How many shots with a Luger does it take to kill a cow?
 

In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Brigadier General William Crozier as Chief of Army Ordnance. In 1904, Crozier assigned two individuals, Captain John T. Thompson of the Infantry and Major Louis Anatole LaGarde of the Medical Corps, to investigate and recommend which caliber should be used in any new service handgun. At the Nelson Morris Company Union Stockyards in Chicago, Illinois, they tested several types of handguns, calibers and bullet styles against both live cattle and medical cadavers. Before continuing, some definitions about the types of animals and the bullet types used in the testing are needed:

Animal Terms and Definitions

Bull: Mature male bovine
Cow: Mature female bovine
Steer: Male bovine castrated before maturity
Stag: Male bovine castrated after maturity

The first day of live animal testing involved shooting eight head of cattle with rounds fired at selected target areas while timing the events. The time scale in the tables below is shown in minutes and seconds. The testing went as follows:
7.65mm Luger
Weight: 92.5 grs.
Style: FMJ-FP
Velocity: 1420 FPS
Energy: 340 FPE Stag
Weight: 1200 â?? 1300 lbs. 00:00 - Shot through lungs left to right.
00:30 - Dead.

7.65mm Luger
Weight: 92.5 grs.
Style: FMJ-FP
Velocity: 1420 FPS
Energy: 340 FPE Cow
Weight: 950 lbs. 00:00 - Shot through lungs three times.
01:00 - Jam; shot five times in lungs. Reloading break. Shot twice. Killed with hammer.

9mm Luger
Weight: 123.5 grs.
Style: FMJ-FP
Velocity: 1048 FPS
Energy: 301 FPE Cow
Weight: 1100 lbs. 00:00 - Shot twice through lungs.
01:00 - Jam; shot six times in lungs. Reloading break. Shot twice in abdomen and twice in lungs. Killed with hammer.

Cadaver testing:

During the cadaver testing, the bodies were hung by the head and were shot at from distances of 3 yards, 37.5 yards and 75 yards. The target areas were fleshy areas, bone ends and bone shafts.11 If a round struck a fleshy area, only the hollow point rounds produced a bare minimum of sway, but if a bone end was struck, all the rounds showed similar results, though the .455 Man-Stopper and the .476 Eley were just slightly better.12 When a round struck a bone shaft, the sway produced enabled Thompson and LaGarde to give each round a subjective measurement; in short, they watched the body sway and simply gave it a number value for comparison purposes without setting a standard to compare it to.13 The table below details these subjective measurements:

http://mwilson.hypermart.net/views/guns/1911.html#DEVEL

<img border="0" alt="[byebye]" title="" src="graemlins/wave.gif" />
rk

I have read the report and find it gruesome, but how the heck can you get real data unless you conduct realistic tests?

I read a book on Thompson years ago (the Roaring Twenties, if I remember correctly) and this testing was why he chose the .45 ACP for his sub-gun.

Ed

The results of the "cadaver tests," summarized above are somewhat puzzling. If the cadavers were suspended uniformly and then shot with various bullets and loads to measure the amount of sway produced, the amount of sway should be determined entirely by the momentum of the bullet. In other words, the suspended cadaver is a ballistic pendulum so that, at the same velocity and bullet weight, the same results should be obtained regardless of bullet type (jacketed or hollow point) or whether bone or flesh was hit. But, of course, in the actual tests, the cadavers were probably not suspended in precisely the same manner due to variations in the bovines.

What amazes me his how many jams they had, my Lugers dont jam like that?

Ted, I think it was due to the inconsistancy of the loads?

They were still fairly new, I know that later for the 45 ACP, the rounds weren't even made up prior to the trials so DWM could test fire their guns and had to improvise.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Originally posted by Gene:
<strong>In other words, the suspended cadaver is a ballistic pendulum so that, at the same velocity and bullet weight, the same results should be obtained regardless of bullet type (jacketed or hollow point) or whether bone or flesh was hit. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">I am certainly no ballistic expert, but I believe a hollow point shot into the shoulder blade would expend most of its energy nearly immediately and produce a greater forward momentum than say a FMJ of same weight and velocity into soft tissue. As the FMJ passes through flesh, much of its enrgy is dissipated as tissue disruption, along, and lateral to, the wound channel. Some forward momentum, but to a lesser degree.

