[Beartracker]

This artical I found on the net will make the nay sayers think again about the old lead ball and it's stopping power:


A little bit about bullets:

There are various schools of thought about bullets, and what happens when a bullet hits a person. The popularly accepted theory is that when a bullet strikes a person it does three things: it pokes a hole in them, it delivers a certain amount of kinetic energy to their body, and some of that kinetic energy is expressed in what is called a "wound channel". So when you shoot someone, the bullet hits them. They will feel a concussive shove, very much like getting punched. But there will also be this other thing that happens: when the bullet goes through their body it will deliver kinetic energy into the surrounding tissue, causing the tissue to "jump away" from the path of the bullet. Some tissues deal with that kind of treatment better than others. The muscle tissue in your leg, for example, will jump away from the bullet and then snap back into shape. This will cause horrible bruising, but the tissue will basically recover. Your liver, on the other hand, will explode into pâté. The liver is fairly important. You'll live about five very painful minutes without it.
Like everything else about bullets, there is a great deal of debate about how different bullet shapes and velocities affect the variables of bullet wounds. However, I tend to go with the theory that makes the most intuitive sense to me: bullets are like objects being thrown into water. Narrow bullets that have a nice latitudinal spin will go deep into the water and not disturb it much as they go. Big fat bullets, or bullets with a longitudinal spin, will tend to "splat" into the water, creating a lot of resistance, disturbing the water, and making a big mess.
One popular illustration of this principle in action is the development of the .45 caliber round for use in the Philippines. U.S. troops were having this problem where they were being overwhelmed by Filipino human wave attacks because the Filipinos would keep coming, even after they'd received a lethal bullet wound. So the U.S. forces adopted a slower-moving, larger bullet that wouldn't penetrate as deep and delivered more of its kinetic energy into the "shove" part of the equation. The idea was to use the bullets to actually knock the Filipinos over, breaking the momentum of their attack. What came of these efforts was the .45ACP round, developed by Browning, who was working for Colt at the time.
By all reports, it worked marvelously.
Against the Filipinos.
Who were typically armed with antique muskets and spears.
And fighting for the right of self-governance, on their own land.
But I digress.
I was talking about soft slugs.
The thing about a hollow-point or soft lead bullet is that it moves through the air in a fairly orderly fashion, then splats like a water balloon when it hits something a little stiffer. Like a person. During the American Civil War, the common ammunition for muskets was a soft lead ball. And you can see the effects of soft lead balls in some of the pictures from that war; you'll sometimes see pictures of dead soldiers lying face up in fields, and they look like they're doing a very slight back bridge. That's actually because their backs have been blown completely out, and something about the way the meat dries makes them curl up around the wound. Musket balls were usually in .30 to .50 caliber range. In addition to causing lead poisoning, they tended to blow great big messy chunks off of people. A musket ball in the upper shoulder would literally blow a person's arm off.
By the 20th Century, this kind of thing started to seem a little cruel and unusual to people, so they made rules mandating smaller bullets with metal coatings that would keep them from "splattering". The basic idea is that a hit to the vitals is still likely to be lethal, and a hit to the extremities will still put a soldier out of action— but there will be many fewer people with missing pieces after the war.
Which is fine as far as it goes. But it doesn't really have the psychological impact of the big messy wounds of yore.

[Low Key]

+1 Beartracker!!

The good old round pure lead ball was and is an effective stopper in it's day and today as well.

