better bullets out of longer barrels. I’ve never seen the same massive cavitation as those AK rounds cause though, and I’ve seen them punch through every wall of a house front to back where most 223 barely makes it through the first exterior wall. I swear 380 fmj has more barrier penetration than 223. AK rounds are terrifying.
@@keithgraham9547 No offense but this is exactly the oposate of what is being explained here. The point is that pistol I.E 45, 357 9mm and so on is all basically the same. In that they are not rifle rounds. In the end take the more capacity and easier shooting 9mm.
Thanks Chris, for continuing to present science and facts over "conventional wisdom," ego-driven theories and fudd lore. We need more of this in the industry!
I just here to say Chris's delivery of the lucky gunner spot at the end has been getting so good. He's gotten me on the last 4 or 5 vids and frankly i'm impressed. Well done, sir.
Great video Chris! I think something a lot of folks forget about, too, is distance (and the resulting loss of velocity). I had one of my 5.56 SBRs out at the 500yd range the other day, and even with good 75gr ammo, my ballistic software was calculating that the projectiles were down to about 1330fps (300ft-lbs of energy) by 500 yards. That's going to do very very different things than what it would do at the muzzle when it's doing about 2200fps and 800ft-lbs of energy.
Thank you for this updated video. The original version has people thinking there was a 2200fps magic "line in the sand", and ignored all other factors!
Very good information. Good common sense explanation. Great visual demonstration also. 308 & 12 gauge slug win the "very impressive" gel impact(devastation) award in this installment. Thank you.
What helped me understand a lot more about how this stuff works was an old blog "The Box O' Truth #1 - The Original Box O' Truth". Tons of examples of how things behave.
That blog was a great resource back in the day. Looking back, the conclusions he drew from the test results were sometimes a little iffy, but he was one of the only people getting out and actually doing stuff and then sharing it with regular people.
Outstanding basic and to-the-point explanation of terminal ballistics Lucky Gunner Ammo! I've personally fired a lot of calibers and bullet types through water jugs over the past 20+ years, and this video is spot on concerning bullet damage effect. My experience is the same as you describe: bullet performance in medium after impact is more related to bullet design than velocity, caliber or bullet weight. Regardless of rifle or handgun, regardless of caliber or bullet weight, a massive damage cavity comes at the expense of penetration, and deep penetration comes at the expense of wound tunnel diameter. Round nose or pointed bullets tend to tumble, creating a "buzz saw" damage path, but limiting penetration, while flat-nosed bullets, especially large caliber handgun bullets, tend to punch deep leaving a 1 inch plus diameter wound tunnel behind. A bullet design that is practically 100% reliable in damage effect, it is the wide flat nose bullet of about 80% caliber meplat, especially in .40+ caliber handguns, that punches extremely deep with a large diameter wound tunnel left behind. Even a .30 rifle round will not penetrate as deep as the 44/45 caliber flat nosed bullet of 240+ grains weight, although the explosive destruction of the .30 rifle bullet impact will be greater in the first 50% of penetration.
Great video and a great Segway at the end. Chris you and your channel are definitely in my top five favorite on TH-cam. Thanks for the informative entertaining content.
LG consistently has some of the most informative videos out there. This is a video I'd readily use to explain the mechanism of injury for firearms to non-firearms people (something I often have to do to in my 2A advocacy). Excellent points about round construction, what effects a bad load can have, and so on. Great work as usual. Coming from a background in physics, I do appreciate it when things get broken down in a way that demonstrate clearly the science behind what's going on--particularly when a round overpenetrates and doesn't expend its energy on a target and just keeps on shufflin' wherever it's headed. And that not all mechanisms of dissipating that energy are created equal.
Big fan of 00 buck. A lot of talk of 1 buck being optimal but I think that is only under optimal conditions. In real world conditions 00 will have the smash to carry thru
EXCELLENT VIDEO! I don't think any of this info was nessisarily new to me, but only Lucky Gunner could put it all together so efficiently. This is a great "one-stop shop" of knowledge, especially for newer gun owners.
Your videos are great. I am so glad that you guys have taken this approach to sharing your data. I have been following your videos since you guys did the steel cased ammo in AR15s test. You guys rock. I don't see that video so maybe you could repost it. In the topic of bullets maybe compare the effects that handgun rounds have on gel and then the same round fired out of carbine length barrels. Keep up the good work.
Good video Chris! I concur that there are a lot of factors to consider in bullet selection. No argument in that a rifle dispenses a lot more energy than a handgun. There is also velocity dependence (especially in handgun rounds) as you stated which is affected by bullet construction. For example I shoot .45 Super however much of the ammo currently available is still constructed for .45 acp velocities resulting in hyper expansion but only 6-8 inches of penetration depending upon the brand. Bullet placement is tantamount! Shooting someone deranged on PCP usually requires a CNS shot to incapacitate.
Great video. You should do m193 through 16" 1/7 twist vs m193 through 20" 1/12 twist. I think you'll be surprised with the results and would make for a good video. Thanks
Hi Chris, loved the no-BS information here and the easily understandable presentation as usual. What do you think about novel bullet designs claiming to use external hydraulic effects, like the Lehigh XD and ARX Inceptor? Ignore the differences in price, manufacturing quality, barrier penetration, etc- let's talk exclusively about wound cavity here. Most non-scientific and semi-scientific tests I've seen point strongly to a measurable benefit from solid copper bullets with flutes that "eject" fluid perpendicular to the wound track, cutting a wider x-shaped channel. The logic makes sense to me, as we know pneumatic and hydraulic jets from various machines can easily cut flesh even at moderate velocities. I assume the only question is: is the fluid leaving the flutes at sufficient velocity to cut flesh? Or am I oversimplifying and there's more to it? This is the limit of my understanding of fluid mechanics, so I'd love for someone with more knowledge, both about the field and the particular rounds in question, to chime in with something based on actual science.
Thanks for talking about this, been trying to tell people about this for years. Handguns are a great comprise, but they have no stopping power to speak of.
A short search will also show many thousands of M193 rounds doing exactly what they are designed for from a 16" barrel, to say what was shown is typical of this round from a standard AR15 would be wrong at best.
@@LuckyGunner I'd be honored! It came to me as I was watching the Fackler video you linked in the description. It's funny how the principles discussed almost 40 years ago are still being debated today. Keep up the good work
Energy transfer is what makes the temporary cavity. The 2200fps threshold is junk science. This is why a high velocity 223 can sail right through and ice pick if it doesn’t destabilize. And why a heavy slow bullet with a large meplat can create a large temporary cavity. It’s just that velocity has more of an influence on energy than mass. But that’s just the start. You can tear tissue by exceeding its elastic limit, as you mentioned. But you can also reduce that elastic limit with a fragmenting bullet. The fragments lacerate the tissue and reduce its elastic limit everywhere a fragment travels. This is why the M193 can produce a devastating baseball sized hole in what would otherwise be elastic tissue… when it properly fragments. The tradespace with fragmenting bullets is they often don’t penetrate far. But, if you can get a reliably fragmenting bullet to penetrate deep enough for your needs (depending on animal), it should be a more lethal sounding mechanism than an expanding bullet. E.g. the 77gr TMK for medium sized game.
My question has always been .300blk vs .45 ACP, ballistically. I always see comments that subsonic .300 is just pointy .45. I would love to see a ballistic gel conparison
I have wondered the same thing and that is something we would like to dig into for sure. We did an informal test with one subsonic 300 BLK load so far and it was... unimpressive.
