[Randy Smith]

Howdy people!

I read about how stopping power is kinda measured by a basic assumption that a bullet that does not exit the body is a good thing, because all of the kinetic energy of the bullet is expended into the target. But I wonder. I would think an entrance hole and an exit hole would leave two places for vital fluids to leak out of a bad guy. Wouldn't the more holes the better?

Or am I missing something obvious?

 

[gripper]

Entry &no exit vs. entry ANDexit;what's better???

I'd say that at least several variables come into play. All other things being equal,muzzle energy/terminal impact translates into real world stopping power(without CNS or big bone breaking hits) better if the force goes into the body as opposed to THRU the body. That said,the small to medium bore rounds tend to do better if they either destabilize(yaw)or upset(expand or otherwise deform).Deceleration is the factor in energy transfer hereWhether or not they exit(which I DO consider to be a plu myself)doesn't always matter. There is plenty of people in the boneyard that were dropped by one .32 0r .380 that hit 'em in the belly,bounced off of pelvic or other bone and wound up being recovered from their chest cavity by the ME. And there is plenty talking to St. Peter at the Gate that had thru&thrus off of major(or even high velocity medium) caliber.
The range at which the engagement occurred,the state of mind(and physical condition) of the decedent,single or multiple hits,drug&alcohol factors;all of the these canm/will influence any but CNS or big bone breakers.Personally, I as I said before,exits aren't bad things in that sense that youy asked about. What they can be ,however ,is civil/physical liability,assuming the projectile retains enough energy/integrity to endanger friendlies/bystanders.

Hope this helps.

 

[jamullins]

while exit wounds do bleed more than entry wounds the most significant bleeding occurs internally. as does the traumatic shock induced by the disruption of the vital organs, especially those made of non-elastic tissues. when a bullet does happen to dump all of its energy into a body there tends to be dramatic diruption of the circulatory system in that area and a general lessening felt throughout the body. too, the amount of actual physical damage done to the wounded area is rather expansive when compared to a pass through wound. now, obviously there is a difference in the effects of a solid no exit .223 hit and a pass through by a .416 Rigby, a good solid, no exit hit tends to be the most traumatic wound a body can suffer from a gunshot.

 

[Randy Smith]

So are rounds like the Glaser Safety Slugs and MagSafes really effective? I imagine you do need some penetration, but a very fast, very light bullet may just explode close to the surface when it strikes. Nasty surface wound, but would it really be a stopper?

 

[.45 COLT]

I get into a gunfight situation, I want 2 holes for every hit - a big one at entry and a bigger one on exit. The large, heavy bullet will break bone on its way to vital organs and if it misses the vitals, a huge wound channel will really spoil someone's day.

As far as overpenetration and hitting some poor bystander - In a shootout, there are some misses . Those bullets go somewhere, and carry a whole lot more force than one that has passed through a body.

DC

 

[Rich Z]

You know, this made a whole lot more sense to me as well. That exit hole would scare the hell out of me, much more than the thought of having a bullet that only had enough force to enter my body and not have enough energy to punch on through.

As far as worrying about the bullet and where it goes after it exits a bad guy, I would say that if I should ever have to fire at someone in an effort to protect my life, that will be one of the least of my concerns. I would probably have very little choice in the matter anyway. Sorry about that, Mr Innocent Bystander, but that instant trying to see what, or who, is in back of the attacker might make the difference in whether I survive or not.

 

[Bolo]

This is one instance based on hands on observation, not published facts.

A couple of decades back, I had an interesting part-time job = as a Deputy Coroner. Small "bedroom-community" County in between 2 of California's "Urban Blighted Zones".
I won't go into a lot of war stories, I scrubbed in on 36 Gunshot Homacides in a 14month period... Fact.
The one Justifiable Homacide in that time bears retelling in the spirit of this thread.:

A Felon on a 3 state crime spree was fatally shot during an attempted armed robbery of a gunshop by the store clerk.
The BG had a sawedoff rifle under his jacket, attempted to shoot the clerk = got off 1 shot, MISSED!
The clerk was armed with a 1911 type .45ACP, locked cocked &fully loaded = emptied the Whole gun into the robber at pointblank range! = 7 in NONE out!:eek3: = Seven 230gr FMJ - all in the remains and had to be autopsied to "determine Cause of Death" Longest Post I ever had to work on = took 2 Days

