2 inch snubby

[farmerj]

Sorry to disappoint you.

I'll start working on my Doctoral dissertation for you and have the peer review completed for you by noon today. Will that make you happy?

Unlikely.

And people wonder why this forum is dying.

[Ghost]

Sorry to disappoint you.

I'll start working on my Doctoral dissertation for you and have the peer review completed for you by noon today. Will that make you happy?

Unlikely.

And people wonder why this forum is dying.

I always thought it was a mix of SNS and Sunday liquor sales laws???

[Seismic Sam]

WOW!!! I think I got major troll points by STFU and ignoring this thread!! Seeing as I am the Reigning, Defending, Unbeaten, Unwashed, Heavyweight Curmudgeon of this forum, the Troll points are null, void, and useless. To try and answer a few valid points by our own Great English Poofta Tank Commander, all my data is based on Quickload, in an effort to keep it apples to apples. If Quickload has a computational weakness biased towards shorter barrels, then this may be what you are seeing. However, this is the shallower of the two swamps, and as I mentioned data from a dozen different manuals wouldn't show any trend at all. Particularly if you used Berger max loads, which are notoriously puny and make mouse fart noises when you pull the trigger.

As far as ft-lbs vs. TKO, one ignores the bullet diameter altogether and emphasizes velocity over weight, and the other DOES include diameter, velocity, and weight. I presented both to show the differences between them.

The ONLY reason I included the ridiculous 500 S&W snubby was to see if the trend was the same as the 38 Special and 357 Mag with shorter barrel length, and you can't get down to a 2" barrel length with any semi-auto design that I know of. The 2nd point, which Mr. Crabby Greenjeans completely blew by, was that the S&W 500 snubby is supposedly designed for the larger bear breeds, and thus comparing a shot in the gut for a human with a 38 Special 2" snubby and a S&W 500 2" snubby is a laughable premise. I am not sure if it is more or less laughable that the original statement that this whole matter should have been proven by a survey of people to find out if more are afraid of a 357 in the gut vs. the fear level for a 38 Spl. in the gut.

And to finish off the entertainment, seeing as I have Troll points that I can't keep, I propose a contest between Russstra and Ptomaine poisoning to see who is more desperate to validate their sorry existence.

[Squib Joe]

Short of a central nervous system hit, rapid blood loss is the only thing that will stop a determinal attacker regardless of species

Whaaat? No. Depending on circumstances, you could also stop an attacker with immobilization, sensory depravation, or pyschological trauma (fear or stress).

[Seismic Sam]

Good point, Joe!! I think I overlooked extreme fugly-ness in my treatise, and have not taken that into account in my calculations.

To address this matter, I have calculated that maximum fugly lethality could only be achieved by Rodentman threatening to shoot somebody with his EAA Thor(e) pistol!! The accumulated fear and loathing calculated needs 74 zeroes to express its near infinite fugliness, and that can be increased by an order of 10 if Rodentman is at the EFFEN Gopher Bar, and takes his leg off an waves it around while brandishing the Thor in the other hand.

[smurfman]

Smurfman, would the guy in your example have been able to continue to be an aggressor? I would think agggressive actions would have sped his final fate.

Also I believe Sam was mentioning the short 500 as inadequate for big bears, not humans.

I am pretty certain the victim I mentioned would have been able to carry out aggressive actions if he would have chosen to do so. After being shot, the victim yelled to the shooter that the shooter had killed him, turned around, walked several feet to the stairs, then walked down two flights of stairs consisting of about 16 steps or whatever number it takes to get down one story in a residential home. The victim then walked about 25 feet to the back of the house where the stairs to the basement was. He then walked down the dozen or so stairs (they went straight down, no landing and turn half way down as with the first set of stairs) and across about 20' of basement to the sink where he began to wash his wound. The victim was still conscious and blaming the family member for shooting him when the police first found him. The victim was unconscious when we reached him.

