Ideal rifle for ww2?

[Ivan1GFP]

What is the difference between canister lots of gun powder, and any other type used today, for either commercial or military ammo? I do not reload, I prefer Hornady or Federal ammo for my CF rifles, and Federal or RST for my shotguns. Hansie

Hello Hansie Bloeckmann,
Shortround6 covered the general idea pretty well, but there is a bit more that I was hinting at with my prior post.
Commercial / Military factories buy a lot of powder, test to see variations as Shortround6 described and then use it up. The chances are pretty good that if the factory makes many different calibers, the powder will be suited to at least one caliber.
There are many more powders that are used in industry that are not available in a canister grade; there are probably at least a dozen times more non-canister powder types. Sometimes even a lot of powder made with the process that is used for a branded canister grade powder does not end up meeting ALL the pressure tests and is sold as non-canister lot.

As an example of the kinds of pressure testing that a canister lot must pass, I will use Hercules Blue Dot.
(The description is hypothetical of course.)
Blue Dot is a powder that is suitable for a wide range of pistol cartridge applications.
It can be used in medium-low pressure pistol rounds, and even fairly high pressure pistol rounds.
Let's say that this lot of "Blue Dot" works fine in loading the .45 ACP and .38 Special standard loads with pressures and velocity as expected.
Let's also say that this lot seems to have some inconsistencies when loading for higher pressure rounds such as a .357 Magnum or a .38 Super or a 9 mm Parabellum.
It should not be sold as canister grade because it cannot meet all of the applications that are claimed for the product but a factory would have no problem with it.
As stated before, this is just a hypothetical story to illustrate a possible situation. I actually find Hercules (now Alliant) Blue Dot to be a very useful product.

As another example (real this time), Winchester W846 was used in military .303 British loads and also eventually for 7.62 NATO ammunition.
After the end of WW2, Bruce Hodgdon bought a mess of this powder and marketed it as BL-C(2) for reloaders. Of course it is no longer a "Ball Powder" because that is a Winchester trademark, so it would be called a "Spherical" powder instead....
The background of some of this stuff can get pretty interesting but I would suggest never to get too creative when reloading you own ammunition. That is why I pick a powder that well suited for the purpose and a velocity that can easily be achieved without a maximum load and just leave it at that.

By the way, regarding double base powders in military .30-06 loads, perhaps I didn't dig far enough last night.
Apparently Hercules HiVEL 2 was used in some years'.30-06 match loads between the wars with pretty good results and I believe that was a double base powder. During the Great War, apparently Pyro DG was the typical rifle powder for .30-06 loads. There were quite a few other propellants used until they settled on IMR 4895 in the late 1930's (from what I have been able to find).

- Ivan.

- Ivan.

 

[Hansie Bloeckmann]

Hello Hansie Bloeckmann,
Shortround6 covered the general idea pretty well, but there is a bit more that I was hinting at with my prior post.
Commercial / Military factories buy a lot of powder, test to see variations as Shortround6 described and then use it up. The chances are pretty good that if the factory makes many different calibers, the powder will be suited to at least one caliber.
There are many more powders that are used in industry that are not available in a canister grade; there are probably at least a dozen times more non-canister powder types. Sometimes even a lot of powder made with the process that is used for a branded canister grade powder does not end up meeting ALL the pressure tests and is sold as non-canister lot.

As an example of the kinds of pressure testing that a canister lot must pass, I will use Hercules Blue Dot.
(The description is hypothetical of course.)
Blue Dot is a powder that is suitable for a wide range of pistol cartridge applications.
It can be used in medium-low pressure pistol rounds, and even fairly high pressure pistol rounds.
Let's say that this lot of "Blue Dot" works fine in loading the .45 ACP and .38 Special standard loads with pressures and velocity as expected.
Let's also say that this lot seems to have some inconsistencies when loading for higher pressure rounds such as a .357 Magnum or a .38 Super or a 9 mm Parabellum.
It should not be sold as canister grade because it cannot meet all of the applications that are claimed for the product but a factory would have no problem with it.
As stated before, this is just a hypothetical story to illustrate a possible situation. I actually find Hercules (now Alliant) Blue Dot to be a very useful product.

