Appendix 1: Summary of the Findings of the Wound Ballistics Board, 1904

(In reference to the ballistic superiority of the .45ACP cartridge over 9mm cartridges)

"For personal  encounters in self defense, it is useless to carry anything but an effective weapon. At war with savage tribes or a fanatical enemy, a  military man seeks to arm his soldiers with a rifle that delivers  projectiles with a telling effect.  A fanatic like a Moro wielding a  bolo in each hand who advances with leaps and bounds and who never knows when he is hit until he is shot down must be hit with a projectile  having a maximum amount of stopping  power. Again, the military man has to reckon upon the stopping power of projectiles against cavalry and  artillery horses in a charge."

--Colonel LaGarde.

" Colonels Thompson and LaGarde  experimented with 10 different projectiles, ranging in weight from 6 to  18.7 grams, in diameter from 7.65 to 12 millimeters, and in energy from  259 to 563 joules.  The firing tests were conducted against 10 human  cadavers, 16 steers and 2 horses. Colonel Thompson did the shooting at  the corpses, which were suspended by their necks. The impact of the  projectiles on the free swinging bodies was used to evaluate their  shock effect. After the shooting, Colonel LaGarde carried out the  necessary dissections to examine the wounds. X-ray photography done by  Doctors A. Hewson and W.M. Sweet of Philadelphia aided LaGarde in his analysis. Shooting took place at 0, 35, and 68.5 meters.

From their  experiments on the cadavers at the Philadelphia Polyclinic, they drew  the following conclusions. First, in skull wounds, the small,  high-velocity, jacketed bullets had a more explosive effect than the  larger, slower lead bullets. But in either case, the wounds would be  fatal, whether the large, lead projectile lodged in the brain, or the  Parabellum projectile passed through it taking half the skull with it.  Second, in all bony structures except the head, the fractures caused by  the unjacketed, low velocity, lead bullets were more serious than the  clean perforations made by the Parabellum bullets. Third, based upon  body oscillation, the large-caliber, blunt-nosed, lead bullets exerted a greater smashing force upon impact. These projectiles tended to stop  in the body, while the higher-velocity, jacketed ones usually passed  through. Finally, there was very little deformation of the bullet  types, lead or jacketed, as a result of entering the human body.

Although the data  gathered from these experiments tended to favor the large, unjacketed  projectiles as man-stoppers, Thompson and LaGarde also wanted to shoot  at living tissue to determine the effects of the ten projectiles.  For  this phase of the investigation, the went to the Nelson Morris  slaughterhouse at the Chicago Stockyards. An army sergeant who was an  expert pistol shot was assigned the duty of shooting at steers in their  lung and intestinal cavities. None of the steers appeared to be  seriously affected by the 7.65mm or 9mm Parabellum rounds. After ten  shots from each, the steer would still be standing and apparently  unaffected. The .38 caliber Colt cartridges (jacketed and unjacketed)  had greater effect. Four or five shots from the .45 caliber colt  revolver brought the animal down, while with the .455 and .476  projectiles three or four shots were required.  These large  bullets  caused the animals to hemorrhage as well.  LaGarde commented on these  tests.

'The failure on the  part of the automatic pistols of small caliber set at rest at once the  claims of the makers to the effect that the superior energy and  velocity of their weapons was a controlling factor in stopping power.  The Board was of the opinion that a bullet which will have the shock  effect and stopping power at short ranges necessary for a military  pistol or revolver should have a caliber not less than .45 it [a bullet] leaves its energy in the body in proportion to the amount of metal  which it deposits in the foyer of fracture. When it lodges entirely, it parts with all of its remaining energy.'

Thus, militarily,  the best projectile was one that entered the target and stopped; the .45 caliber bullet met this criteria." (Ezell, 283-284)