Makes sense that .300 Blackout subsonic would be less impressive than .45ACP. As he stated, you need a certain velocity and/or mass for the temporary stretch cavity to do significant wounding. .300blk subsonic wouldn’t have either, so it’d wound like a pistol where the only damage is the permanent wound cavity. However, you’d be making a .30 caliber hole (which is smaller than even 9mm at .355 caliber) rather than a .45 caliber hole. .300blk’s main advantage as a subsonic load is the pointy projectile does have better aerodynamics than .45ACP, so it shoots a bit straighter and further, but at the cost of terminal ballistics. It’s why for civilians, which generally shoot at much, much, much closer ranges, I never found that much point with .300blk subsonic. Just go with .45ACP which is much cheaper, has slightly better terminal performance, and can keep the same ammo for a carry/home defense handgun.
@@gameragodzilla tbf my .300 has like a 7.5” barrel so 5.56 is less than ideal for that. It’s kinda sounding like subsonics are just for memes as a civilian though. Still gonna reload a ton of subsonic when I get a press though
@@bishopm4401 Yeah, for such a short barrel, just stick with pistol calibers. It’s the one area I think PCCs still have a place, since while rifle rounds are much more powerful, they are also much more dependent on barrel length to get that really high velocity. When you chop the barrel down, you lose a lot of that effectiveness so you might as well use pistol ammo designed for short barrels.
I don’t know but I think that last part is really important. If you can’t afford the best protection, it may not be that bad because criminals or as you said predators are by nature basically cowards who are taking advantage of a perceived weakness. The moment they find out that the big guy or little lady has the jump and is hitting them with some kind of bullet that resolve might melt away quickly. They see that their perception was wrong and they are being hurt now. They probably don’t have the awareness to tell what you are using and then weigh it against the number of times they just took damage. They will want to leave the situation. Not everyone is going to be able to buy the finest thing that is scientifically proven to stop a predator. But even though you don’t want to bet everything on the theory, you might be just fine if you can break down their idea that they can harm without consequences. But I don’t know.
The 223 performance was good in the gel test but what we really need is longer gel test to really see what it's performance is like at 100 200 300 400 500 yards with a chronograph right in front of the gel,
For your page on 10mm results; it would be awesome to see Remington Gold Saber added to that list. Given how their bullets perform in your .40 S&W testing (barely meeting penetration standard) I could see a 10mm load with their projectile getting that extra 100 or 200 FPS that would either push it to being a top performer or totally break apart the bullet. My money would be on the former outcome given how the bullets look after recovery from the gel.
This is why m193 is good for range shooting, but bonded soft points, OTM or hollowpoints will always be a better choice over depending purely on velocity to induce fragmentation.
Part of your explanation is in error. The permanent wound cavity is after the temporary wound cavity, has expanded and contracted, the permanent wound cavity is not only the track of the bullet and its expansion, it also includes part of that temporary cavity that is shredded or has tears in it because that is a permanent wound. The full expansion of the temporary wound cavity is not, at least with pistol rounds, conducive to stoppages. When you compare permanent wound cavity of pistol rounds with their actual stopping ability in real life shootings, you will find an almost direct correlation that is consistent with each other. Because I studied what Evan Marshall was gathering, and I knew him, we would discuss this often. As for rifle ammo, because it is generally going considerably faster than people have an average rate of fatality that's about 350 percent of what pistols are usually fatal about 10% of the time, rifles are usually fatal from all shootings, about 35% of the time, shotguns are generally fatal about 80% of the time when the shot is within the effective range of the round fired. Generally, a pretty good video. Because I study many shootings, even the JFK assassination, it is why I know that the shot that hit Kennedy in the head was not fired by a 6.5 carcano, because the bullet does not go nearly fast enough to cause that explosive effect on his head. It was clearly fired by the I'm 16 that was witnessed coming out in Daley Plaza and being fired towards the president as the man was seemingly looking over his shoulder. It didn't help that both doctors measured the entrance phone in the back of Kennedy skull, and found it to be 6 mm in diameter. And it is categorically impossible to fire a 6.5 mm bullet through a 6mm hole in somebody's skull
I was hoping to see some 12ga in here. That 1 oz slugs is no joke. 1600 fps loads are even better. There's something special about forgoing all fancy technology and bullet design and just hurling a giant wad of "F U" at your target.
Funnily enough, a larger diameter permanent wound cavity while dismissing energy as a significant factor in pistol wounding means .45ACP is more effective on target than 10mm. Also more effective on target than 9mm, even accounting differences in recoil and capacity since .45ACP has a 60% larger wound cavity than 9mm, while 9mm certainly doesn’t have 60% more capacity or less recoil once you compare double stacks to double stacks.
@@johnshepherd9676 Yeah, energy gets you greater penetration, so for larger than human targets like bears, you’d want something more potent. It’s also the reason why really large magnum revolvers or the Desert Eagle aren’t entirely gimmicks.
I was at a sporting goods store buying ammo and said there are two types of people. The ones who buy toys and expect miracles in accuracy and those who buy ammo and practice to get accurate. The clerk chuckled and said he saw a lot who bought toys and no practice ammo and fewer who bought target ammo regularly. I carry a mouse gun most often so I try to practice once or twice a month. I can't really afford to go to the range more than that. Burning 100 dollars is real easy.
Y'all remember THIS video when you're paying $1,500 to build a "purpose built" AR with a 10.5" barrel. Do you, just remember the end result is lower velocity... And it's a .224!
You either need 2000+ ft lbs as you oenetrate a target to cause hydrostatic shock or enough energy to cause hydraulic shock to make a difference like 357 mag and 357 sig and up penetration can be slightly overlooked since the og 357 mag when compared to the famous 124 gr +p hst 9mm ilit penetrates 3-5 inches less than the 9mm yet we all know which is better
Rather than a pistol/revolver--A lever action carbine 16 inch barrel 22lr for home defense. 1. decent penetration but not enough to penetrate other rooms 2. little recoil for follow-up shot placement 3. soft noise 4. light 4.5 pounds (I'm a senior with arthritis)-Yes--No? Maybe?
Has anyone found an effective 300blk subsonic round? I understand supers are better, but I just got my can back and love how quiet subs are in this thing
I wonder how exotic rounds that exceed the 2000fps barrier stack up? From Liberty Civil Defense to Underwood 65grain Xtreme Defender in 357sig. Go on give it a test. I know you like crapping on 357sig lol. I'll pay for the box of underwood ammo if you want.
As you said, bullet construction matters too. Your 5.56 jacket may have been too thick. Back in the day (50s to 80s) there were 5.56 and 7.62x39/51 bullets with thin jackets that fragmented after a few inches of penetration. After a West German soldier was wounded in an accident with a horrible wound the jackets of NATO ammo were thickened to make them more "humane". Some Warsaw Pact 7.62x39 had thin jackets, some thicker. Some fragged, some did not. Trying to make ammo effective at stopping while being "humane" and causing minimal damage can be tough. If your ammo tweak is not intended to cause pain and suffering you can get away with a lot. US cops have usually been able to use pistol ammo that would not be OK on a battlefield, Euro cops not so much. While we were looking for JHPs that went >12, they were looking for "FMJ" that went
Excellent video. I'm incredibly grateful that you're using your platform to bring objectivity to a field commonly marred by misinformation, anecdotal evidence, and outright chicken bones voodoo.
Thanks Chris for this additional info. I attended many autopsies as a crime scene investigator over 30 plus years. All your information is spot on in terms of my observations and experience.
“Pistols put holes in people, rifles put holes through people and shotguns, with the right load and at the right range will physically remove a chunk of shit off your opponent and throw that shit on the floor!” Clint Smith
Conversely, mindset also affects the psychological aspects of what makes a murderer continue fighting after receiving non-survivable hits. Michael Platt in FBI Miami, the recent terrorist in Fargo, the suspect who smiled and walked into the deputy's ten 9mm Critical Duty shots to the upper chest, and the suspect in the Gramins OIS all soaked up fatal rounds, but they apparently didn't get the memo that they were dead on their feet. They just kept on fighting until blood loss or their CNS was hit. There are just some really bad men out there who aren't impressed with our defensive firearms. We must always be ready for those guys.