As another example (real this time), Winchester W846 was used in military .303 British loads and also eventually for 7.62 NATO ammunition.
After the end of WW2, Bruce Hodgdon bought a mess of this powder and marketed it as BL-C(2) for reloaders. Of course it is no longer a "Ball Powder" because that is a Winchester trademark, so it would be called a "Spherical" powder instead....
The background of some of this stuff can get pretty interesting but I would suggest never to get too creative when reloading you own ammunition. That is why I pick a powder that well suited for the purpose and a velocity that can easily be achieved without a maximum load and just leave it at that.

By the way, regarding double base powders in military .30-06 loads, perhaps I didn't dig far enough last night.
Apparently Hercules HiVEL 2 was used in some years'.30-06 match loads between the wars with pretty good results and I believe that was a double base powder. During the Great War, apparently Pyro DG was the typical rifle powder for .30-06 loads. There were quite a few other propellants used until they settled on IMR 4895 in the late 1930's (from what I have been able to find).

- Ivan.

- Ivan.

Many thanks- you must be a serious reloader and shooter. Handgun, CF rifles, do you also reload shotgun shells?

 

[The Basket]

I used to be a military medic so am familiar with gunshot wounds. I don't want to be shot by 8mm Nambu nevermind 8mm Mauser.
The replacement for the 303 was 7.62 NATO which is just bizarre considering the 303 was outdated before ww1.
I have no recollection other than the EM-2 of the British changing the Lee Enfield before the SLR. The French did go to the 7.5mm interwar but then again the Lebel did really deserve to be dumped.
It was the Americans who used the M1917 in the trenches, the P14 was hardly used.

I often wonder if the Japanese changed from 6.5 to 7.7 based on genuine statistics or just some old excrement spouted by the barrack room loudmouth. Problem with the 38 special v 9mm arguement is that the only logical conclusion is that you need a tankgewehr because bigger is better.

 

[Shortround6]

The British didn't really have a choice in the 7.62 NATO as the US pretty much ramed the 7.62 NATO down all of Europe's throat. The British .280 (NOT the .280 Ross) was actually a much better choice.

A number of countries got caught by changing weapons/tactics. They went for either bigger cartridges or boat tail bullets in order to have long range machine guns capable of firing 2500-3500 yds ( max range 4000-5000+ yds) after long range machine guns barrages were used in WW I. By WW II when all of the major combatants (and even a few neutrals, Sweden went for an 8mm X 63 ) had the upgraded machineguns they also were issuing 81 mm mortars that could shoot to the same ranges (except for the British) and had better communications for calling artillery support. The long range machine gun barrages that these guns/cartridges were intended for fell into disuse/obscurity.

I rather like the 38 special v 9mm argument for the sheer absurdity of it as it evolved in the US. Other nations stayed out of this one.

38 special (.357 diameter) with a 158 grain bullet at about 855fps out of revolver was hopelessly inadequate but a 9mm (.355 diameter) 147 grain bullet at 950fps was the answer to any law enforcement officer's dreams/desires.

Both were much better police cartridges with lighter, higher velocity expanding bullets. Less chance of ricochet and less chance of over penetration endangering bystanders in addition to better stopping power. I did say better, not guaranteed by any means

 

[Ivan1GFP]

I rather like the 38 special v 9mm argument for the sheer absurdity of it as it evolved in the US. Other nations stayed out of this one.

38 special (.357 diameter) with a 158 grain bullet at about 855fps out of revolver was hopelessly inadequate but a 9mm (.355 diameter) 147 grain bullet at 950fps was the answer to any law enforcement officer's dreams/desires.

Both were much better police cartridges with lighter, higher velocity expanding bullets. Less chance of ricochet and less chance of over penetration endangering bystanders in addition to better stopping power. I did say better, not guaranteed by any means

Hello Shortround6 et al.
I only brought up the .38 Special versus 9 mm Parabellum as two cartridges with significantly different pressure limits for reloading purposes.
There was no intention of discussing relative merits of the two.
It has actually been quite a while since the 9 mm x 19 was thought of as the ideal police cartridge. I believe the .40 S&W took its place but perhaps it too is out of fashion now.

For what it's worth, the general debate is more along the lines of whether the .45 ACP or the 9 mm Luger is better. There is probably a new article written every week on the average and that debate gets pretty old.

Regarding differences between .38 Special and 9 mm "Whatever" you mentioned, I believe you got the numbers pretty well for the .38 Special +P load (the standard .38 Special with a 158 grain bullet is only about 750 fps) but the load you are describing for the 9 mm Is the heavy bullet subsonic load.
It is intended for guns equipped with silencers so that there is no "crack" from supersonic bullets.

