On the matter of using a handgun for self-defense, people say

>>33966619
.22 is rim fire so it doesn't fire as goodly and muchly as the centerfire normal bullets that people use for self defense. If you use a .22 it's more like to go click click instead of boom boom than a 9mm, unless this 9mm is a glock, in which case it just goes BOOM
Reliable ammo is a big dealio, so basically anything that isn't rimfire is betterer than a .22 for defending yourself from things

Shot placement doesn't matter if you don't get sufficient penetration. The origin of the 1911/.45ACP "stoppin powah" meme was that .32ACP and .38spc in WW1 military loadings had trouble punching through thick winter clothing and still delivering fatal wounds. .45ACP ball out of an M1911 delivered EXIT wounds. Ammo has improved a lot since then. .45ACP, .40S&W, 10mm Auto, and 9mm Luger are about as low as you want to go for reliably killing things that you hit. The 9mm has the lightest recoil and largest magazine capacity out of these chamberings, which is why police and NATO standardized on it, which in turn is why it's cheap as shit on the civilian market.

>>33966638
>>33966726
Thank you.

>>33966726
Call me retarded, because I know jack shit about ballistics and loads, but I don't get why .38 spc would have trouble with penetration.

>>33966903
The entire reason .45ACP exists at all is that .38 revolvers had a hard time putting down angry Flips in the rebellions.

>>33966903
.38special really is shitty at penetration for some reason, might be the unjacketed lead projectiles that are so common though.

>>33966726
What about 380 Auto?

>>33967212
Let's put it this way.

It's a bullet, so no matter what almost no one's going to go "Ahh, it's just [caliber]! That's nothin'- fire away!". But it's smaller than the 9/.40/.45 Holy Trinity, and usually the pistols that shoot .380 are smaller as well, meaning shorter barrels and smaller magazines. It all comes down to whether or not you'll be concealing the gun in any fashion.
>if yes
Consider it, though keep .38/9/.40 options in mind as well. It performs amicably as a concealable cartridge.
>if no
Get something else, preferably larger and/or with a higher capacity.

>>33966619
>How weak is too weak?

Less than twelve inches in properly calibrated ballistics gel is a good rule of thumb. It's pretty much the only one that's been established using something resembling proper science.

So yeah, some .22lr will actually make the cut. A lot of shit in supposedly much more powerful calibres won't. But people think the size of the hole is what matters, forgetting that what matters the most is what you've made a hole through, and most of the important things are deep within your body. Evolution wasn't kind to things that had vital organs were they could be easily damaged.

So it isn't that this calibre does the job, that calibre doesn't. It's down to what specific loading shot through what specific barrel length.

>>33966619

>people say that shot placement is everything
People are wrong.
Shot placement isn't shit without adequate penetration.
Something which a shocking number of JHP rounds lack.

You also need to remember that physiological factors are often involved in stopping an attacker.
People are more likely to be stopped by larger bullets, in part because the psychological effect of being hit by them, rather than being physically incapable of staying conscious.

It's not a factor to be overlooked.
You can find videos of US soldiers being shot in the chest by a sniper, falling over limply, then getting back up and running away seconds later, completely unharmed because of their body armor.

>>33966903
ww1 era 38 special was pretty anemic stuff
and most of the european 36caliber revolvers were even weaker.
elmer keith didnt start overloading 38 specials until the 1920's.

>>33966619
I look at stopping power vs. shot placement as a spectrum. The more of one you have, the less of the other you need. Neither are just a meme, fuck off.

Stopping power simply means that there are more places on the body which could stop the target if hit. If you're defending yourself with a .45-70, as long as the target is unarmored you can shoot them pretty much anywhere on the body to result in a stop. If you're defending yourself with a pocket .22, you can stop the threat only with perfect shot placement on a vital organ or blood vessel. Most rounds that are actually carried fall somewhere in between.

The idea that it's a meme came from the fights between 9mm, .40, and .45. Those are all right next to each other on the spectrum, and the difference in their stopping power is negligible. People brought up stopping power as an argument that .45 was better, but they're stupid because it's not much better at all.

