“One Shot Stop” Handgun statistics, and why they’re a load of crap
In my last CCW class, I had somebody talk about the famous “Marshall & Sanow One Shot Stop Statistics” and about how this student was going to use a 97% round instead of a 92% round.
Okay, if you aren’t familiar with these, basically these two guys, Marshall & Sanow, supposedly looked at a ton of actual shootings, where people had been shot once in the torso with a bullet, and then they measured what percentage of those resulted in an immediate stop, i.e. immediate cessation of hostile action.
Then they published their work, and all bullets were rated. Immediately, people who were not given to critical thinking, accepted these percentages as gospel, and you could hear people arguing at gunshows and on the interweb about how they’re more tactically saavy because their handgun load was a 94% stopper, while yours was a meager 82% stopper.
Over time the flaws in this stuff became apparent, and luckily we don’t have to hear about it as often as we used to. But it still pops up once in awhile.
Let’s break this down as to why this idea is massively flawed. First, assuming that their data was not fabricated (because of lot of the shootings weren’t documented by anybody other than them), this wasn’t exactly scientific data. It wasn’t like they lined up 300 death row prisoners, shot each one in the chest with a different brand of .45 and then watched the clock until they quit kicking. Supposedly these were incidents from actual gun fights.
And since gun fights by their nature are fluid, dynamic, and always suck, we can also assume that they’re going to be different. To illustrate:
Shooting 1: Subject is 105 pounds, soaking wet. Pacifist. Faints at the sight of his own blood. His book club calls him “Todd.” Has never been in a violent encounter in his entire life. Plays Barbara Streisand records to get “charged up”. Gets shot in the abdomen with a Brand X .32. Bullet lodges in the belly button. Barely breaks skin. Subject faints because of loud noise. .32 Brand X = 100% stopper.
Shooting 2: Subject is 310 pounds of prison hardened muscle. Has a spider web tattooed over his whole face, and his friends call him “Death Train”. Subject 2 is high on coke, crack, meth, elephant tranquilizers, No-Doze, and Cherry Pepsi. While robbing a bank during a tri-state killing spree, Subject 2 engages in a running gun fight with police and is shot through the lung with a Brand Y .45. Subject 2 then carjacks a busload of handicapped nuns to escape. Later has friend who flunked out of Vet School remove the bullet with a pair of barbeque tongs. Subject 2 then goes to 50 Cent concert. Brand Y .45 = 0% stopper.
So from this illustration, you are far better off carrying the Brand X .32 than the Brand Y .45.
Now obviously, that is flawed, because of the nature of the subjects. Death Train and Todd are not equivalent in any way. Death Train would EAT Todd. However, they’re both people that got shot in the torso with a single round, therefore they are valid M&S stats.
Then you’ve got people shot in the heart vs. those shot in the gut. Both bad, but one is usually fatal in a matter of seconds by the basic facts of biology. However, both are one shot stops. So if the guy carrying an inferior round, is a better shot, that round gets a better percentage.
And then my personal favorite, they disregard multiple shots. Because if you shoot the guy twice, then that doesn’t count. I don’t know about you guys, but anybody worth shooting is worth shooting five to seven times. I’m not going to shoot the guy once, and then wait around to see what percentile he falls into. My gun is going to sound like a friggin’ jackhammer until he decides to leave me the hell alone.
Once again, before you jump onto any Gun World bandwagon, exercise a little critical thinking.
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I haven’t heard someone go on about one shot stop percentages since I played Airsoft, and even there they were generally shouted down by the more sensible “shoot him till he stops moving” crowd.
Larry, Larry, you crack me up! I don’t know how many times I have heard people try to cite this rubbish as fact. Thanks for spelling it out for them - and giving me something to chuckle about in the process.
Your shooting examples are hilarious, particularly #2. Well done!
I don’t know…
“… goes to a 50 Cent concert.”
or
“My gun is going to sound like a friggin’ jackhammer…”
Both absolutely priceless, but the latter contains great advice.
GREAT post.
tweaker
Now thats just funny I sent it to my non-gun friends and they thought it was hilarious as well.
-T.