The reason I called it the 9 mm "Whatever" is because there are a bunch of different load standards for the 9 mm x 19 case.
My terminology / naming may not be entirely correct but I will attempt to distinguish them.
The original 9 mm cartridge as used in the P.08 "Luger" pistol was what I will call the "Parabellum" here.
It was the service cartridge with lots of variations for a number of countries up through WW2.
Typical ballistics were along the lines of 115 or 123 grain bullet at around 1175 fps (from foggy memory).
There were a lot of variations depending on manufacturer.
The "same" round which I will call the 9 mm Luger loaded in the United States to SAAMI specifications is a bit lighter with a 115 grain bullet at about 1125 fps. Yes, it is not quite as powerful.
Then there is 9 mm NATO which I believe is a touch hotter than the old Parabellum round.
I believe the 9 mm NATO chamber uses a slight amount of freebore to reduce pressure with a hotter load.
Then there is sub machine gun ammunition which is loaded even hotter and typically marked with a black tip on the bullet.

Then there are the variations between modern commercial ammunition.
The hottest stuff I have every chronographed was some 9 mm made by GECO of Germany.
123 grain bullet at about 1220 fps.
This was not the hottest stuff I have ever fired though.
Before I owned the chronographs, I came across some 9 mm (factory loads) and noticed that the stuff had a pretty stout recoil out of an all steel pistol. I was surprised. I was even more surprised when I noticed that shock from the recoil had hidden the fact that after just a couple magazines of the stuff, I had a blood blister on the web of my hand.

- Ivan.

 

[The Basket]

When i said 9mm i actually meant .380 ACP...hehehe...or was it the Glisenti?
So many 9mm to choose from. Anyhoo i agree that the 7.62 NATO round was a US invention although fortunately we could get the SLR and not force fed the M-14.
I do declare that American sticking to there guns was a backwards step and may critics of the M-16 used the 5.56 against it as well.
British police do not carry fireams although a quick armed response unit is usuallly only a few minutes away. Oddly, they also have to carry out mundane police tasks so you could get a speeding ticket from someone carrying.
Old chestnut of whether a 6 shot revolver with 38 special is no longer good enough. It was good enough so the gun hasnt changed but the perception of been attacked by 20 ninjas and needing better has

 

[Shortround6]

A number of US police forces adopted the 147grain 9mm load at one point. Mosty without doing ANY testing. Hey, if Military Special forces use it must be good, right "

It took a while but just about all of them changed to something else.
However it does point to fads or trends not being a good way to select arms or ammunition.

The need for a better cartridge than the .38 special was not really an issue at the time, it was seen as needed. However at the time of the big change over the expanding pistol bullet was in it's infancy and the .38 special 158 grain round nose lead bullet was actually a pretty poor choice and had 30-40 years of experience to back that up. Better than .32s and short .38s but still not good. Unfortunately it took a while to get expanding bullets to actually expand at the velocities the .38 could fire them unless you dropped the weight to 125 grains or under and used +P pressure levels. The .45 ACP had the same problem, early expanding bullets didn't.

Getting back to our original subject, an "ideal' rifle cartridge is not an ideal machine gun cartridge and at some point a decision has to made about which gun gets compromised the most. Or if two different cartridges are acceptable and at what level of issue. The last gains in importance as the logistic problems mount/change. What is acceptable to armies like the US and British in Europe in 1944 may not be acceptable to the same armies in Burma in 1944 let alone the Japanese or Italian armies at any time. The Japanese or Italian armies were forced into the problem for various reasons however unacceptable the results wound up being.
Please note both the Italians and Swedes adopted large 8mm cartridges for machine gun use while keeping the 6.5mm rounds for rifle and LMG work.
I am not sure I trust Wiki but it claims the Japanese made two 7.7mm cartridges for the army (leave the Navy copy of the .303 out of this) a rimless version for rifles using a 175grain bullet at 2440fps and semi rimed version for machine guns that fired a 202 grain bullet at 2200fps.
Even if you get either round to chamber in "wrong" gun the sights are going to be off at anything but close range.
I would note that the US was using two different loads in .30-06 but the different adjustment of the American WW II rifles allowed for easier compensation, IF the troops remembered their training.

I happen to believe that a good 6.5 bullet (non-VLD) will work out to 6-700 yds and cover most of the squad/platoon needs. This is several hundred yds further than the 7.9 x 33 or 7.62 x 39. However the company may and the Battalion will require weapons with longer effective range.