Regarding the military use of projectiles, back 140 years ago the point was to kill the target by whatever means necessary but in the modern day there is a different school of though on that matter. The modern military doesn't necessarily want to kill the enemy on the battlefield, they want to seriously wound the enemy instead. :what: The thinking behind that logic is that a dead soldier lays on the battlefield and his compatriots pass him by because there is nothing they can do for him anymore, but a wounded soldier screams and hollers and wants help so his fellow soldiers stop to carry the wounded man to medical help...soldiers who could be fighting are instead carrying wounded to the rear leaving fewer soldiers to fight the battle. So, the military FMJ ball ammo is not designed to kill, but to wound instead...it has good penetration but little expansion. It pokes a hole without doing much serious damage. The lead ball is different as per the article cited by beartracker. :)

[Derek]

I seriously doubt if there was any-one more knowledgeable about handguns than Elmer Keith.In his book, "Sixguns" he says that the .36 Navy Colt was a far better man-stopper than the .38Spl.The soft lead roundball dumps all of it's energy into it's target, where the modern FMJ projectile goes on through.

[TexasRifleman]

After reading that I am almost of the opinion that I'd rather be struck with a modern round than a lead ball from the Dragoon.....

Wow :what:

[Beartracker]

Low Key, It's kind of strange to me that so many people are mislead about the effect of these balls during the Civil war and after. This article also included a photo showing a whole lot of dead solders laying on the battle field that were shot with lead balls.
I thought of you and the water jugs you shot and posted pics of a while back showing the wound channels the ball left in the plastic. Also thought of the one that someone shot in clay that really showed just how devastating the wound could be. These balls roll as they tear through flesh instead of just taking a straight line through the body.
I know first hand what a .454 ball will do to a Deer when it's shot through the lungs. The Deer doesn't go far and neither would a man.

[ribbonstone]

Lead ball has at least three things going for it:
1. It decelerates quickly even without drastic expanison...which transmits its energy rapidly.
2. It's too "stupid" to tumble....so it tends to keep going in a more or less straight line
3. Pure lead is difficult to fragment, it can expand but generally keeps it's weight.


The .45 of the Phillipines was the .45 Colt....the .45cp was a bit later thn the main events ( although that fight went on for quite a long while...in some views, it is still going on). The less told tales were of the natives taking 30-40 rounds through center body and still getting within sword strike.

[22hipower]

civil war rifles and muskets were usually .58 cal or larger and fired a 600 gr.bullet

[R.H. Lee]

Stoopid question cuz I know nada 'bout BP/lead ball arms...........what sort of rifling did the barrels use? Was/is leading a problem? How was the accuracy?

It almost sounds like leadballs are the standard we're trying to approach now with hollowpoints.

[RecoilRob]

Yes, I'v read the stories about the .38 revolver not stopping the Moros and the Army re-issuing the .45 Colt to solve the problem.

But, as stated, MANY of the drugged up Moros took multiple 30-40 Krag rounds without immediate effect. Which is a whole lot more gun than any pistol!

From what I have read on the subject, the Army DID bring back the .45 trying to solve the problem which led them to insist on large caliber for their next sidearm. But, while the Colt WAS better at stopping the Insurgents, it wasn't foolproof and there were plenty of failures to stop, even with multiple hits.

Kind of all comes back to shot placement with adequate penetration, doesn't it? And, the lead round ball has the penetration to do the job if you put it where it belongs.

[4v50 Gary]

Accuracy varied depending on several factors. If there was no rifling, the soldier might be able to hit his mark up to 75 yards if he had a lot of practice and took the time to aim.

As for rifled barrels, the American rifleman could hit an orange at 100 yards and a man a 200 yards. 300-400 were possible for some of the better shots and the longest I know of in the New World is 600. Longest I know of (but haven't read the documents) is at 700 yards (that'll be in a footnote in my book).

One thing about lead bullets, they do like to deliver their energy into their target. Little wonder why amputations were so frequent in the days before nitrocellulose propellants.

[JohnKSa]

the development of the .45 caliber round for use in the Philippines. ... So the U.S. forces adopted a slower-moving, larger bullet that wouldn't penetrate as deep and delivered more of its kinetic energy into the "shove" part of the equation. The idea was to use the bullets to actually knock the Filipinos over, breaking the momentum of their attack. What came of these efforts was the .45ACP round, developed by Browning, who was working for Colt at the time. There was no round developed for use in the Philippines. The army RE-issued .45LC revolvers to the troops. They went back to a previous issue weapon, not a new one.

