Put a yardstick under your arm and back up to a wall

[dben002]

You will probably find if you are of average build that your thickest point is your belly at about 14 inches and your chest area if average will be approx 12 inches thick......

Therefore does it not make sense that if your ammo travels more than 14 inches in ballistic gel and some do go to 16 inches and beyond you are using the wrong ammo as you have shot through the threat and endangered whatever is behind them...be that person or property.

 

[-db-]

Take the same yardstick and hold it horizontally at chest level and measure from one armpit to the outside of an arm on the other side of your body.

Need I continue?

 

[dben002]

Take the same yardstick and hold it horizontally at chest level and measure from one armpit to the outside of an arm on the other side of your body.

Need I continue?

That seem's find IF your target is standing sideways......

 

[-db-]

That's seem find IF your target is standing sideways......

Well, if you think a self-defense shooting is always going to be a situation where the adversary is always going to be standing perfectly squared up and facing you, arms to their side, their torso relatively bare or only lightly clothed, I don't know what to tell you.

Hopefully you're beginning to realize this "ammo that penetrates more than so many inches (insert your favorite arbitrary number here) is too dangerous" stuff is bunk.

 

[ImprovedModel56Fan]

Take the same yardstick and hold it horizontally at chest level and measure from one armpit to the outside of an arm on the other side of your body.

Need I continue?

Not on my account. Thank you.

 

[Arik]

You will probably find if you are of average build that your thickest point is your belly at about 14 inches and your chest area if average will be approx 12 inches thick......

Therefore does it not make sense that if your ammo travels more than 14 inches in ballistic gel and some do go to 16 inches and beyond you are using the wrong ammo as you have shot through the threat and endangered whatever is behind them...be that person or property.

Add clothing, body fluid (roughly 70% of your body), bones, fat, organs, muscle.

The 12 inches is considered minimum to cause damage to internal organs.

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[tops]

Therefore does it not make sense that if your ammo travels more than 14 inches in ballistic gel and some do go to 16 inches and beyond you are using the wrong ammo as you have shot through the threat and endangered whatever is behind them...be that person or property.

I have never in my 74 years heard of anybody being injured, attacked or in any way molested by a bowl of jello. Shooting into the gel tells you what that bullet does in gel and that is a far cry from what it will do in the real world in a live animal. Larry

 

[Arik]

I have never in my 74 years heard of anybody being injured, attacked or in any way molested by a bowl of jello. Shooting into the gel tells you what that bullet does in gel and that is a far cry from what it will do in the real world in a live animal. Larry

Ballistic gelatin closely simulates the DENSITY and VISCOSITY of human and animal muscle tissue, and is used as a standardized medium for testing the terminal performance.

While ballistic gelatin does not model the structure of the body, including skin and bones, it works fairly well as an approximation of tissue and provides similar performance for most ballistics testing. Ballistic gelatin is used rather than actual muscle tissue due to the ability to carefully control the properties of the gelatin, which allows consistent and reliable comparison of terminal ballistics.

You can always buy a frozen chunk of meat but since no 2 animals will be the same you have no way to standardize the test.

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[bigwheelzip]

The gel penetration depth most testers seem to "shoot" for is the FBI standard of 12 to 18 inches.
This is a good laymans explanation of why this criteria is used:
Bullet Effectiveness — what’s the big deal about 12″ penetration anyway? | Shooting The Bull

 

[Stephanie B]

Somewhere I read that skin has the same resistance to bullets as 4" of muscle tissue.

Anyway, what Arik said is correct: Ballistic gel is a soft-tissue simulant. It is not equivalent to the same depth of penetration in living adversaries. The researchers have concluded that 12"-18" of ballistic gel penetration is what is necessary in order to be reasonably certain that a bullet will penetrate deeply enough to do what it needs to do.

27 years ago, the FBI concluded that a bullet has to penetrate and break things in order to incapacitate an opponent. I haven't researched it very much, but I've not heard of any major disagreement with that conclusion.

 

[BAM-BAM]

Ask yourself ..... how much gelatin equals.... a rib; arm or hip bone or a person's femur...


I don't know the answer..... but I'd bet its more than one to one.......

or

what if the bullet has to penetrate some form of "concealment" (not bullet stopping "cover")...... like a pine door frame or a piece of overstuffed furniture.........

 

[dben002]

Thanks to all commenters....I don't know a whole lot about gel testing but was concerned my new 45 might me "TO MUCH" for
EDC self defense...

Thanks again

 

[Cal44]

Plus the bad guy could have anything from a light cotton shirt to a thick leather jacket on.

Plus if the bullet hits a bone, it might not go as far as if it hits only soft tissue.

This whole subject is way more complicated than it seems.

 

[Arik]

Plus the bad guy could have anything from a light cotton shirt to a thick leather jacket on.

Plus if the bullet hits a bone, it might not go as far as if it hits only soft tissue.

This whole subject is way more complicated than it seems.

Exactly. Some people are fatter, some stronger, some just have denser muscle.

This was actually a problem in Somalia. The bad guys were too skinny for the 556 round to have any effect

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[gwpercle]

Thanks to all commenters....I don't know a whole lot about gel testing but was concerned my new 45 might me "TO MUCH" for
EDC self defense...

Thanks again

I don't believe there is such a thing as "too much" when in a fight for your life.

 

[ParadiseRoad]

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvVNtKicux4[/ame]

 

[rog8732]

Alright, start again. Back to the wall,...yard stick, belly pokes out...if these numbers are to be posted anywhere, can I suck in my tum-tum and hold my breath ?

 

[Steve912]

Ballistic gelatin closely simulates the DENSITY and VISCOSITY of human and animal muscle tissue, and is used as a standardized medium for testing

You can always buy a frozen chunk of meat but since no 2 animals will be the same you have no way to standardize the test.

..but the magickal jelly that always is the same--!

Standardized gel testing is good for one thing: comparing bullet behavior in standardized gel. Going beyond that, is venturing into the Land of Pure Conjecture.

For assessing bullet behavior in humans, I much prefer hundreds of evaluations of bullet behavior in...humans.

That said, to remain on topic, I'd stay away from any slug
that penetrated only six inches in gel (Glaser type, Rhino ripper, copper petal rounds, etc.)

 

[Arik]

.

For assessing bullet behavior in humans, I much prefer hundreds of evaluations of bullet behavior in...humans.

Which you can't do because no two people will respond to being shot the same way. And no two people are alike. Kinda hard to see how a bullet performs.

I'm just curious as to why you don't let the FBI know about this? Obviously you figured it out

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[Steve912]

Exactly. Some people are fatter, some stronger, some just have denser muscle.

This was actually a problem in Somalia. The bad guys were too skinny for the 556 round to have any effect

Not caused so much by the body stature, as by the stability of the 855 slug. The increase in AR rifling twist-rate (from Stone's design spec, to faster and more slug stability) started way back in the Army's initial trials, and once again when the 855 round was adopted, in the M16A2. Each increase in twist brought a decrease in terminal ballistic performance. If the guys in Mogadishu were built like NFL linemen, it probably wouldn't have made much difference, in bullet effect. I've been told the newer 855(xx) slugs do much to improve on that, from proficient users of both old and new.