Is using flat nose ammo through a 9mm or .45 better than an XTP round at +P velocities if having to shoot a man like in the article below?

315lbs. Judging from the mug shot, not much is fat. Scroll down the link below.


https://nypost.com/2023/04/25/paroled-ms-13-felon-oscar-solis-dismembers-florida-uber-eats-sheriff/

Bullet doesn’t matter because I would mag dump that animal.

Assholes like that are why face shooting was invented.

For asshole/felon smack-down, the ammo solution you seek is  “REAL” 10mm ammo, e.g., 200grn s @ 1250fps.

Apply as needed.

Sounds like one nasty load.

255gr swc @950fps
Attached File

My 1350 fps 10 MM 180 grain XTP over Longshot hand load is tailor made for that kind of animal .

2 to the chest. 1 to the head. Repeat.

FIFY

It’s all about shot placement.  If where you’re shooting isn’t working, shoot somewhere else.

Humans don't have cape buffalo muscle or bones. .32 and .380 ball will generally penetrate completely through vitals.
Weird outliers occur, and create "Black Swan" emotional baggage(Miami FBI 1986?=37 years ago).

I went to an autopsy of a guy that was about 6'2 300.
A .380 Magtech JHP(zero expansion) penetrated(clothes, skin, fat, muscle, ribs, liver etc) well over 12 inches then shattered a spinal process and buried itself between vertebrae. Folded so fast the next round hit the top of his occipital skull, pebbled it and lodged in the top of his spine.
I Saw lots of dead people torso shot with .22, .380 and 9mm ball. Talked to scores of shitheads that stated they dropped their gun and rannoft when they got hit. They're not soldiers(The Army told me at PLDC that 40% of men will stop fighting when they are hit anywhere by anything...) or people defending themselves or even criminals resisting arrest.
The vast majority of criminals run away when they see a gun, have one shot at them, or are hit anywhere by anything. After that, it's which body structure you hit that matters.
The "Timers and switches" analogy applies...but even catastrophic bloodloss can take 5 or 10 seconds-usually more- to incapacitate. Fortunately, most people don't require incapacitation, although the interpretation is always "He COULD have kept attacking"... But he didn't.

I read the article & maybe I’m missing something, but the Post article doesn’t mention this POS was shot by anyone.

Why would you think a 9mm HST 147gr would fail to stop?

There's absolutely no logical, sound reason to choose one personal defense round over another because you may face a morbidly obese man instead of an average-sized man. It's better to practice and train on failure drills in case of that issue. Even then, you may be fine either way, because any quality personal defense round should be able to penetrate deep enough to seriously damage the internal organs of a morbidly obese man.

I train on failure drills for this very reason. If a morbidly obese attacker's chest or stomach can stop my preferred load of 124gr HSTs at standard-pressure... His head won't.

I'll be fine in any case.

A LEO shot a large man 5 times with a .357 mag loaded with 145gr Silvertips. Bad guy fired back with a .22 which hit an area not covered by the LEO's bullet proof vest. The LEO died, bad guy survived.

I don't think 124gr HSTs will accomplish what the above load didn't.

On another forum, a poster wrote he was shot by a Hydrashok round which only penetrated a few or so inches. He lived. The experience made him switch to flat nose ammo.

The round referred to from 1986 was a 9mm 115gr hollow point.

The .380 hollow point not expanding and doing what it did above is an example of why I would chose flat nose in .380. An expanding .380 would not have hit the spine in that circumstance.

The POS was not shot. Correct. But his size made me wonder if a person would be better off with flat nose ammo against a man that large.

I wonder whether 9mm HST 147gr would penetrate sufficiently. See my recent post about the man shot by a Hydrashok bullet.

@32ACP

Guess we’ll never know, but I suspect he would die from 9mm just as well as 10mm, unless you’re missing vital zones.  If you’re planning to shoot through his panniculus into his iliac artery, maybe you want a 310gr flat point .44 magnum.  But even in obese people, vitals are reachable with quality HP ammo & will do more damage than FMJ or flat tip.  As others noted—the face is a target, too, not that the face is a guarantee stop, either.


Fact: 80% of handgun shot wounds survive.  When I worked in  an inner city hospital treating gang bangers, they viewed getting shot as a “taking one for the team,” just as important as killing for the team.  Taxpayers expense, too.

I carry 147gr HST.  In this day & age, failure to stop from body armor is more likely than failure to stop from obesity and/or muscle.

Just my $0.02

Anecdotes?  I don’t claim to be well-versed in statistics, but I understand them well enough to know that “shit happens.”  Inuit used .22 LR to kill polar bears—does that make it a good choice as a bear killer?  No.  That’s anecdotal.  Overall, it’s a bad choice.

A handgun is a compromise.  It will never be a manstopper like a rifle or shotgun. There is no magic bullet, nor caliber.  If you feel more comfortable carry flat point ammo—go for it.  But, statistically, more tissue is disrupted faster by a well-designed & properly performing HP than solid.  As the .mil has noted, other than CNS trauma, exaguination is what leads to stopping a target, and that’s more likely to happen with more tissue damage—when the right tissue is damaged.

