**Warning: Don't read if you don't want to hear about bad things**
I've been combing over the Googles and I haven't been able to find anything more substantial about what handgun the Defender in the Indiana mall mass shooting attempt had used to save lives. So far, all the sources are saying a Glock 9mm but I want to know which one. It matters because of capacity and barrel length.
Either way, there are three components in this incident I very much appreciate. Firstly, our Defender took shots at what people are saying was around a 40 yard shot. Secondly, our Defender fired 10 rounds and lands 8 of them. Thirdly, our Defender did it in less than 20 seconds with people saying around 15 seconds. That's fast, accurate and meaningful shooting. I still have concerns and questions I want answered.
**Gruesome description below**
A picture that leaked onto the Internet of the body of the supposed attacker appears to show that around 4 to 5 rounds landed in the attacker's elbow and center and left-side chest area. I can't tell where the other 3 to 4 rounds impacted. If they are to be believed, despite the several hits, the attacker walked off according to Open Source Intelligence sources (The Internet). If the OSINT data is accurate, this demonstrates a few things but mainly that handgun rounds are still capable of incapacitating a person but that the impacts may not be immediately incapacitating. The attacker took 8 rounds reportedly. It appears that maybe two were in the right elbow, one in the upper right lung and maybe two in the center area around the chest below the heart and one around the left collar bone area. I don't have the autopsy report so I can't confirm any of this. It sounds like the incapacitation was due to blood loss as opposed to a nervous system shutdown.
**End gruesome description**
The question becomes this. What took so long? Why were 8 rounds of 9mm with several in the hits in the vital zone not immediately incapacitating? Part of that is due to handguns just aren't that greatly effective according to a study. The best information I think I can provide you can be found in a study done and published. That pertinent information can be found in the video below.
My Questions
How can we improve this situation? My concerns can be summarized by several questions. What ammo did our Defender have? What barrel length did he have? What was the capacity of the magazine? Did the Defender's bullets expand?
The ammo selection matters significantly if we believe that a reliably expanding hollow point design is more effective at stopping an attack than that of an FMJ or something else. This is called terminal ballistics. If that statement is true, then we want to make sure that the hollow point designs we are using in our carry guns are good and that those designs will work from our handgun's barrel length. You need both.
Hollow point bullets only expand when they impact the target as long as they do so within what I will call the velocity envelope. If the bullet impacts at too fast a velocity, the bullet will open up but may break apart and might not penetrate deep enough. If too slow, the bullet won't expand making it no more effective than an FMJ. A good design is one that meets the the FBI's testing requirement. Note there is another standard called IWBA which is the International Wound Ballistics Association. They have different testing than the FBI for the layers testing. On impact of ballistic gelatin, the bullet will pass through through 4 layers of denim or clothe to simulate clothing and expand quickly then penetrate between 12 inches and 18 inches. Usually testing should use at least 5 bullets to confirm reliable expansion and penetration. You can find great examples of testing at the Lucky Gunner Lab. They provide great information. There are others that you can find on YouTube such as ShootingTheBull410's incredible saga of 9mm and 380 ACP ammo testing. There are many folks who test this stuff so take advantage of the free data and cross reference your questions and choices with that OSINT data.
Barrel length is important in this topic because many people prefer to carry a smaller gun with shorter barrel but with the shorter the barrel, the less velocity you generate. A good design may work well in guns with a 5 inch or 4 inch barrel but by putting that round though a 3.1 inch barrel, the design may not expand reliably. For example, in the STB410 Ammo Quest, the Speer Gold Dot 124 grain load (3618) did not expand reliably in the test pistol with 3in barrel. However, that same load in the +P variant (3617) DID work correctly. By increasing the velocity, the design worked well. If the standard pressure round had been fired from a 4 inch or maybe a 3.5 inch barrel, the design may work just fine. See TNOutdoors9 video for comparison.
By confirming our ammo choice with good testing practices, we can find if we need to keep looking or start stocking up.
Back to our Indiana incident, if the Defender had used a good design and fired those rounds from a 4 inch barrel then it's possible that those bullets did expand as desired. That said, at 40 yards, they may not have had enough velocity to expand.
Most of the gel testing done is at shorter distances. By shooting with shorter barrels, we can see where performance starts to taper off. This demonstrates how a bullet will perform after it's travelled some distance. Say 40 yards.
