Anytime you’re in a fight, particularly a gunfight, halting your adversary is the goal.  When you’re in a fight, you just want out of the fight.  You can disengage, run, or neutralize your attacker.   Or you can be killed.

Once your attacker has commenced his assault, stopping him becomes your life’s work.   The firearm most likely available to you will be your handgun.  If you are aware of the impending attack, you’ll most certainly arm yourself with a long gun.  Since most attackers won’t afford you that opportunity, proficiency with your pistol remains paramount to your survival.  Because of the array of pistol manufacturers, models, and calibers available, there is inevitably a debate about which combination is “best.”  I am frequently asked to give my opinion on caliber selection.  Even more than training, or tactics, or weapons selection.  Everyone loves talking about ballistics.  The problem is that most of us are knuckle-draggers and we only know two things about ballistics…jack and shit.

We get on the internet and google and read and talk to our buddies who seem to know a lot about guns.  I’m no different.  I’ve been amassing articles and studies about ballistics for as long as I can remember.  This is my attempt to solve the “caliber riddle.”

First off, lets talk about knock-down power.  Simply put, it doesn’t exist.  The force a bullet will impact your adversary is equal to (or less than) the recoil you felt when you fired the round.  It’s physics.  It isn’t debatable.  If you fired a bullet capable of knocking someone to the ground, you would likewise be knocked to the ground when you triggered it.  Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  Sound familiar?  It’s Newton’s Law of Motion.  I may be dumb but that guy was smart so you should pay attention.

Whats confuses the issue is that many people tend to fall down when they’ve been shot.  It isn’t caused by the projectile, they do it for all sorts of other reasons.  The belief that they are more seriously injured than they are, the “training” received by years of movies and television, or simply a desire to quit fighting all contribute.  Some people fall down when shot, some people don’t.  Since you can’t control it, you can’t count on it to happen during a fight.

Ok, so knock-down power can’t be achieved.  How do I stop my adversary?

The impact of bullets on the human body has four factors which contribute to how quickly an attacker is stopped.  The first factor is Penetration and is measured by the distance the projectile travels into the target.  The damage caused by penetration is directly related to the tissue disrupted or destroyed by the bullet passage.  The second factor is the Permanent Cavity and is measured by the volume of space once occupied by tissue that is now destroyed by the passage of the projectile.  This is the hole left in the guy after you shoot him.  The next factor is the Temporary Cavity and is measured by the amount of expansion or stretching of tissue due to the transfer of kinetic energy from the projectile.  The final wound factor is Fragmentation which are pieces of the projectile which separate and are propelled through the body.  Fragmentation may not occur in every bullet wound, and should be considered a secondary effect.  In fact, fragmentation in pistol rounds is extremely limited (typically less than one centimeter) and should not be heavily considered during bullet selection.

In order to quickly halt an adversary, the central nervous system must be severely damaged or destroyed.  For the anatomically challenged, check out the picture.

Notice the heart isn’t shown.  Shooting someone in the heart causes blood loss, perhaps major blood loss.  This will leave your attacker with approximately 15 seconds of full voluntary function before being incapacitated.  Fifteen seconds is a long time to have someone shooting at you.

In order to achieve fight stopping results, the brain or upper spinal cord must be severely damaged or destroyed.  This type of accuracy is clearly a function of training more than bullet selection.  The shot placement discussion occurs frequently, but it can’t be overstated how important marksmanship is to surviving a gunfight.

Bullet selection is critically important also.  Even assuming the accuracy is there, the bullet must penetrate enough into the target to pass through the central nervous system in order to achieve fight stopping results.  Because of this specific requirement, penetration is the most important factor in bullet selection.

Over-penetration gets talked about frequently in the law enforcement and self defense communities.  It’s true that a round can pass through the intended target and hurt a bystander.  It’s also true, and more likely, that a round will completely miss the intended target and hurt a bystander.  Misses are extremely common during violent assaults.  The risk of over-penetration should be carefully weighed against survival.  Over penetration might occur and a bystander could be injured, but a weak round will never quickly incapacitate an attacker.  When selecting a round for defensive purposes, a minimum of 12 inches of penetration is desired.  Anything less would be considered a poor choice.  More than 18 inches of penetration is probably unnecessary, but your situation should be carefully considered.  The round I select for my situation may be different than what is needed to meet your specific requirements.

Permanent cavity is the next most critical consideration when selecting a pistol caliber, or specific bullet.  The permanent cavity is the volume of destruction as the bullet passes through the target.  In this case, bigger is better.  Assuming an equal amount of penetration, a larger round will create a larger permanent cavity and will cause more damage.  Exactly how much “better” a larger projectile performs is extremely difficult to determine, and I won’t attempt to quantify it.

