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PghJim

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Discussion starter · #1 · (Edited)
A couple of days ago, I was asking if the 125 SJHP GR 357 magnum bullet was as effective as it is portrayed, and if so, did that not put a hole in the big and heavy only theory.

I had found some data from M&S and was trying to find out it the data are accurate since it showed the 125 magnum to be at the top. I was told to get a cup of coffee and read this link:

http://www.firearmstactical.com/tactical.htm

Well I did read and was taken a back by the lack of professionism that Flacker, MacPherson, etc showed in criticizing M&S individually and some points on their work. I stayed with it, but the ad hominem attacks were almost more that I could bear. I have never read any of M&S's work, but I just ordered M&S's book called Stopping Power. Then searching, I found the Ballistics Testing Group, which seem very professional. I would invite anyone who has read the above link to read:

http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0701/0701268.pdf

It specifically speaks to each point that Flacker, et. al. were throwing against the wall. It is 18 pages and would advise printing it.

You will also want to read incapacitation contributions of pressure wave found here:

http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0701/0701266.pdf

Anyway, there is more research out there that some apprear to be discrediting at all cost. I do not know what is right, but the Ballistics Testing Group is not an uneducated group, and do not seem to have a dog in this fight as Flacker would.
 
Did you read my reply in the last thread. The .357 Sig 125 gr load is supposed to mirror .357 mag. I don't think the .357 sig OIS reports suggest the round is as effective as M&S reported. This suggests to some they cherry picked their data.

Some questions
1-This article is 4 years old. Has anyone whose life may be saved by a better understanding of ballistics agreed with his findings ?
2-It looks like Mrs Courtney was/is affiliated with the Air Force. Do they agree with these findings?
3-look at Mr Courtney's resume. If he's so brilliant and smarter than everyone in the room, what was he doing teaching physics at Lorain Community College? In case you don't know, it's not a place where people who want to be physicists start their career.

Many have said the 180 gr .40 cal is just as good.
 
Yeah, stopping power in a handgun sucks overally, but the .357 mag with 125 SJHP loads has proven excellent among handguns, despite the wisdom from gelatin junkies (looking primarily at expanded diameter and penetration).

Look, it's probable that a 9mm 147 HST will penetrate further and expand wider than a 357 Federal 125 SJSP, but there's no way those stats point to the 9mm being more effective. This is an extreme example of course, but just because factors can't be easily measured (effectiveness of fragmentation, "shock" from handgun rounds), doesn't mean they don't contribute signficantly to incapacitation.
 
Their research also suggests that a .357 has more "stopping power" than a 30-30.:upeyes:

It's also famous for having a .32 acp jhp slightly ahead of .45 acp ball.:upeyes::upeyes:

At some point there has to be a control. Their research suggests to me, that LEO was the primary user of the Remington 125 sjhp, therefore were the better shooters.
 
I've personally used the Fedral 357/125 combo and I can vouch for it's man stopping ability, I have a toal of 7 incidents to my knowledge that I saw where it was down right there and 2 were dead on the spot. Frankly i couldn't care less what any "expert" says based on shooting jello, my 357's are so loaded as I type this.
 
A couple of days ago, I was asking if the 125 SJHP GR 357 magnum bullet was as effective as it is portrayed, and if so, did that not put a hole in the big and heavy only theory.

I had found some data from M&S and was trying to find out it the data are accurate since it showed the 125 magnum to be at the top. I was told to get a cup of coffee and read this link:

http://www.firearmstactical.com/tactical.htm

Well I did read and was taken a back by the lack of professionism that Flacker, MacPherson, etc showed in criticizing M&S individually and some points on their work. I stayed with it, but the ad hominem attacks were almost more that I could bear. I have never read any of M&S's work, but I just ordered M&S's book called Stopping Power. Then searching, I found the Ballistics Testing Group, which seem very professional. I would invite anyone who has read the above link to read:

http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0701/0701268.pdf

It specifically speaks to each point that Flacker, et. al. were throwing against the wall. It is 18 pages and would advise printing it.