I think that the .45LC bullet was actually going faster than the .38 round being issued at the time, and it would surprise me greatly to find that it penetrated less than the .38 round being issued.

The .45ACP was not developed for some years after the Philippine situation was resolved. It's likely that the lessons learned in the Philippines were wrapped into the design specs of the ACP by the military, but it's not quite as closely tied to the Moros as many would like to believe.

I generally agree with your theory on handgun/bullet effectiveness, but disagree that there is any handgun bullet that will knock a person over or break their momentum purely from the impact energy or momentum of the bullet.

[Burt Blade]

Smoothbore muskets of the Civil War were roughly equivalent to a modern single-shot shotgun. (.69 caliber was typical) Back then, smoothbore shooters either fired a single slug, or more commonly a "buck-and-ball" load. This was an undersized round ball and 4-9 buckshot pellets. The idea was to hit the main target, and maybe some of his adjacent friends. Or at least hit something if th emain ball missed. Effective range for a slug was 50-70 yards. Buck-and-ball stretched that a bit.

The "rifled muskets" of that era, such as the Enfield of 1858 or the Springfield of 1861, fired a .58 caliber ~500 grain slug at over 1500-1700 fps. This round was accurate on man sized targets out to 600-800 yards in the hands of competent marksmen. The "Minie Ball" was a hollow-based slug designed to loosly fit the bore for ease of loading from the muzzle. Upon firing, the base expanded to fit the rifling tightly. This allowed an accurate rifle to be loaded as fast as any smoothbore.

Five miserable years took us from single-shot smoothbores and rifles to cartridge repeaters and primitive machineguns (Gatling guns). To this revolution of carnage, add in rifled cannon firing cannister (airbursting fragmenting rounds), medical "science" that did not even understand hand washing and centered around swift use of knife and saw, and tactics suited to the clumsy weapons of the prior century. This was the dawn of Industrial Warfare.

The battle at Gettysburg saw some of the most horrific single-day casulaties of any battle the USA has ever fought. Picket's open-field charge of 15,000 crack Confederate Infantry into the teeth of well-prepared Union lines and cannon, resulted in over 10,000 causalties in a few hours. This was a tiny fraction of the butcher's bill rendered by the "primitive" wepons of that era.

The American Civil War was a period of butchery unequaled before or since for American soldiers. By the time it was over, 1/10th of the adult male population of the United States had been maimed or killed, by mayhem or disease. One third of the country lay in ruins. People still argue about this hideous war, and what it "really" was about.

Off the field of battle, disease was the biggest overall killer of that war, but that was an unintended consequece of the main event. The number-one killer on the battlefields of the 1860s was a soft lead slug moving below mach 2, be it fired from pistol, rifle, or cannister round.

[Low Key]

It's kind of strange to me that so many people are mislead about the effect of these balls during the Civil war and after. This article also included a photo showing a whole lot of dead solders laying on the battle field that were shot with lead balls.

Mike, In this day and age, the prevailing thought is mainly "newer is better" and many will discount the older designs of anything as being inferior to the more modern designs. My thoughts are along the same lines as yours, it did the job effectively back then and will still do the job now. I don't feel the least bit under gunned with a cap and ball revolver in my holster. :D BTW, my 58 Remington will hold a better group at 20yrds than my para ordinance 45 auto!

[Sistema1927]

By the 20th Century, this kind of thing started to seem a little cruel and unusual to people, so they made rules mandating smaller bullets with metal coatings that would keep them from "splattering". The basic idea is that a hit to the vitals is still likely to be lethal, and a hit to the extremities will still put a soldier out of action— but there will be many fewer people with missing pieces after the war.

Not too sure that this was why the modern jacketed spitzer bullet was developed. Looks like PC run amok to me. If they wanted "fewer people with missing pieces" there would have been a ban on modern artillery, advanced explosives, helicopter gunships, cruise missiles, and ground attack jet aircraft.