With enough data, the Todd vs. Death Train would even out.. The real problem is ignoring all multiple hit encounters–Imagine if the data were IPSC and IDPA champions vs. noncompetitive license holders. The champions do near-perfect Mozambique drills on their attackers, while the ordinary people spray and pray. The champions would wind up with no one-shots…
The worst of Marshal & Sanow’s so-called data is that it doesn’t seem to take into account where in the torso the bullet struck, what angle it entered, how deeply it penetrated, etc.
Obviously all of these are critical factors. A wound through the side of the abdomen is less critical than a wound through the heart.
There are too many variables to predict with any certainty how a person will react when shot with a given handgun round. Far too many variables. Any attempt to make such a prediction, muchless assign percentages to every handgun round, is utter nonsense.
THANK YOU. Geez.
Yes, some people just don’t understand that correlation != causation.
I laughed so hard at the Death Train one that I choked. Was awesome.
So where do I purchase this brand x 32 round?! 100 % stops, eh? NICE!
Indeed sir, indeed. Mozambique, .5-1 second evaluation time, repeat. Ah screw it, empty magazine center mass, reload, repeat as necessary. Do the perps in Miami or Hollywood ring a bell?
Or, how about the Arab drill instead of the Mozambique? Start at the crotch and work your way up.
[...] And why they’re crap. [...]
As I’ve said before, the only way any defensive shooting my easily-panicked self is involved in would count towards the “OSS stats” is if the dude fell over so fast from the first round that the other half-dozen in the air behind it sailed right over him.
Yes, the database for M&S was scant and used to make generic conclusions and those conclusions have been overblown by many writers to promote one caliber or bullet type over another. However, before M&S there was even less of a database on how shootings played out, and many writers over-hyped THAT lack of information to promote one caliber or bullet type over another.
Let’s give M&S credit for what they did: an honest, good-faith study, using the best available data, on some of the factors that affect how best to stop someone by using a handgun.
Theories of “stopping power” might posit that success will come with small fast projectiles, or large slower projectiles, or expanding projectiles, or fragmenting projectiles, or certain colors for the primer, or shooting during only one phase of the moon. The old “Box of Truth” website shows one test for these theories. Shooting ballistic gelatin is another test method. Shooting domestic or game animals is another way to test.. Shooting cadavers is another. Uses of the bullet type in the real world, accumulated as anecdotal information, is not really good data, but it is interesting information. And accumulating as much detailed data on real world shootings to allow statistical analysis for valid comparisons is yet another test of the theories. M&S made a big stride forward in that last test method. That their results are misused for hype is neither their fault nor was it their purpose.
I ascribe to the real estate maxim of value depending on “Location, location, location,” for both housing and shooting. I also agree (as I was taught in my CHL class in Texas) that one should “shoot to stop” an attacker, not necessarily to kill. If stopping an attack takes multiple shots or hits in multiple locations, that is the number of times I hope I would shoot, and the number of shots I plan on taking.
I don’t think their research time or efforts were wasted. Some of the data involves non-trivial amounts of shootings for a particular load, such as 125 gr. .357. Obviously spine/heart shots will work fastest, assuming minimal energy, but including off-center hits gives some idea of the relative differences in effect of penetration, expansion and energy. But to use their numbers for sole criteria would be folly, particularly for calibers with low-numbered events.
My feeling is this-if 9mm is very nearly as statistically effective as other chamberings, but 1/2 the cost in practice and allows significantly more ammunition in the gun, my choice was obvious. All that’s left for their research was guide me to the best 9mm factory offering for carry.
Law Dog had a couple of good stories, one of which involved a thug brandishing a .25 auto to encourage some rival thugs to leave “his” nightclub. They left, and our hero was so impressed with himself that he twirled the gun forward, twirled the gun backward, and, with a flourish, shoved it back into his pants, where it discharged, perforating Mr Happy and one of the “boys”, and probably rendering the other one as collateral damage.
One shot, and down he went.
As Law Dog put it, “I will never again disparage the one-shot stopping power of the .25 auto.”
Just remember, guys: Location, location, location.
