Category Archives: Technology

“Ballistic Fingerprinting” fails

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If you are even the slightest bit ‘connected’ in the gun rights movement you will already know about what happened in Maryland.  They implemented a database of fired bullets and shell casings from all new handguns sold in the state.. This was an attempt to track down the owner if a bullet or shell casing were found at the scene of a crime.  Gun owners and manufactures told them it wouldn’t work.  They did it anyway.  Now they find out it didn’t work for all the reasons they were told it wouldn’t work plus some at least one new reason.  That reason is that different materials take on the markings differently.  Some bullets are made primarily of lead, some have copper jackets, and some even have steel jackets.  There are numerous alloys of lead too, some even use silver.  Shell casings are made of brass, aluminum, and steel.  If the manufacture supplied a bullet and shell casing made of one material and the criminal used another then the chance of a match is greatly reduced.

What amuses me the most about this is that the system failed and they suggest an alternate scheme that I am certain will also fail.  I have posted on it here:

This qualifies Maryland for a When Prophecy Fails mention.

Others have commented extensively on the report from Maryland:

I have included the entire Maryland report below for those interested in the details.

 

2. Integrated Ballistics Information System Remains under Scrutiny

 

Background

 

The Maryland Integrated Ballistic Identification System (IBIS), operational since October 1, 2000, provides police investigators with a tool to focus an investigation around a firearm. Chapter 2,

Acts of 2000 (Responsible Gun Safety Act of 2000), required that manufacturers submit a test-fired shell casing with each handgun shipped for resale in the State.

The dealer then sends the casing to the State Police after the gun has been sold. The IBIS system receives the casing from the dealer, and firearms investigators and technicians perform a full analysis of the casing. The investigator uses microscopic technology to identify striations and other markings

that are unique to each individual gun. The striations are formed when the gun is fired, as the firing pin strikes the back of the casing, creating a unique series of identifying marks. The aim of the system is to create a massive database of identifying marks, so that any spent shell casings recovered at a crime scene can be compared against the IBIS database, to try to identify the gun used in the commission of the crime. Based on then-current handgun sales statistics, the State Police anticipated that 30,000 cartridge casings would be received annually for input into the IBIS system. As such, the system was designed to hold around 300,000 casings over a 10-year period.

The system has thus far received around 35,000 cartridge casings for input, including around 2,000 from trooper-issued semi-automatic 40-caliber Beretta firearms. There have been 160 requests to match crime-scene casings with the IBIS system, resulting in four “hits” or matches.

 

Costs

 

DSP anticipates continued maintenance supplies and personnel costs of $435,269 for fiscal 2005 to continue to operate the IBIS system. Initial start-up costs of $1.4 million were absorbed in fiscal 2001. IBIS requires one full-time equivalent position to maintain the system. DSP’s Forensic Unit currently assigns three forensic examiners to this program, each devoting one-third of their time to the IBIS system.

 

Problems

 

The State Police are concerned about the lack of hits yielded by the IBIS system, and there have been problems with the system. Some of these problems are the result of operational failings and others simply the result of circumstance.

 

Number of Cartridges Stored – No Link to the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network (NIBIN): Chapter 2 of 2000 included ‘external safety lock’ requirements and the shell casing identification provision. Gun manufacturers were required to add ‘integrated mechanical safety devices’ to firearms, as well as external safety locks to any firearm sold in Maryland.

 

These two provisions made up an effort by the General Assembly to make the prospects of accidental shootings less likely. These two mechanical requirements, coupled with the requirement to test-fire the gun and submit the cartridge casings, has effectively reduced the number of firearms sold in the State. While DSP had anticipated 30,000 casings submitted annually from 215 qualifying manufacturers, the number of casings received since October 2001 stands at around 34,000 from only 49 manufacturers.

In essence, the guns most often recovered from crime scenes are not sold in Maryland, and therefore, not linked (via cartridge casing) to the IBIS system. DSP has also indicated that .38 mm revolvers are often used in crimes, and these guns are less likely to leave spent shell casings.

The Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) division of the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have a system in place, similar to the Maryland IBIS system. The NIBIN is a system that uses identical technology to IBIS, to create a national database of crime scene shell casings and bullets. However, a memorandum of understanding between the ATF and State and local law enforcement agencies prohibits the linking of NIBIN to any State or local system, such as IBIS. In that the guns used in Maryland crimes are less likely to be sold in Maryland, the inability to link IBIS to NIBIN prevents the largest field of possible matches from being searched.