Internally the jerk was a total Mess! Every one of those fat heavy fulljacketed bullets expended their total energy in that creeps body. :dgrin: Because of the force of the initial shot (between the eyes) = the BG was blown backward and the clerk expended the remainder of the magazine into his body rapidfire as he was airborn backwards... in midair! The entrance wounds were in the inside of the thighs and groin :eek3: and up into the abdomen and thorax. 1 kidney was missed,
all other vital organs were struck at least once !
The ME's comment = "NICE Group!"
Then we dug in (intentional pun) to deternine "cause of death" (X7) Hard work, the first morning was spent diagraming the 17 tatoos on the remains before we even touched a scalpel saw or probe. The local Cops exited about the time things got 'spread out' ... Further detales omitted.
Coroner's verdict = death due to exchange of gunfire during the comission of a felony. Justifiable Homacide.

Made a beleiver out of me, my main CCW is a .45ACP, loaded with hardball.

 

[Rich Z]

Interesting observation.

A while back I got interested to see what all the hoopala was over those Black Talons, so I bought a box of 9mm and .45 ACP. Soaked a phone book real well and hauled it down to my clay hill shooting backstop. Fired one 9mm into it. Nothing much except a hole in the middle of the book, and the projectile going about half way through. The jacket had completely separated from the lead core. Yes, those sharp points one the jacket were pretty nasty looking.

Next I fired one .45 ACP into the same book. I was astonished! It looked like the phone book had exploded. Little pieces of the pages flew everywhere. I certainly did not expect that to happen. Especially when the 9mm produced such a mundane event in that book. The .45 went all of the way through the book and probably did not even start to open up until it hit the clay hill as the hollow point was filled with clay and the projectile just barely starting to mushroom. But that phone book was a mess!

Sure gave me a graphic image of the impact difference of the .45 over the 9mm, that's for sure.

I think round ball would not have had the same effect, however, and it was the blunt square end of the .45 that helped produce such a dramatic effect.

But all in all, it was pretty obvious that buying .45 ACP Black Talons was most likely a waste of money. If that bullet would not open up in a phone book and a clay hill, I seriously doubt it would do so passing through flesh and muscle. IMHO.

I guess I would still like the bullet to pass all the way through, however. In the scenario above, it appears that most of the bullets were fired lengthwise into the torso, so it would have been very unlikely they would have passed all the way through the body that way.

As an aside, I remember a company called Shomer-Tec at one time was selling ammunition that had serrated (sp) teeth at the edges of a nice wide hollow point bullet. They were supposedly for taking out the tires on an automobile in a hurry by drilling a perfect hole into the tire. Unfortunately they no longer sell them, but I thought they would have made an interesting self defense round. Shooting little buzzsaws at the bad guys.....

 

[jamullins]

the hoopla over exit wounds is one of those things where if it it exited the body it tended to be very powerful anyway so the energy it shed in the body was probably enough, where as if it stopped in the body then it shed all its energy into the body and in most cases that was enough also. i know ive heqard all the arguements about guys taking multiple hits and all but ive seen with my own eyes how this all works in action in real fights from iraq to somalia and from miami to prague on various real world jobs where violence was expected. i know of instances where an individual took a headshot from an m4 carbine at nearly six hundred meters and the bullet didnt penetrate his skull but he dropped stone cold dead and ive seen others get hit by multiple impacts of the same cartridge at less than one hundred meters and keep fighting as best they could while suffering several body piercing wounds. its not all numbers and science. hell, i spent nineteen hours with a 7.62 tokarev bullet lodged in my right lat and still had to soldier on. ive witnessed men get gunned down with 12 gauge shotguns when they tried to attack a group i was working in with knives. one of then took four shots of .oobuckshot and still managed to stab one of our group before he died from a .45 acp to the brain pan. say what you will about exit wounds, in reallity all that matters is actually wounding the other guy. sometimes one is enough, sometimes you have to drill him several times in order to finish it. exit wounds tend to bleed more than entry wounds because of the direction of the cut in the tissue, but internal bleeding is still the big issue. that is where most of the blood from exits come from. wether it leaves the body through an exit wound or not the internal bleeding is still there and that is what causes the biostress that induces traumatic shock effects and ultimately death.