 

[tomo pauk]

...
I happen to believe that a good 6.5 bullet (non-VLD) will work out to 6-700 yds and cover most of the squad/platoon needs. This is several hundred yds further than the 7.9 x 33 or 7.62 x 39. However the company may and the Battalion will require weapons with longer effective range.

Methinks that this closes the case

 

[Shortround6]

Maybe
Please note that the Russians modified the DPM light machine gun to the RP-46 belt feed with heavier barrel as a company level machinegun and used it during the late 40s and all during the 50s as they changed over to the SKS and AK-47 in the squads and issued the RPD as the squad automatic. They kept the bigger SGM at battalion level?
Greater use of mortars also means the battalion relied less on tripod mounted machine guns for support.

 

[The Basket]

I am curious.
Why is the 38 special not good enough?
I understand about hollow points but I am still wondering as from a medic point of view it's better than been poked with a stick and still got kills. John Lennon was killed with 38 special and President Reagan was almost killed with a 22 fired by probably the worst gun ever and it wasn't even a direct hit! So I understand that a 357 magnum is powerful and a 38 special is less but it's more than enough to send you to the River Styx.

 

[Ivan1GFP]

When i said 9mm i actually meant .380 ACP...hehehe...or was it the Glisenti?
So many 9mm to choose from. Anyhoo i agree that the 7.62 NATO round was a US invention although fortunately we could get the SLR and not force fed the M-14.
I do declare that American sticking to there guns was a backwards step and may critics of the M-16 used the 5.56 against it as well.
British police do not carry fireams although a quick armed response unit is usuallly only a few minutes away. Oddly, they also have to carry out mundane police tasks so you could get a speeding ticket from someone carrying.
Old chestnut of whether a 6 shot revolver with 38 special is no longer good enough. It was good enough so the gun hasnt changed but the perception of been attacked by 20 ninjas and needing better has

Hello The Basket,
There are a zillion different 9 mm besides the ones you listed. How about a 9 mm Largo, .38 Super, .357 SIG.
Everybody seems to have their own ideas of the best 9 mm cartridge and sometimes it is because of some kind of game.
Ever heard of 9 mm Major? That is a very hot load for a regular 9 mm x 19 that would "make Major" with a power factor greater than 175 for certain pistol competitions. (Multiply Bullet Weight by Muzzle Velocity. It was to distinguish between the pipsqueak "Minor" calibers and the "Major" calibers such as the .45 ACP.) I believe it is no longer allowed because it was so dangerous to do it in a 9 x 19 case.

My own opinion of the 5.56 is that it really isn't an ideal military cartridge because the ammunition is so fragile and because the bore is so small it isn't very tolerant of silly things like a few drops of water in the bore. Sometimes it is hard to avoid and I have heard that it will bulge the barrel. There are a lot of observations and personal experiences to support this conclusion that are again beyond the scope here.

The discussion about revolver versus automatic (yeah, semi auto) for police use has been going for a few decades since it was first proposed to replace the "service revolver" with an automatic pistol (back in the 1960's?). Reliable revolver versus Jam-amatic auto pistol. Forget military history in this discussion....
The advocates for the auto pistol claimed that with the superior ammunition capacity, there was a higher chance of survival while revolver advocates brought in the statistic that only 2-3 rounds were fired in the average police gunfight. I have no real opinion or stake here.
The end result as you all know was that the auto pistol replaced the revolver but another side effect was that the hit percentages went down by a lot and the number of rounds fired also went up by a lot though I don't know the statistic here.

Hello Shortround6,
I don't know much about the others and until recently, I didn't know that much about the Japanese either.
It seems like the Japanese had a pretty messed up logistics situation.
The Army used the 7.7 mm x 58 for their rifles (and of course the 6.5 as well).
They used the 7.7 mm x 58SR for their aerial and infantry machine guns.
The Navy used the 7.7 mm x 56R (.303 British) for their aerial machine guns and some ground machine guns.
They used 7.7 mm x 58 for their rifles and 7.7 x 58SR for other infantry machine guns.
The ballistics for the guns was originally intended to be different but ended up all being nearly identical.
The aerial machine gun loads for both Army and Navy appear to match their infantry rifle loads at least according to TAIC and some other sources I have seen.

