Is a .380 an effective caliber for self defense?

[SGB]

a primary carry should always have the number 4 in the caliber.

With the current quality 9mm JHP self defense loads available today that just isn't true.

 

[SGB]

Ummmmm, sorry, but that's not very good advice i.m.h.o.
Even .380 FMJ's are 'very likely' to overpenetrate and then hit someone 'beyond' your intended target.
Get ready for a real lawsuit and probable jail time if that ever happens.

I believe that the 2 following video clips will help to prove my position on this matter...

Here is the .380 FMJ, Notice the overpenetration;

Please give us the stats for all the people injured by over penetration of bullets fired in self defense? And compare those states to the bullets fired in self defense that "MISSED" their intended target. I'd also like to know which is more frequent, missing the target or over penetration of bullets striking their intended target.

Please allow me in advance to thank you for the amount of work you're going to due trying to locate this information.

 

[Bikenut]

Uuuuuuuuhh... No, it's not the question the OP wanted an answer for. His question was on the effectiveness of the .380 round as a defensive round. The OP wasn't asking about the maximum or minimum larger caliber round or guns and our thoughts on it.

But ahhhh , tell us how you really feel on the subject. By all means...

Just pointing that out.... Sorry!

If the OP couldn't hit anything with a caliber larger than a .380 ... but is accurate with the .380 then it becomes obvious that due to hits instead of misses the .380 is more effective.

So per the OP's question... is the .380 effective? Depends on if the person using it can hit anything with it.

After all... a .45 that a person can't control and misses with is.............. NOT EFFECTIVE!

And even a .50 cal from a Barret rifle that misses is................. NOT EFFECTIVE!

Only hits count. And hits from any caliber are more effective than misses from any caliber.

Unfortunately often folks miss the simple fact that the bullet must first hit the target in order to be ......... effective. And that makes the person's ability to be accurate more important than the size of the bullet. First comes accuracy... then comes effectiveness.

 

[The_Outlaw]

Please give us the stats for all the people injured by over penetration of bullets fired in self defense? And compare those states to the bullets fired in self defense that "MISSED" their intended target. I'd also like to know which is more frequent, missing the target or over penetration of bullets striking their intended target.

Please allow me in advance to thank you for the amount of work you're going to due trying to locate this information.

Ummmm....No thanks, I'm going swimming in about 5 minutes.
But have a blessed day and enjoy the rest of your day my friend. =-)

 

[CharlesMorrison]

This is from another post and author and I am very sorry that I don't remember who, what, where and such..


Below is a chart from one department study (Miami) I found that might help you see what I’m talking about. As you can see, they have a 65% miss rate with revolvers and 75% miss rate with semi-automatics. Did you get that? 75% of the rounds fired are misses. And people are concerned about a problem with over- penetration?

(Miami) Metro-Dade Police Department
Statistical Abstract of Shooting Incidents, 1988-1994
SHOTS THAT HIT INTENDED TARGET, BY TYPE OF FIREARM
HANDGUN TYPE REVOLVER SEMI-AUTOMATIC TOTAL HIT PROBABILITY
HIT SUSPECT 19 (35%) 17 (25%) 36 (30%)
MISSED SUSPECT 35 (65%) 51 (75%) 86 (70%)
TOTAL 54 (100%) 68 (100%) 122 (100%)

Recently published Metro-Dade Police 1990-2001 shooting data shed more light on issues seen elsewhere. During that 12-year period, Metro-Dade Police fired about 1,300 bullets at suspects, and missed more than 1,100 times. This suggests that Miami police fared no better than a 15.4% hit ratio, even though many of these incidents involved suspects who were later determined to be unarmed.
In yet another department study (NYPD), only 9% of the bullets hit their intended targets; 91% of the rounds fired MISSED.

NYPD GUNFIGHT STATISTICS IN 2000
HIT PROBABILITY 9%
SHOTS FIRED PER GUNFIGHT 16.8
SHOTS FIRED PER OFFICER 6.9
We do not have an over-penetration issue; we have an issue around NOT hitting the bad guys.