Kind of like having two Louisville Sluggers shot at you (same mass and velocity).... one with standard butt end, other with a sharpened, vampire killing, spear point. If struck in the abdomen with the blunt bat, you would certainly end up on your butt. If struck with the spear point, much energy is spent on friction and tissue disruption, and you may be left standing with Pinnochio's belly button.

Jack

Geez Jack, Do you write stories for a living?
Pinnochio's belly button. That's a picture for you!

An early measure of velocity was a metal sheet with a heavy pendulum attached with some sort of measuring dial. As the bullet hit the top metal it would push the weighted pendulum and thusly you could measure with some consistency by reading in increments how far it pushed. Jerry Burney

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Originally posted by lugerholsterrepair:
<strong>Geez Jack, Do you write stories for a living?
Pinnochio's belly button. That's a picture for you!</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">I don't write them... I live them. Half of my life is spent with my children (6,4,3 years of age). The other half of my life is spent with 30,000 adults who act like children ("He crashed into my car on PURPOSE," and other such nonsense!). For three weeks a year, I get to teach 52 of the world's bravest policemen how to handle their sidearm. An outstanding bunch, but I suspect more than one took the short bus to school <img border="0" alt="[ouch]" title="" src="graemlins/c.gif" /> . Sometimes I dispatch with eloquence to make my point... but they all leave my range better shooters than when they arrived.

Jack

Jack,

Not to belabor a point, but momentum (mass times velocity) is always conserved, regardless of energy considerations. In a bullet, all of the energy is kinetic while in flight, but in the target, part of the energy is kinetic in moving the bovine with imbedded bullet, and part is utilized in deforming the bullet and bovine. Thus, energy transfer is variable, as you pointed out, but the momentum is not.

Regards,
Gene

I believe the all time reference on this subject is known as "Hatcher's Notebook" by Julian S.Hatcher.

Described by one of the sites selling it as:

"For shooters, gunsmiths, ballisticians, historians, hunters, collectors...the personal reference notes and experience of more than fifty years as a small arms engineer, trophy-winning shooter, technical gun editor"

The irony of this is that an Infantry Captain and a Medical Corps Major determined the development/direction/caliber/maker/ect of all military handguns for the next 100+ years based on a two day cow shooting spree and the swing of corpses hanging in a stockyard. Don't you know there were some interesting over dinner conversations made that night by the fence sitters watching the show?

rk

I did the ballistic pendulum thing for my classical physics project. (Fancy toting a revolver about campus today! I'm giving away my age!) The bullet in flight has a momentum equal to it's velocity times it's mass. On stopping in the target the momentum is conserved. Hence the target will move a distance corresponding to the bullet's momentum regardless of the bullet style, velocity, or what it strikes internally. More momentum is imparted to the shooter than to the target since for the shooter we must also account for the velocvity and mass of the propellent gas. It also explains why the concept of "knockdown" is utter nonsense.

Energy is a different matter altogether. This is why firing a firearm doesn't ruin your health.

Energy is proprtional to the square of the velocity, the firearm has only a small energy in recoil because it is moving so much slower. The bullet is moving fast, has a large energy, and must dump this energy in the target. This is where the bullet style becomes important. If the bullet is moving fast enough, is well placed, and dumps energy quickly enough, the shock effect will cause an animate traget to quickly collapse, hence the so called "knockdown effect".

Attend any silhouette and see how difficult it is to knock over an inanimate target and you will soon agree that the "knockdown" effect is fictional.

The stockyard tests were influential in the choice of the 45 ACP. Today we know the difference in stopping power between a 45 ACP and 9 mm hardball is statistically insignificant, apocryphal anecdotes notwithstanding. No hardball is a good stopper. The key to stopping power is high velocity and a good bullet design. Weight must play a poor third.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Originally posted by Jack Lawman:
Kind of like having two Louisville Sluggers shot at you (same mass and velocity).... one with standard butt end, other with a sharpened, vampire killing, spear point. If struck in the abdomen with the blunt bat, you would certainly end up on your butt. If struck with the spear point, much energy is spent on friction and tissue disruption, and you may be left standing with Pinnochio's belly button.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">"Nothing like telling a colorful story to illustrate an erroneous point," I always say. I did my physics homework last night and discovered that the conservation of momentum is one of the BASIC physics principles (I must have been distracted in Ms. Diaz's classroom that day). Thanks for the lesson. I now possess a clear understanding of the differences between momentum and energy. I'll be taking my seat in the back of the short bus and leaving the area now <img border="0" alt="[bigbye]" title="" src="graemlins/xyxwave.gif" /> .

