A friend, who moved to Phoenix area, and I haven't seen for a decade or more, was a Belgian
soldier in the Congo during that unpleasantness, early 60s, I think. He recalled the first time a group of spear
and machete armed rebels charged them across an open field. He was a newbie, had never
fired upon a human, but was confident with his FN FAL in 7.62 NATO (.308 Win ball) and the
initial range of about 100 yds. He started shooting and was seeing bloody holes appear in
the guy's bare chest, but he kept running full speed with that machete over his head. By the third
hit with no apparent effect it was getting scary. The attacker finally dropped about 15 yds out,
but my friend, and his compatriots were quite shaken. It is possible that the rebels were on
some sort of drugs, he didn't know, but he was worried about dropping someone with a spear
or big blade in time if the initial engagement range was short.
A current project is max loads with the Speer Gold Dot 125 gr in .357 Magnum. May chrono
some today. I want to see what they will really do, velocity-wise, out of a 4" bbl. I did chrono
some old S&W brand ammo that went 1500 fps in a 6" Security Six some years back.
Bill