If the victim had aggressive intent he would have been capable of doing so for maybe a half a minute in my estimation. That would be my guess on his ability to make purposeful movements, not just being "alive". I doubt "aggressive actions" would have hastened the outcome as I am willing to bet his heart rate was tripping along fairly rapidly the whole time. I just don't see the victim maintaining an even 60-80 beats per minute in the circumstance. Maybe if he was on some heart medicines coupled with a pacemaker it could happen but I don't recall the victim having had such medical history. I do see this as evidence that a creature can go a relatively long ways on one lung providing the heart is not also damaged. Heck, even with a damaged heart a creature can take a bit of time to reach the point of not being able to be active.

As for the the effectiveness of a snubby 500 S&W on bears, I wouldn't positively know but I suspect it would be more a matter of bullet construction and placement than energy figures from any source. A 400-500 gr, 50 caliber solid bullet traveling roughly 1000-1200 fps helped put many buffalo on the ground and they were as large and generally larger than the typical bear of any species. Bullets tended to exit at typical buffalo shooting ranges which meant pretty decent penetration. That is not to mention the various other large, sometimes dangerous, game that has been taken elsewhere in the world using softish lead bullets with similar ballistics. Personally, I wouldn't choose an X-frame snubby for protection against a bear but that is more to do with the size and weight of the firearm, not the velocity/energy rating.

[Amazi]

have you seen the 500 s&w round? It makes my 50ae look small. You get hit in the arm with a 50 you'll be a cripple in the arm, leg you'll defiantly never walk right again if your able to. Like I said you reference to a 50cal to a 9mm is not a very good one.

Yes, I have shot the .500 S&W. Even the .454 casull.

I'm more impressed by the .454 than I am the .500.

But your assumptions are still wrong.

yeah keep telling yourself that dude, cause I cant bring myself down to your level anymore.

[Pat Cannon]

A 125gr JHP .357 over a max load of H110 goes (by actual measurement) 1220 fps out of my 2 1/4" Ruger SP101, and 1320 fps out of my 3" GP100.

So I would say:
A) a 3" barrel is better by 100 fps, or 8%,
B) Even out of the short barrel, .38 Special isn't going to touch that.

Having said that, you should try for yourself such things as how fast you can get a second shot on target. That might be a legit argument for a more moderate load.

[Seismic Sam]

Not that you mention it, I DO remember your "extra crispy" 357 mag loads. In those days, however, you more or less looked like your avatar most of the time, so if you got shot or the gun blew up, it wouldn't muss up your looks hardly at all.

[OldmanFCSA]

38Special loaded with soft 195 grain cast , them split the front with a 4 petal type look (Dum-Dum) loadings.

Promotes major hydrostatic shock in multiple areas as projectiles come apart.


Personally have never used them split, but I do have the molds to cast them.

[crbutler]

Hydrostatic shock as I envisage it does occur at two levels, one I have seen the other is theoretical.

The seen case was two separately shot cape buffalo with major rounds. (.416 rigby). Both shot through the heart broadside. One had a mess made of the brain and fell to the shot. The presumption is that it was hit in the right part of the cardiac cycle and the pressure wave ran right up the arteries and caused cerebral hemorrhage and damage. The brain was a big clotted mess of blood when we took the skull off. The bullet hit the ventricles and bisected both.

The second acted like like any heart shot buffalo. Ran 30 yards and laid down and gave a few death bellows and died. The brain looked like brain.

I have shot over 20 of them, and been around maybe 10 or so more killed, so, while not a statistically valid number, it's probably a good guess, and these two I actually did necropsies on while we were dressing them out- most you grab and take to the skinners to do the detail work on.

The theoretical was during surgical rotations we discussed high speed injuries. This was defined as impact at 4000+ fps. We were told to debride 12" away from the site of impact as this was all disrupted. Later, research says leave it, some may still be salvageable, so while there is theoretical agreement that distant tissue is disrupted, how much is a good question.

So hydrostatic effect exists, and can have an effect, but it is very variable dependent and really not too easily reproduced.

Another thing is what is a one shot stop? If we are all using different definitions, we can argue till the cows come home without solving anything.

To me, in a self defense situation, a one shot stop is the target ceases offensive action once shot. It's not necessarily incapacitation.

In hunting, with my definitions, it's a situation where the animal is shot once and drops to the shot. Again, it may not be dead, but is unable to flee.