Jack....

Did you see me say a darn thing about moneto, moentm, force, no, cuz I's ain't educated in that thar stuff :D

I listen, nod my head and say, "Oh that's nice..." Which reminds me of a joke, but John S., wouldn't approve... :D

<img border="0" alt="[cheers]" title="" src="graemlins/beerchug.gif" />

Ed

Ed,
I've been on a steep learning curve since that short bus dropped me off at the wrong school. Hopefully I'll catch up quick, level off, and get to wear the school sweater.

Cheers to you too....
<img border="0" alt="[cheers]" title="" src="graemlins/beerchug.gif" />

Jack

Jack, had two kids here at high school last name of Budd. Both rode the little bus. Had one in ROTC that in 9 weeks never learned his right from left. One of them didn't show up for school one day and everyone was looking everywhere, ended up he got off at the wrong school, went on to class, teacher sent him to the office, he left school, Huntsville PD picked him up on a four lane in the afternoon. He was about fourteen. No idea of where he lived. We named him Budd light from then on. Probably made the bus driver sign for him every morning.

rk

So this is all interesting history and a bit of humor, but what's the bottom line: For use as a police firearm and/or for use as a personal defence gun - these would seem to be the same - it all comes down to can you kill or disable the attacker with one or 2 reasnbably placed shots at a realistic range - say 15-25 yards. Given this it seems that a 7.62 is ineffective, and a 9mm comes close to a .45, but - from the professionals - if I was to make a choice of gun to buy for the purpose - which one?

Jerry B, Buy a 1911 style .45. Fun to shoot, accurate and no BS about how hard it hits. Even if you are a poor shot, if you hit the perp will be hurt. If you are an excellent shot go for the .22 and a head shot. A lot depends on your personality. Jerry Burney

Guys,

Energy and momentum discussions can go on a long time. The above discussions have left off a few things. If a bullet hits a pendulum (or cadaver) and stops in the body--the initial momentum of the bullet equals the momentum of the body (and bullet) just after impact. If the bullet stays in the body the bullet mass is just added to the body mass. If the bullet passes through the body then the bullet velocity (after penetration) enters the picture.

Similarly, there are a lot of energy terms to account for: initial bullet energy, final body and bullet energy, tissue and bullet damage, heat released, etc. etc. This can go on a long time, but the bullet that does the most damage is likely to be the most effective. 9 mm damage may approach .45 damage except in the case of the military which uses only full metal jacketed bullets. 9 mm FMJ bullets slide through flesh with a lot less damage than .45 FMJ bullets. Make mine a .45 (or .44).

<img border="0" alt="[offtopic]" title="" src="graemlins/offtopic.gif" /> so why the he** does almost every nation change into 5.56 why is this a better bullit than 7.62, other that you can carry more bullits. why go down in power?

:)
Sverre.

The 5.56 mm (.223 inch) is a whole different story if you are talking rifle cartridges. The 9 mm FMJ pistol bullet velocity of maybe 1100 ft/sec isn't a whole lot more than the 900 ft/sec of a .45 caliber FMJ pistol bullet so the wound damage caused is less due to the smaller bullet area. The .223 US rifle bullet has a velocity of 3000+ ft/sec and the wound damage is generally a lot more than from even a .45 pistol bullet. Also heavy clothing and 1/4 inch thick steel plates (as well as "bullet proof" vests) provide no protection against the .223 rifle bullet.

That said, the .223 FMJ rifle bullet isn't likely to be quickly effective (at least in theory since I have never been shot with one) for poorly placed hits since the bullet will easily exit the target. However, even wounded opponents don't fight real effectively.

The 5.56 isn't better than the 7.62 but the soldier can carry a whole bunch more ammo (at least 3X) and survive longer in a gunfight (hopefully). Actually, the military still prefers 7.62 for long range fighting.