I used to really enjoy taking people out to the range to shoot a bowling pin after enduring the old, “One round of brand X ammo will knock a perp twelve feet through the air, step on his neck, take his wallet, have it’s way with his women and WRECK HIS RIDING LAWN MOWER!”
Yeah. They usually barely knocked a bowling pin off the table.
Assuming of course that the “expert” could even hit the pin with the vaunted cartridge.
Their method would be valid if they had enough incidents to average out who was hit and where, like say 1000 shootings for each ammo type.
You had me at Cherry Pepsi.
“I don’t know about you guys, but anybody worth shooting is worth shooting five to seven times.”
My rule is simple: if the gun ain’t empty, I should still be shooting. Helps in court, too:
Prosecuter: “How many times did you shoot the deceased?”
me: “I think it was three times”
Prosecuter: “Then why did the coroner find 16 holes in him?”
me: “Well, I was scared, and not really paying attention to how many times I shot”
It’s my understanding that police also make this mistake in court: claiming a handful of shots, when they actually went for slide-lock…
As the Death-Train story shows, we need more contorl over the evil Cherry Pepsi, It was the critical factor that enabled him to shrug off the devistating 45 round.
Just my 2 cents
Posts like these remind me of why I keep coming back to your blog - that was great!
I’d swear that one of Evan Marshall’s old signature lines said
” One shot stop is a statistic, not a philosophy” but it might have been someone else from his site,
Also this discussion reminds me of why I liked the Idea of the five seven, I figured 20 shots on target were better than two wings and five near misses.
As has already been stated, citing one example in an attempt to discredit a statistic that involves a rather large sample size is worthless.
However, the item you gave very little attention to (the fact that the stats ignore multiple shot incidents) is the one that actually does reduce the value of the figures.
Simply put, if you toss out all the incidents where the person was shot multiple times you are automatically throwing out the data from times when that second (or third, etc) shot was necessary to stop the bad guy.
On the surface it seems somewhat reasonable to exclude multiple shot instances since there’s no real way of knowing if the additional shots were needed or just done out of training or fear. Yes, some of them would have added to the one-shot-stop category. Then again, some of them would have been a tick mark in the didn’t-git-er-done side. The problem is that you don’t know which one any particular event would have been.
THAT’s what makes the charts invalid, not the two scenarios you gave. Those would be minimized in the averaging process. That’s why we have averages, after all, to reduce the impact of the data that falls outside the normal range.
Geeze … I remember when .32 ACP was considered capable of killing. Even if you are going the hammer-of-god route, I would suggest:
Aiming at something the perp can’t live without.
Shooting until empty … then reload … if perp still moves, keep shooting.
I always figured that rounds that have slow follow up shots would get better “only one shot fired during the encounter” stats then rounds that allow for more follow up shots.
I can’t imagine many folks double tap .357 from an airweight, but three rounds of 9mm from a Glock is a snap.
eah, nice blog. I just read this article, the onf of handguns vs shotguns vs carbines, and … favorited your blog. so, yeah i agree, handguns at all, are a bunch of crap.
[...] Correia puts into excellent, descriptive longhand what I’d been trying to explain to gun store customers for the last 5 or so years - that the [...]
and Cherry Pepsi.
There oughta be a law!
Just remember boys and girls, a handgun is something you have with you when you suddenly discover you should have gotten the shotgun out of the trunk.
And if anyone wants to borrow that line, you may. It’s mine.
Yep. I mostly carry a chromed .25 loaded with Glasers. Keeps me humble, as I am embarrassed to pull it. And I keep a couple of mags in my shirt pocket, like Tic-Tacs. Takes the worry out of being close.
I’ll shoot til they stop twitching. Then a couple more times, Just to be sure. Hey, I’ve seen all those movies.
Of course, the 10mm Colt I sometimes carry, full of Hydrashoks, well, okay, he only gets two. Those suckers are expensive.
In 1994 two friends of mine where shot in the head during same incident with a .25.one friend hit once died instantly…second friend hit 5 times…fine. There really is no logic to a shooting and its effects but I suppose keep shooting the bad guy is as good a philosophy as any.As an aside the shootings where in U.K.