Handguns are very unlikely to produce a one shot stop with the latter definition, but anything can well with the former, depending on the aggressor. Unfortunately, since mindset and aggressiveness are impossible to model, the stats on this tend to be poor. The old Marshall and Sanow stats were rather poor because of this, at best they were a simple aggregate of shooting results. Some of the more recent stuff (Fackler and later) are more scientifically based, but tend to operate on assumptions nonetheless. I am not a trauma surgeon, but I have seen guys survive a .30 chest hit with a soft point rifle bullet, and seen guys die from an arm hit with a .22 (from exsanguination before the emt's got there.) so my pseudo scientific approach to this is if your number is up, your dead. Since I haven't won the lottery yet, I sure don't want to depend on luck if I can avoid it, so avoid being in the situation in the first place is rule one.

You improve your odds for stopping the bad guy with more velocity, adequate penetration, and more momentum/energy. In my mind, there can never be too much of any of them for terminal effect, but how you get it and what happens afterwards to the projectile are considerations for defensive use, but don't really apply to terminal ballistics per se.

As far as the real bottom line on a 2" snub gun... it's a relatively easy gun to carry, so you are more likely to have it. A bullet fired from one will be marginally less effective than one from a bigger handgun, but given its size, your likelihood of hitting anything much beyond conversational distance renders it's stopping power relative to a larger gun at distance moot. from what limited chronographing I have done of them, it's a noticible loss of velocity, but unlikely to render the round unable to penetrate the skull assuming you hit that in the first place. If you don't hit them in the brainpan, you are adding more and more variables that make prediction pointless.

[Pat Cannon]

I dug up another bit of my research of this stuff. Basically, black=advertising, red=real:

[Pat Cannon]

Not that you mention it, I DO remember your "extra crispy" 357 mag loads. In those days, however, you more or less looked like your avatar most of the time, so if you got shot or the gun blew up, it wouldn't muss up your looks hardly at all.

Well now I gotta post this picture again.

[Holland&Holland]

If you want a one shot stop, call in heavy ordnance.

[Seismic Sam]

Another thing is what is a one shot stop? If we are all using different definitions, we can argue till the cows come home without solving anything. Very true. That's why I presented the theoretical data, and wouldn't even touch absolutist definitions of stopping power.

To me, in a self defense situation, a one shot stop is the target ceases offensive action once shot. It's not necessarily incapacitation. Agreed. This makes the issue even less clear, but you gotta be ready to deal with what you get.

Handguns are very unlikely to produce a one shot stop with the latter definition, but anything can well with the former, depending on the aggressor. Unfortunately, since mindset and aggressiveness are impossible to model, the stats on this tend to be poor. The old Marshall and Sanow stats were rather poor because of this, at best they were a simple aggregate of shooting results. Some of the more recent stuff (Fackler and later) are more scientifically based, but tend to operate on assumptions nonetheless. I am not a trauma surgeon, but I have seen guys survive a .30 chest hit with a soft point rifle bullet, and seen guys die from an arm hit with a .22 (from exsanguination before the emt's got there.) so my pseudo scientific approach to this is if your number is up, your dead. Since I haven't won the lottery yet, I sure don't want to depend on luck if I can avoid it, so avoid being in the situation in the first place is rule one.

You improve your odds for stopping the bad guy with more velocity, adequate penetration, and more momentum/energy. In my mind, there can never be too much of any of them for terminal effect, but how you get it and what happens afterwards to the projectile are considerations for defensive use, but don't really apply to terminal ballistics per se. Agreed.

As far as the real bottom line on a 2" snub gun... it's a relatively easy gun to carry, so you are more likely to have it. A bullet fired from one will be marginally less effective than one from a bigger handgun, but given its size, your likelihood of hitting anything much beyond conversational distance renders it's stopping power relative to a larger gun at distance moot. from what limited chronographing I have done of them, it's a noticible loss of velocity, but unlikely to render the round unable to penetrate the skull assuming you hit that in the first place. If you don't hit them in the brainpan, you are adding more and more variables that make prediction pointless.

Yup. About all you can do is show that you have a theoretical velocity drop, and it may or may not have enough effect to get you seriously hurt.