 

[Hard Ball]

They all fall to .45ACP hard ball. I have seen many men shot with GI issue .45ACP FMJ. They all went down dead or badly enough wounded that they did not fire back.

 

[Smarter Gun]

Yup, that's what's going on right now. At nominal handgun velocities, current thinking tends to favor the use of FMJ hardball over JHP bullet construction. The, 'rub', as several posters have already pointed out, is concern about over-penetration.

For those who want to learn more about this subject, here are two of the most popular websites:

http://www.iwba.com/backissue.htm

http://www.ammolab.com/

I'm not, really, into this stuff; but I did find it interesting to note that - especially in handguns - a bullet's, 'sectional density' seems to have greater value in putting a target down than, 'expended energy.'

Who would have thought! Looks like the guys who stuck with their trusty old 45's were right, after all.

 

[Glenn Bartley]

Because of the force of the initial shot (between the eyes) = the BG was blown backward and the clerk expended the remainder of the magazine into his body rapidfire as he was airborne backwards... in midair!

Unless I read that wrong, it meant the bad guy was lifted off of his feet and propelled backwards by the force of a .45 Auto round. He was shot once in the head and then was shot with the remaining rounds in the gun as he traveled through the air, or that the remaining rounds propelled him likewise. Quite frankly I think such would be magic. To keep others from believing in magic, on issues of life and death, where you or I are depending on our firearms and ammo to do the trick, I had to speak out. I cannot tolerate it when I here of the magical properties of bullets. There is no one type of pistol round that is going to perform FM (f'ing magic) and that is the truth! A .45 Auto bullet propelling someone through the air, as in lifting them off of their feet and pushing them backwards through the air, solely because of the bullet’s energy is magic. It is not going to happen. This is not Oz, Toyland, or Disney Land by a long shot and I for one do not believe in magic.

I challenge anyone, and I mean anyone, to document a normal.45 Auto round (and this would include a round loaded to the maximum powder charge) that has the capability of lifting a man, or any similarly weighted object, airborne solely because of the energy that the round gives off. It in all likelihood has not happened and will not happen and, I will explain why I know this for a fact. As the round leaves the gun, it is pushed forward, but guess what - the same energy that pushes it forward also pushes back. Yes the very same energy, with the very same amount of force. This energy is felt on the shooter’s end as recoil. Why doesn't the shooter go airborne? While recoil may do a lot of things I have never, in over 15 years as a firearms instructor, seen a .45 AUTO round’s recoil send a shooter airborne; nor do I think I ever will. While I have seen animals shot with a .45 Auto (no they did not go airborne either), I have never seen a man shot with a .45 AUTO, but I have read reports and have talked to shooters who shot people. Some of them have shot lots of people in wartime, some one or two (or more) as law enforcement officers. They did not see it either. In fact shooters who have shot people with a 12 gauge slug have not seen it. Nor have others I know seen it, who have shot multiple enemies with a 30 caliber machine gun. That junk, and I do mean absolute junk in my opinion, is from the movies and books created by someone with vivid imaginations. It should stay just there - in fiction!

