There are no myths in the handgun culture that have as firmly taken root as the notion that a larger bullet will surely finish the fight quicker.
The more awkward fact is in the very training literature of the FBI: in the autopsy room and in the operating room, the doctors cannot with any reasonable degree of confidence distinguish between handgun shootings caused by the common service calibers of about.35 to.45. Such a limitation alone, rather than any slogan of caliber, is the reason why the subsequent reversion of the Bureau to 9mm was not nostalgic. It was systems engineering.
One retired FBI ballistics expert, by the name of “Scott” who worked in Ballistic Research Facility of the Bureau during its years, narrated the shift in the institution where sidearms were used as personal totems.“It certainly doesn’t withstand the rigors of how guns are looked at today. There was a lot of, ‘Hey, this works well for us.’,” Scott said. Modern handgun selection, therefore, was fleet management, recoil, durability, and reliability considered as dependent variables in a sample of thousands of shooters with dissimilar hands, skill levels, and assignment guns–not what a small group who went to the trouble of learning to shoot hard-recoiling guns preferred. What constitutes good ammunition when it is framed in that manner is also transformed, rather than a load that appears impressive on the box, but instead one that functions predictably and is repeatable in testing and in actual obstacles.
The contemporary fascination of the Bureau with barriers was the result of failure which could no longer be attributed to caliber. During the 1986 Miami gunfight, the FBI agents were firing a 115-grain 9mm hollow point which failed to do two tasks simultaneously: to penetrate what it had to, and to do so to a vital depth.“It didn’t have the ability to penetrate intervening barriers and then to enter the human target and penetrate deep enough to disrupt a vital organ,” as explained by Scott. Two special agents were buried as a result of it. It was a procedural and not a sentimental lesson to define the performance requirement and then prove it by ammunition on a regular basis.
It was there that the gelatin-and-barrier protocol of the Bureau was more or less of an industrial standard. It tests bullets that have penetrated heavy clothing, steel, wall board, plywood and angled auto glass and records the result in calibrated gelatin. The most quoted need of 12 to 18 inches of penetration comes about due to the fact that less penetration will cause otherwise good hits to turn out to be failures whereas excessive penetration will cause its own hazards. Expansion is a matter of desire but subject to condition: hollow points may become congested, wasteful, or destructive when intermediate mediums close access points, and testing is intended to reveal that disjuncture before it gets to the street.
The subsequent actions of the Bureau indicate that a paper patch can fail through the scaling process. The 10mm Auto provided penetration margin, but on fleet service it gave rise to new problems–recoil and reliability in a large population. “There were huge issues for us with 10 millimeters,” thought Scott. He claimed with the Smith and Wesson 1076, on the other side, an even divide: about half of them worked, and the other half returned to the custom shop to be rereadjusted. The .40 S&W which was actually a scaled-down version of the 10mm concept, became a law-enforcement trade-off, but where it was reduced to smaller sizes it experienced the common failing. Among the reasons, Scott wrote, is: Everybody initially answers, Hey, what’s wrong with the ammo? And then the culprits on the system level rise up until predictability is gone.
Towards the end of the 2000s, the practical gap was reduced by better projectile engineering. Modern 9mm loads were found to do virtually as well as.40 S&W through the same barriers under FBI-style testing. Scott followed a major benefit to an unvarnished reality of the manufacturing as told by Hornady’s Dave Emery: “Because you allow us velocity.” A larger velocity window of 9mm allowed it to be easier to create bullets that were consistent across duty pistols. The explanation of mind by Emery also was very simple: the two are not one nickel different. According to controlled FBI shooting, Scott stated that 6 of ten shooters performed better and more accurately in 9mm -ranging between novices and elite operators- and placed hit probability, fleet reliability, and terminal performance as equally important.
In the Bureau math of caliber talk, where the engineering commences, is a steady drilling through the barriers, a repeatability of the bullet, and agents which are capable of placing the rounds where they belong.
