Hardball?

[riverrat38]

Jim Cirillo was a big fan of the full wad cutter, to the extent that he loaded them in the chamber of his partners .45 auto, and he considered that this practice saved his life during one shootout while on the NYPD Stake Out Squad. Jim said in his book "Guns, Bullets and Gunfights", that forensic experts had told him that they couldn't tell the difference between a .32 cal and a .45 cal wound, if the bullets were full metal jacket. This is because these bullets don't leave full caliber wound channels, but rather they make small holes, while the elastic tissue stretches over the bullet and then snaps back after it passes through, with little damage, unless it passed through the heart or central nervous system. He attended many post-mortems, and was impressed at the wound channels left by full wad cutter bullets. He used revolvers by choice, so he could use his hand loaded WC's.

rick

 

[Erich]

I have had a Big Name Pathologist tell me the exact same thing in one of our cases - although the operant question there involved the difference between hollowpoint wound tracks of divergent calibers.

 

[riverrat38]

Interesting!
Maybe our jello testing protocol should include a sheet of latex or other suitable membrane a few inches behind the entrance surface to measure elastic wound size.
We can speculate about internal ballistics all we want, but it is an empirical science for sure!

rick

 

[RaceBannon]

Eric, what was your old tag line about shot placement and penetration?
I think it's time to bring it out of retirement.

 

[Erich]

Too many characters for the new management. Nice of you to mention it, though.

"Shot placement is king; adequate penetration is queen. Everything else is just angels dancing on the heads of pins."