The Best Handgun Caliber - A Real World Study

[Music] it's an important topic for anyone interested in armed self-defense and it's especially important for Preppers the debate about which handgun calibers best has raged for decades it's hard to know what's real and what's myth to get anywhere close to the truth you would need to study hundreds of actual real-world shootings Gregg Ella Fritz did just that he talked to the participants of gun fights read police reports attended autopsies and scoured newspapers magazines and the internet for reliable accounts all his data came from real-world altercations with criminals or from military actions over the course of ten years he kept track of the stopping power results for more than 1,700 shooting incidents and put together a solid fact-based report on his findings it provides real answers to a lot of big questions about stopping power and gun fights here are all the incidents he studied broken down by the number of incidents for each caliber for some calibers like the 44 Magnum and the 32 APC there just weren't that many incidents to record throughout this video those bars are colored grey as a reminder that their stats may not be accurate the data on 22 combines 22 short 22 long and 22 long rifle first let's look at fatalities by pistol caliber here elephants only counted situations where the target was hit in the head or torso a quick note about reading these numbers statistically a difference of five percentage points or less is nothing to get excited about details too fine to capture in the study could easily swing things a few points in either direction for example about half of the nine-millimeter incidents used ball ammo had they'd all been hollow points instead elephants thinks that the nine-millimeter numbers would have likely been a few percentage points higher you'll notice that when it comes to generating fatalities bullet size doesn't make any difference there's more to stopping power than just killing if your shot can immediately stop your attackers aggressive action that can be just as good elephants called this incapacitation he defined it like this if the attacker was striking or shooting the victim the round needed to immediately stop the attack without another blow being thrown or shot being fired if the person shot was in the act of running he must have fallen to the ground within five feet here are the numbers for one shot incapacitation x' when the shots hit the head or torso it does not look like bullet size makes any difference on this measure either Ella Fritz believes that the lower scores for the semi-autos on this chart are a bit misleading he thinks that rounds fired from those guns may have actually been able to stop with one hit but because the weapons fire so quickly the target didn't have time to stop before the second round was fired that brings up a good question though why are 56% of attacker stopped with only one shot when 28% are killed by one or more shots don't you need to damage vital organs to stop someone this chart shows one shot incapacitation x' with a hit anywhere on the body Ella Fritz calls these non vital hits psychological stops on average a full 36 percent of assailants give up the fight when a single pistol bullet it's any part of their body so is any handgun caliber better than the others to figure this out we need to look at one more stat the caliber failure rate that is the percent of incidents when a handgun caliber failed to stop an attacker regardless of the number of hits on this chart lower numbers are better finally a pattern emerges the smaller Maus calibers fail almost twice as much as the standard defensive calibers what's really interesting though is that all the standard defensive caliber rounds fail at nearly the exact same rate statistically speaking there's no difference between them this tells you that not one of them is any better at stopping determined crazy or hopped up attackers no matter what caliber is used fourteen percent of attackers fight through the pain and damage and keep on coming now let's step back and look at handguns as a group about a quarter of the time hits from pistol rounds results in a fatality about half the time handguns stop attackers with one shot to the head or torso about a third of the time they stop attackers with one hit anywhere on the body and one in five times pistols completely fail to stop an attacker regardless of how many hits land let's see how that stacks up against rifles and shotguns even though they're projectiles are rarely bigger than handgun bullets both types of long guns are about forty percent more effective at generating fatalities it's interesting to note that even these powerful weapons only cause a fatality about two out of three times the rifle stats blend together the data collected for all calibers of centerfire rifle cartridges the rifle succeeds because it's cartridges generate much higher muzzle energies when it comes to one-shot stops to the head or torso the shotgun is the king each individual pellet fired from a double-aught buck round has no more muzzle energy than a standard pistol round the big difference is that there are nine of them hitting at once with hits anywhere on the body rifles and shotguns are 20% better than pistols this chart shows the average number of hits needed to achieve incapacitation for each gun type the averages for all weapons are under two hits now that's a lot of information so what does it all mean for one thing it means we can start to address some of those mythic gun facts with real-world data it's often been said that a 22 rifle makes for a perfect bug out survival gun here is the 22 caliber lethality compared to centerfire rifles and shotguns if you've already made the decision to take on the higher weight and non concealability associated with the long gun why on earth would you choose one that is only half as effective at killing the real problem with the 22 comes up when we look at the failure to incapacitate numbers remember on this chart lower numbers are better not only is the 22 the worst possible choice it is the worst possible choice by far 34 percent means that 22 rounds fail to stop one in three attackers those are terrible odds when your life is on the line next up the common belief that the bigger the bullet the more stopping power it has here the data shows that the big old 45 is nothing but average when it comes to lethality and failure to incapacitate rates it even lags a bit behind the pistol average for one shot stops with hits to the head or torso on the flip side it's often said that a 380 is too small to be an effective defensive round the data shows that the lowly 380 actually beats the handgun averages for lethality and one shot stops to the head or torso the difference in its failure rate is statistically insignificant so what caliber gun should you carry first stay away from the mouse calibers their failure rate is just too high after that there's no significant difference when it comes to the standard defensive rounds they all have nearly identical incapacitation rates once you get beyond the first shot so feel confident and carrying the one you like the most if you had to pick a best one the 357 Magnum offers an almost unnoticeable advantage and in one shot stops to the head and torso but compared to long guns that just means they're the biggest Chihuahua at the dog park there may be certain handguns that can perform significantly better though a lot of folks dismiss handguns that fire 410 shells as a gimmick but these pistols do something categorically different from all of their handguns they fire multiple projectiles with each trigger pool just like a shotgun Ella Fritz did not gather data on 410 handgun shootings but we can compare his data on shotguns with pistols and form some reasonable conclusions a typical 12-gauge double-aught buck shell fires nine pellets for ten triple-a buck shells fire five pellets let's say the 410 shells are half as effective as their big brothers even then they would provide significant advantages in lethality one shot stops to the head or torso in one shot stops to the whole body without real-world data this is just conjecture but if those rounds are indeed half as effective as the 12-gauge a 410 handgun would clearly be the best handgun caliber to choose by wide margin finally here's the most interesting data point of all from the Ella Fritz study it's the incapacitation success rate for all rifles shotguns and pistols what's shocking is that there is only a five-point spread between defensive handgun calibers and rifles and only a two-point spread between handguns and shotguns that's hardly any difference at all all three weapon types fail and succeed at their most important job at nearly the same rate some just do it in one of two shots instead of three for prepper is thinking about bugging out on foot this poses an important question given that long guns weigh considerably more and have zero concealed ability is it better to leave the rifles and shotguns behind and just bug out with a lighter weight pannier is there any realistic defensive concern that only rifles can handle in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina rogue police officers in body armor murdered innocent civilians it's not just rogue officers that may be a threat level 3 a body armor is a piece of equipment that every smart prepper should have the reason they stopped all the handgun rounds covered in the eloquent report and shotgun rounds to none of those cartridges have the muzzle energy needed to penetrate it center fire rifle rounds easily penetrate level 3 a body armor because of the muzzle energy their cartridges generate far exceeds 1000 foot-pounds so if you want to be prepared for this credible threat that cripples hand gun and shotgun effectiveness your only choice is to carry a rifle unless of course you could find a handgun that chambered cartridges is powerful as centerfire rifle rounds [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Rational Preps

