Stopping Power and Cartridge Selection Philosophy

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sat, 21 Jan 2006 14:45:16 GMT  <== Guns ==> 

Egregious Charles at GeekWithA.45 - fast hollow points or big and slow? There are strong proponents of each. Charles concludes that incapacitation with a handgun is never assured. What's more important is to have one, in a size and caliber that you can carry and practice with regularly. Recoil? Not an issue in a real fight, where follow-up shots are at a different target location. [geekwitha.45]

The primary criteria for cartridge selection are, therefore:
1) Is the cartridge small enough to allow a gun that you'll have at hand when you need it?
2) Is it comfortable and cheap enough that you'll practice with it?

Stopping power is secondary; chose the most powerful that fits the above criteria. In my case I was willing to adjust my clothing and deal with a big gun, I like recoil, and I had (at the time) plenty of money for ammo, so I chose 10mm Auto; but it's not a good choice for most.

Now here's where I'm going to get controversial. The most overemphasized and least important criterion, in my opinion, is the ability for rapid follow-up shots. It's a side effect of practicing with stationary paper. I've rarely heard a shooting story where the shooters stand still and trade shots. As soon as you are not merely making your body a machine rest to return the gun to the same position and alignment as before, but actually changing aim for a target that moved or a new target, or you are moving, recoil becomes unimportant. Here's something to try; hang two targets right next to each other, and alternate shots between them. Try it with high and low recoil guns, or the same gun with high and low recoil cartridges if you can. In my experience, suddenly recoil becomes nearly irrelevant. Features like the gun's sight visibility and the subjective feeling of pointability are the really important ones there.

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