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The Thompson–LaGarde Tests were a series of tests conducted in 1904 to determine which
caliber In guns, particularly firearms, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviated as "cal") is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel bore – regardless of how or where the bore is measured and whether the finished bore matc ...
should be used in American military handguns.


History

The Army had previously been using the .38 Long Colt, and the cartridge's relatively poor ballistics were highlighted during the
Philippine–American War The Philippine–American War or Filipino–American War ( es, Guerra filipina-estadounidense, tl, Digmaang Pilipino–Amerikano), previously referred to as the Philippine Insurrection or the Tagalog Insurgency by the United States, was an arm ...
of 1899–1902, when reports from U.S. Army officers were received regarding the .38 bullet's inability to stop charges of frenzied Moro ''
juramentado Juramentado, in Philippine history, refers to a male Moro swordsman (from the Tausug tribe of Sulu) who attacked and killed targeted occupying and invading police and soldiers, expecting to be killed himself, the martyrdom undertaken as a form of ...
s'' in the
Moro Rebellion The Moro Rebellion (1899–1913) was an armed conflict between the Moro people and the United States military during the Philippine–American War. The word "Moro" – the Spanish word for "Moor" – is a term for Muslim people who l ...
, even at extremely close ranges. A typical instance occurred in 1905 and was later recounted by Col. Louis A. LaGarde:
Antonio Caspi, a prisoner on the island of Samar, P.I. attempted escape on Oct. 26, 1905. He was shot four times at close range in a hand-to-hand encounter by a .38 Colt's revolver loaded with U.S. Army regulation ammunition. He was finally stunned by a blow on the forehead from the butt end of a Springfield carbine.
Col. LaGarde noted Caspi's wounds were fairly well-placed: three bullets entered the chest, perforating the lungs. One passed through the body, one lodged near the back and the other lodged in subcutaneous tissue. The fourth round went through the right hand and exited through the forearm. So the Army began looking for a solution. The task was assigned to Colonel John T. Thompson of the
Infantry Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and mar ...
, and Major Louis Anatole LaGarde of the
Medical Corps A medical corps is generally a military branch or officer corps responsible for medical care for serving military personnel. Such officers are typically military physicians. List of medical corps The following organizations are examples of medica ...
.


Testing

The tests were conducted at the Nelson Morris Company
Union Stock Yards The Union Stock Yard & Transit Co., or The Yards, was the meatpacking district in Chicago for more than a century, starting in 1865. The district was operated by a group of railroad companies that acquired marshland and turned it into a central ...
in
Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
, using both live cattle outside a local slaughterhouse, as well as some human
cadaver A cadaver or corpse is a dead human body that is used by medical students, physicians and other scientists to study anatomy, identify disease sites, determine causes of death, and provide tissue to repair a defect in a living human being. Stud ...
s. To consider different combinations of factors, several different calibers were used during the tests: 7.65×21mm Parabellum (.30 Luger),
9×19mm Parabellum The 9×19mm Parabellum (also known as 9mm Parabellum or 9mm Luger or simply 9mm) is a rimless, tapered firearms cartridge. Originally designed by Austrian firearm designer Georg Luger in 1901, it is widely considered the most popular handgun ...
(Germany),
.38 Long Colt The .38 Long Colt, also known as .38 LC, is a black powder cartridge introduced by Colt's Manufacturing Company in 1875. In 1892, it was adopted as a standard military pistol cartridge by the United States Army for the Colt M1892 revolver. The ...
,
.38 ACP The .38 ACP ( Automatic Colt Pistol), also known as the .38 Auto or 9x23mmSR, is a semi-rimmed pistol cartridge that was introduced at the turn of the 20th century for the John Browning-designed Colt M1900. It was first used in Colt's Model ...
, blunt and
hollow-point upright=0.2, Cross-section of a hollow-point bullet; proportions are those of a .22 Long Rifle cartridge Jacketed soft point (JSP) round. Right: Jacketed hollow-point (JHP) round. JSP is a semi-jacketed round as the jacket does not extend to ...
.45 Colt The .45 Colt (11.43×33mmR), is a rimmed, straight-walled, handgun cartridge dating to 1872. It was originally a black-powder revolver round developed for the Colt Single Action Army revolver. This cartridge was adopted by the U.S. Army in 1 ...
(US), .476 Eley (UK), and the "cupped"
.455 Webley .455 Webley is a British handgun cartridge, most commonly used in the Webley top break revolvers Marks I through VI. It is also known as ".455 Eley" and ".455 Colt". The .455 cartridge was a service revolver cartridge, featuring a rimmed car ...
(UK). The first day of testing involved eight live cattle; seven were shot through the lungs using different caliber rounds, and the effects recorded. The remaining animal was shot through the intestines with the .476 Eley. If the animal took too long to die, it was put down by a hammer blow to the head. Results were highly variable due to differences in shot placement, round types, animal size, and the number of times the animal was shot, according to Day/Velleux. For the second day, the test procedures were changed so that each animal would be rapidly shot in the lungs until the animal had died or 10 rounds had been fired. For this test, five to ten animals were used (LaGarde said sixteen cattle and two horses were shot,LaGarde, Louis Anatole ''Gunshot Injuries: How They are Inflicted, Their Complications and Treatment'', (New York: William Wood and Company, 1914), pp. 67-89 Day/Velleux says thirteen cattle). Again, results were highly variable, and weapon jamming also contributed to the variability this time, according to Day/Velleux. The cadaver tests were conducted by suspending the body, and measured the sway caused when the body was shot from different distances. As the suspended body constituted a
ballistic pendulum A ballistic pendulum is a device for measuring a bullet's momentum, from which it is possible to calculate the velocity and kinetic energy. Ballistic pendulums have been largely rendered obsolete by modern chronographs, which allow direct meas ...
, this measured the relative momentum of the rounds to some extent. After the tests, Thompson and LaGarde stated:


Criticism

The Thompson–LaGarde Tests have since been criticized as being "highly unscientific" and producing a recommendation unsupported by the test results. Others, notably
Julian Hatcher Julian Sommerville Hatcher (June 26, 1888 – December 4, 1963), was a U.S. Army major general, noted firearms expert and author of the early twentieth century. He is credited with several technical books and articles relating to military ...
and
Jeff Cooper John Dean "Jeff" Cooper (May 10, 1920 – September 25, 2006) was a United States Marine, the creator of a " modern technique" of handgun shooting, and an expert on the use and history of small arms. Early life and education Cooper wa ...
,Jeff Cooper, ''Cooper on Handguns'' (Petersen Pub. Co., 1974) regarded the tests as well conducted, and the recommendation as fully supported by the evidence available to the board, and empirical evidence subsequently available concerning
stopping power Stopping power is the ability of a weapon – typically a ranged weapon such as a firearm – to cause a target (human or animal) to be incapacitated or immobilized. Stopping power contrasts with lethality in that it pertains only to a weapo ...
and
handgun effectiveness Handgun effectiveness is a measure of the stopping power of a handgun: its ability to incapacitate a hostile target as quickly and efficiently as possible. Overview Most handgun projectiles have significantly lower energy than centerfire rifles and ...
.


References


External links


The Thompson–LaGarde Report
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thompson-LaGarde Tests Trial and research firearms Ballistics