[ribbonstone]

It's about range and penetration rahter than "stopping power" (whatever that may mean). Modern military bullets are rated on their ranging and ability to penetrate, that's what the specs are wrtitten for and that's what the bullet are designed to meet.

Even back in 1873, when the 45/70 was to replace the older 50/70, were somplaints that the new 45/70 (which ranged better than the old 50/70) just didn't kill horses nearly as well as the 50/70. EVERY caliber change has had it's controvesy...the 45-70 vs. 30-40 debate was just as hot and heavy as the .223 debate.

For all that, were some pretty good spitzer bullets made for stopping power. Trick seems to be to get it to yaw or tumble early in it's path...stable in air, but unstable in meat. Wouldn't be a great hunting bullet as when they get to turning end for end, it's darned hard to predice their path.

[Gewehr98]

One's a Remington Navy in .36, the other's a Remington Army in .44. I wouldn't want to get hit by either, as I've been teaching my stepsons how to load them with real, honest-to-Gawd Goex FFFg and a Buffalo conical bullet.

Then there was the Colt Walker .44, which I understand kept the handgun power record well into the smokeless era, until the .357 Magnum trumped it. I'm vacillating on getting my own Walker replica, it's a big chunk o' steel, but so is my Desert Eagle. :D

[Derek]

Gary, in an article written after he had published his book on Hawkens, John Baird wrote of trying to duplicate a mountainman's story of shooting an indian at 800 yards.I remember he was using a .58 custom built copy of a Hawken, a beautiful rifle, shooting across a small canyon at a measured range. He tried some horrendous charges, until adding powder DECREASED his velocity, [blown out unburned]and I don't think he could REACH the target.Does anyone else remember that article?A round ball is the worst possible ballistic shape, and yet there was an article in Muzzle Blasts a few years back about a man duplicating a shot at 300 or 400 yards with a .32! The challenge was to hit a square target[ about 3 feet] once in 10 shots. He actually hit it several times.

[Duncaninfrance]

Sorry troops, Apparently I have finger trouble of some sort.How do you erase?
Don't think you can Derek, just take more water with it!!

I don't have any technical info to offer BUT when I was in the Territorial Army (National Guard) I did some urban warefare training and I remember seeing information photographs of bodies hit by NATO 7.62 ball from an SLR which showed a small entry hole in the front and a gaping exit hole in the back. One round = one stop!
When we moved to the SA80, a piece of junk, it's 5.56 round was designed to hit the target and then change direction on entry so as to wound and require CASEVAC of the soldier thus tying up manpower on the battlefield as stated by LK. It was also said that the weapon was designed for urban use where range was reduced and targets used solid cover. I prefered the SLR and it's power. It could take out a target hiding in a house by shooting through the brickwork rather than waiting for the target to show it's self.

Duncan

[Boom-stick]

+1 to Duncan,
I was told the same thing whilst in the Army Cadets (National Guard for Kids!!)
We used SLR's and SA80's along with their single-shot counter parts.
The first CF rifle I used was a SLR with iron sights on a 600yd range, didn't hit a dam thing, they might as well have given me blanks.
The RCO delighted in telling us how you could shoot people through houses with it.:)

Good original article, makes me want more CnB pistols.

[ArmedBear]

Tangent...

I read somewhere that Rogers and Spencer revolvers were used in the Philippines, after sitting unfired in a warehouse since the Civil War (they were delivered just as the war ended).

Is this true? I've also read that a whole warehouse full of the unfired guns was sold to a surplus/scrap dealer in 1901 -- this doesn't necessarily contradict the above story.

http://armscollectors.com/mgs/images/armyrevolvers/rsrightsideview1.jpg

[jason10mm]

The 5.56 does it's best work when it can flip over, snap in half, and empty the lead core into the body. This produces a lead "snowstorm" that is very characteristic on x-rays. This was probably the effect intended by Stoner.