There's just as many stats out there of guys soaking up 40 & 45 rounds. Handguns are defensive. You want to go offensive, then you need a rifle or a shotgun with slugs, and STILL shot placement is of vital importance.
hello chris. here in Brazil, ammunition is very expensive and ballistic gelatin is practically impossible to get. If possible, do some tests with Brazilian ammunition CBC/Magtech 9mm proshock 135gr and 147gr. currently, as there is no reliable data about them, I continue to use the 124gr fmj.
Sir, you are the best at this-no cutsie remarks about personal factors, no asides to your audience, and nothing insulting to a gun-owner's choice of weapon. You pack more into 12 minutes than many presenters can deliver in twice as much time.
Exactly. I class him with Paul Harrell in my mind. They have different presentation styles for sure, but that's great because they fill two niches of the same subject matter.
Still one of the best channels regarding the use of firearms and its related equipment. No BS, straight to the point and well skripted videos. Thank you for that content.
Great video! Interesting to see a 5.56 round out of a reasonably lengthy barrel perform noticeably worse than a good 9mm hollow point out of a pistol. That's something I didn't expect based on my cursory understanding of terminal ballistics. Goes to show the importance of ammo selection even for full size rifles.
That was absolutely a bad batch. 5.56 out of a 16" barrel has no business performing that way on a target less than 100 yards away (if not 150). They absolutely should have performed the test again on a different batch of ammo. Using what by all appearances is an outlier as their one data point is inexcusable methodology and invalidates the entire 5.56 section of the video.
@@Florkl The entire point of that demonstration was to show that bullets can well exceed the velocities where you would usually expect significant wounding from the temporary cavity only to have them under-perform due to the specifics of the bullet and what it does (or doesn't do) as it passes through the target. Not only does it not invalidate anything, not including something like it would have been a massive oversight. There's a reason no one hunts with FMJs and that gel test is a good example of why that is.
M193 should have been used in Mozambique or Mogadishu (🤔). Its yawing and fragging begin 3.5-4” in tissue; M855 starts around 8”. The malnourished insurgents were so gaunt, the M855s were zipping through them like pencils before they could cause their intended damage. Again, proper M193, not the underpowered junk in the video, will comparatively demolish soft tissue sooner (distance in) than other 5.56. Not all M/XM193 are the same.
Will you be going into hydrostatic shock in a future video? I have heard in the past that it is a significant factor with rifle rounds designed for hunting but I would be interested in your opinion.
That is a really tricky topic because "hydrostatic shock" can refer to different wounding effects depending on who you ask. A lot of people use that term when they're actually talking about the temporary cavity. Originally, it was meant to refer to a pressure wave that radiates through the body and causes remote damage. This has not been proven to exist, but enough weird things happen with bullets and bodies that it's also difficult to prove it does not exist. Additionally, there is some evidence that the temporary cavity can displace tissue that then causes blunt force type trauma to the spinal cord, which has the (sometimes temporary) effect of incapacitating the target. This could be what's happening in some cases when a hunter gets a good heart/lung shot, but the animal drops instantly as if the central nervous system were disrupted. Is this the phenomenon that is being attributed to "hydrostatic shock"? I don't know... there is still a lot about this stuff that is not very well understood.
@@LuckyGunner thank you for the reply. Most of the time I hear people talking about 'hydrostatic shock' it is in reference to a reaction by the CNS to a pressure wave from the bullet impact. It has never been clear if this is direct trauma from pressure passing through the fluids of the body or just through the circulatory system. But the end result is normaly described along the lines of either knocking them out long enough that other trauma (blood loss) causes death before return of consciousness. Or that the overpressure causes enough damage itself to 'turn the lights off' permanently. Your video brought it up in my mind and I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask and see if there is a more definitive explanation. Cunningham's Law ect.
Would love to see you discuss how the Lehigh fluted solids that were designed around looking pretty in clear gel don’t really represent what they would do in actual tissue, since ballistics gel wasn’t made to mimic lateral tearing. Edit: Let me rephrase. Discuss how standard gel isn’t an appropriate test medium for that style of bullet. While it may be that they perform well in real life, ballistic medium doesn’t actually demonstrate that they will.
I don't know man, I have seen video of the fluted solids doing to flesh what it does in gel. I believe it was a necropsy of a feral hog that someone shot with a 45acp Lehigh XD and the wound channel did have an X shaped hole and the channel seemed wider than it should be for a solid. Unfortunately TH-cam took it down because they are stupid. I would link it if it was still up. That video is what convinced me that they at least have a better damage path than FMJ. I still carry hollow points in anything 9mm and up in power, but for things like 380 or 32acp, I would definitely consider the fluted bullets personally.
No ballistic medium gives a truly accurate representation of exactly how a bullet behaves in live human tissue. 10% calibrated gelatin is the closest we've come up with, but it is **not** an analog for flesh. Even FMJ and JHP behave somewhat differently in tissue than in gel. The benefit of gel is that it is **somewhat** close to living tissue, but most importantly that by always using identically calibrated test media, results can be consistently compared. I asked a similar question about Lehigh XD and similar fluted rounds, and I believe the only question that needs to be answered is: is the velocity of the fluid coming out of the flutes sufficient to cut tissue? If the answer is yes, then there is no debate left to have: the bullet design is effective as claimed, period. We know this is true because high-pressure water jets and airstream can easily cut flesh. I just don't know the minimum velocity of the stream needed to produce damage, and I don't know the measured velocity of the fluid being ejected from the flutes. If anyone could figure that out, I think we'd have our answer.
@@FlorklDead tissue doesn't behave the same as live tissue. The wound track and overall damage to a brisket or pork shoulder does not necessarily represent what a bullet does in a live human body. That being said, your conclusion is probably not wrong. Based on anecdotal and unscientific tests, I do believe that the XD-type solid fluted bullets are effective, and I carry them in every one of my guns that Underwood makes the XD for. But I have honestly not seen any properly performed scientifically valid testing of these types of bullets, and no properly measured and validated data about the unique effects of the flutes. I've cast my personal verdict in favor, but technically the jury is still out.
@@its_clean Right, I agree with your initial statement. The point being that our current ballistics gel was designed around mimicking how standard projectiles wound. The fluted Lehigh bullets make a larger cavity through their flutes laterally disrupting the ballistic medium, which if you have ever messed with either true organic ballistics gel or clear ballistics you know how easy it tears. You can just tear chunks apart as you wish, which obviously you cannot do with the vast majority of human tissue. I don’t disagree that they could work, I’m just pointing out that current ballistics gel isn’t going to be a reliable indicator that they will or not.
I've been saying this for years. 'Stopping' a target isn't a factor of caliber, it is a factor of shot placement, specifically hitting the CNS. Everything else is just secondary support for the CPU. Works on everything, up to and including bears and elephants.
I have spent a lot of time reading up on this subject and drew almost identical conclusions. I've been summarizing and explaining these conclusions to people for years. I think I'm going to just start giving people this video instead. Thanks, Chris!
It's funny how you criticise the KInetic Energy Transfer Theory, but on the other hand completely follow it's key points. A slower, heavy in mass projectile has a lot of KE, if it is able to transfer this energy (shotgun slug) it is very effective - if it fails to transfer it's KE (like the 45-70) it is an ineffective bullet and does way less damage. You basically just followed KE Transfer Theory. Greetings from Germany.
Please please please a video about pdw calibers like 5.7 and 4.6 Also the new kid on the block the .30 super carry will be much appriciated! And another question, those "extreme penetrator" and "extreme defender" bullets that came out a few years ago claim to do the same rifle effects in handguns. Can it be tested in any scientific way? Except for live targets of course...
“Pistols put holes in people, rifles blow bigger holes through people, and shotguns, with the right load at the right distance, physically remove a chunk from peoples bodies and throw that shit on the floor.”- Clint smith
Pistol caliber arguments always make me laugh. Like bro they all kinda suck at terminal. Yes they kill, but not like a rifle round. Pistol caliber ls are better than nothing though.
