Does anyone know what happened to Evan Marshall and his Stopping Power site?

It's been unavailable or tries to redirect search engine choices for a while now.

Looks like it doesn't exist anymore. I pinged it and the IP address still responds, but not the Web site URL/name. The DNS servers are no longer associating the URL with the physical server. In a nutshell - GONE. No way to tell why.

I've got a hardcover I bought a while ago. See Amazon if you want to buy one. Might also want to research Paladin Press (March 1, 2001). It's somewhat dated now and I don't know if he has any updated results since then. Good luck.

https://www.amazon.com/Stoppin...nition/dp/158160128X

I just contacted Evan directly and he confirmed his website is no longer active.

but luckily some of the content is on archive.org

As a related sidebar - are Mr. Marshall and Ed Sanow still affiliated? I seem to recall first reading their ballistic findings in joint articles in “Handguns” magazine way-back-when.

Man, I loved those “Stopping Power” books. I had two of them, they’re still around here somewhere. I remember pouring over them years ago when I was early into firearms. Had to be the early 1990’s??

Marshall and Sanow's work has been significantly discredited for what that is worth.

quote:

Originally posted by dry-fly:
Man, I loved those “Stopping Power” books.

I have all the books and read all the related articles I could find at the time.

As scientific studies they were not perfect, but that was in no small part due to the limits of the source material Marshall and Sanow had available, but especially the incredible complexity of the subject. They were and still are more comprehensive and valid than any other publicly-available studies I am aware of.

The amazing thing about them, though, was the stunningly ignorant frothing at the mouth criticism they received from other self-styled “experts,” and the reason for that was obvious: Their findings contradicted the notions and beliefs about wounding effectiveness of handgun loads that had been based on nothing more than thought theory or highly-flawed limited experiments* that had been unassailable, and must-not-be-questioned doctrine for decades.

I enjoyed my limited participation in Marshall’s forum, but unlike here acceptable discussions and other policies were pretty tight and I suspect that limited its popularity and participations.

* Such as the Thompson-LaGarde efforts over a century ago.

Yep, at the time they were awesome though. The goat tests were impressive.

quote:

Originally posted by DaBigBR:
Marshall and Sanow's work has been significantly discredited for what that is worth.

quote:

Originally posted by DaBigBR:
Marshall and Sanow's work has been significantly discredited for what that is worth.

If I may ask, by who?

I read through different parts of the stopping power website when it was still up. A lot of the information was very interesting. I recall reading that Marshall and Sanow did not consider their information to be scientific. They were not trying to follow the scientific method. They collected as much data as they could. Set what they thought were reasonable parameters as to what to include and what to exclude. Then drew conclusions based on the remaining data.

Since there as no scientific method applied, anyone could, and many did, draw different conclusions than the authors.

The Marshall and Sanow books are plentiful on ABEbooks.

It was one of my go-to sites for years. It was an interesting site and most of the members political leanings were similar to this site.

I remember, c. 2000, a Handguns magazine article by Sanow, a comparison test in gelatin of black powder, cap & ball loadings to modern ammunition. The 79-grain, pure lead round ball from a Colt Navy was a very close equivalent to a .380 ACP hollow-point. ("Yep, ol' 'Wild Bill' [Hickok] was packin' a .380 Auto.") The 141-grain round ball from a Colt Walker was close to a 158-grain .357 Magnum. (I don't recall the powder charges.) It was interesting and unexpected.

quote:

Originally posted by dry-fly:
Man, I loved those “Stopping Power” books. I had two of them, they’re still around here somewhere. I remember pouring over them years ago when I was early into firearms. Had to be the early 1990’s??

I first became aware of Evan back in the early 80's when he was still with Detroit PD and frequently wrote articles for the POLICE MARKSMAN back in the days when the Police Marksman Association was still around.

They tried to bring the magazine back a few years ago, but it never took off again.

quote:

Originally posted by Broadside:

quote:

Originally posted by DaBigBR:
Marshall and Sanow's work has been significantly discredited for what that is worth.

If I may ask, by who?

I read through different parts of the stopping power website when it was still up. A lot of the information was very interesting. I recall reading that Marshall and Sanow did not consider their information to be scientific. They were not trying to follow the scientific method. They collected as much data as they could. Set what they thought were reasonable parameters as to what to include and what to exclude. Then drew conclusions based on the remaining data.

Since there as no scientific method applied, anyone could, and many did, draw different conclusions than the authors.

I did some Googling and found some archived discussion on various forums that mostly lead to dead links. Also found some letter to the editor type stuff talking about it being discredited.

I recall it to be a big topic of discussion 18-20 years ago. Marshall would notoriously not release raw data and there were people that claimed to have called up agencies where he claimed data came from and they denied ever providing it.

So I would take my memory with a grain of salt as well.

For those trying to buy a book version (Handgun Stopping Power). There are several publishing dates out there. My hardcover is copyrighted 1982 and I think it was the last version published. Not certain though. The Amazon paperback is "Paladin Press (March 1, 2001)". I've seen some references to 1987. Regardless, you're still looking at data that is 22 years old in regards to ammo.