 

Time to Crime: The Maryland IBIS system has been in place since October 2000. Criminology research suggests that if a legally obtained firearm is going to enter the stream of criminal activity, it takes between three and six years for this to occur. This ‘time to crime’ statistic indicates that the guns and cartridge casings inventoried in IBIS since 2001 will start to match firearms used in crimes from 2004 to 2007. The statewide deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) inventory saw a similar preliminary waiting period until the number of matches increased dramatically. The DNA database began in 1994, had its first hit in 1998, and has had 72 hits to date. Of these 72 hits, 39 have come in 2003.

 

Glock Casings Unreliable: It has been learned that cartridge casings submitted by Glock firearms did not match the casings recovered from the same gun at crime scenes. As a result, all cartridge casings submitted by Glock were flagged in the IBIS system, and a list of the guns affected by the problem has been generated. Any firearm sold in Maryland from the list was also flagged. The Glock Company indicated that this problem has since been resolved.

 

Change in Striations As Firearms Age and Break-in: Research suggests that as firearms age and are broken-in the internal characteristics of the firing pin may change which will result in different striations being left on the spent casings. This makes the casings submitted by the manufacturer less reliable. The more the gun is fired, the more the striations will change.

 

Modification of Firing Pin by User: Gun users with working knowledge of the assembly process can alter the firing pin of the weapon, which would significantly change the striations left on the cartridge casing.

 

Different Cartridge Casing Materials Used: There is no standard material used to make cartridge casings. These different materials absorb the striations differently. Additionally, if a different material is used in the manufacture process and by the user, it is possible that a spent cartridge casing will not match the casing stored in IBIS.

 

Increase in Database Size Decreased Likelihood of “Hit”: As the number of similar guns stored in the database increase, the likelihood of a match decreases. As an example, there are approximately 2,000 cartridge casings from Trooper-issued firearms. Tests have been run, using spent casings from these guns, and the system has not yielded a match in the top 15. However, the more experienced the examiner who inputs the casing, the more likely that the input will be accurate and reflect the unique characteristics of the gun.

 

Remote IBIS System Failure: DSP purchased a remote IBIS unit to run a search of the found cartridge casings and to submit the findings to the IBIS database to be tested for a match. This device has not worked due to overheating and data transmission problems. The manufacturer has since stopped producing these units. Not only can these casings found at crime scenes not be compared to IBIS while on-site, but DSP cannot link to any other State forensic facility.

 

Future and Alternatives

 

A new technology exists to perform a similar task as the IBIS system. This version of nanotechnology creates a ballistic ID or fingerprint on cartridge casings. The technology would create a number or symbol on the firing pin of the weapon, and this marking would be transferred to the cartridge casing each time the gun was fired. However, this technology would have to be done at the manufacturer level and would lead to resistance from the industry. Research suggests, however, that this ballistic fingerprinting method would be less expensive and more accurate than the IBIS, as the “serial number” imprinting removes the subjectivity inherit in digitizing a visual set of striations. DLS recommends that DSP comment on whether, in light of circumstantial difficulties, this program has justified continued operation.

 

 

Debunking a 9-11 conspiracy

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The following email exchanged occurred during the last few days:

—–Original Message—–
From: PainfulQuestions@XXX.com
Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 11:23 PM
To: Joe
Subject: Since you have experience with explosives…

would you like to take a closer look at the photos from the Pentagon security camera and help settle the dispute over whether the flash is from an explosive or from jet fuel?

Here is a video here that can help you understand why there is a controversy:

http://911sb.org/911CommissionReport.wmv

You can find that video, and more infor, here:

www.HugeQuestions.com

—–Original Message—–
From: Joe
Sent: Friday, December 03, 2004 7:43 AM
To: PainfulQuestions@XXX.com
Subject: RE: Since you have experience with explosives…

I looked at several of the presentations and I didn’t see the security camera with a flash.  Could you give me a direct link to that image or video?

Thanks.

-joe-

—–Original Message—–
From: PainfulQuestions@XXX.com
Sent: Friday, December 03, 2004 10:38 AM
To: Joe
Subject: Re: Since you have experience with explosives…

Sorry, I assumed you knew about those security videos. They have been creating controversy around the world for years. This is why “French Fries” became “Freedom Fries”.

In case you never saw this, the site in France that started this controversy is still available: http://www.asile.org/citoyens/numero13/pentagone/erreurs_en.htm

That web site scrolls left to right, not up and down.