You will also want to read incapacitation contributions of pressure wave found here:

http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0701/0701266.pdf

Anyway, there is more research out there that some apprear to be discrediting at all cost. I do not know what is right, but the Ballistics Testing Group is not an uneducated group, and do not seem to have a dog in this fight as Flacker would.
Why don't you write to the Ballistics Testing Group and ask what type of testing they will do for you . . . then ask for references. I asked and was told the reference list was confidential . . .

M&S left out thousands of OIS data and their research methodology is very questionable.

Check out this link, it'll give you some .357mag BPW data in psi . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.357_Magnum

Now do your own research and learn how much psi it takes to deform a jacketed hollow point and post that data on this thread.

This deformation data should answer your questions about the Ballistics Testing Group.

Bob :cowboy:
 
Did you read my reply in the last thread. The .357 Sig 125 gr load is supposed to mirror .357 mag. I don't think the .357 sig OIS reports suggest the round is as effective as M&S reported. This suggests to some they cherry picked their data.

Some questions
1-This article is 4 years old. Has anyone whose life may be saved by a better understanding of ballistics agreed with his findings ?
2-It looks like Mrs Courtney was/is affiliated with the Air Force. Do they agree with these findings?
3-look at Mr Courtney's resume. If he's so brilliant and smarter than everyone in the room, what was he doing teaching physics at Lorain Community College? In case you don't know, it's not a place where people who want to be physicists start their career.

Many have said the 180 gr .40 cal is just as good.
He also tutored remedial arithmetic. :upeyes:

Bob :cowboy:
 
M&S left out thousands of OIS data and their research methodology is very questionable.
Bob :cowboy:
Have you read and do you understand their methodology when it comes to what types of shootings they include/exclude from their stats? They make it very clear in their books.
 
Discussion starter · #10 ·
Have you read and do you understand their methodology when it comes to what types of shootings they include/exclude from their stats? They make it very clear in their books.
I do no think he (they) did, and also missed the point of the posting. Since not one of the points were brought up, I guess it boils down to credentials. I do not have a dog in this fight, but I hope I never have to go that route to prove my side. I do not think the professionalism displayed here is any different than that of Flacker et. al. towards M&S.
 
Their research also suggests that a .357 has more "stopping power" than a 30-30.:upeyes:
The problem with the .30-30 data is there are only 44 shootings. That's not enough to generate a reliable OSS percentage. By comparison the top 357 Mag load had 641.
 
My problem with their work and EM's website is they are so in love with corBon DPX that you might as well not carry a gun if you can't load it with DPX.

Not knocking DPX, not at all, but the way they drool over it one would think they have stock in the company.
 
A couple of days ago, I was asking if the 125 SJHP GR 357 magnum bullet was as effective as it is portrayed, and if so, did that not put a hole in the big and heavy only theory.

I had found some data from M&S and was trying to find out it the data are accurate since it showed the 125 magnum to be at the top. I was told to get a cup of coffee and read this link:

http://www.firearmstactical.com/tactical.htm

Well I did read and was taken a back by the lack of professionism that Flacker, MacPherson, etc showed in criticizing M&S individually and some points on their work. I stayed with it, but the ad hominem attacks were almost more that I could bear. I have never read any of M&S's work, but I just ordered M&S's book called Stopping Power. Then searching, I found the Ballistics Testing Group, which seem very professional.
Well of course you are correct.

and the responses are so unbelievably predictable it's just laughable.

It should be obvious that some of these folks have their minds made up and that's that, despite logic and real experts explaining otherwise.

:supergrin:
 
As for MacPherson, I've not seen any example of "unprofessionalism" on his behalf and I've read his critique of the Marshall/Sanow model.

In his book, "Bullet Penetration", MacPherson states on page 19...

"The problems with deducing a WTI model from combat data are principally statistical problems and are enormously compounded by the large number of uncontrolled (and uncontrollable) variables. The practical complexities associated with the physiological and psychological factors of the individual wounded and the complexities in the details of bullet penetration make valid statistical analysis impossible, but even an idealized situation has severe statistical problems."

and then on page 22, referring to Marshall/Sanow's population sampling size (n)...