In a fairly long discussion with HoHun a while back, I came to agree with him that the packaging in which the ammunition is issued pretty much determines how it will be used. No one spends the time to unbelt aerial MG ammunition for use in rifles.
If there were ballistics differences of 175 grain versus 202 grain bullets, the difference in trajectory is well within the accuracy limitations of the typical assault rifle anyway. I don't believe there were actually any significant ballistic differences in any case.

- Ivan.

 

[The Basket]

The Japanese Navy and Army were 2 totally separate organisation with there own powerbase and so only answerable to the emperor. The navy and army were rivals so they would rather chew thier legs off than co-operate so you get a bizarre situation were shared problems are ignored and so get a duplication of what limited resources they had.

 

[Ivan1GFP]

I am curious.
Why is the 38 special not good enough?
I understand about hollow points but I am still wondering as from a medic point of view it's better than been poked with a stick and still got kills. John Lennon was killed with 38 special and President Reagan was almost killed with a 22 fired by probably the worst gun ever and it wasn't even a direct hit! So I understand that a 357 magnum is powerful and a 38 special is less but it's more than enough to send you to the River Styx.

Hello The Basket,
The objective in a defence handgun is not necessarily to kill the target but to stop them from doing whatever they are doing.
Stopping power and killing power are not the same thing. A higher cross sectional area dumps the bullet's energy into the target more quickly and hopefully makes the target fall down faster.

- Ivan.

 

[Hansie Bloeckmann]

The Japanese Navy and Army were 2 totally separate organisation with there own powerbase and so only answerable to the emperor. The navy and army were rivals so they would rather chew thier legs off than co-operate so you get a bizarre situation were shared problems are ignored and so get a duplication of what limited resources they had.

Probably one of many valid reasons they lost the Pacific and WW11-

 

[The Basket]

Is there a scientific study to clarify if a full sized man drops with a 9mm whereas he runs marathons and jet skis after been shot by a 380? I always take calibre flame wars with a pinch of salt.

 

[Shortround6]

I am curious.
Why is the 38 special not good enough?
I understand about hollow points but I am still wondering as from a medic point of view it's better than been poked with a stick and still got kills. John Lennon was killed with 38 special and President Reagan was almost killed with a 22 fired by probably the worst gun ever and it wasn't even a direct hit! So I understand that a 357 magnum is powerful and a 38 special is less but it's more than enough to send you to the River Styx.

It is not the job of the police to kill people. It is their job to stop people from killing/harming other people as fast as possible and with least possible danger to innocent bystanders.
Until we can issue police with Star Trek phasers (set to stun) unfortunately that means inflicting enough trauma on the suspect/perpetrator that death is often the outcome even if not the actual goal.
Shooting the suspect/perpetrator several times and having the suspect/perpetrator return fire (or wield knife/club)for even a short period of time means more police officers and civilians killed or wounded, so using guns/cartridges that are the bare minimum for "killing" is not a good solution.
Back in the day of the 158 grain round nose lead .38 special there were several large police departments that skipped over the "double-tap" tactic and went to triple-taps in training. This was in response to some incidents were multiple hits to the body failed to stop the suspect/perpetrator in a timely fashion. While nation wide the average police shooting was only 2-3 rounds fired a department that taught this technique was limiting it's officers to just two firing opportunities per cylinder full of ammo. Against multiple suspects/perpetrators?????

Other considerations/differences between police use and military is that for police use barrier penetration is seldom a good thing. Any rounds fired, if they hit the suspect/perpetrator, should ideally stop within the suspect/perpetrator and not hit someone behind them. Likewise any misses should penetrate the fewest number of walls/partitions inside a building to reduce the danger to people behind those walls/partitions. Outdoors slow moving lead projectiles are one of the greatest projectiles for ricocheting known to man. They tend to bounce off hard surfaces with very little reduction in mass/velocity if the impact angle is shallow and have killed/injured people a number of blocks from the actual shooting scene. Counter intuitively, higher velocity ammunition often poses less of a problem as the bullet strikes the first surface with enough force to cause the bullet to break up. The smaller pieces don't fly as far and being smaller have less energy. Likewise inside a building the higher energy bullets if designed to expand will often show less penetration as the deformed (expanded) bullet tries to make bigger holes in the barriers and actually has less energy per unit of frontal area.

Training and theory often go out the window in real situations and has been noted the switch to high capacity semi-autos had shown a rather remarkable increase in the number of rounds fired per incident on average. Without a corresponding increase in the number of hits.