Nowadays with short barrelled M4s we are not getting the velocity needed at range and the thicker jacketed ammo used is less likely to snap. So instead of fragmenting the round drills little holes and perhaps flips once, exiting backwards. Much less traumatic overall.

I saw a 30-30 produce a lead snowstorm once. Initially we thought the guy had been tagged with a 5.56, but the round clipped dense bone (iliac crest, IIRC) and fragmented that way.

[RyanM]

http://www.firearmstactical.com/hwfe.htm

Cap and ball revolvers really don't have enough "power" to make much of a temporary cavity ("energy transfer" to you guys). Neither does any handgun short of a .44 magnum.

[Beartracker]

Cap and ball revolvers really don't have enough "power" to make much of a temporary cavity ("energy transfer" to you guys). Neither does any handgun short of a .44 magnum.

After reading the above article and all the info from the people who used these guns in the past you don't really believe your statement above about the .44 mag do you? Nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to just what effect these C&B Revolvers can have on the body.
I'm sure you would get many arguments from people who know if any of the Civil war boy's could come back and tell you what they have seen and felt from the lead ball. Either from Musket, Rifle, Pistol or Revolver.

[Burt Blade]

By modern standards, a .44 Remington has about as much "oomph" as a moderately hot .38 special, driving a 148 grain round ball at something like 750-850 fps depending on how you load it. The Walker Colt drove a similar ball at upwards of 1200 fps. It was just too darn big for handy carry for most folks back then.

While modern guns can certainly wring out more "thump" per unit weight or volume, the guns of the 19th century were by no means less than lethal.

What is interesting is the steady degradation of what was considered "adequate" killing power for the common Infantry rifleman. The .75+ caliber muskets of the 18th century became the .58 caliber rifled muskets of the mid 19th century, then the .45-70 caliber guns of the late 19th, then came the .30s of the early to mid 20th, and the .22s of the late 20th. By any measure except raw speed, the .223/5.56 is a popgun compared to the "adequate" killing irons of the previous 100-200 years. All the more surprising considering that the average American Infantryman is easily 6 inches taller and 40-60 pounds heavier than the men who fought the Revolution. The ordinary "man killer" rifle of the Civil War is now a big game rifle of staggering power. And yet we expected 15 year old boys to master these arms, and they did.

Oh, I understand the reasons offered for equipping a killer with a cartridge ideally suited for woodchucks and raccoons, but I think we have done the common Infantryman a disservice by telling him that he is best served by a steadily dwindling lethality of the primary arm of the poor slob called upon to clean up the mess politicians make of things.

Come to think of it, lawmen used to carry big .45s once, didn’t they?

[gmatov]

My favourite reply on this post is the one where the bullet is supposed to tumble, snap in half, and spread lead shrapnel all over the wound channel.

This sounds like a Colt advertisement from the early '60s when the Army found that Colt had miscalculated the twist needed to stabilize that .223 varmint round.

"Well, it's designed to keyhole when it hits a body." Trouble is, it keyholed when it hit a paper target, too. Was not anywhere near as accurate as the 14 it replaced, and I did not think the 14 was anywhere near as accurate as the M1 I trained with, 40 + years ago.

But, the thinking then, as now, was that the soldier could carry more .308s in 20 round mags, than a soldier with a bandolier of 8 round clips for the 06, and the soldier who had a .223 could carry even more rounds without wearing out.

He couldn't HIT anything, till they got the twist right, just as the .244 Rem was a pisspoor round till they fixed the twist, and it became the superb 6 mm Rem.

But that really didn't matter, the Viet Conflict troops had lots of butter to feed their guns, spray away to your heart's content.

I have to see how many rounds per casualty there were in the Viet nam years, per million rounds.

Former wars showed that the hits were very low per rounds fired, like 100,000 per hit.

That's really a god business to get into, no? Sell the govs inaccurate ammo, in inaccurate guns, and sell them more when they shot it all up.