Thank you for mentioning that Dr. Fackler actually developed his gel technique to correspond to actual gunshot wounds. It seems that many people think that gel tests are unrelated to real world gunshots.
@@bobjones-bt9bh Source please. Fackler was a surgeon during the Vietnam War and was very familiar with what bullets would do to humans. I have never read anything about hunting deer with a 9mm. With pistol ammo in particular, what is used now is radically different from what was used in the 1970's and 1980's, so unless you are talking about cast bullets or FMJ, he wouldn't have tested it.
I think it's important to understand that ballistics gel and actual live tissue are different so what the gel shows vs what actually happen will also be different. the youtube channel "ASP" or Active Self Protection has lots of real world firearm defense incidents. Plenty of people take rounds to the chest and run off like nothing happened. But a threat running off is a threat stopped so practice. Be as fast and as accurate as you can be.
Very well presented, and a good complement to your "why ballistics gel works video." In the discussions I read or heard, consensus finally come back to the point you emphasized: shot placement is critical. Sure, many discussions devolve into arguments over caliber, but I don't recall ever reading anyone suggest shot placement was irrelevant, or even that shot placement is secondary. I don't recall anyone is suggesting hitting an attacker in the pinky with a 44 Rem Mag is more effective at stopping a threat than hitting an attacker in the cranial-ocular cavity with a 32 ACP. There is broad consensus on shot placement being paramount. As you mentioned, one area where opinion splits is on kinetic energy. The Federal engineer in your earlier video who answered your question about what happens to the energy, "It just dissipates" provided a very unsatisfactory response. A soccer ball kicked with full force has around 180 ft-lbs of energy, roughly the equivalent of 90gr bullet from a typical 380 ACP. A prepared player with their arms up might feel pain, but not suffer any temporary ill effects. However, an unprepared player is very likely to be stunned, dazed, or at least momentarily disoriented. This highlights one of the limitations common to some terminal wound research. Every study has limitations, flaws, and assumptions. We can still learn from them, but we should acknowledge the issues, as you did with ballistics gel. Gun fights are highly dynamic. Doctors evaluating wounds or performing an autopsy see the net results: this bullet punctured thug Platt's lung causing exsanguination and death. Can they do more than infer how long that took or physical limitations he was under between the fatal wound and subsequent 2 minutes of fighting? The thug Matix (1986 Miami shootout) was knocked unconscious early in the fight, and only regained consciousness right before the end the fight. Had he been in the fight with Platt the entire time, the results could have been much worse. Can doctors definitively determine what caused a person to lose consciousness for 90 seconds, hours after the fact and after the person is dead? Projectiles from rifles dwarf projectiles from handguns in velocity and energy. Very high velocity must be achieved for a temporary wound channel to exceed the limits of elasticity. No handgun round is going to knock a person on their back. Exsanguination takes time. If the defender successfully places the shots, what energy transfer to the target may do is disorient, allowing additional shots to connect, or the ability to safely transition to another threat, and/or buy time for exsanguination to take effect. Shot placement remains king, but given all else we know about physics, it seems highly unlikely several hundred ft-lbs of energy are absorbed by a person with no effect, just superfluous energy that dissipates.
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This has been exactly what I’m looking for as the fight for PDW calibers rages on. So succinct! I’d watch another hour of this
Thanks! If you really want a deep dive, check out the 1987 video with Fackler that's linked in the description
@@LuckyGunner thank you Chris another success👍
Probably you didn't understand the PDW concept. PDW was chosen for Soft Armor Penetration (f.e. of russian paratrooper) and way higher hit probability on moving targets as well as extended range of engagement (both due to higher velocity). While having a compact weapon, that can -in emergency - shot without instant hearing loss. Ever shot a 7,5" AR15 with 223 without hearing protection?
@@budterence85 You mistake me good sir! I actually love the P90 and am really looking forward to the 5.7mm testing by @LuckyGunner
Makes perfect sense. PCCs are great for close quarters and they’re compact
I love this topic because being a first responder in a violent city I get to see a lot of gunshot wounds from a lot of different bullets. I also see a lot of barrier penetration but that’s a separate discussion. A good example of pistol vs rifle in an actual human is leg wounds. pistol rounds (of all calibers and bullet types) often hit the upper thigh area without severing the femoral artery. Usually its a clean in and out leaving a hole about the size of the bullet. It was surprising to me how often people have close calls with the fatal femoral. But in the one case where I saw a victim hit in the thigh with a 7.62, the bullet took half the thigh with it on the way out and definitely severed the artery. I mean it looked like a softball size chunk of flesh was missing from the inner thigh. It wasn’t a direct arterial hit, but it didn’t have to be because of the huge area affected. Poor kid only survived because he had some training and put a good improvised tourniquet on immediately. He still left several liters of blood on the floor mixed with viscera I believed to be chunks of the muscle and fat the exiting bullet carried with it. That was the AK round after penetrating the thin barrier of a trailer wall, and which was likely fired from a “draco” short barrel AK pistol. The gangsters love those things. Another 7.62 draco hit I saw to the head similarly resulted in a massive gaping wound that opened the side of the skull up. Believe it or not that 15yo victim made it to the hospital still breathing and lasted almost an hour on the table with small chunks of brain falling out of his shattered skull. There is simply no comparison between a round that achieves a significant wound cavity and one which does not. That said, I have seen a lot of people get dead from a single well placed small caliber round, so carry what you can and shoot straight.
Thanks for sharing your experience! I'm sorry you have to see stuff like that, but grateful you're able to enlighten the rest of us
Have you seen ar vs ak wounds? Which would you rather be shot by if you literally had to pick one
@@LuckyGunnerTo me, this reinforces kind of what we see in what I can find about real world statistics.
None of us (I don't think!) Have a civilian EDC concealed rifle. The traditional "high performers" of 357 Magnum, 45acp, 357 SIG, and the very large caliber handguns produce more foot-lbs of energy, and tend to dump most or all of it in a body (person or animal).
9mm and similar seem to have measured poorer results, which seems to correlate to simply producing less energy.
Not that I want shot with anything, of course. But that makes a case for yes, a revolver will be enough with six shots 95% of the time, or more.
If a dozen shots of 9mm don't connect solidly, versus one or two equivalent hits of 357 Magnum giving the same or better stopping effect, I find the industry mantra of 9mm as the One Round to sound hollow.
@@DasGoodSoup 5.56/223, absolutely. Those seem to be a mixed bag, heavily dependent on the bullet and barrel length I expect, though I’m not seeing the weapon when I show up after the fact, based on trends I would guess most AR rounds I see are fired out of shorter barrels. The gangsters generally like AR pistols the same as they like the “draco” AK pistols. That might explain why some of the 223 wounds are pinholes akin to the pistol wounds, and others are pretty gnarly, probably better bullets out of longer barrels. I’ve never seen the same massive cavitation as those AK rounds cause though, and I’ve seen them punch through every wall of a house front to back where most 223 barely makes it through the first exterior wall. I swear 380 fmj has more barrier penetration than 223. AK rounds are terrifying.
@@keithgraham9547 No offense but this is exactly the oposate of what is being explained here. The point is that pistol I.E 45, 357 9mm and so on is all basically the same. In that they are not rifle rounds. In the end take the more capacity and easier shooting 9mm.
Thanks Chris, for continuing to present science and facts over "conventional wisdom," ego-driven theories and fudd lore. We need more of this in the industry!
Thanks!
@@LuckyGunner An addendum addressing 5.7x28 and the like, hyper-velocity tiny-caliber pistols, would be very informative!
try paul harrel.
I just here to say Chris's delivery of the lucky gunner spot at the end has been getting so good. He's gotten me on the last 4 or 5 vids and frankly i'm impressed. Well done, sir.
