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Spinoff of the "shot placement" thread I started.

Tom396

.30-06
I know I have beaten this subject to death (no pun intended), but it is a subject that I think is worth beating on.

I know lots of people absolutely disdain hypothetical questions, but oh well. Here is my hypothetical.

You
have taken a single round directly in the x ring of your center mass at a distance of 10 yards. The attacker/shooter has obvious plans to do exactly the same thing to the rest of your family. However, your defensive firearm is just 10 yards away. If you can get to it (the shooter has moved on and is no longer focused on you) and get a shot on the attacker, you can save the lives of your family. Got it?

Here is my question. Which kind of round do you think would likely make it impossible for you to save your family? See what I did there? Not much more motivation could be humanly generated and the hit was directly center mass.

Buckshot?
Birdshot?
Slug?
Hybrid buck and ball?
.357 mag?
5.56?
7.62 x 39?
40 S&W?
.380?
9 mm?
.22lr?
.38 special?
.50 bmg? ;)

Which ones would likely stop you and which ones might you be able to function through long enough to save your family? Personally, I think I might be able to hang on from the birdshot and any of the handgun rounds and doubt I would be able to function at all after being hit by the other shotgun rounds. The 5.56 and/or 7.62 x39 I just don't know. Of course, I just don't know about any of them. Take care. Tom Worthington
 
No real life experieince of this, although when I was doing my military instructors course, for my final lecture I chose terminal ballistics ....:cool:

If you were hit directly center, the bullet path could miss your heart, but would hit your spine, so you would at least be paralysed from mid chest down.

Hit by .22lr, .38 special (not +P) and .380 you could probably drag yourself to reach your firearm, and have a reasonable chance of survival.

Any of the shotgun loads would make at least a 1'' hole at that range, you wouldn't be going anywhere....

All the rifle rounds ( including .50 :)) would cause so much temporary cavitation, I think your organs around that area would be mush...

The HV pistol rounds are tricky... there will be some temp cavitation, but muscle (heart) and lung is fairly flexible, so they could survive long enough for you to take some action...


As i said, this is my theory....
 
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I feel that any round that reaches the spine would be totally incapacitating. I just don't know which rounds are likely to do that. I think I might actually be able to sustain a hit to the heart and still get the shot off, but then die very shortly thereafter. Take care. Tom Worthington
 
Yeah it's not how much energy a round has. It's how much it can deliver to the Target and that all depends on what it hits and what it is.

I'm pretty sure you could put several hi-vo rounds straight through someone and if you hit nothing vital, and you hit no bones squarely (breaking them,) they could still keep charging. It pretty much depends on how sturdy and how berserk they are.

But a fat low velocity bullet designed to expand into a big slug, can hit you anywhere and deliver a blow which is essentially a concussion to your entire body. This is hydroshock. People are mostly water, and if you hit that water hard enough a wave goes through it that just traumatizes the body's various systems.

So I would say any round capable of hydroshock is going to put you down every time. A heavier low velocity expanding 9 millimeter might do it while the lighter high velocity 9mm might not. Anything with a reasonable muzzle energy, over a hundred and fifty grains should prove totally deadly, if it expands.

I shot my own very low velocity .38 caliber wad-cutters yesterday. 154 grains. Very soft lead and they tumble at distance.

Those things make a hell of a hole and I would NOT like to get hit by one.

:eek:
 
Where's the "x" ring on the target? A lot of targets place the x in the diaphragm area so it wont cause as immediate vital point damage that would be immediately incapacitating.

Getting shot directly in the heart will put you down a lot faster than you think. Trayvon Martin was shot directly in the heart during a struggle at close range with 9mm hollow point and (based on accounts) passed away fairly instantly. He had enough breath to say a sentence and then collapsed.

So thinking you can take a shot directly to a key vital organ like your heart and have enough wherewithal to get to a firearm, aim, and defend is starting to tap dance on fantasy island.

As @CaddmannQ stated having a bullet pass through you not hitting key vitals you will most likely still be in the fight. I believe our US military found that to be the case in Somalia where they would shoot the enemy with M855 rounds. The rounds passed through the enemy completely, without tumbling, while still keeping the enemy combat capable.

I guess to best answer your question... 9mm and up has been proven to be a consistent fight stopper. But I dont with to be shot with a .22lr or 380 auto or 38 special either.
 
This is the area I was thinking of for the x ring:

B27.gif


Take care. Tom Worthington
 
This is the area I was thinking of for the x ring:

B27.gif


Take care. Tom Worthington

Yeah that's what I figured. That's hitting a little lower than where a lot of the vitals are located. A lot of the training facilities have revamped that target and moved the sweet spot up a little higher.

I was trained on this one... notice the chest dot (for the heart) is higher up comparable to the top 9 in your target.

https://shop.actiontarget.com/conte...raining-systems-combative-training-target.asp
 
Maybe your perp is hunched over little bit? People tend to duck when you point a gun at them. The vitals drop.

Human targets don't stand up straight like the NRA target unless they're tied to a post.

At least in my imagination. I never had to shoot a human. Just tin cans, the occasional varmint, and these NRA targets.

Screenshot_20170309-134610.jpg

I'm not showing you the rest of the Target because I want you to believe I can shoot almost as well as Water Monkey.
:rolleyes:
In my imagination any one of those shots would stop me!
 
By the way, I only got 8 out of 24 in the Killzone there. If you want to see the rest of them they're in my Savage varminter thread.
 
Maybe your perp is hunched over little bit? People tend to duck when you point a gun at them. The vitals drop.

Possible. I believe the target I was trained on has an aggressive posture holding a firearm. But that's not completely indicated on the target.

Take a look at some of the federal agency targets here:

https://shop.actiontarget.com/prodcat/papercardboard-federal.asp

The sweet spot appears higher up on the torso as opposed to the x ring on the standard NRA target
 
I am only confident enough to try and put my hits center mass, and that x ring is pretty well centered on the mass. Take care. Tom Worthington
 
Thank you Monkey. For a shaky old half blind guy I'm not bad, and I'm hoping to get better. I pretty much fly by the seat of my pants and what I read & what I see on the internet.

I am right handed but I discovered just yesterday that with iron sights I can shoot better with my left eye than my right eye. My right eye has taken such a dump . . . It has not been 20 20 since I was 7 years old but it has been my "good eye" for ever and ever.

Well yesterday I couldn't hit anything with those wad-cutters, even at 7 yards, until I switched eyes; and then I put almost every one in the Killzone.

 
My wife IS my backup and would already be IN THE FIGHT.

I could just lay there and bleed out...KNOWING for sure She's got this.

I'd feel BAD for the Perp... :rolleyes:
 
I have probably mentioned this before, but when I met my wife 27 years ago, she was studying for her first black belt in karate and jiu-jitsu.

I didn't teach her to shoot soon enough, so she went and took pistol lessons on her own.

:rolleyes:
 
Would also depend on what drugs the perp had in their system. Some of that stuff makes them invincible. They just don't know they are dead. Watch the "Faces of Death" videos of people being shot multiple times by LEOs and don't go down.

I would prefer a .45 (not listed) over a .380., a .357 mag over a 9mm. And the .45 is usually the closest to me at any given time.

There's another thought that comes to mind. I read or watched somewhere the principle that if you think you'll die immediately when shot, you will. If you think that you will not die and be able to continue the fight then chances are that you will. Tough mindset to have and harder to practice without actually getting shot.
 
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