Can .45 acp JHP penetrate bone (self-defence)?

I guess you need to watch NCIS more often.

Most people shot in the chest with a 45acp anything - 230fmj to 180 JHP - the bullet ends up lodged in the spine or rear rib sections....after easily penetrating the sternum or ribs..........assuming it does not exit the target person between the rearward ribs and is found in the wall behind them.

I cannot think of anyone who stopped a 45 with their sternum and simply played with the end of the bullet until they wiggled it out - then maybe stuck a bandaid on it. That is just a stupid silly thing to consider. Go fire a 45 into a thick stack of wet cardboard 3-6 feet thick, some wet boards, or even a tree and see how far it goes!

I'm assuming you don't have a .45 yet so the answer is definitely absolutely yes. It will bust them up on the way in and on the way out unless you're using frangible ammo or something like Liberty USM.

Now if you actually own a 45 you can perform this little experiment. Go to Applebees and order a bunch of ribs to go. Enjoy a lovely dinner but save the bones. Now take drywall screws and screw through a piece of plywood into those bones so they're standing up neat little rows. (Yes... they're pig bones and they're a LITTLE smaller than human ribs, but they're close enough to give you an idea) Make three rows of ribs right behind each other. Now go ahead and shoot through them. Notice the bones flying everywhere? yeah. That's what a 45 will do.

Persons keep bringing up stuff from the '80s. As soon as it happens, it's not forgotten ,and to a few it is as genuine at present as it was then. The only hole point circular in .45 ACP that I heard about issues with was the Winchester Silvertip. It wasn't a penetration drawback, it was an expansion main issue. The cavity would plug up with some thing material the bullet went through and did not develop. I pulled one from a cottonwood log and reloaded it. The main issue has long since been corrected.

OK, I've gotta throw it out there since nobody else did. How far? 200 yards, probably not. Anything under 50 yards, without a doubt. Under 25 yards it could still easily break your sternum or ribs, even with a vest on. There wouldn't be any penetration but that's still a lot of weight in a small area moving really fast.

Well, considering that your sternum is cancellous (very porous) bone, and your ribs are primarily cartilage with very little bone in the front, absolutely and without a doubt, a 45 ACP will break a sternum and punch through ribs.

we are talking about humans, right? not a bear or something with huge bones hard as steel?

human ribs and sternums can be shattered with a hammer. are you saying 45 acp JHP bullets hit with force lesser than a hammer?

by some coincidence I do ammo research and development with 45 caliber handgun bullets.

it's funny, its the opposite effect. low velocity = shattered bones, high velocity = neat round holes. although for your purposes you will never shoot a bullet fast enough to make neat round holes out of that gun...

a look at ballistic gelatine tests done by the Feds and police suggest that if you are shooting a person you will be more concerned with overpenetration instead of under penetration.

i may not even own a handgun (at least not for another month till I'm 21) but even if it IS meant to expand, the fact that any JHP has a solid aft section means that its still solid enough to penetrate bone. our bones are stronger than concrete but concrete can be shredded by most bullets as it is. and anyway its simple physics, all that energy wouldn't just disappear so even if it DID manage to be stopped by bone (which it wouldn't) the amount of pain (assuming they didn't fall unconscious from the force) they would be in, coupled with the wind almost certainly being knocked out of them wouldn't deter me from continued usage of that round.

@glacier, what are you talking about? EVERYONE should watch more NCIS!

yes, the 230 grain .45ACP should have more than enough energy to crack/break bone. if you can't get the job done with a .45 then you need to be using a rifle or shotgun.

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They should easily break through the ribs, and I would bet they could break through the sternum too.