 

[Shortround6]

Is there a scientific study to clarify if a full sized man drops with a 9mm whereas he runs marathons and jet skis after been shot by a 380? I always take calibre flame wars with a pinch of salt.

He doesn't need to run marathons and jet ski. He just needs to be able to squeeze a trigger and/or stab with a knife for a few minutes or even seconds.

There were quite a number of studies done back in the 70s and 80s concerning "one shot" stops. You are partially correct, The worst (if memory serves) was the .22LR with just under 50% (48 or 49% ?) while the absolute best (among the rounds with enough incidents to form any sort of valid conclusion) were in the low 90% range. Everything else was in between and even the .44 magnum was not 100%.
So in a number of comparisons you might be comparing 70% to 80% effectiveness between two particular cartridges.
Including multiple hit incidents was not done as it included too many variables.

Now do you want to bet your life (or the lives of friends/relatives) on ammo with a 60% track record or with an 80% track record????

I would note that none of the Full metal jacket ammo was near the top. Not even the .45ACP.

 

[Hansie Bloeckmann]

If, as Garand had wanted, the M-1 had been produced with a lighter cartridge then the 30.06 and with a detachable Mag (10-20 rds?) instead of the clip it would have been more effective.
What if the US as adopted to Brit. .303? Would have made things a lot easier.

Makes me think a "what if"- If the Army Ordnance board planned on using the Garand along with the Springfield 1903 in combat theaters-both firing the same .30 cal round-- along with support from the BAR in the same cal.-- one advantage both the 1903 and the Garand have, the soldier can get in a closer to the ground prone position in combat, or from the lip of a foxhole, than he could with the 20 rd. box magazine and the bipod of the heavier BAR.

Special Ops. combat units, like the Rangers and the OSS units could have 1903-A-3 Springfield scope sighted for sniper and counter-sniper usage, as the Springfield BA will accept a telescopic sight much easier than a Garand-- Also, stripper 5 rd. clips for the unscoped 1903's, and 8 rd. enbloc clips for the Garand are more "compact" and less likely to be lost than the 20 rd. box magazines for the BAR-- How many empty BAR magazines were recovered and refilled in a combat operation??Or, for that matter, for the Thompson SMG??

Browning designed the BAR for "walking fire" as developed by the French in WW1- The French
Chaquat (sic) automatic, fired from the hip as the soldier moved forward, spraying rounds to keep the enemy "pinned down" was a flawed design, so I have told.

Browning's was way better, but like the Thompson SMG, both became more "notorious" during the lawless Prohibition era, used by both the criminals and LE groups. The Germans had the better concept of usage of MG's in combat- with the MG 34 and the MG 42 supported by the K98- all firing the same exact round.

I think of the movie "Saving Pvt. Ryan" and think, if I were the CO-- I'd ditch the Bar, and have that Ranger carry a Garand, ditto the First Sgt.- ditch the M-1 carbine, and also carry a Garand- You have to be in superb physical condition to serve in a Ranger unit, so carrying a 10.5 lb. Garand should NOT be an issue- and you can carry more ammo for a Garand than if you have to carry a BAR with bipod, and however many 20 rd. magazines you are issued. Just my concept of : (1) common ammo for all soldiers in the unit- and (2) common weapons with interchangeable parts- maybe not so much a deal in basic training and the rifle range, but more relevant in the mud, rain and gloom of a combat situation.

IMO, in a combat scenario, the M-1 Garand stands in a class by itself- a feeling shared by Gen. George S. Patton Jr. (and others)--

 

[The Basket]

My answer would be move to 357 magnum hollow point and nowadays not all revolvers are 6 shooters.
In my military days, I was told that each round was accountable so the idea of a police officer with a wonder 9 going full on Tarantino and emptied a magazine in some fleeing suspect beggars belief.
Maybe they got so many rounds they can shoot them off where a revolver each round is a good percentage of your firepower so gotta make em count.
With suicide bombers and the like then instant kills and head shots has become the norm. But that is more about good aim. 38 special lead bullet is always more effective to the head than the 44 magnum that misses.

 

[parsifal]

Most police forces across the world, don't shoot to maim, they shoot to suppress the threat. If a weapon is drawn, police will intend to kill you. They do not draw their weapons with the intent to just scare you.

ive done some police training. If you draw your weapon, you are taught to shoot for lethality, and shoot instinctively. Its otherwise hard to start pulling the trigger withe intent of hitting a human being. It has to be an instinctive response, used only when deadly force is required. .