Views: 3,409,196

Rating: 4.7578087 out of 5

Keywords: Best Handgun, Caliber, Handgun Caliber, casull, 454, judge, 410, Tarus Judge, 357 Magnum, 9mm, 380, .45, 45 ACP, 22, Prepper, Bug Out Gun, pistol, Pistol effectiveness, stopping power, best stopping power

Id: nycYxb-zNwc

Length: 11min 34sec (694 seconds)

Published: Thu May 24 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/jordanlund]

That's INCREDIBLY informative, and I'd add that not every bullet of the same caliber is equal.

I was looking at a concealed carry .380 and once I decided on the gun, the question became "well, what should I load it with?"

I found this:

https://youtu.be/GNtPHYwcDts

Dude did TWENTY-SEVEN videos prior to this one testing model after model of JUST .380... a crazy dedication to the scientific method with stated goals and repeatable outcomes.

[u/1302pewpew]

Ive always said the best stopping power is hitting your target.

[u/ClaytonBiggsbie]

The only thing to take away from this video is that, once again, 10mm is proven to be the lords caliber...

[u/Slukaj]

This kind of stuff is why the debate between 9mm and .45 ACP is dumb; for what amounts to basically the same lethality and effectiveness, you're getting a higher capacity, lower recoil gun out of a Wonder Nine than you are out of a .45 ACP or a .40 S&W.

[u/Claydough89]

I wish that channel made more content.