"If each of these loads is used in 100 combat encounters, the probability that these combat encounters will produce the correct value of 'WTI Index' for all of these loads is (to avoid jumbling up the effectiveness order) is about 1 in a trillion (a trillion is a million million). This result is 'too good to be true', or more precisely, too unlikely to be undoctored."

I've got a pretty solid technical background (which includes statistics) and what MacPherson says rings true. The numbers do not lie and the statistical analysis that MacPherson suggests works out to the values (specifically the number of permutations) that he (MacPherson) using the accepted statistical processes/operations for such calculations. In the truest sense, yes, it could've come out as Marshall/Sanow have professed, but the odds are a rather damning "1 in a 1,000,000,000,000".

Picking numbers with that sort of luck, they'd have been better off and far better paid applying their collective talents at the selection of PowerBall lottery numbers since they'd win it many, many hundreds of thousands of times over and over with such a success rate.

:supergrin:
 
I have only one question. Who the Hell is Flacker? :dunno:
Martin Fackler is a retired Army surgeon who served in Vietnam and saw many small arms wounds. He has been very critical of Marshal & Sanow's books. He was the head of the (I believe now defunct) International Wound Ballistics Laboratory.

The main standard bearer for his school of thought is now Dr. Gary Roberts, DDS, who posts on several online forums as "DocGKR".
 
Dr Courtney's research credibilty, validity and mental stability has met with several and numerous challenges. Among them...

DrJSW wrote regarding Dr Courtney's deer shooting studies:

"Your deer incapacitation study is, methodologically and physiologically flawed beyond description and in the real world, irrelevant. If you find the mathematics interesting, more power to you; but in terms of applicability to living physiological systems of any species, no conclusions can be drawn from your method and results.
Dr Courtney has cited obscure papers as support of his theories that in reality do not support them.

DrJSW writes:
"I have been far too busy to do a detailed critique of the inferences and conclusions you have published based on the work of Gorannson and Suneson, but I have read your papers as well as having reviewed both Gorannson and Suneson's work. Not only have I reviewed them myself, but I have also reviewed them with other persons with extensive background in physiological research, both in vivo and in vitro.
Neither I nor anyone I have reviewed these papers with is particularly impressed with the applicability of these studies to the physiology of human GSW's. The papers published by Wong's group which you also rely on do NOT support the assertions you have ascribed to them, and upon which you based the hypothesis upon which you based your research questions."
Dr Courtney also claimed the existance of shell-shock during WWI as evidence of his ballistic pressure wave theory, despite the fact that many of the people who suffered from "shell shock" aka "combat fatigue", had not been shot by anything or wounded, but were psychologically traumatized. This included people like medical personal who had no exposure to gunfire or shelling but were emotionally devastated from treating wounded and dead.

Courtney also believed, among other things, that God spoke to him and told him that he would marry a woman with pink tassled sneakers, or something to that effect:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.usenet.kooks/msg/50d38a25eb99e5b3?&q=michael+courtney


[URL]http://groups.google.com/group/alt.usenet.kooks/msg/50d38a25eb99e5b3?&q=michael+courtney
[/URL]

He also believes that he is a Prophet sent by God and he (Michael Courtney) writes: "I am a prophet sent by God to declare the destruction of the United States because of abortion."

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/bf62c9a9039bcc15
Adding to his "credentials" is the fact that he also taught remedial mathematics courses at a community college. Dr Courtney's dubious "theorizing" is hardly worthy of serious consideration and the scientific community has discarded his "work" for the rubbish that it so clearly is.
 
Martin Fackler is a retired Army surgeon who served in Vietnam and saw many small arms wounds. He has been very critical of Marshal & Sanow's books. He was the head of the (I believe now defunct) International Wound Ballistics Laboratory.

The main standard bearer for his school of thought is now Dr. Gary Roberts, DDS, who posts on several online forums as "DocGKR".
Oh! Dr Fackler, the US Army Trauma Surgeon. I thought that there was another new name ("Flacker") in the field.
 
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