You can find anecdotes that are pro & con on anything.  So, make you choices based on what suits you best.

@32ACP

Yes about 80% of handgun shot wounds survive. That figure includes extremities. If we were discussing torso only shots, the percentage would be lower than 80%.

Interesting comment about body armor. How prevalent is body armor among gang bangers/hood rats/street punks, etc.?

No idea.

Pasco county FL is all I need to read. Any projectile will penetrate, 9mm, 10mm 40 or 45. The guy is obviously a beast and the question is how high he was when the attack occurred and how quickly the victim was made unconscious.

The odds of getting enough rounds into him to incapacitate before you are is the challenge.

This is why penetration is much more important than expansion. Choosing ammo that penetrates well over 12” is a must. People hate on critical duty but it is boringly consistent in penetration testing, even through barriers

Here's the autopsy report of Christopher Walls aka Biggie Smalls.

Pay special attention to gunshot wound #4, the fatal shot.

The rounds used were some weird German stuff, not sure if they were supposed to expand but didn't or were FMJ/Wadcutters that weren't.  

Anyway, of 4 gunshots, one was fatal and that round entered at the hip and went up into vital organ territory, appr. 16".

Take it for what it's worth.  

As Doc Roberts says, pick a round from the IWBA list, practice with it, and quit obsessing over this stuff.

Why do they dislike critical duty?

@toyotaon4ds

I perused the report but didn't see what caliber the gun was. Does anyone know?

9mm.  The ammo was Geco; found some speculation they were 124gr FMJ.

It doesn’t expand enough for a lot of people, Doc Roberts actually advises against using it for that reason. But for me personally, with odd angles, barriers and possibly multiple heavy bone structures in play I feel more comfortable knowing I’ll achieve 16” of penetration. Id love to see some IWBA protocols with heavy bone involved, any hunters know what a shoulder or even a rib does to a bullet, even a bonded one.

I read it was made to overcome barriers. As for not expanding enough, my guess is it's because of the tapered tip. I guess it means it needs to expand more to reach the width of other bullets due to it starting out thinner.

@toyotaon4ds

It expands less because it has a higher percentage of TIN in the lead alloy of the projectile making it harder

Wise advice.  

I’ve spoken with Dr. Roberts by phone about the 5.7x28 histrionics & also his mentor, Martin Fackler, MD, FACS, who was kind enough to correspond with me on gun shot wound (GSWs) education, surgical management & trauma.  We’re both Fellows of the American College of Surgeons and met at a conference on GSW trauma.  At least, Dr. Fackler was when he was alive, may he rest in peace.  At the time, ridiculous wide, over-debriedments of gun shot wounds were being endorsed at major trauma centers & Dr. Fackler noted it was overkill, in most cases.  It was funny to hear “educated surgeons” blither about terminal ballistics, temporary stretch cavities, “magnums” to try to get the endorsement of the man & trauma surgeon who, quite literally, helped write the books on terminal ballistics for the US Army & .gov.

Good teaching doctors, both.

Never going to argue about shot placement being key . But in a tense SD situation when your shot placement may not be perfect it doesn't hurt to have a  round with some extra penetration, expansion ,and energy transfer.  When you life is on the line ,you want all the edge you can get.

A well placed 45 ACP or 9mm with Gold Dots or XTPs will properly ventilate that shitbag Godless creature. I don’t think his bone structure is going to be much heavier than that of a 195# man so no need for solid projectiles.

I haven't seen a fully body pic of the perp but he looks to me like he may have a heavier if not much heavier bone structure than a 195# man.

Obese people, in general, have the same bone structure as non-obese.  “Big boned” is a misnomer.  If anything, many obese people are vitamin D deficient, which theoretically could lead to osteopenia & osteoporosis, which is academic, since the bones aren’t thick enough to stop a handgun bullet, except with oblique/ tangential shots, which likely wouldn’t be fatal anyway. Human sternum & ribs aren’t cape buffalo shoulder or pelvis.

Pretty much this.

Carry a reliable gun that you shoot well, plenty of good options on the market. Use ammo that your gun functions well on, that has proven performance. There are also plenty of good options on the market.

I like HST, and while of course if I *knew* I had to get into it with someone over 300lbs, I’d look at bringing a rifle. We don’t know that, so I’ll take my chances with HSTs in 9 or 45. They both still clear a good bit of gel, and expand nicely. Nothing wrong with GD, Ranger, Critical, or others.

Put the bullets where they need to go.

Take 2-4rds in your legs, upper thighs, hips, knees etc your not going to be standing for long.....

Pelvic girdle shots are rather nasty. Even all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put your hip socket back together again. Assuming the arterial bleeding doesn’t get you first.

Or sepsis from bone fragments getting blasted into intestines.

Pick a loading in your caliber that will penetrate to the FBI preferences that is reliable in your gun you can control and reliably make follow up shots with and above all else you can shoot accurately. Just because it’s effectively penetrating and the place you shot is important doesn’t mean effective right now.

Pelvic girdle shots create terrible wounds. And the perp ends up on the ground quickly. I’m a bit surprised it’s so underrated. Hanging with lots of SF guys here they know how devastating they are and used them in real battles because they worked.

