Guess ol' .45 ACP ain't really a "man stopper" after all

[A-R]

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Jimenez said he and the driver exchanged words. Before he knew it, another man appeared, pointed a .45-caliber handgun at him and told him to lay face down on the pavement.

...

But before Jimenez could react, the bandit was sitting in the driver's seat about to drive away. That's when Jimenez says his fighting instincts took over.

“I kicked the door in on his leg,” Jimenez said. “The gun went off. At first I didn't realize I had been shot. It just felt like a punch in the face.”

Jimenez gets punched in the face for a living, so he's used to the feeling. But this was different. He could feel the blood oozing down his face, and within seconds, he was out of breath. He tried to give chase but fell.

Police arrived, and Jimenez was taken by ambulance to University Hospital. Although the wound produced a lot of blood, Jimenez had been lucky. The bullet entered his cheekbone and moved along his ear canal before exiting the back of his head. Miraculously, however, it missed every major artery and bone along the way. No surgery was required.

A week later, wearing bandages, Jimenez was back in the gym.

[silverbear]

This is going to be good!

[Charles L. Cotton]

It must have been a 45 GAP!

Chas.

[Keith B]

It must have been a 45 GAP!

Chas.

Yeah, sounds like it left a GAP-ing hole in his face!!

[HighVelocity]

Sounds like the victim was one tough dude.

[G.A. Heath]

You need two things to stop someone with a bullet. The first is shot placement, the bad guy really didn't have that. The second is transfer of energy, the bad guy didn't get much of that due to shot placement. Bigger bullets transfer more energy quicker than smaller ones, this is a fact and desirable. Now lets say you put a .45 ACP into the left hand of someone, thats not likely to take them out of a fight if they are fighting for their lives. Its also foolish to expect a handgun to stop anyone quickly, you can only hope that it does so before they can do what they want to do to you.

[Ageofease08]

lol at "Yeah, sounds like it left a GAP-ing hole in his face!! "

[The Annoyed Man]

Considering that the victim did not receive 2+1 rounds+pause while shooter reevaluates, it did seem to still put him out of the fight. The BG obviously never heard of Mozambique, or our victim would have joined the silent (forever) majority.

[jimlongley]

A shipmate in the Navy, while serving in the 'Nam, was hit in the head by a ChiCom 13mm machinegun round. It penetrated his (steel) helmet and entered his forehead. It "bounced" off his skull and stayed under his skin as it transited around to the back of his head where it popped back out again, dropping down into his collar. He was knocked unconscious and was medevac'ed out tagged as having a through and though injury to the head. They couldn't get the helmet off because the steel had bent back and nailed it to his forehead.

At the aid station they decided that he needed surgery and moved him father back.

When the surgeons removed the helmet, they found that the slug had broken some of the bone, but turned and skidded around inside his scalp, and they declared no need for surgery but he would be sent back to Tokyo for recovery. He had not really regained consciousness this whole time (a couple of hours) and the loaded him onto a cargo plane for the trip to Japan.

While on the flight, he woke up, just as a nurse was leaning over him to care for another guy next to him. She thought he was pretty close to dead, and was a tad surprised when he woke up and grabbed her.

We always told him he was a hardhead.

BTW, in Tokyo he was undressing, with help, and the spent projectile dropped on the bed behind him. He picked it up and wore it on his dogtag chain for as long as I knew him.

[The Annoyed Man]

Jim, a friend of mine who was on the Pasadena PD back in California, when revolvers were still carried, shot a bad guy in the head with a .357, and the bullet did exactly the same as what happened to your shipmate. It struck him between the eyes about level with his eyebrows, dissected under his scalp, passing around over the top of his skull, and popped out the skin in back.

[MoJo]

Head shots are not always stop shots. The Cranial Vault is rather tough and if not hit square on may more often than not deflect the bullet. There are numerous stories of people being hit in the head with both rifle and handgun rounds and surviving sometimes without even losing consciousness. Jim's shipmate hit with a 13mm MG round shows that big isn't always a sure kill. 13mm = .51 caliber.

[baldeagle]

Yeahbut, OMG what a headache!

[MoJo]

Yeahbut, OMG what a headache!

Never said it wouldn't hurt or leave a mark!

[Zoomie]

There was a Marine Sargent who said something to this extent about stopping power...

"I shoot them in the chest a lot, and if they don't fall down I shoot them in the face a lot"