 

[Bikenut]

This is from another post and author and I am very sorry that I don't remember who, what, where and such..


Below is a chart from one department study (Miami) I found that might help you see what I’m talking about. As you can see, they have a 65% miss rate with revolvers and 75% miss rate with semi-automatics. Did you get that? 75% of the rounds fired are misses. And people are concerned about a problem with over- penetration?

(Miami) Metro-Dade Police Department
Statistical Abstract of Shooting Incidents, 1988-1994
SHOTS THAT HIT INTENDED TARGET, BY TYPE OF FIREARM
HANDGUN TYPE REVOLVER SEMI-AUTOMATIC TOTAL HIT PROBABILITY
HIT SUSPECT 19 (35%) 17 (25%) 36 (30%)
MISSED SUSPECT 35 (65%) 51 (75%) 86 (70%)
TOTAL 54 (100%) 68 (100%) 122 (100%)

Recently published Metro-Dade Police 1990-2001 shooting data shed more light on issues seen elsewhere. During that 12-year period, Metro-Dade Police fired about 1,300 bullets at suspects, and missed more than 1,100 times. This suggests that Miami police fared no better than a 15.4% hit ratio, even though many of these incidents involved suspects who were later determined to be unarmed.
In yet another department study (NYPD), only 9% of the bullets hit their intended targets; 91% of the rounds fired MISSED.

NYPD GUNFIGHT STATISTICS IN 2000
HIT PROBABILITY 9%
SHOTS FIRED PER GUNFIGHT 16.8
SHOTS FIRED PER OFFICER 6.9
We do not have an over-penetration issue; we have an issue around NOT hitting the bad guys.

Like I said earlier....

-snip-
Unfortunately often folks miss the simple fact that the bullet must first hit the target in order to be ......... effective. And that makes the person's ability to be accurate more important than the size of the bullet. First comes accuracy... then comes effectiveness.

 

[Hawkeye638]

Let’s go to the expert and see what he says. In The Gun Digest of Combat Handgunnery, 6th Edition, Massad Ayoob has this to say about the .380 round.

Some experts will say it’s barely adequate, and the others will say it’s barely inadequate. The ball round penetrates too deeply and can ricochet, creating narrow, puckered wounds in the meantime. The hollow-points, when they open, may not go deep enough.

In some of our advanced classes, we have the student kill a large animal with their carry gun and load, then dissect the wound to see what it did. Seven times now I’ve seen .380 JHPs either stop in the frontal wall of the skull or ricochet around the skull to the ear. Not impressive. These days, for students with the smaller gun, we use very small swine to prevent torturing the animal. All animals used on the given day were destined to be slaughtered for meat on the given day anyway, but a clean and painless death is ethically required here. The .380 doesn’t seem to deliver that reliably.

Mas said it, that settles it.

As for the argument of the .380 supporters who challenge those who think a .380 is inadequate to go ahead and take a bullet as proof, well that argument is just stupid. I would not want to get shot with a BB but that does not mean I think it is good enough for self defense.

 

[Captain K-man]

My EDC is a Walther PPK/S with .380 Hornady Critical Defense and I bet my life to it. It will do what I need it to do. My back up gun is a Walther TPH with .22 CCI Segmented and that too will do what I need it to do. I'm a big guy & have many guns in all the popular SD calibers and can handle them all quite well but, I see no need to use them for EDC.

 

[SGB]

380 Auto +P Pistol & Handgun Ammunition

380 Auto +P Ammo - 95 gr. F.M.J. F.N. (1150 fps M.E. 279 ft. lbs.) - 20 Round Box
The 380 auto inhabits a valuable and useful place in our society, mostly because of the easily concealable, tiny pistols chambered for it. HOWEVER, because of the very limited size of the cartridge, it is plagued with limited power and therefore most of the existing ammo in 380 auto suffers from not being reliable as a man-stopper. We've studied and played with nearly all of the existing available 380 ammo and find it wanting as a reliable means of self defense, especially against a large, insane, drugged up/pain free, determined attacker.