Any person shot who goes airborne does so for other reasons than because of the energy imparted by a .45AUTO round. For instance, they go airborne because they fell backwards and lost their footing due to muscular reaction upon being shot, or they go airborne because their body goes into a spasm and they kick out their legs (again a muscular reaction), or they go airborne because just about at the same time the bullet hits them they decided to try to jump out of the way. Now if you don’t believe me, then try an experiment for yourself: Take an object – any object (no not a live person or a live animal – that would be against the law - so make sure it is an inanimate object) that weighs in at 150 pounds, the weight of a light man. Shoot it full of holes with the .45 Auto ammo of your choosing. See what happens. Then let me know how many times the object went airborne due solely to the energy given off by a .45 Auto round. Then try with other objects and reduce the weight by 10 pounds each time. Let me know when you get to the point where the object goes airborne because it was hit by a 45 round fired from a pistol or even a carbine. I don’t mean let me know when you push it a few inches on a table and it goes airborne when it falls off of the table either. Let me know when it is actually propelled through the air like you see in the movies - even just a little bit -because of the force of the bullet. The truth of the matter is that the most energy a pistol round can impart on the object shot is the amount of energy it had when it left the muzzle and that was the same energy felt in the recoil. Actually, it usually – and this is in the great majority of cases (like virtually all of them where the muzzle is not touching the target) – imparts less energy than it had as it left the muzzle once it hits the target. You see as that round moves through the air it loses energy on the way to the target – that is physics pure and simple; you know things like gravity, and air resistance. Of course, over a limited range, it can penetrate because of its size and shape and velocity and because it retains sufficient energy to do so. It can then transfer energy into what was hit, but no man is going to be propelled through the air from just the energy alone that is given off by a .45 caliber round. It may make someone jerk or spasm, as I said, but remember if there are no muscle reactions there are no spasms and may only be a little jerking or pushing but certainly none sufficient to lift a man into the air. Heck, I could slowly and gently stick a needle in your behind and make you jerk or spasm and maybe even to get you to jump in the air but it would not be the actual energy given off by the needle that does that, but rather is mainly due to your nervous and muscular reactions to the pain and shock and the energy you expende in reaction to the needle. A .45 Auto may make them fall, it may cause their insides to hemorrhage, it may cause shock but; if you think a shot will put a guy in the air just because of the energy it gives off you need to change over to bazookas or give up guns altogether. That stands whether or not the bullet passes through or stays inside the guy who gets shot!

As to the original question, give me a bullet that goes in, expands into a nice mushroom or fragments, or tumbles around nicely and then stops just about a ½ to an inch short of causing an exit wound. Keep in mind I am talking about regular and commercially available bullets fired from conventional firearms of the type one would choose to carry under normal circumstances. Besides leaving all of its energy inside the person who is shot, it is also left itself behind (all of its density). That little piece of copper jacketed lead is in there, and if a bad guy who was shot tries to move around to try to kill you, that little hunk of metal may do further damage as it is pushed around by muscular activity. That could be a good thing! Sure you can shoot someone once and bring him down, or shoot many times (all hits) and possibly still not bring him down. I shot a guy once (yes the only time and once is enough but I would not hesitate to do it again) who got five bullet holes from a single bullet I fired at him - three entries and two exits. He did not go down - but instead ran away pretty darned fast. I was later amazed to find the bullet hit him in the right thigh, exited the thigh and then entered his sack, exited the sack (I rang his bells) and then entered the left thigh where it traveled down to near the knee resting on an artery. The doctors were amazed of how chewed up the area around the bullet was because he had run with it in there. I only say too bad it did not cut an artery and let him bleed to death. As it is maybe he is sterile, and I am hopeful that during electrical storms he gets a nice tingle now and then, and that he will develop arthritis.

I just think though, that you want the odds to be in your favor, and the odds are possibly more in your favor, in my opinion, when the bullet stays inside with the possibility of it doing more damage on a guy who does not go down immediately. If it does not kill him, and he runs away, maybe he will at least carry a reminder not to be such a jerk in the future. Of course you always have to be ready for the guy not to go down, or to run away, but rather to keep on firing or coming at you. Be ready.

Best regards,
Glenn B

 

[eli95]

I agree with HARD BALL & BOLO, big bore (40 cal and up) bullets have a much greater effect on target, assuming a life threathing situation, 20yds or less. The heavy bullets usually knock the target down.

RICH Z: try Hornady 185 gr XTP/HP in that 45ACP loaded to 1000fps.

My home defence load for the 44mag is 10 gas checks filled with lead (total weight 180 gr) loaded to 750fps. Doesn't go through walls, but you should see what it does to Rich's phone book at 10', ten small holes in front and nothing left of the back cover but shreds floating on the wind.

Terry

 

[Rich Z]

Although I do like your idea of that loading, I can't help but wonder how a prosecuting attorney will try to portray you in front of a jury. Bear in mind that attorneys are not under oath, so they are free to wax eloquent about anything that they think may turn the jury in their favor.

Yeah, I know, I would want to make ground beef out of anyone I found it necessary to shoot, too, but you do have to consider that there will be an aftermath if you are still alive.

