I'm approaching the topic of stopping power from a more common sense standpoint. First off, any projectile out of a firearm will kill if it hits something major like a COM organ (heart, lungs, liver etc), brain or central nervous system. The human body isn't exactly armor plated (we're wimpy compared to most animals of the same size) and any firearm can and have killed.
A standard FMJ projectile will act a lot like a BBQ skewer. It will drill a nice clean hole from entry to exit. FMJ 22LR, 9mm and most other rounds save .45 ACP (big and slow) will "skewer". And unless the skewering happens to be along the path of a vital organ or shatter an important bone (spine/hip), some people may not even notice they're shot. They may bleed out eventually but the wound would not be debilitating.
Now, take most of the major calibers designed to penetrate, expand and tumble within the body and the story changes. Those types of rounds cause trauma. Not so much like a BBQ skewer anymore but like a screwdriver driven into the body, and twisted and jerked around on the way in. I'll submit at this point that larger, faster moving and better designed (for expansion) rounds tend to achieve this effect better. Without naming calibers.
The trauma that a gaping, big and uneven wound causes would be what stops an assailant. Short of a hit to the vitals, there's no guarantee they'll stop, but trauma may cause the body to shut down or go into a state of shock whether or not a vital organ is hit. That would count as stopping power.
So a FMJ 10mm that "skewers" a nice clean hole thru an assailant will probably do close to nothing if it didn't hit a vital organ (at least nothing more than making a 10mm diameter hole). But a well designed high velocity expanding round of almost any defensive caliber (the slow but heavy .45 ACP being the only exception because it naturally pitches and yaws within human tissue) will cause trauma that will stop and incapacitate most human beings.
Feel free to discuss or add to this.
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A standard FMJ projectile will act a lot like a BBQ skewer. It will drill a nice clean hole from entry to exit. FMJ 22LR, 9mm and most other rounds save .45 ACP (big and slow) will "skewer". And unless the skewering happens to be along the path of a vital organ or shatter an important bone (spine/hip), some people may not even notice they're shot. They may bleed out eventually but the wound would not be debilitating.
Now, take most of the major calibers designed to penetrate, expand and tumble within the body and the story changes. Those types of rounds cause trauma. Not so much like a BBQ skewer anymore but like a screwdriver driven into the body, and twisted and jerked around on the way in. I'll submit at this point that larger, faster moving and better designed (for expansion) rounds tend to achieve this effect better. Without naming calibers.
The trauma that a gaping, big and uneven wound causes would be what stops an assailant. Short of a hit to the vitals, there's no guarantee they'll stop, but trauma may cause the body to shut down or go into a state of shock whether or not a vital organ is hit. That would count as stopping power.
So a FMJ 10mm that "skewers" a nice clean hole thru an assailant will probably do close to nothing if it didn't hit a vital organ (at least nothing more than making a 10mm diameter hole). But a well designed high velocity expanding round of almost any defensive caliber (the slow but heavy .45 ACP being the only exception because it naturally pitches and yaws within human tissue) will cause trauma that will stop and incapacitate most human beings.
Feel free to discuss or add to this.
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