The issue has since been looked into more deeply by people around the world. The security camera videos I refer to, along with an analysis of them, can be seen in the videos here:

http://reopen911.org/pictures_and_videos.htm

Look near the bottom of the page for:

         To download the free Internet Version
         of “Painful Deceptions” DVD click on
          the following links

Then watch those videos. Prepare yourself for the possibility that some of our government officials might be dishonest. Those videos should help you understand the anger towards the USA that you find in Europe.

That video is available in DVDs if you want higher quality, and for as low as $10 with shipping included at:
http://www.EricHufschmid.net/PainfulQuestionsBook.html

Jimmy Walter is also selling the DVD at 888-Investigate, along with books, in at attempt to cover some of his advertising costs.

Eric

—–Original Message—–
From: Joe 
Sent: Sunday, December 05, 2004 10:13 AM
To: PainfulQuestions@XXX.com
Subject: RE: Since you have experience with explosives…

I got a chance to review one of the videos that gave some pretty good shots of the Pentagon.  In terms of the fireball I don’t see anything suspicious about it.  The fireballs that I produce are done with one to four gallons of gasoline and one to four pounds of explosives.  Take a look as some of these.  Go through them frame by frame and you will see the fireball does actually expand.  As long as the fuel supply is increasing the fireball with increase in size.  In the case of a plane smashing into a solid object it seems entirely reasonable to me that a fireball starts shortly after the exposed fuel ignites and then as the rest of the fuel is exposed as the tanks are flattened and ripped apart the fireball grows in size.  And consider that some of my fireballs are 30 to 40 feet across with only four gallons of gasoline.  With thousands of gallons of jet fuel much larger fireballs should be expected.  But depending on how it is dispersed and ignited the fireball could be almost any size from non-existent to several hundred feet across.  You will also see that the flame appears to be white hot and actually causes the video camera to adjust the exposure compensating for the brightness to the point that the surrounding landscape turns dark although it is during the middle of the day.

In the case of explosives, properly oxygen balanced explosive mixtures do not generate a fireball at all. There may be very short flash but not a fireball. TNT, by itself, produces a fireball because it has a shortage of oxygen.  Or in other words an excess of fuel.  As the fuel gets exposed to the air it will produce a fireball.  What is usually done is that another compound is added to achieve oxygen balance.  That is why “fuel oil” or diesel is added to ammonium nitrate.  During detonation the AN produces excess oxygen and by adding a fuel the oxygen can be used to increase the heat and hence the pressure of the detonation.  The increased heat also means the reaction is easier to initiate and it propagates easier.  The reason this is important is because I would expect any missile to have an efficient explosive and not have excess fuel to produce a fireball.  Hence if there is a fireball it would have to come from the target not the missile.  Since I doubt the Pentagon was struck in an office containing a tank of some sort of fuel I have to conclude it came from the object that struck it.  Hence, a plane containing fuel is an entirely plausible explanation for the fireball.

I can’t explain everything in the video but many of the things are out of my area of expertise.  I can tell you why I would put the gravel on the lawn however.  Heavy trucks were going to be hauling debris away and new material in.  If the ground had any significant amount of moisture in it the repeated truck crossing would have softened soil and they would have gotten bogged down and stuck.

With the selected set of evidence presented in the videos I can see why people would have some questions.  But I don’t see anything I consider conclusive evidence that anything other than a commercial jet struck the Pentagon.

Here are some specific fireball videos to demonstrate my points:

http://www.boomershoot.org/2003/SundayFireballDemo.wmv
http://www.boomershoot.org/2003/Kim.avi

Or for a fairly complete collection of my fireball videos see this page:

http://www.boomershoot.org/general/fireball.htm
If you have any other questions about this feel free to ask.

 

-joe-

I don’t think he got the answer he expected.  And I doubt he will stop selling his DVDs and books.  But at least I didn’t bolster his crackpot ideas (there were lots of unbiased eye witnesses that saw the plane slam into the Pentagon).