Not going to get into the discussions on how "accurate" the results are on Marshall/Sanow or any other "studies" regarding handgun "stopping power". I concluded a couple of decades ago that there is no RELIABLE stopping power with handguns and mentally developed my mindset and tactics around that. Some are better than others, but that's about it.

I cringe when I hear "scientific method" in conjunction with this stuff. There is no way you can use scientific methods with shootings. Too many variables, not replicble and not enough volunteers to participate. There...I've used up my entire two cents.

BTW, Paladin is no longer in business.

I like Chuck Hawk's take. It may be 17 years old, but it still rings true today, IMHO....

https://www.chuckhawks.com/fac...l_stopping_power.htm

^^^^^ Not familiar with Hawk, but don't disagree with his points. Per my earlier post, hard to see how you "scientifically" determine handgun cartridge performance on people. I don't think it's possible. You go with common sense and make your own judgments. I've tended to follow Mas Ayoob's recommendations because he has access to LEA info based on real shootings. Scientific - no? Beats whatever is number two though.

Anecdote from my younger days. Stationed in San Angelo, Texas with USAF. Nice little town, great people. Had a local radio station that gave time hacks "corrected to one-thousandth of a second". "The time at the sound of the tone, corrected to one-thousandth of a second, is 12:00 noon". Problem was that the tone lasted a full second. In other words, the ILLUSION of precision.

quote:

Originally posted by Nipper:
^^^^^ Not familiar with Hawk, but don't disagree with his points. Per my earlier post, hard to see how you "scientifically" determine handgun cartridge performance on people. I don't think it's possible. You go with common sense and make your own judgments. I've tended to follow Mas Ayoob's recommendations because he has access to LEA info based on real shootings. Scientific - no? Beats whatever is number two though.

I'm tracking with ya'. Quantifying what makes a 'great' defensive handgun round means being able to quantify all the situations, body types, body chemistries, chemical/alcohol influences, fitness types, mental states and Hell, maybe even all weather conditions. There's enough variables to keep the Oak Ridge Frontier computer up nights with anxiety attacks.

Anecdotal is hardly scientific, you're right, but there is truth to be found in eyewitness accounts. I grew up with a slew of Texas Highway Patrolmen that saw firsthand the effects of a 125 gr SJLHP .357 Magnum coming out of S&W m28 or a Colt Python at near 1500 fps, and the effect was profound. Very, very, very few miscreants got back up off the pavement if they were hit accurately in the A-Zone.

Yeah, some exaggeration no doubt exists, as surely it did with the .45 ACP in WWII ("They all fall to hardball"), but after a while, you hear so many practical, reality based non-fish stories and see the eyes of those telling you clearly, "It worked, and it worked fast..." You begin to believe.

Based on what I've been told first hand, I would not feel undergunned at all with a 19-5, 66 or a 3" 586 loaded with that round. Or better yet, the modern day attempt to replicate that round, the .357 Sig, which was discussed in another thread recently. I'll repeat what I said there, that I trust the word of an early and longtime LAPD SWAT team member/instructor Larry Mudgett, who used to teach the D.O.E. SRT program...he is a big fan of the .357 Sig and can articulate why better than I can it's positive attributes; here's an article from his training school blog explaining why:

http://www.marksmanshipmatters...to-pistol-cartridge/

I like the fact that like Sanow & Marshall, he's trying to use a real world, common sense and even a mathematical approach to explain his opinion; it's neither "Some guy told me it worked" nor is it "The FBI graded it a 98% success in gelatin". It's what he's seen, what he knows and what his experience and intelligence has told him.

We forget that in 1870, men were effectively shooting and killing each other using .38 Colt Navy revolvers flinging 80 grain lead balls at 1000 fps... sure, any handgun can be lethal given the right circumstances. And in any armed confrontation, having a high degree of knowledge and skill with your weapon/caliber of choice is always #1, accuracy is #2 and quickly delivered follow up rounds is #3. But I would like to know, from a real world "What has actually worked" source what my options are to increase my odds.

I appreciate what Sanow & Marshall tried to do and I think they get unfairly roasted these days by Internet Keyboard Commandos eaten up with their fave rave YouTube Gun-Fu 'expert' doing FBI gel shoots, who seem to fail to appreciate how hard it was back then for them achieve what they were tying to... a comprehensive, reasoned out collection of real world factual shooting data, so as to gain insight into what was effective.

Fact is, if the FBI had not invested its resources on the Wound Ballistic Workshop in 1987 and all the subsequent years afterwards, justifying and camouflaging their horrific training that lead to the Miami Massacre with cries of "Penetration is everything!", and had instead started a focused database of every known handgun street shootings (not just LEO) including round type, grain, distance, number of rounds fired, weapon used, etc., today we might have a modern effective electronic version of what Marshall & Sanow tried to do back in the 1980's. With much better ballistic investigation and record keeping being put in place in the last 30 years amongst LEO agencies, it would be very interesting to see what such a database could have shown.