Here's the problem. The current 380 auto frangible ammo delivers a large amount of surface trauma, but lacks serious penetration. For example, if you shot me or another sane man in the face with modern frangible 380 ammo, it would blow off a big portion of my cheek and send a few teeth down my throat, I would undoubtedly fall to the ground in shock and pain, but I would be very much alive and functional if I could get past the shock and pain as that frangible bullet would have stopped some where inside my face, never making it to my brain. However, if you shot a drugged up maniac in the face with that same frangible 380 ammo and blew half his cheek off, he would keep right on coming because he is insane and is not thinking like you or I. Plus, he is likely pain free and fear free and wont know that half his cheek is missing and if he did know, he would not care. So whatever 380 ammo you shoot him in the face with, had better go through his face and blow his brain stem out the back of his head, because only a CNS (central nervous system) hit with a 380 is going to stop him. Likewise, a torso hit to the sternum needs to penetrate deep enough to blow all the way through his spine in order to shut him down spontaneously. If you fail to shut him down instantly, you and your loved ones are going to have to find a way to survive while you wait for him to bleed out and pass out. The best chance of survival for you and your family is to shut down the attacker instantly. So, we've designed a few 380 auto +P loads to keep you and your loved ones alive under the worst of scenarios.
This 380 Auto+P ammo will better all American made 380 Auto ammo by 150 fps to 200 fps in all bullet weights we make. This is a serious improvement in this typically anemic cartridge. This 380 auto+P ammo is more powerful than the typical 38SPL ammo made by most American ammo makers and you'll get 7 shots of it in a small/flat/light weight 380 versus 5 shots out of a bulkier 38 SPL J frame revolver. Additionally, with the 380 you'll get much faster reloads and the little magazines are flatter than a speed-loader used for a J frame.
Item 27B/20 is the very same load as 27A but, it uses a 95 gr. FMJ-FN (Full metal jacket-flat nose) bullet. We designed it for folks who simply don't like hard cast bullets. Although it is 5 grains lighter, it is moving a tad bit slower than the 100gr. hard cast bullet. This is because the hard cast bullet produces less friction in the barrel than a jacketed bullet and therefore produces less pressure, so we can run it a little faster even though it is heavier. Some pistols may not give good accuracy with the cast bullet, and some folks don't like cast bullets, so we made the same load with a jacketed bullet for those folks. This FMJ-FN load is designed to do the very same thing as the hard cast load above. Check out my "real world" velocities from my "real world" pistols below. You can expect nearly

 

[the dark]

I rarely carry only my .380 - it is normally a BUG. But I am certain hat, were I to need it, at the distances I would need it, I can rapidly, with one hand, put 6 shots into center mass and face...I suspect this will, at worst, lead to a psychological kill. We need to remember that we are not firing one round into ballistic gel...I am going to put a minimum of 3 in the chest for starters.

Just sayin'.

 

[Purple]

I rarely carry only my .380 - it is normally a BUG. But I am certain hat, were I to need it, at the distances I would need it, I can rapidly, with one hand, put 6 shots into center mass and face...I suspect this will, at worst, lead to a psychological kill. We need to remember that we are not firing one round into ballistic gel...I am going to put a minimum of 3 in the chest for starters.

Just sayin'.

Exactly! A one shot, one stop, one kill mentality when using your handgun defensibly is one that will get you hurt or killed. I was taught in the police academy and still train today with a 3 round minimum to center mass. 3 rounds, assess, and more as needed to end the threat.

 

[Hawkeye638]

I rarely carry only my .380 - it is normally a BUG. But I am certain hat, were I to need it, at the distances I would need it, I can rapidly, with one hand, put 6 shots into center mass and face...I suspect this will, at worst, lead to a psychological kill. We need to remember that we are not firing one round into ballistic gel...I am going to put a minimum of 3 in the chest for starters.

Just sayin'.

It must be nice to know you are that good. What mall do you work in?

 

[lc9'er]

I ask any of you arm chair pistoleros, have you ever been shot? If so, with what caliber? And if so, did you retreat?