Service caliber handgun bullets don't do the same thing as magnums or rifle bullets to bones.

It's not underrated it's just not as effective as center mass or head shots.

I've also treated a little old lady with a shattered hip who walked into the hospital.
https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?4330-Shots-to-the-Pelvis

Shooting at any place other than center mass ,is a serious mistake. Your best chance of a hit to stop the SOB is a center mass /heart/lungs .

Like Clint Smith says:  "shoot 'em in the crotch".

I am not going to purposely target the pelvic girdle with a handgun. Other OP is correct. That would be for rifle - or at least a 10mm. With a pistol it will be center mass.

Well buddy, you have probably seen more pelvic hits on humans than I have (a total of zero). I still find it hard to believe that a decent shot in the hips wouldn’t cause a mobility kill, if not including rapid blood loss.

I’ve seen chunks of deer bone blown through a .45acp wound, as well as from 9mm. They are certainly capable of very lethal injuries. The logic of a pelvic shot seems solid to me. For sure, a different ball game from even a 5.56 in wounding potential.

That logic is still based on center-mass shots not working. Namely the thought process of concealable soft armor, or what you thought was a chest rig was actually a plate carrier. Or that for whatever reason the target is using partial cover/concealment, giving you less-than-ideal shots, where the pelvis is exposed. Basically you’re confident that you’re making center mass hits, but the target doesn’t care - try something else.

ETA: just to be super extra clear, I’ve never heard or suggested myself, that the pelvic girdle is an ideal shot, that goes to center mass still. It’s just a backup plan.

It's a tool in the box, and you want to know it's there.

Body armor is becoming more common, which is partially why we all have a plan in case the two in the chest doesn't stop the threat. Head is best, but heads move faster than hips. And while rare, bulletproof face shields are a thing. (though I wouldn't be surprised if a hit to one was sufficient to at least knock a guy down, if not completely unconscious. That's an interesting thought.)

Tool in the tool box is an excellent explanation. I’ve seen head shots go both ways and it’s a small moving target that in the thick of things might be hard to accomplish. While a pelvic shot might not be as effective as the head it maybe enough to stop the attacker and a shot you can make in the moment.

You cannot stand with a broken femur or a broken pelvis. There’s also the psychological effect of being hit there that changes things. Add the volume of blood  vessels in the area and it’s a better target than the head.

As to pelvic shots, Dr. Martin Fackler (whose work should be well-known to everyone here) had this to say in Wound Ballistics Review (the Journal of IWBA), Vol 4, No. 1, page 13 (excerpt follows):

"I welcome the chance to refute the belief that the pelvic area is a reasonable target during a gunfight. I can find no evidence or valid rationale for intentionally targeting the pelvic area in a gunfight.
The reasons against, however, are many. They include:
• From the belt line to the top of the head, the areas most likely to rapidly incapacitate the person hit are concentrated in or near the midline. In the pelvis, however, the blood vessels are located to each side, having diverged from the midline, as the aorta and inferior vena cava divide at about the level of the navel. Additionally, the target that, when struck, is the most likely to cause rapid and reliable incapacitation, the spinal cord (located in the midline of the abdomen, thorax and neck), ends well above the navel and is not a target in the pelvis.
• The pelvic branches of the aorta and inferior vena cava are more difficult to hit than their parent vessels -- they are smaller targets, and they diverge laterally from the midline (getting farther from it as they descend). Even if hit, each carry far less blood than the larger vessels from which they originated. Thus, even if one of these branches in the pelvis is hit, incapacitation from blood loss must necessarily be slower than from a major vessel hit higher up in the torso.
• Other than soft tissue structures not essential to continuing the gunfight (loops of bowel, bladder) the most likely thing to be struck by shots to the pelvis would be bone. The ilium is a large flat bone that forms most of the back wall of the pelvis. The problem is that handgun bullets that hit it  would not break the bone but only make a small hole in passing through it: this would do nothing to destroy bony support of the pelvic girdle. The pelvic girdle is essentially a circle: to disrupt its structure significantly would require breaking it in two places. Only a shot that disrupted the neck or upper portion of the shaft of the femur would be likely to disrupt bony support enough to cause the person hit to fall. This is a small and highly unlikely target: the aim point to hit it would be a mystery to those without medical training - and to most of those with medical training."

Your targets are two curvilinear hoses about the diameter of a #2 pencil, and/or two ball-and socket joints about the size of a golf ball, with surrounding bone about the size of half a playing card. To underscore Dr. Fackler's last point: unless you've done a fair amount of dissection of humans, you will find it extremely difficult to even know where to aim, let alone be able to hit such challenging targets. I've autopsied many, many people and dissected thousands of GSWs, including many involving the pelvis. While a few of those got lucky and hit iliac vessels, none of them were incapacitating.
Pelvis is simply a lousy target. Yes, it moves less than the head, but it's rather like Douglas Bader's slightly hyperbolic description of his beloved Hurricane: a collection of non-essential parts; you could shoot a bullet through it anywhere and not hit anything that matters.