New Orleans may have to face reality

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Hurricane Ivan could put much of New Orleans underwater.  Not just a few inches, but many feet.  In some places the water could be 20 feet deep.  How can this be?  How much rain is Ivan going to dump?  It turns out that the rain isn’t the problem.  It’s that New Orleans is below sea level.  The entire city was built on silt the Mississippi river has dumped over several thousand years.  That silt that is several miles deep.  That silt gradually compacts and “squishes out” and the surface drops.  If left on it’s own the “big muddy” would replenish the silt to above sea level every few years as it overflows it’s banks during high water times.  But levees were built to protect the city from the flooding.  Unfortunately it’s only the battles of the first couple hundred years that can be won.  Eventually the “war” against the river will be lost.  Not only does the city continue to sink but silt from the river is dumped further and further out to sea (something like a thousand tons per day is dropped).  This decreases the slope for the river from New Orleans (and upstream) to the sea.  This means the velocity of the river decreases.  As the velocity decreases the river drops more silt in it’s channel and furthermore it must be either deeper or wider to carry the same amount of water.  Everything is working against New Orleans remaining at it’s current elevation.  This is not like Holland which is also below sea level.  The soil is much different and we have a river running through the city that is raising it’s bed every day.

It will cost billions to put up a mediocre defense against the threat.  One could argue that we should just let the city deal with it on it’s own or move.  The problem is that there is a tremendous amount of shipping that goes on through the Mississippi from the heartlands of the country to the rest of the world and New Orleans is the port that makes it all happen.  If left to it’s own devices the river would have rerouted itself a hundred miles or so to the west years ago.  It’s only the Corp of Engineers that have kept it within the current channels.  Will Ivan be the last battle?  Will this week start the journey for New Orleans to become a silt covered archeological site for some graduate students 50,000 years from now?  What will be the impact on our economy?  How will this affect the election?  Will Kerry claim Bush could have prevented it (hmmm…. I wonder what a small nuke would do to a hurricane out at sea)?

My belief is that long term the people and businesses of New Orleans should close up and move out.  Barring some extraordinary technological breakthroughs in earth moving (I’m talking raising an entire city from deep down under the water soaked earth) and/or lowering the sea this battle cannot be won.  It’s better to surrender gracefully than to let the enemy annihilate you.  Spend the billions on salvage and rebuilding in another location, but surrender the current New Orleans to it’s muddy grave.

Google Adwords suck, Overture rocks

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After having Google tell me they don’t allow people to advertise product related to the exercise of certain civil rights I started looking at alternatives.  It turns out you can place an ad on Overture.com and get advertising to show up on http://search.yahoo.com, http://www.Search.MSN.com, http://altavista.com (defunct as of 2013, see https://digital.com/about/altavista/ for the history), and http://www.cnn.com/SEARCH/.  There are some downsides:

  • The minimum rate is $0.10/click – twice that of Google.
  • Minimum of $50 up front instead of $5.00 from Google.
  • It can take a few days before they will approve your ads compared to minutes for Google.

The upsides are:

    • They didn’t have a problem with my guns and explosives product.
    • They did disallow a few words and phrases but they gave rational reasons and I respect their conclusions.
    • They have better tools for determining the phrases and key words that are being used by people doing the searches.
    • I’m getting a lot more hits!
    • Their tracking is better.  They have a cookie system set up that will report whenever someone clicks on an ad ultimately, even days later, clicks on my entry form.  I can see what key words are actually generating people interested in entering the event versus just looking at pictures and watching the videos.
    • I can see in the log file exactly what the raw query was and how it was morphed into a key phrase of mine to generate a hit.  This means I can figure out the keywords people are using and put those on my pages if it’s a good match.  Key words that aren’t a good match but are still morphed into a hit I can tweak to avoid the hit.
  • No requirement for minimum click rates, Google has been dropping words and phrases if they don’t meet their minimum number of clicks per impression.  My friends and I have probably provided a dozen clicks or so just to keep me from losing the keywords.

Kim du Toit is by far better than anything else, but he is doing this as a favor and I don’t have any control over being able do this on a regular basis.

Here is the break down on people that have clicked on banners, ads, and links from various places so far this month:

KimduToit.com 402
Shotgunnews.com 144
Overture Ads 36 (started on February 14th)
Google Adwords 23 (running all month and probably 12 of those were my own and friends)
JoeHuffman.org (all personal sites): 23
RyJones.org/com Gawth.com EveryoneEveryWhereAlways 17
Xeniahs.org (and other banner ads place by her) 2

So… comparing Overture to Google I get hits at a rate of about 7 a day versus about 0.6/day.  Over ten times as good.  I’m going to tell Google to get lost.  No point paying bigots your money when there are better alternatives available.

Freedom of (some) expression is supported.

Posted on by

I wonder if advertising products used in the exercise of other constitutionally protected rights are in violation of their guidelines.