I have been shot. .25 caliber from 6 feet or so, and I did not want the 14 year old to hit me with another. I retreated rather quickly.

Shoot to stop the threat. Let an attorney or prosecutor know you were trying to KILL and they will put a legal hurting on you.

sent from my sending device

 

[blinddog]

I agree Hornady Critical Defense has good penetration, I saw a test on it but I don't remember the stats. But, it performed very well at least 12" in ballistic jell if I remember. (Which my memory is iffy at best!)

 

[SGB]

I ask any of you arm chair pistoleros, have you ever been shot? If so, with what caliber? And if so, did you retreat?

Yes, .38 spl, no ............ So a person has to have been shot to not be considered an arm chair pistolero?

I have been shot. .25 caliber from 6 feet or so, and I did not want the 14 year old to hit me with another. I retreated rather quickly.

So your sampling of one is indicative of all? Were you armed?

Shoot to stop the threat. Let an attorney or prosecutor know you were trying to KILL and they will put a legal hurting on you.

sent from my sending device

Do you speak from personal experience or should we consider this an armchair experts advice?

sent from my armchair

 

[lc9'er]

good return volley, SGB. and at the time, I was unarmed (in MO, before carry was legal and working for an employer who did not allow carry).

I have a pretty high pain threshold, so the bee sting feel of being shot was not the factor that made me retreat, it was thoughts of survival. maybe someone with less logical thinking would "ask" for a second or third helping of gunfire.

I had several conversations with the investigating detectives, my attorney, and the prosecutor about what-ifs. Each had their own opinion, so any scenario I brought into the conversation would have most likely resulted in litigation for me.

sent from my comfy couch while sipping morning coffee.

 

[SGB]

good return volley, SGB. and at the time, I was unarmed (in MO, before carry was legal and working for an employer who did not allow carry).

I have a pretty high pain threshold, so the bee sting feel of being shot was not the factor that made me retreat, it was thoughts of survival. maybe someone with less logical thinking would "ask" for a second or third helping of gunfire.

I had several conversations with the investigating detectives, my attorney, and the prosecutor about what-ifs. Each had their own opinion, so any scenario I brought into the conversation would have most likely resulted in litigation for me.

sent from my comfy couch while sipping morning coffee.

Shootings and gunfights are dynamic events with no two being alike. While for many here such discussions are theoretical for others not so much, the discussion however is what forums like this are for. In your incident you were unarmed and retreat was the best option, in mine I was armed and retreat would have offered me no relief from the threat. The only goal in such incidents that ultimately matters is survival. The goal of discussion in forums like this is to share and learn.

 

[Firefighterchen]

This topic has come up here, 2-3 times, this past 6 months? It always ends up the same.

Here's my opinion:

The .380 round was used for decades by police and military. Some still use it outside the US. Are there better options out there? Yes, that's life, technology advances. Does that make the .380 inadequate all the sudden? Even after decades of successful use? No.

My 1995 Civic is a reliable car. Just because I bought the nicer, newer, more reliable BMW X5, doesn't make my civic less reliable. I just have better options available to me now. I still use the civic though, because I have no doubts it will do its job (and it gets WAY BETTER GAS MILEAGE).

I also feel the environment is a big factor. I tend to carry my p238 as my primary when its extremely hot. My .380 only has to pass through a tshirt, if that. When it gets cold, and more layers are being worn, I can comfortably carry a larger caliber that will allow me to get through those barriers to stop the threat.

 

[tattedupboy]

I was shot three years ago with a .380 and my right arm was paralyzed for a year as a result. So take from someone who knows, .380 is indeed a good self defense caliber. Better to carry a small caliber that you can shoot well than a huge caliber that you can barely control.

 

[SGB]

I was shot three years ago with a .380 and my right arm was paralyzed for a year as a result. So take from someone who knows, .380 is indeed a good self defense caliber. Better to carry a small caliber that you can shoot well than a huge caliber that you can barely control.

How does your singular incident support your claim? Is it your claim that all those shot with a .380 will suffer initial paralysis of their right arm? What if the antaganist is left handed? Is the .380 then still a good choice?