Temporary cavity is a much-hyped and misunderstood factor of projectile wounds.  Pistol rounds are underpowered by nature and relatively slow moving.  The latest research  on temporary cavity is that the tissue damage could be as small as one tenth of the speed of the projectile.  For the purposes of pistol gunfighting, it simply isn’t a factor.  If someone is trying to tell you how superior a particular round performs because of its “kinetic energy transfer” or temporary wound channel, you’re being sold a line of crap.

Fragmentation simply isn’t a factor for handgun rounds.  Pistol rounds move too slowly to achieve consistent fragmentation.  Again, since you can’t control it,  don’t count on it.  Fragmentation in a pistol fight is a non-issue.

The final characteristic I want to discuss is the idea of expansion.  Most of us have some experience with hollow-point ammunition.  The round is specifically designed to expand on impact to inflict greater damage to the target.  Assuming that 12 inches of penetration is achieved, an expanding bullet has lots of merit.  The problem is that hollow point ammunition has inconsistent performance.  When hollow point rounds impact bone, glass, or even thick clothing (it’s winter time), the round will expand very little, if at all.  Many times, forensics experts are unable to determine if a pistol gunshot wound was inflicted by a hollow-point round or a ball round.  Hollow point ammunition is certainly a good choice for a defensive round, but the performance in terms of penetration and permanent cavity should be used to assess performance.  Any expansion achieved will be gravy.

During the assault, you are in charge of very little.  Your attacker likely chose  the place and time.  He’ll control his actions, how many rounds he fires, and the tactics he employs.  You can control where your rounds impact his body and the type of weapon and ammunition you employ.

In order take control during an assault you must be trained.  If your training program doesn’t stress shooting on the move, shooting at moving targets, no-light engagements, and low percentage shots (partial targets), then you’re not preparing yourself to survive a violent assault.  It’s important to remember that you have to perform better than your assailant is lucky.

Jedburgh Corp has developed the most comprehensive firearms training available anywhere.  It was built on the vast personal combat experience of some of the most elite special operators in the country.  Contact us at info@Jedburgh-USA.com to provide feedback on the blog, or discuss your training needs.  Also, feel free to post your comments.

For the record, I just use Slap and Rack.  Adding crap to the end doesn’t make people think you’re smarter, or increase the effectiveness of clearing a malfunction.  Telling someone to “squeeze” or “bang” implies that they must do those things.  I’d hope that if you needed to clear a malfunction in order to apply violence to halt an assault, that you’ll know if you need to continue shooting.

Firearms manipulation is critical within the framework of the Combat Triad – Marksmanship, Mindset, and Tactics.  Tactics is sometimes interpreted as manipulation, or gun-handling.  I like to expand the definition to include tactics because it implies not only individual proficiency, but also proficiency as a team.  All three elements must be present to survive a lethal encounter.  All three elements must likewise be present in an effective training program.  It needs to be said that weapons manipulation should also include backup and off duty weapons.  While this may seem a simple thing, there is ample evidence to reinforce the importance of effective firearms manipulation.

During a physical struggle, an assailant fired his weapon and wounded an officer.  The officer returned fire, missing the assailant before experiencing a malfunction with his duty firearm (a semi-automatic pistol).  The officer eventually fell to the ground.  As he hit the ground, the officer lost control of his weapon and the assailant fired two more rounds one of which struck the officer before he fled.  In his own words:

“I was annoyed that the gun didn’t work anymore and I didn’t see any malfunction and it was like a twilight zone or something.  The gun functions, and, for some reason, I have missed this individual and the slide has closed.  I still have a firm grip on it.  I know I have to shoot him some more.  I haven’t hit him, and the gun doesn’t work anymore.  And, during this time, I’m falling.  I’m falling at the time, and I know I’m going to shoot some more.  I know immediately that I haven’t hit him, and I was just amazed and mystified and annoyed that the gun didn’t shoot anymore.  I knew it wasn’t a stovepipe and the slide had closed.  I have to admit, as much training as we had with malfunction drills, I did not consider doing a malfunction drill.”

The simple analysis is this:  the officer was so intent on shooting the assailant, he couldn’t do what was immediately required – slap and rack.   He violated the most basic of principles – when it’s time to shoot, you shoot; when it’s time to reload, you reload; and when it’s time to conduct a malfunction drill, you fix your gun.  It’s like Ecclesiastes chapter 3, only for gunfighters.  At the time of the shooting, the officer had over 20 years of experience in law enforcement and had served as a firearms instructor for over 12 years.  The lesson for the rest of us is clear.  During the stress and violence of an assault, years of experience or possessing the proper credentials will not deter your assailant nor will it protect you from bad training habits.  If it can happen to an experienced officer, it can happen to all of us.

