Does the .380 have enough stuff

The question of the .380 being enough has been cussed and discussed forever. My opinion is that it is enough for almost all situations almost all of us might likely face. A head shot will likely stop a bad guy quickest. Again--just my opinion.

 

i believe the 380 one-stop-shot statistics are just under 70% with good ammo, the same number for the 357 is about 95%. 70% may not seem that bad, but another way of putting it is that your rossi is six times more likely than your kt to get the job done with a single round.

thus i can totally see how people who are forced to handle life-or-death situations on a daily basis feel underpowered with a 380. now, for me on the other hand, i dont expect (knock knock) to ever in my whole life having to fire a gun in self defense, so weight and size makes me go with the mouse gun anyway. and on top of this, most of the times guns are used to prevent crimes they are not even discharged.

the pf9 is a good compromise though if you can fit it. the 9mm round is in the low ninties, considerably more capable than the 380.

 

The .380 is enough in almost all situations where shooting takes place. If a BG is going to keep coming at you after you hit him with a GS 102 grain .380 round, a 9 mm isn't likely to have stopped him either.

The other thing to remember about shot placement is that the most important thing is to hit the BG. If you hit him in any reasonable area, you probably will have accomplished your objective. Depending on distance and how comfortable you are with the gun and your accuracy level, I would almost always suggest aiming for the torso. It's the easiest place to hit, and very few people are going to walk through bullets to finish the job they started. Once you hit him, you'll likely have time to either summon assistance or shoot him again if he hasn't stopped. Of course, most people will either go down when they're hit, or run away so they don't get shot.

 

I don't think that's necessarily what that means. I hate to get technical, but that sounds like the kind of twisted way of looking at a stat that Obama might come up with. Really, what this means is that the Rossi has a 25% better chance of stopping the perp with one shot. Not 6 times more likely.

Let's say that the 9mm stopping percentage was 90% (I don't know what it is, you said low ninties, so just stick with 90 for now). If .357 is 95%, does that mean that the .357 is twice as likely to get the job done as the 9mm? No, it's just 5% more likely to do the job. If what you said was true, no one would carry anything but a .44 mag.

And the other thing to consider is what happens to the 30% (in the case of the .380) of people who aren't "stopped" by the first shot. Are they really going to keep coming after you in the hopes that they don't get stopped by the 2nd shot. Most of the time they're not. People really don't like being shot at. If you're shooting at them with a kel tec, they probably got themselves into a gunfight they didn't see coming (and probably had no intention of getting into), because they probably had no idea you had a gun on you.

 

both of these statements are correct, they dont contradict eachother. as i said, it is another (perhaps obamaish way of putting it. 100-70=30%, 100-95=5%. i.e. 30% of perps doesnt go down after a torso hit with a 380, 5% of the perps doesnt go down after a hit with a 357. 30/5=6 thus, its 6 times more likely. its just another way of putting it.

what it comes down to is not that everyone should be carrying 44 mags but that pistols get the job done almost all the time if you do yours, but there a percentage of freak cases, varying by caliber, when they fail to perform. which is why some people wont take anything less than a 12 ga, i think its one-shot-stop ratio is almost 100%.

i couldnt agree with you more on that one!

 

+1 to hud and joje, we're all on the same page

 

+1 on the cussed and discussed.

as for the rest of it, make your own decisions, do your own research, and carry what you CAN CARRY COMFORTABLY ALL THE TIME.

And as far as what is in my carry mag, no one will ever know.

hopefully

 

"the first rule of a gun fight is to bring a gun" lots of truth to that old saying and no statistics in the world will ever invalidate it

 

Who in the heck said you only get to shoot one shot?

Seven shots times 70% is 490%.

You shoot till the threat stops, or you run out of ammo.

rcmodel

 

If it's good enough for James Bond it's good enough for me.

Jim, who actually carries a .32 now in warm weather. ;D

 

There was a shooting a couple of weeks ago in Pahokee/ Belle Glade, Florida of a football player named Griffith. This was in all the papers down here. The shooter was a kid, the victim was in a vehicle and was shot once in the head at distance and killed by a 380 round. It seemed like an adequate round in that case!

 

Who in the heck said you only get to shoot one shot?

Seven shots times 70% is 490%.

You shoot till the threat stops, or you run out of ammo.

rcmodel
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Reminds me of a trial I heard about the Prosecutor asked "Why did you shoot the perp 15 times?" The answer was "I didn't have 16 rounds!!!"

 

This is very true. Also why its a good idea to carry a 2nd mag.

My P3AT is mainly my bug to my M&P40c but there are times when the keltec is the only one i'm carrying. I feel it will do the job if I ever needed to pull it. I wouldn't carry it at all if I didn't feel that way.

 

joje is right on when he says that the first rule of a gunfight is to bring a gun!

We can all sit here and debate the merits of one caliber over another but that most important part is actually carrying a gun (if you want to). In many cases just drawing the weapon is enough to get you out of the situation.

I will share some food for thought for everyone......I happen to know a police officer who was involved in 2 shootings while on duty over the span of his career. I know little about what happened as he doesn't really discuss it much but I do know that in both cases he was carrying a much larger caliber than we are talking about here. In any case, I asked him what he carries when he is off-duty. He carries a .38 snubbie with +P ammo in the cool/cold weather and a .25 in the summer. I was shocked at him carryig a .25 in the summer so I asked him about it. He said that in his opinion it is far more important to have ANY gun than none at all. He felt that the fact that he could conceal the gun well and carry it all the time even in shorts and a t-shirt was far more important than what caliber it was.

Carry whatever makes you feel good, but the most important part is to carry!

 

Deep in the woods, AFTER you make them dig the hole!

 

According to Detective Andy Sipowicz of NYPD Blue (I wish that show was still on TV), you have to go at least 6 feet so the dogs don't dig them up.....      

 

Oddly enough, most people fall down after being shot for no real apparent reason at all (the exception being a break in the skeletal system that prevents standing... or a shot to the central nervous system that puts a halt to all neuro muscular coordination). Seems that most of us have been "conditioned" to fall down when shot. People duck and seek the ground when in danger.

The physics of it is very well proven- there is not enough energy in play with pistol rounds to make someone fall down when shot. Myth busters did a segment on this- hung a big chink o meat (think it was a pig) in such a way that even a slight force would knock it down, then shot at with with all kinds of guns.

B/c of the equal and opposite reaction law, assuming equal mass then if the pistol had enough force to knock the target down it would have the equal and opposite effect on the shooter.

Point being... some people might fall down when shot but there is no guarantee that they will.