——

Subject: Re: Your Google AdWords Approval Status 
From: “Joe Huffman” joeh@boomershoot.org
Date: Tue, February 10, 2004 0:45
To:  

I read your “Editorial Guidelines” prior to making making my ad.  I could
not find any restrictions on the product we are delivering, and even after
reading your letter below I am at a loss for your disabling of my
keywords.  We do not sell firearms or ammunition.  We offer training and
opportunity for practice to owners of long range precision rifles.  We
have police snipers, military, and former military personal attending and
teaching at our events.  How do you suggest we reach this audience through
Google AdWords without using some of the keywords you have disabled?

Regards,

Joseph Huffman
Event Director
—-
http://www.boomershoot.org

> Hello Joseph,
>
> Thank you for advertising with Google AdWords. After reviewing your
> account, I have found that one or more of your ads or keywords does not
> meet our guidelines. The results are outlined in the report below.
>
> ———————————————-
> Campaign: ‘PPS Boomershoot,’ Ad Group: ‘PPS Boomershoot’
> ———————————————-
>
> KEYWORD(S): 50 cal sniper rifle, 50 caliber sniper rifle, accurate
> rifle, competition rifle, high power rifle, long range rifle, precision
> rifle, rifle event, rifle range, sniper rifle, tactical rifle
>
> Action taken: Disapproved
> Issue(s): Unacceptable content as keyword
> ~~~~~~~~~
>
> SUGGESTIONS:
> -> Keywords: Google policy does not permit the advertisement
> of “firearms and ammunition”. This content is not permitted as ad text
> or keywords. We have therefore disabled the keyword(s) listed above.
>
>
>
>
> ———————
> Please read below for definitions of the issues I found:
>
> Unacceptable content as keyword: In keeping with Google policy, we do
> not permit advertisers to use certain content as keywords for their
> Google AdWords campaigns. Google believes strongly in freedom of
> expression and therefore offers broad access to content across the web
> without censoring search results. Please note that the decisions we make
> concerning advertising in no way affect the search results we deliver.
>
>
> ———————
>
> If a keyword has been disapproved, your ad(s) will no longer be
> displayed for searches on this keyword.
>
> If an ad has been suspended, please edit it based on our suggestions,
> and then save your changes to automatically resubmit the ad for review.
> We’re confident that these changes will improve your ad performance and
> increase your return on investment.
>
> Our goal is to help you reach your target audience and maximize your
> investment. All ads are reviewed by AdWords Specialists to ensure that
> our advertisers create successful, high-impact advertising in keeping
> with our program’s Editorial Guidelines.
>
> For more information about our ad requirements, please read the AdWords
> Editorial Guidelines at:
> https://adwords.google.com/select/guidelines.html
>
> Please feel free to email us at adwords-support@google.com if you have
> any further questions or concerns. We look forward to providing you with
> the most effective advertising available.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> The Google AdWords Team

The great bullet debate*

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Stopping power — in the movies and on TV you see humans being shot by handguns and blasted across rooms and through windows.   The bad guys almost always die immediately, and the good guys almost always live long enough to give some final words to a friend or loved one.  It doesn’t happen that way.  If the bullet has enough momentum to slam the person being shot up against the wall or flat on their back then the person shooting the gun would experience the same momentum in the reverse direction.  Handguns do recoil — but it’s manageable.   If the person shooting the gun doesn’t get slammed up against the wall the person getting shot won’t either.

“Stopping Power” is not easily measured and has been highly debated for many years. I have done a bunch of literature research and have answered the question sufficiently for myself.  This page is to help you decide for yourself.

Basically there are two sides to the debate (Greg Hamilton of Insights has a third, which I suspect has a lot of merit).  If you are interested in the great pistol bullet debate take a look at Dale Towert’s Stopping Power Page [the original link is dead but this can be substituted—Joe July 2, 2013] as a starting point. Then get a copy of Duncan MacPherson’s book Bullet Penetration for the other side of the debate.  See also:http://www.firearmstactical.com/wound.htm and http://zeno.chs.du.edu/station/wrong.htm [I have no substitute for this dead link—Joe].

If you are not interested in an overview of the debate, just skip to my conclusions.

Some people select their cartridge on the basis of momentum. In IPSC events momentum is rewarded via what is called Power Factor.   It’s not really power in the physics sense, but that is what they call it.   Power Factor is mass in grains times velocity in feet per second divided by 1000.   IPSC has three classifications for the guns used in matches, Minor is >= 125 PF, Major is >= 175 PF, and “get out of here” is < 125 PF.  Most .45 loads will make Major.  9 x 19,  .38 Special, and many .40 S&W loads only make minor.  This tends to reward heavy but slower moving bullets more than light weight, fast moving bullets.