And remember folks, always spay or neuter your pets!
I always thought big gun with big bullet = big hole; small gun with small bullet = little hole. It’s great to have my thinking updated.
Great video Chris!
I think something a lot of folks forget about, too, is distance (and the resulting loss of velocity). I had one of my 5.56 SBRs out at the 500yd range the other day, and even with good 75gr ammo, my ballistic software was calculating that the projectiles were down to about 1330fps (300ft-lbs of energy) by 500 yards. That's going to do very very different things than what it would do at the muzzle when it's doing about 2200fps and 800ft-lbs of energy.
It is a long for caliber bullet, so it is still more likely to yaw and tumble end over end a few times in a target.
Would love to see a follow up addressing 5.7x28 and the like, hyper-velocity tiny-caliber pistols!
5.7 tests are coming
There are a lot of tests on the internet and they show 5.7 x 28 to be marginally more effective than .22 WMR.
@@johnshepherd9676so like any other pistol cartridge you're likely to carry
@@dandylion1987if that is what you think you really did not understand today's video.
@@johnshepherd9676how so?
Thank you for this updated video. The original version has people thinking there was a 2200fps magic "line in the sand", and ignored all other factors!
Very good information. Good common sense explanation. Great visual demonstration also. 308 & 12 gauge slug win the "very impressive" gel impact(devastation) award in this installment. Thank you.
What a fantastic video. I love Chris and lucky gunner. Also their bulk 9mm deals are usually pretty good.
What helped me understand a lot more about how this stuff works was an old blog "The Box O' Truth #1 - The Original Box O' Truth". Tons of examples of how things behave.
That blog was a great resource back in the day. Looking back, the conclusions he drew from the test results were sometimes a little iffy, but he was one of the only people getting out and actually doing stuff and then sharing it with regular people.
@@LuckyGunner your info is consistently far more precise and practical!
@@LuckyGunner
Do so with Elite Ammunition S4 and T6B. Otherwise it's pointless
Very informative as always. Love your videos, when notification drops I'm always excited what I'm going to learn today.
Thanks! Glad you're enjoying them
Outstanding basic and to-the-point explanation of terminal ballistics Lucky Gunner Ammo! I've personally fired a lot of calibers and bullet types through water jugs over the past 20+ years, and this video is spot on concerning bullet damage effect. My experience is the same as you describe: bullet performance in medium after impact is more related to bullet design than velocity, caliber or bullet weight.
Regardless of rifle or handgun, regardless of caliber or bullet weight, a massive damage cavity comes at the expense of penetration, and deep penetration comes at the expense of wound tunnel diameter. Round nose or pointed bullets tend to tumble, creating a "buzz saw" damage path, but limiting penetration, while flat-nosed bullets, especially large caliber handgun bullets, tend to punch deep leaving a 1 inch plus diameter wound tunnel behind.
A bullet design that is practically 100% reliable in damage effect, it is the wide flat nose bullet of about 80% caliber meplat, especially in .40+ caliber handguns, that punches extremely deep with a large diameter wound tunnel left behind. Even a .30 rifle round will not penetrate as deep as the 44/45 caliber flat nosed bullet of 240+ grains weight, although the explosive destruction of the .30 rifle bullet impact will be greater in the first 50% of penetration.
Great video and a great Segway at the end. Chris you and your channel are definitely in my top five favorite on TH-cam. Thanks for the informative entertaining content.
LG consistently has some of the most informative videos out there. This is a video I'd readily use to explain the mechanism of injury for firearms to non-firearms people (something I often have to do to in my 2A advocacy). Excellent points about round construction, what effects a bad load can have, and so on. Great work as usual. Coming from a background in physics, I do appreciate it when things get broken down in a way that demonstrate clearly the science behind what's going on--particularly when a round overpenetrates and doesn't expend its energy on a target and just keeps on shufflin' wherever it's headed. And that not all mechanisms of dissipating that energy are created equal.
The best channel on youtube. Thank you for all you do.
Great video. It would have been nice also to hear about buckshot performance.
I use my 00 Buckshot for home defense. Also 4-Buck. Can’t lose. Not reliant upon tumbling or yawing for affect. Great video Chris. 🤠👊🏻
Big fan of 00 buck. A lot of talk of 1 buck being optimal but I think that is only under optimal conditions. In real world conditions 00 will have the smash to carry thru
Good video, thanks Chris. I would love a long version that would go into deeper details.
A couple years ago he made: Why ballistics gel works and caliber arguments are dumb.
EXCELLENT VIDEO! I don't think any of this info was nessisarily new to me, but only Lucky Gunner could put it all together so efficiently. This is a great "one-stop shop" of knowledge, especially for newer gun owners.
Awesome video, best gun information on TH-cam 👍
What discussions like this one often fail to consider is the stopping effect of multiple shots. What one hit may not do, a couple more may well do.
Your videos are great. I am so glad that you guys have taken this approach to sharing your data. I have been following your videos since you guys did the steel cased ammo in AR15s test. You guys rock. I don't see that video so maybe you could repost it. In the topic of bullets maybe compare the effects that handgun rounds have on gel and then the same round fired out of carbine length barrels. Keep up the good work.
Very informative and great delivery. Thank you!
Outstanding discussion Chris.
Good video Chris! I concur that there are a lot of factors to consider in bullet selection. No argument in that a rifle dispenses a lot more energy than a handgun. There is also velocity dependence (especially in handgun rounds) as you stated which is affected by bullet construction. For example I shoot .45 Super however much of the ammo currently available is still constructed for .45 acp velocities resulting in hyper expansion but only 6-8 inches of penetration depending upon the brand. Bullet placement is tantamount! Shooting someone deranged on PCP usually requires a CNS shot to incapacitate.
Great video. You should do m193 through 16" 1/7 twist vs m193 through 20" 1/12 twist. I think you'll be surprised with the results and would make for a good video. Thanks
Hi Chris, loved the no-BS information here and the easily understandable presentation as usual. What do you think about novel bullet designs claiming to use external hydraulic effects, like the Lehigh XD and ARX Inceptor? Ignore the differences in price, manufacturing quality, barrier penetration, etc- let's talk exclusively about wound cavity here. Most non-scientific and semi-scientific tests I've seen point strongly to a measurable benefit from solid copper bullets with flutes that "eject" fluid perpendicular to the wound track, cutting a wider x-shaped channel. The logic makes sense to me, as we know pneumatic and hydraulic jets from various machines can easily cut flesh even at moderate velocities. I assume the only question is: is the fluid leaving the flutes at sufficient velocity to cut flesh? Or am I oversimplifying and there's more to it? This is the limit of my understanding of fluid mechanics, so I'd love for someone with more knowledge, both about the field and the particular rounds in question, to chime in with something based on actual science.
Thanks for talking about this, been trying to tell people about this for years. Handguns are a great comprise, but they have no stopping power to speak of.
Depends upon whether or not you hit the perp; a .22LR that hits him is better than a .30-06 that misses.
A short search will also show many thousands of M193 rounds doing exactly what they are designed for from a 16" barrel, to say what was shown is typical of this round from a standard AR15 would be wrong at best.
Awesome video, would love to see more content on this topic!
I learn more from these kinds of videos, more please!
I love the video I wonder how subsonic 300BLK works in terms of temporary cavity. I can’t imagine it produces a TC size capable of a real difference.
Using energy transfer as a metric for bullet effectiveness is like using fuel consumption to determine the speed of a car. Great video
That's a great analogy. I might steal that!
@@LuckyGunner I'd be honored! It came to me as I was watching the Fackler video you linked in the description. It's funny how the principles discussed almost 40 years ago are still being debated today. Keep up the good work
Energy transfer is what makes the temporary cavity. The 2200fps threshold is junk science. This is why a high velocity 223 can sail right through and ice pick if it doesn’t destabilize. And why a heavy slow bullet with a large meplat can create a large temporary cavity. It’s just that velocity has more of an influence on energy than mass.