All theories aside, simply count how many good hits and how many hitees stopped doing what they were doing, and there is no statistically significant difference between a 9 mm hardball and a 45 hardball.

On the other hand a good expanding bullet from a 357 Mag is the best manstopper known in a handgun. Even beats out the 44 mag as in the latter case most factory loads are intended for hunting and expand a bit too slow for social purposes, tending to overpenetrate and dump energy somewhere beyond the target.

In a load for social purposes, velocity and bullet design count for more than caliber.

The stockyard tests came about in part because of the army's experience in the Philippines. The 38 Colt didn't stop 'em so they brought back the 45 Colt. What fails to be mentioned is that the 45 Colt didn't stop 'em either. Nor did the 30-40 Krag. The Moros were a tough crowd. (Having owned a 30-40 Krag, I've never figured out why the army thought it was such a poor rifle compared to the Mauser. Nothing against the Mauser, it's just that the Krag wasn't all that bad either.)

The modern trend for small caliber rifles in the military is for reduced recoil and weight. This is a valid requirement in the context of "spray and pray". Actually aiming seems to have fallen by the wayside except for a few snipers. Today's infantryman is expected to expend several hundred rounds for one hit as opposed to earlier times when rounds per hit could be counted on the fingers.

Age, I'm sure I'm not completely correct, but what I've read is that the Krag side loading system and the single locking lug was inferior to the mauser system interior magazine and double lug. Put a Krag against a trapdoor springfield - 100% improvement- also aren't the 30-40 cartridges rimmed? This is also a problem in magazine fed guns. If not stacked right they hang up.

http://www.chuckhawks.com/30-40krag.htm

rk

The rimmed cartridge is not automatically a poor feeder in a magazine fed firearm. It depends mostly on the design of the magazine. The Krag was designed from the get go for a rimmed cartrdige and never had any feeding problems, and in fact has a reputation for being the slickest action of any bolt action, even better than the Mauser. The side gate makes it faster to load than a stripper clip fed magazine. You just flip the gate open and dump in a handfull of loose cartridges. Never had one jam. Quick to load while wearing thick mittens.

If one locking lug does the job, the second one is redundant. With the pressures we run today you probably need two, but back then they didn't believe in trying to get hyper velocity out of a short case. The Krag does have a second locking surface at the rear of the bolt as a safety meaure in the event the primary lug fails.

So I will still say that while the Mauser is a nifty rifle, the Krag isn't all that bad either.

Biggest practical difference was the service load. The Mauser round had a light spitzer while the Krag had a heavy round nose bullet, hence a bit slower. But that's the load, not the rifle.

Stopping power in practice.

I used to do a lot of jack rabbit shooting with a 7.65 Luger loaded with hardball. Never saw one run after being hit with it. Saw plenty of them run after being hit fair and square with a 455 Webley, 30-06, 357 Mag, 38 Spl, 22 LR, 22 Mag, etc., etc. But never saw one run after being hit with the 7.65 Luger.

Go figure...

yep, rabbits are pretty hardy and if you can slam one done hard you have a pretty good defense round. A 9mm with a soft hollow point at 1250 will really put them down good, better than a 45 hardball. There is not a lot of mass, but these Jacks get bigger than house cats!

Jacks are hard to stop. A cotton tail is easy to stop, will stop most every time when hit with a 22 LR.

But then a jack rabbit isn't a rabbit in the first place, it's a hare. Anybody have any experience with the European or Belgian hare? We used to occasionally find them in south east Michigan. They established them selves there after crossing the river on the ice from Ontario. I had heard that they got started in Ontario by escaping from captivity. Never had occasion to shoot one though.

The hundreds of Jacks I have shot were the Black Tail JAck Rabbit variation. BIG SUCKERS!! I once saw a Jack Rabbit shot in the guts with an 8mm Mauser rifle crawl 30 yds before giving it up! http://www.petalumawetlandspark.org/...JackRabbit.jpg

Kinda makes your trigger finger twitch, dont it UNSPELLABLE!!!

I put a bullet from a 455 Webley through the boiler room of an Idaho jack fair and square. Went to pick it up and it took off. Never did catch up with it.