Some people select their cartridge on the basis of energy.  I’ve seen some States tell hunters their cartridge selected must have a minimum amount of energy in order to take a particular type of game.   This tends to reward the light weight fast moving bullets.

One side says fast (light weight) bullets, if they penetrate “deep enough”, are best. This side thinks that if you get a bullet to hit at > ~1300 fps the temporary cavity causes it’s own damage in the form of blood pressure spikes, and temporary nervous system disruptions in various forms to cause things to happen which will be out of proportion to that which can be explained by blood loss and nerve damage.  The measure of this effect is closely approximated with bullet energy.

The other side says heavy bullets, if they don’t over penetrate, are best. It’s all blood loss and nerve damage (brain and spinal column being target rich environments for nerves). The ‘special’ effects of high speed bullets don’t show up until you get to rifle velocities (~2000 fps).  Hence the heavy bullet people want the largest volume of tissue traversed by the bullet. This is nearly always accomplished by the heaviest bullet your handgun can shoot with maximum weight retention after expanding to approximate double it’s original diameter.   This effect is closely related to bullet momentum (actually it’s roughly proportional to the bullet weight times the velocity to the 0.6 power).

Greg Hamilton’s hypothesis is that tissue is destroyed is the measure of stopping power.  But there is more to tissue being destroyed than just crushing (the “permanent cavity” in the vocabulary of the debaters) as the bullet travels through the tissue. He claims that when the tissue has to move out of the way at a speed faster than the speed of sound in that tissue the cellular membranes will be destroyed by the shock wave. If you remember the speed of sound in water is about 5000 fps and since it’s probably about the same in animal flesh you might wonder how any conventional bullets can manage this. The answer is the flesh must move at least partially perpendicular to the path of the bullet. This can greatly speed up the velocity. To illustrate: A water skier can easily average twice the speed of the boat by skiing from back and forth from side to side, covering twice the total distance the boat does in the same time. A FMJ bullet has a front end that basically doesn’t speed up the flesh as much as a flat nosed or an expanded HP bullet does. The FMJ pushes the flesh aside, the flesh stretches and finally ruptures enough to allow the passage of the bullet. Nearly all at a speed less than that of sound in the tissue.  The flesh then contracts back to nearly it’s original position. A jagged, flattened bullet causes lots of high speed movement of the flesh, destroying nearly everything in it’s path.  Hence Greg hypothesis is that neither energy or momentum is the critical item.  Almost any bullet that expands well and penetrates into the vital organs will work well.

Conclusions

I go with what everyone agrees on, if you are concerned about “stopping power” your efforts should be spent on the range practicing rather than looking for a “magic bullet”. I have heard this expressed many ways, in IPSC they say, “You can’t miss fast enough to win”. Others have said, “A hit from a .22 is more effective than a miss from a .44.” Greg Hamilton (somewhat tangential) says “Do you know how to double the effectiveness of any bullet? Put another round through your target.”  A more to the point quote from Hamilton is:

The entire discussion of “stopping power” is both stupid and irrelevant.   Statistics cannot be applied to individuals. People that need to be shot need to be shot soon and often. They need to be shot until they run out of fluid, brains, or balls.

If during the time you were reading the latest “stopping power” article you were instead practicing to save your life you would be far, far ahead.

Greg Hamilton
May 08, 1998

For self-defense your first criteria in a handgun cartridge should be reliability in your firearm. Next, it should be the largest caliber you can shoot quickly and comfortably.  Next it should be accurate enough to get the job done (two inch groups versus four or six inches groups at 25 yards probably doesn’t matter). Next it should be of expanding technology, rather than FMJ — reliability may be an issue in this trade off. If you really feel the need you can test the expanding characteristics of your bullet very easily. A couple of milk jugs filled with water will closely duplicate the ability of a bullet to expand in flesh — BUT NOT IT’S ABILITY TO PENETRATE. Put a layer or two of clothing (or other material you think you might be shooting through) in front of the first jug. Some HP’s will plug up and act as a FMJ after acting as a cookie cutter going through some materials.  Some types of obstructions will damage and slow bullet down enough to cause it to fail to expand. Car doors and window glass are good examples of this.

*This originally appear on a web page of mine. I am moving it here for better visibility and archival.—Joe July 2, 2013