But that’s just the start.
You can tear tissue by exceeding its elastic limit, as you mentioned. But you can also reduce that elastic limit with a fragmenting bullet. The fragments lacerate the tissue and reduce its elastic limit everywhere a fragment travels. This is why the M193 can produce a devastating baseball sized hole in what would otherwise be elastic tissue… when it properly fragments.
The tradespace with fragmenting bullets is they often don’t penetrate far. But, if you can get a reliably fragmenting bullet to penetrate deep enough for your needs (depending on animal), it should be a more lethal sounding mechanism than an expanding bullet. E.g. the 77gr TMK for medium sized game.
"But you can also reduce that elastic limit with a fragmenting bullet." Yep, that was mentioned as well.
I guess I missed it.
Great information! Thank you!
My question has always been .300blk vs .45 ACP, ballistically. I always see comments that subsonic .300 is just pointy .45. I would love to see a ballistic gel conparison
I have wondered the same thing and that is something we would like to dig into for sure. We did an informal test with one subsonic 300 BLK load so far and it was... unimpressive.
@@LuckyGunner damn. Guess I can’t live out my John wick home defense fantasy. Thanks for the reply!
Makes sense that .300 Blackout subsonic would be less impressive than .45ACP. As he stated, you need a certain velocity and/or mass for the temporary stretch cavity to do significant wounding. .300blk subsonic wouldn’t have either, so it’d wound like a pistol where the only damage is the permanent wound cavity. However, you’d be making a .30 caliber hole (which is smaller than even 9mm at .355 caliber) rather than a .45 caliber hole.
.300blk’s main advantage as a subsonic load is the pointy projectile does have better aerodynamics than .45ACP, so it shoots a bit straighter and further, but at the cost of terminal ballistics. It’s why for civilians, which generally shoot at much, much, much closer ranges, I never found that much point with .300blk subsonic. Just go with .45ACP which is much cheaper, has slightly better terminal performance, and can keep the same ammo for a carry/home defense handgun.
@@gameragodzilla tbf my .300 has like a 7.5” barrel so 5.56 is less than ideal for that. It’s kinda sounding like subsonics are just for memes as a civilian though.
Still gonna reload a ton of subsonic when I get a press though
@@bishopm4401 Yeah, for such a short barrel, just stick with pistol calibers. It’s the one area I think PCCs still have a place, since while rifle rounds are much more powerful, they are also much more dependent on barrel length to get that really high velocity. When you chop the barrel down, you lose a lot of that effectiveness so you might as well use pistol ammo designed for short barrels.
I don’t know but I think that last part is really important. If you can’t afford the best protection, it may not be that bad because criminals or as you said predators are by nature basically cowards who are taking advantage of a perceived weakness. The moment they find out that the big guy or little lady has the jump and is hitting them with some kind of bullet that resolve might melt away quickly. They see that their perception was wrong and they are being hurt now. They probably don’t have the awareness to tell what you are using and then weigh it against the number of times they just took damage. They will want to leave the situation. Not everyone is going to be able to buy the finest thing that is scientifically proven to stop a predator. But even though you don’t want to bet everything on the theory, you might be just fine if you can break down their idea that they can harm without consequences. But I don’t know.
Good thumbnail review of a subject that causes lots of arguments. Placement is the most critical variable you can try to influence it seems
The 223 performance was good in the gel test but what we really need is longer gel test to really see what it's performance is like at 100
200 300 400 500 yards with a chronograph right in front of the gel,
Different barrel lengths or just downloading the cartridge will tell you that.
loved the phrase "Significant error in victim selection" LOLLLLL
The Army trains the double tap tactic with pistols.
Keep these videos coming, please!
THANKS....GREAT video...
At time mark 11:40 there is an excellent quote for all supporters of the Bill of Rights. Nicely stated!
For your page on 10mm results; it would be awesome to see Remington Gold Saber added to that list. Given how their bullets perform in your .40 S&W testing (barely meeting penetration standard) I could see a 10mm load with their projectile getting that extra 100 or 200 FPS that would either push it to being a top performer or totally break apart the bullet. My money would be on the former outcome given how the bullets look after recovery from the gel.
This is why m193 is good for range shooting, but bonded soft points, OTM or hollowpoints will always be a better choice over depending purely on velocity to induce fragmentation.
When 5.56 breakdown? And 20" barrel test?
Part of your explanation is in error. The permanent wound cavity is after the temporary wound cavity, has expanded and contracted, the permanent wound cavity is not only the track of the bullet and its expansion, it also includes part of that temporary cavity that is shredded or has tears in it because that is a permanent wound. The full expansion of the temporary wound cavity is not, at least with pistol rounds, conducive to stoppages. When you compare permanent wound cavity of pistol rounds with their actual stopping ability in real life shootings, you will find an almost direct correlation that is consistent with each other. Because I studied what Evan Marshall was gathering, and I knew him, we would discuss this often.
As for rifle ammo, because it is generally going considerably faster than people have an average rate of fatality that's about 350 percent of what pistols are usually fatal about 10% of the time, rifles are usually fatal from all shootings, about 35% of the time, shotguns are generally fatal about 80% of the time when the shot is within the effective range of the round fired.
Generally, a pretty good video. Because I study many shootings, even the JFK assassination, it is why I know that the shot that hit Kennedy in the head was not fired by a 6.5 carcano, because the bullet does not go nearly fast enough to cause that explosive effect on his head. It was clearly fired by the I'm 16 that was witnessed coming out in Daley Plaza and being fired towards the president as the man was seemingly looking over his shoulder.
It didn't help that both doctors measured the entrance phone in the back of Kennedy skull, and found it to be 6 mm in diameter. And it is categorically impossible to fire a 6.5 mm bullet through a 6mm hole in somebody's skull
I was hoping to see some 12ga in here. That 1 oz slugs is no joke. 1600 fps loads are even better. There's something special about forgoing all fancy technology and bullet design and just hurling a giant wad of "F U" at your target.
Great video. It taught me a lot.
Funnily enough, a larger diameter permanent wound cavity while dismissing energy as a significant factor in pistol wounding means .45ACP is more effective on target than 10mm.
Also more effective on target than 9mm, even accounting differences in recoil and capacity since .45ACP has a 60% larger wound cavity than 9mm, while 9mm certainly doesn’t have 60% more capacity or less recoil once you compare double stacks to double stacks.
Probably true for a human but 10mm has more momentum than .45 Auto which is why it is a better bear round.
@@johnshepherd9676 Yeah, energy gets you greater penetration, so for larger than human targets like bears, you’d want something more potent. It’s also the reason why really large magnum revolvers or the Desert Eagle aren’t entirely gimmicks.
I was at a sporting goods store buying ammo and said there are two types of people. The ones who buy toys and expect miracles in accuracy and those who buy ammo and practice to get accurate. The clerk chuckled and said he saw a lot who bought toys and no practice ammo and fewer who bought target ammo regularly. I carry a mouse gun most often so I try to practice once or twice a month. I can't really afford to go to the range more than that. Burning 100 dollars is real easy.
Kinetic energy really only matters when talking about barrier penetration, and when trying to get a hollow point to open up.
Pretty good intro video for beginners
Y'all remember THIS video when you're paying $1,500 to build a "purpose built" AR with a 10.5" barrel.
Do you, just remember the end result is lower velocity... And it's a .224!
Excellent video mate 👍👍👍
You either need 2000+ ft lbs as you oenetrate a target to cause hydrostatic shock or enough energy to cause hydraulic shock to make a difference like 357 mag and 357 sig and up penetration can be slightly overlooked since the og 357 mag when compared to the famous 124 gr +p hst 9mm ilit penetrates 3-5 inches less than the 9mm yet we all know which is better
Wait! 5.7x28 is actually better than 9mm?