Now on another note, a while back I played around with trying to fill a .44 copper jacket with pure sodium. I thought this would make a rather interesting round. Since sodium reacts rather violently with water, it would be the ultimate self defense round. Basically the projectile would burst into flames inside the bad guy's body. Of course, I would have gone to prison for two eternities if I ever actually shot someone with something like that, but what the heck.

Anyway, the project failed anyway. I could not keep the sodium from rapidly oxiding and oozing out of the jacket. Plus it is highly corrosive. So I wouldn't want to shoot it in any gun I had an interest in keeping. I guess the visual of sodium leaking out of the bullets into my pocket kept me at bay from trying harder with this project, too......

 

[41mag]

duh!the best way to get more holes is to keep shooting.it seems like that as long as u aren't law enforcement that you have a pretty good excuse to empty the cylinder/mag.how could a prosecuter attack u 4 being "in fear for your life"?i'm not talking about empting a pre-clinton 15 rounds of .45acp into a guy on the ground & turning him into hamburger.what i mean is;if one is good then two are better and three is better yet.and if you are a woman then empty the whole damn thing into the guy!
re.sodium bullets.that gives me an idea to try magnesium.i know you can get it as a powder & in a coil.i'm not sure how to contain it into a solid projectile that comes apart on impact though.something to think about.

 

[Glenn Bartley]

it seems like that as long as u aren't law enforcement that you have a pretty good excuse to empty the cylinder/mag.how could a prosecuter attack u 4 being "in fear for your life"?

Bernhard Goetz

 

[41mag]

"you don't look too bad.here's another."goetz was a vigilante.a vigilante that was found innocent of all but a mis-demeanor 8month gun chg.
add my line about being a woman.that seems to change the equation.
the magnesium round wouldn't go into anything but a backstop.don't be silly.its just a what if.kinda like the frozen hamburger bullet from the csi episode a while back.
my ccw gun will carry only ball or wadcutters.no point in messing with a good thing.

 

[Rich Z]

What exactly would magnesium do as a projectile? Back when I was a kid, I used to live near a machine shop, and we kids learned how to recognize magnesium shavings in the discards they would throw down near the swamp. Yeah EPA would burn them to the ground for that now.

But anyway, we would gather up as much as we could find and put it into a bucket, then wait for nightfall. It was a bitch trying to get that stuff lit, but when it finally did, it lit up the entire field.

So I know it burns hot and bright, but what good would that do as a projectile? Would the powder charge ignite it on the way out the barrel?

Which makes me start thinking out loud here. What is the chemical composition of tracer material? I've heard you can start fires with tracers, but never thought of it as a truly nasty burning bullet.

 

[41mag]

i was just trying to expand on your sodium bullet.thinking that a more or less solid projectile,as opposed to a liquid one,might hold together long enough to burn like hell in the target.
i remember reading that military tracers could cause fires in very dry circumstances.
ultimately i think our burning bullets aren't big enough to support real combustion.little 240-300grain sized bullets are quite small.now maybe in something like .50bmg or 20mm might have the volume in a projectile to work.i think that the damage inflicted by the kinetic energy of those rounds out performs whatever little fire most homebrew bullets could ever have.& the military already has HE rounds,yes?
just a what if.
might try a .45 cal full wadcutter hollowed out & capped w/a gas check.seal with parafin & load gas check side out.fill with whatever fits into a hollowed out bullet.might have to put a gas check on both ends.what about a copper tubing bullet?

 

[Glenn Bartley]

41mag,

Most people on this site to whom you gave that advice are not women but are men. As to the other point you asked:

how could a prosecuter attack u 4 being "in fear for your life"?

Bernie's case says it all about how a prosecutor can do just that, and that was the question I was answering _ I was not addressing a question about how much time you might get, but if you want to address that now, ok.

Just because Bernie (my hero) Goetz got off fairly easy does not mean the next person would. You can be charged, and you may lose, and may even fry. Shoot until they stop. Once the threat has ceased you cannot possibly be justified to shoot any more, and if you then keep shooting and kill the guy you can be found guilty of murder. If it turns out you made some really terrible mistake and the guy was a u/c LEO - you are gonna do life or fry if convicted - there is virtually no doubt you would be indicted.

Best regards,
Glenn B