Quote:
Originally Posted by Ziggy2525
My disclaimer is the only thing I'm an expert at is not being an expert at anything.
Been a while ago. I had read about a group of trauma surgeons that were making the point that they weren't seeing the JHP expansion in real human shootings for bullets that had been shown to expand totally reliably in ballistic gel. They suggested in real world shootings, 148gr wadcutters did as much damage in real humans as JHP's because the JHP's weren't expanding. They didn't seem to have the clout to overcome the "FBI says" lobby.
Since I'm not a trauma surgeon or a ballistics expert, I don't have a good way to judge which side is true. I can look and see some pretty smart, BTDT people aren't "all in" with the results from ballistic gel testing being the holy grail of bullet performance.
|
A couple points to consider.
There is sampling bias involved in anything trauma surgeon do. For example I worked with a chest cutter 20 years ago had cut his teeth in both South Africa and NYC and had experience with over 1500 gun shot wounds to the torso. In his opinion, the 230 gr FMJ was by far the most 'lethal' bullet in his experience. That sounds suspect until you consider that his 'experience' was defined by people who survived a gun shot wound long enough to make it to his operating room.
He also agreed that the more gunshot wounds a person had, the less likely they were to survive, due to more blood loss through more wound tracks that damaged more organs and systems that were then much harder and look much longer to repair.
It's possible that the 230 gr FMJ was the bullet that tore the patient up the most - while still allowing him to survive, and that patients hit with hollow points were, all things being equal, were less likely to last long enough to get to the OR.
The other problem with trauma surgeon opinion is that the damage done to a patient surviving to the OR is not the same as rapid incapacitation. If you shoot someone 10 times with a .22 LR they have a high probability of dying but given that they lack the significant penetration needed for a CNS hit, a cardio vascular hit and/or large wound tracks to blood bearing organs that promotes fairly rapid loss of blood pressure, those 10 .22 LR rounds are not going to result in rapid incapacitation. Having an assailant die three days later is small comfort if he killed you after you shot him multiple times.