Funny that the M193 didn’t perform in your gel; I’ve seen plenty of good stuff out of it.
Both. Or better a PDW in between. XD
Rather than a pistol/revolver--A lever action carbine 16 inch barrel 22lr for home defense. 1. decent penetration but not enough to penetrate other rooms 2. little recoil for follow-up shot placement 3. soft noise 4. light 4.5 pounds (I'm a senior with arthritis)-Yes--No? Maybe?
Hunting has taught me that handguns suck.
Has anyone found an effective 300blk subsonic round? I understand supers are better, but I just got my can back and love how quiet subs are in this thing
I wonder how exotic rounds that exceed the 2000fps barrier stack up? From Liberty Civil Defense to Underwood 65grain Xtreme Defender in 357sig. Go on give it a test. I know you like crapping on 357sig lol. I'll pay for the box of underwood ammo if you want.
Hello Chris Baker .
Pistols put holes in things, rifles put holes through things.
Remember though a military round will kill it is better to wound as it takes another man off of the battle field to help the wounded man.
As you said, bullet construction matters too. Your 5.56 jacket may have been too thick. Back in the day (50s to 80s) there were 5.56 and 7.62x39/51 bullets with thin jackets that fragmented after a few inches of penetration. After a West German soldier was wounded in an accident with a horrible wound the jackets of NATO ammo were thickened to make them more "humane". Some Warsaw Pact 7.62x39 had thin jackets, some thicker. Some fragged, some did not. Trying to make ammo effective at stopping while being "humane" and causing minimal damage can be tough. If your ammo tweak is not intended to cause pain and suffering you can get away with a lot. US cops have usually been able to use pistol ammo that would not be OK on a battlefield, Euro cops not so much. While we were looking for JHPs that went >12, they were looking for "FMJ" that went
Y'all destroying tables like Kentucky Ballistics
The pistol is, secondary. A sidearm. The rifle is the primary weapon.
Excellent video.
I'm incredibly grateful that you're using your platform to bring objectivity to a field commonly marred by misinformation, anecdotal evidence, and outright chicken bones voodoo.
Hah, "chicken bones voodoo" sounds about right. Thanks for the support!
Thanks Chris for this additional info. I attended many autopsies as a crime scene investigator over 30 plus years. All your information is spot on in terms of my observations and experience.
Thanks!
Ye, I wouldn’t want to be hit by any bullet from any caliber, ever!
“Pistols put holes in people, rifles put holes through people and shotguns, with the right load and at the right range will physically remove a chunk of shit off your opponent and throw that shit on the floor!” Clint Smith
Conversely, mindset also affects the psychological aspects of what makes a murderer continue fighting after receiving non-survivable hits. Michael Platt in FBI Miami, the recent terrorist in Fargo, the suspect who smiled and walked into the deputy's ten 9mm Critical Duty shots to the upper chest, and the suspect in the Gramins OIS all soaked up fatal rounds, but they apparently didn't get the memo that they were dead on their feet. They just kept on fighting until blood loss or their CNS was hit. There are just some really bad men out there who aren't impressed with our defensive firearms. We must always be ready for those guys.
Ergo, 12GA slugs.
There's just as many stats out there of guys soaking up 40 & 45 rounds. Handguns are defensive. You want to go offensive, then you need a rifle or a shotgun with slugs, and STILL shot placement is of vital importance.
If you're talking about the guy who killed some cops, that's not terrorism. He targeted govt actors.
@@ALovelyBunchOfDragonballz because he got into a traffic jam he was going to a parade.
@@kekistanimememan170 ....and killed agents of the state.
hello chris. here in Brazil, ammunition is very expensive and ballistic gelatin is practically impossible to get. If possible, do some tests with Brazilian ammunition CBC/Magtech 9mm proshock 135gr and 147gr. currently, as there is no reliable data about them, I continue to use the 124gr fmj.
You can make the gelatin according to published spec. Calibrate with a thermometer, chronograph, BB gun.
🇺🇸
Sir, you are the best at this-no cutsie remarks about personal factors, no asides to your audience, and nothing insulting to a gun-owner's choice of weapon. You pack more into 12 minutes than many presenters can deliver in twice as much time.
Exactly. I class him with Paul Harrell in my mind. They have different presentation styles for sure, but that's great because they fill two niches of the same subject matter.
Still one of the best channels regarding the use of firearms and its related equipment. No BS, straight to the point and well skripted videos. Thank you for that content.
Great video! Interesting to see a 5.56 round out of a reasonably lengthy barrel perform noticeably worse than a good 9mm hollow point out of a pistol. That's something I didn't expect based on my cursory understanding of terminal ballistics. Goes to show the importance of ammo selection even for full size rifles.
I don't like the fact they didn't tell us the brand
That was absolutely a bad batch. 5.56 out of a 16" barrel has no business performing that way on a target less than 100 yards away (if not 150). They absolutely should have performed the test again on a different batch of ammo. Using what by all appearances is an outlier as their one data point is inexcusable methodology and invalidates the entire 5.56 section of the video.
@@Florkl The entire point of that demonstration was to show that bullets can well exceed the velocities where you would usually expect significant wounding from the temporary cavity only to have them under-perform due to the specifics of the bullet and what it does (or doesn't do) as it passes through the target. Not only does it not invalidate anything, not including something like it would have been a massive oversight. There's a reason no one hunts with FMJs and that gel test is a good example of why that is.
M193s were well known for pass-through hits. It was why they were replaced.
M193 should have been used in Mozambique or Mogadishu (🤔). Its yawing and fragging begin 3.5-4” in tissue; M855 starts around 8”. The malnourished insurgents were so gaunt, the M855s were zipping through them like pencils before they could cause their intended damage.
Again, proper M193, not the underpowered junk in the video, will comparatively demolish soft tissue sooner (distance in) than other 5.56.
Not all M/XM193 are the same.
Will you be going into hydrostatic shock in a future video? I have heard in the past that it is a significant factor with rifle rounds designed for hunting but I would be interested in your opinion.
That is a really tricky topic because "hydrostatic shock" can refer to different wounding effects depending on who you ask. A lot of people use that term when they're actually talking about the temporary cavity. Originally, it was meant to refer to a pressure wave that radiates through the body and causes remote damage. This has not been proven to exist, but enough weird things happen with bullets and bodies that it's also difficult to prove it does not exist.
Additionally, there is some evidence that the temporary cavity can displace tissue that then causes blunt force type trauma to the spinal cord, which has the (sometimes temporary) effect of incapacitating the target. This could be what's happening in some cases when a hunter gets a good heart/lung shot, but the animal drops instantly as if the central nervous system were disrupted. Is this the phenomenon that is being attributed to "hydrostatic shock"? I don't know... there is still a lot about this stuff that is not very well understood.
@@LuckyGunner thank you for the reply.
Most of the time I hear people talking about 'hydrostatic shock' it is in reference to a reaction by the CNS to a pressure wave from the bullet impact.
It has never been clear if this is direct trauma from pressure passing through the fluids of the body or just through the circulatory system. But the end result is normaly described along the lines of either knocking them out long enough that other trauma (blood loss) causes death before return of consciousness. Or that the overpressure causes enough damage itself to 'turn the lights off' permanently.
Your video brought it up in my mind and I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask and see if there is a more definitive explanation. Cunningham's Law ect.
Would love to see you discuss how the Lehigh fluted solids that were designed around looking pretty in clear gel don’t really represent what they would do in actual tissue, since ballistics gel wasn’t made to mimic lateral tearing.
Edit: Let me rephrase. Discuss how standard gel isn’t an appropriate test medium for that style of bullet. While it may be that they perform well in real life, ballistic medium doesn’t actually demonstrate that they will.