For example, if STB410's 124 gr Gold Dot (23618) test is accurate, then the average velocity of the 5 shots was 1030 FPS. With a poor success rate at those speeds, it would seem that the Speer Gold Dot 124 gr bullet produced back then has a minimum velocity of around 1030 FPS to get some kind of expansion. Lucky Gunner, however, got around 1067 FPS with reliable expansion from a 3.5 inch barrel. If we split the difference, then somewhere around 1050 FPS is the lowest at-target velocity we would want to run these bullets. We would not want to start our muzzle velocity that low. I assume that Speer didn't make any changes to the bullets used in the 23618 loading but I could be wrong. It's possible they updated the design/manufacturing. I do know they have a +P variant and a Short Barrel version of the 124 gr load with both standard pressure and +P variants. If I was going with anything less than 3 inch barrel and chose to run Gold Dot 124 gr bullets, then I would go +P or either Short Barrel variants.
At 1050 FPS, those bullets may only work reliably at shorter distances but if we run a longer barrel, than we can increase those velocities. TNOutdoors9 used a 4 inch barrel Glock 19 and got around 1141 FPS. That's a 74 FPS increase compared to Lucky Gunner's 3.5 inch barrel.
If we run the velocity from TNOutdoors9's test through a ballistic calculator, we can see that around 40 yards, the Speed Gold Dot 124 gr from a 4 inch Glock 19 will hit around 1050 FPS. This means that our Defender in Indiana may have had reliable expansion IF he had carried a Glock 19 with Speed Gold 124 gr (23618) loaded. I used GunData's default ballistic coefficient data for those numbers if you're interested.
Many people had operated under the pretense that the FBI previously stated the average distance of engagement was around 7 yards. I have no idea if that's true but clearly this incident happened well outside that distance. I had been mulling over the idea for a while but the Indiana incident brings up that we should be concerned that we may ACTUALLY have to take a long range shot. I know I can take a 50 yard head shot if need be but it's not easy. I have a red dot on my carry gun. Yes I've tried shooting a 6 inch target at 50 yards. It's how I validate my 25 yard zero by holding about an inch up from center.
If I'm taking a long range shot, I want to know if my bullets are still in the velocity envelope. I'm not going to pull out a laser range finder to find out in a situation but it's good to know that I may have to take extra shots or hold over a bit if an attacker is at 50 to 75 yards to end that attack. If I'm carrying a 3 inch barrel gun, then I may have to consider that at distance past 7 yards or so, my bullets may not expand at all. If our Defender had a Glock 43x with it's 3.1 inch barrel, those shots at 40 yards may have only been as effective as FMJs because they never expanded. I ran the Lucky Gunner velocity of 1067 FPS and the numbers drop to 1050 FPS at 8 yards. That may work for close in but it may also explain why our Defender had to put 8 rounds into the attacker. Not that he could see if they were effective hits or not. Really, you should keep shooting until they stop.
Honestly, this is starting to make me want to go back to a 4 inch barrel gun but I've run my own data and found I should good out to about 50 yards. I really like my ammo and P365xl combo but I'm wondering if I should see if the Federal HST 147 grain is any better. Doesn't look it.
But what about capacity?
If our Defender had a Glock 48, Glock 43x or Glock 26 with the standard capacity magazines then he would only have had 10 rounds per magazine. If he topped off, then +1 that capacity. This is a concern for me because he fired 10 rounds. While clearly this worked out well, it highlights that if there had been another shooter (think Columbine) then he would have had to reload.
If our Defender had carried a Glock 19 or a Glock 19X, 45 or 17 then he would have had 15 or 17 rounds in the standard magazine. This would have left him with at least 5 rounds or as many as 8 rounds depending on the variables. That's not a lot of wiggle room.
Alternatively, he may have had a embiggened magazine in one of the smaller guns, such as the S15 mag in the 48 or 43x or a 15 round G19 mag sleeved in a G26 or a +2 extension on any of these guns. Simply put, we don't know.
"But how often to people need to reload?" Great question. Sometimes, it's not about running out of ammo.
I try to carry a spare magazine with my P365xl. Not because I think I'm gonna get in a big ol' gun fight but because sometimes things happen. Once I found that I had lost my magazine from my gun when I got home. I reached down to unholster before changing clothes and found the magazine was missing. I knew immediately when the gun was in hand. Had I needed my gun, I would have had 1 round in the chamber and needed a reload. Had that happened, I would have been able to pull the spare 15 round magazine I keep and charge the weapon. I found that magazine in the truck shortly after. I don't use that holster anymore since it clearly doesn't protect the magazine release.
Summary
There's a lot of missing information I'd like answered. Did he have a red dot? What setup did he run? We won't know for a while, if ever. We do know this, he was successful in stopping that attacker. I am extremely grateful he was successful. I am very pleased to see such accuracy and speed in this situation. I wish he never had to deploy his gun. Evil exists in our world. We have to put it down when it shows up. If you ever have to help out, I hope that you took the above information and questions and put it to use. God Bless.
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