Ensure that shortcuts aren’t taken in your training.  A holistic firearms training program is critical to ensure officer survival.  Marksmanship, mindset and tactics must be present in equal parts.  Jedburgh Corp has developed the most comprehensive and realistic training programs possible.  We are available to provide both training and training support to organizations desiring to advance their firearms training.  Contact us at info@Jedburgh-USA.com to provide feedback on the blog, or discuss your training needs.  Also, feel free to post your comments.

I’m certainly no Audie Murphy and I’m definitely no Albert Einstein, but I don’t understand why we can’t use all the information available about assaults to prevent them from happening.  Researchers can tell us the age, sex, height and weight of the average law enforcement officer who is killed in the line of duty.  We can pinpoint the day of the week and time of the day, and even the activity that will statistically put a police officer at the greatest risk of assault.  But over the last 20 years, the number of law enforcement officers killed hasn’t changed.  So I’ll ask again, why can’t we train the risk out of these known hazards?

For those that know me, I’m a redneck from a small town in Florida.  I’ve never been accused of being a genius.  Having said that, I have a theory.  It’s a little half-baked at this point, but my explanation is pretty simple.  It’s laziness.  The training we receive to prepare us for violent assault isn’t perfect, but it isn’t grossly negligent either.  For the most part, our assailants are less trained and poorly equipped by our professional standards.  The training we receive is adequate (for the most part) to prepare us to deal with the hazards of the job.

What happens is that we allow our environment to condition us to expect compliance, not violence.  We ignore the things that we know are right, because they’re harder to do.  We take shortcuts.  After awhile, you begin to think that the shortcut isn’t really a shortcut because, after all, you’re still alive right?  You start to say stupid things like “I understand the streets” or “I can read people.”  It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, at least for a little while.  How many times do you have to get killed before you respect the risks?  Unfortunately, once you’re killed because of your laziness, you don’t get any do-overs.  You’ll be dead a long time.

I had to spend a little time in a courtroom earlier this week and a local police officer was there to offer testimony in an unrelated case.  With all respect, this officer was a victim just waiting for an obituary and a headstone.  She was fat, out of shape and she wore her gear like a person who never thought in a million years that she would need to get her weapon out quickly to defend herself.  She had her magazine pouch on her strong side, directly in front of her holster.  She had her cell phone on her support hip.  Without getting into all the tactics of reloading, I would bet half a month’s pay that she had never practiced magazine changes with her setup.  I’m sure you could train yourself to conduct reloads relatively quickly with your weak hand moving to your strong side hip, but why would you want to?

In the “Violent Encounters” study, there are case studies that reveal all manner of questionable decision making.  One that I found interesting involved a detective who worked in plainclothes and used a concealable holster for his duty weapon.  He had received a new holster from his wife for Christmas and had immediately begun using it for work (“Thanks honey, it’s exactly what I wanted”).  Well, this ill fated detective was having coffee in a diner when two men entered with the intention of robbing it.  They misidentified the detective for the manager (probably because of his suit) and approached him with weapons drawn.  Our fearless crimefighter decided that it was time for him to conduct a speed draw and engage the two assailants.  Unfortunately, the new holster was still a bit “grabby.”  The officer stated “I pulled and pulled, and the gun wouldn’t come out of the holster.  When it finally did, the whole holster came with it.  By then, I’d already been shot twice.  I dropped the gun and it fell onto the floor, still contained in the holster.”

Luckily, the officer in the case study survived.  I say it was luck, because he certainly didn’t do anything to help.  To be kind, I’ve done stupider things than not breaking in a new holster.  I’d guess that he knew better.  He probably thought about getting to the range to practice with his new holster, but he was busy.  He had responsibilities to his department and his family and he just couldn’t find the time.  I’d guess that he’d probably broken a new holster in on the job before, and probably done the same thing.  Put it on, and start carrying it.

Only this time, bad guys with guns showed up.  And his shortcut nearly cost him his life, not to mention the citizens in the diner.  Compared with the potential loss, he was taking a huge gamble.  I’m sure he would have trained more if he knew that he’d be assaulted.  And that’s the problem.  He’d been a police officer for years, been carrying concealed for years, and he’d never been attacked before.  Surely, no one will ever attack me.  I’m a nice guy and people like me.  That works until you are attacked.  And you only have to get killed once.

The bottom line on force is that the bad guy decides how much you have to use.  You don’t get to control the time, place, or circumstances of the attack.  The only thing you can control is your training before the incident, and your actions during the incident.  Your future will be determined by your present.  The training conducted today determines your future performance.  I’d ask how much training you need, but you already know the answer.  I’d ask you what skills you need to focus on, but you know the answer to that too.  Don’t let your training program give you what you want, instead force it to give you what you need.

Jedburgh Corp has developed the most innovative firearms training available anywhere.  Contact us at info@Jedburgh-USA.com to provide feedback on the blog, or discuss your training needs.  Also, feel free to post your comments.