Now, when you talk about even larger handgun rounds like .357 magnum, there actually is a significant difference in stopping power.

>>33966903
Penetration is mostly determined by muzzle velocity--in other words, how fast the bullet is moving when it leaves the gun. .38 spl is a weak cartridge that doesn't have much muzzle velocity. However, .38 spl +P (a version with more powder in it that travels faster) has better penetration and is a lot more useful as a defensive round.

File: WoundProfilesAfterWallBarrier.jpg (101KB, 800x530px) Image search: [Google]

101KB, 800x530px

>>33967771
>Penetration is mostly determined by muzzle velocity--in other words, how fast the bullet is moving when it leaves the gun

NO

>>33966956
Cite sources pls

>>33967810
not that guy, but it's actually .38 long colt that had problems, not .38 special. And the Filipinos were hopped up on drugs

Google m8

>>33967810
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1917_revolver
Not even the dude you responded to. Just google it dude.

>>33967784
I meant for the purposes of choosing a carry handgun for penetrating clothing and whatever else might be in the way in a CCW situation. Walls are a whole different and more complicated issue.

>>33967842
the walls don't matter in this one, it's really just the wound profiles. The results would be similar without the wall.

Point is, velocity defeats hard surfaces and body armor (hence the 5.7). Light and fast projectiles tend to have shallow penetration and violent expansion

>>33967865
I'd still like to see that graph without the wall barrier to compare.

File: slow_vs_fast.jpg (85KB, 700x465px) Image search: [Google]

85KB, 700x465px

>>33967919
reverse image search will give you similar graphs with no barriers involved, they will generally demonstrate that heavy-for-caliber rounds will penetrate deeper than the opposite,

but energy, which is why .380 is not going to penetrate deeper than .30 carbine in soft medium. Another factor is type of projectile; a round nose bullet will be more stable in ballistic gel than a spitzer projectile designed to tumble

>>33967965
but energy should also be considered*

>>33966619
Margin of error.

You can shoot someone with a .22lr dead in the heart and kill them instantly but you need to hit the heart or major arteries dead on. On the other hand, if you shoot someone with a .45 acp you could miss the heart entirely but the fragmentation and shock would still be deadly.

>>33966903
>>33966968

It's half the power of 9mm? Even .38+P is < 9mm

>>33966619
Really OP, like your autism, every caliber is a spectrum of cabability, and finding the correct loading, in a caliber you pick for personal resons, is the search you need to be engaging upon to find your true inner shooter.

To shoot, one must load

>>33966619
Ballistics is incredibly complicated and is complicated further by the dizzying array of defensive rounds on the market

For a brief overview, shot placement is very important, but it doesn't matter if you're placing six rounds onto the heart if you're firing something that won't go through a heavy jacket or won't penetrate a couple inches of fat and muscle, a round needs to be both easy to control and have sufficient penetration to actually hit vitals when firing defensive loads

The further you move away from modern service calibers the harder that is to achieve

>>33966903
.38 Special is a big bullet going slow.

>>33969126
That actually helps with penetration,unless we're talking barrier penetration.

This thread started very well informed and then it just went to shit.

>>33968176

No, that's not true at all.

Fmj does not fragment at all in handgun rounds due to low levels of velocity and HP rounds do not fragment to be even considered a major wounding effect. (You may lose a petal or two when the HP expands but the primary wounding function is not fragmentation like 5.56 but expansion which creates a larger diameter hole than fmj)

>>33968176
Also,

The temporary wound cavity created by handgun rounds is not nearly rapidly violent enough in expansion to cause any major damage due to the elasticity of human tissue. However, with rifle rounds this is absolutely true and it has been shown that the temporary cavity of rifle rounds can break blood vessels and other tissues

Not trying to start a shitstorm but if you're a newbie or can only afford one gun, I see no reason not to get 9.

>cheap as shit, you can practice so much
>decent stopping power
>recoil is easy to manage
>so many ammunition types to choose from
>high capacity mags if not in a commie state