I don't know man, I have seen video of the fluted solids doing to flesh what it does in gel. I believe it was a necropsy of a feral hog that someone shot with a 45acp Lehigh XD and the wound channel did have an X shaped hole and the channel seemed wider than it should be for a solid. Unfortunately TH-cam took it down because they are stupid. I would link it if it was still up. That video is what convinced me that they at least have a better damage path than FMJ.
I still carry hollow points in anything 9mm and up in power, but for things like 380 or 32acp, I would definitely consider the fluted bullets personally.
I’ve seen what it does to slabs of brisket, and it certainly makes a massive hole in that.
No ballistic medium gives a truly accurate representation of exactly how a bullet behaves in live human tissue. 10% calibrated gelatin is the closest we've come up with, but it is **not** an analog for flesh. Even FMJ and JHP behave somewhat differently in tissue than in gel. The benefit of gel is that it is **somewhat** close to living tissue, but most importantly that by always using identically calibrated test media, results can be consistently compared.
I asked a similar question about Lehigh XD and similar fluted rounds, and I believe the only question that needs to be answered is: is the velocity of the fluid coming out of the flutes sufficient to cut tissue? If the answer is yes, then there is no debate left to have: the bullet design is effective as claimed, period. We know this is true because high-pressure water jets and airstream can easily cut flesh. I just don't know the minimum velocity of the stream needed to produce damage, and I don't know the measured velocity of the fluid being ejected from the flutes. If anyone could figure that out, I think we'd have our answer.
@@FlorklDead tissue doesn't behave the same as live tissue. The wound track and overall damage to a brisket or pork shoulder does not necessarily represent what a bullet does in a live human body.
That being said, your conclusion is probably not wrong. Based on anecdotal and unscientific tests, I do believe that the XD-type solid fluted bullets are effective, and I carry them in every one of my guns that Underwood makes the XD for. But I have honestly not seen any properly performed scientifically valid testing of these types of bullets, and no properly measured and validated data about the unique effects of the flutes. I've cast my personal verdict in favor, but technically the jury is still out.
@@its_clean Right, I agree with your initial statement. The point being that our current ballistics gel was designed around mimicking how standard projectiles wound.
The fluted Lehigh bullets make a larger cavity through their flutes laterally disrupting the ballistic medium, which if you have ever messed with either true organic ballistics gel or clear ballistics you know how easy it tears. You can just tear chunks apart as you wish, which obviously you cannot do with the vast majority of human tissue.
I don’t disagree that they could work, I’m just pointing out that current ballistics gel isn’t going to be a reliable indicator that they will or not.
I've been saying this for years. 'Stopping' a target isn't a factor of caliber, it is a factor of shot placement, specifically hitting the CNS. Everything else is just secondary support for the CPU. Works on everything, up to and including bears and elephants.
Agree, and so will anyone that actually reads up on the subject, outside of the firearms press.
I have spent a lot of time reading up on this subject and drew almost identical conclusions. I've been summarizing and explaining these conclusions to people for years. I think I'm going to just start giving people this video instead. Thanks, Chris!
Good general vid on a complex topic.
That XM193 is not indicative of proper M193. Looks like it was an underpowered cartridge (v).
Inside of 200 m, an M193 is more effective than M855.
The 5.56 is particularly sensitive to twist rate and bullet weight being optimized to each other for best results.
and velocity
It's funny how you criticise the KInetic Energy Transfer Theory, but on the other hand completely follow it's key points. A slower, heavy in mass projectile has a lot of KE, if it is able to transfer this energy (shotgun slug) it is very effective - if it fails to transfer it's KE (like the 45-70) it is an ineffective bullet and does way less damage.
You basically just followed KE Transfer Theory.
Greetings from Germany.
Please please please a video about pdw calibers like 5.7 and 4.6
Also the new kid on the block the .30 super carry will be much appriciated!
And another question, those "extreme penetrator" and "extreme defender" bullets that came out a few years ago claim to do the same rifle effects in handguns. Can it be tested in any scientific way? Except for live targets of course...
“Pistols put holes in people, rifles blow bigger holes through people, and shotguns, with the right load at the right distance, physically remove a chunk from peoples bodies and throw that shit on the floor.”- Clint smith
Just chiming in to say Lucky Gunner really does have lightning fast shipping. I've never had an order take more than two days to arrive.
Pistol caliber arguments always make me laugh. Like bro they all kinda suck at terminal. Yes they kill, but not like a rifle round. Pistol caliber ls are better than nothing though.
Thank you for mentioning that Dr. Fackler actually developed his gel technique to correspond to actual gunshot wounds. It seems that many people think that gel tests are unrelated to real world gunshots.
@@bobjones-bt9bh Source please. Fackler was a surgeon during the Vietnam War and was very familiar with what bullets would do to humans. I have never read anything about hunting deer with a 9mm. With pistol ammo in particular, what is used now is radically different from what was used in the 1970's and 1980's, so unless you are talking about cast bullets or FMJ, he wouldn't have tested it.
I would be interested how .300 blk performs..
45 ACP Fudd-Lore is still alive and well.
The dude taking a cannonball to the stomach is gnarly. My goodness.
Looks kinda like the guy on one of the Matchbox Twenty album covers
I think it's important to understand that ballistics gel and actual live tissue are different so what the gel shows vs what actually happen will also be different. the youtube channel "ASP" or Active Self Protection has lots of real world firearm defense incidents. Plenty of people take rounds to the chest and run off like nothing happened. But a threat running off is a threat stopped so practice. Be as fast and as accurate as you can be.
I laughed form some reason when I saw what .308 did to that block. Maybe it was due to seeing the M193 just before it.
Very well presented, and a good complement to your "why ballistics gel works video." In the discussions I read or heard, consensus finally come back to the point you emphasized: shot placement is critical. Sure, many discussions devolve into arguments over caliber, but I don't recall ever reading anyone suggest shot placement was irrelevant, or even that shot placement is secondary. I don't recall anyone is suggesting hitting an attacker in the pinky with a 44 Rem Mag is more effective at stopping a threat than hitting an attacker in the cranial-ocular cavity with a 32 ACP. There is broad consensus on shot placement being paramount.
As you mentioned, one area where opinion splits is on kinetic energy. The Federal engineer in your earlier video who answered your question about what happens to the energy, "It just dissipates" provided a very unsatisfactory response. A soccer ball kicked with full force has around 180 ft-lbs of energy, roughly the equivalent of 90gr bullet from a typical 380 ACP. A prepared player with their arms up might feel pain, but not suffer any temporary ill effects. However, an unprepared player is very likely to be stunned, dazed, or at least momentarily disoriented.
This highlights one of the limitations common to some terminal wound research. Every study has limitations, flaws, and assumptions. We can still learn from them, but we should acknowledge the issues, as you did with ballistics gel. Gun fights are highly dynamic. Doctors evaluating wounds or performing an autopsy see the net results: this bullet punctured thug Platt's lung causing exsanguination and death. Can they do more than infer how long that took or physical limitations he was under between the fatal wound and subsequent 2 minutes of fighting? The thug Matix (1986 Miami shootout) was knocked unconscious early in the fight, and only regained consciousness right before the end the fight. Had he been in the fight with Platt the entire time, the results could have been much worse. Can doctors definitively determine what caused a person to lose consciousness for 90 seconds, hours after the fact and after the person is dead?
Projectiles from rifles dwarf projectiles from handguns in velocity and energy. Very high velocity must be achieved for a temporary wound channel to exceed the limits of elasticity. No handgun round is going to knock a person on their back. Exsanguination takes time. If the defender successfully places the shots, what energy transfer to the target may do is disorient, allowing additional shots to connect, or the ability to safely transition to another threat, and/or buy time for exsanguination to take effect. Shot placement remains king, but given all else we know about physics, it seems highly unlikely several hundred ft-lbs of energy are absorbed by a person with no effect, just superfluous energy that dissipates.