I'd really like to know how anyone could design a bullet that could fly accurately 500 yards, then all of a sudden, touch skin, and become a whirling dervish, and spin all over the place and do so much corkscrew like damage.

That man is a genius.

From what I have read, the .38 would have handled the Moros, BUT, they, being the simple minded folk that they were, wrapped their bodies in Liana vines, or some such, effectively making their own armor, which the .38 could not penetrate. It was not that it would not kill, but it could not penetrate the vine to the vitals.

Like being behind a wall. Have to penetrate the wall to hit the body behind it. A body is a body, is a body. All physiology is the same. Heart is here, hit the heart, dead Moro, or dead US trooper, or dead US civilian. Or dead Emperor, for that matter. A bullet does not distinguish what is fired at.

Cheers,

George

[dwave]

This is a reply to RyanM;

I have read over the article that you posted, all of it. I did not see any mention of a .44 mag but I have seen some interesting quotes from that article.

1. "Of the remaining factors, temporary cavity is frequently, and grossly, overrated as a wounding factor when analyzing wounds." Pg 8

2. "Only inelastic tissue like liver, or the extremely fragile tissues of the brain, would show significant damage due to temporary cavitation." "Temporary cavity has no reliable wounding effect in elastic body tissues. Pg 10

3. "Kinetic energy does not wound. Temporary cavity does not wound. The much discussed "shock" of bullet impact is a fable and "knock down" power is a myth. The critical element is penetration." Pg 19

All quotes from: Handgun wounding factors and effectiveness (the link you gave).

Cap and ball revolvers really don't have enough "power" to make much of a temporary cavity ("energy transfer" to you guys). Neither does any handgun short of a .44 magnum.

According to that article no handgun can cause damage by "energy transfer", penetration is the key. That means that a .44 magnum is no more an effective killing tool than the old Colt Dragoons are. Both give penetration. I believe that the article stated that shot placement was very important.

I mean no disrespect to you and hope that I have not offended you in anyway pointing out these few quotes, and there was many more, but that would be a waste because the article is available to all here.

As gmatov says, Cheers!

[sundance44s]

ok guys Cabelas is sellin balostic jell and the oven to cook it in ...lol they`ll make myth busters out of us . :D

[Lo.Com.Denom]

I was told the same thing whilst in the Army Cadets (National Guard for Kids!!)

You too? Our CCF had two Bren guns, which I coveted, but they got phased out before I could get a go on them. Got to play with the LSWs instead...

"B-B-Bang, B-B-Bang, B-B- (insert new and inventive way to jam here):cuss: "...

I never understood why a cadet-rifle could jam and FTF even more than the LSW, when there were less parts to go wrong...

And wouldn't a round designed to injure be in direct contravension of the Hague Accords -- causing "unnecessary suffering" etc? Even if it weren't, they always told us to leave the wounded where they were until after you'd won the firefight, to avoid taking soldiers away from the battle! Why would they believe that the enemy would behave any differently? They still tell this blatant porkie about "shooting to wound" to squaddies even now. The MOD seems to excell in "doublethink" sometimes.

Back on topic, I think the issue of leading in the barrels was offset by the need to clean a lot more regularly when using BP. A soldier wouldn't be able to fire enough rounds without cleaning to cause significant leading.

On the subject of "power", I remember a tragic incident in the news from a few years ago. A suicidal young man had taken his father's .44 "Army" revolver (the papers never elaborated on what type), loaded it and placed it to his head. The father and the young man's girlfriend returned home to find him in time and convinced the guy to drop the gun. Which he did. Literally.

The revolver went off as it hit the floor and the round went through the girlfriend, shattering her spine and leaving her paralysed for life. The young man went to prison (I think for "reckless endangerment of life", or somesuch) and I think that the father lost his gun-license for leaving the gun unattended (he was cleaning it at the time and was called away for some reason when the young man re-assembled and loaded it).

I remember finding a new respect for BP arms, after reading that. I always knew that they were lethal, obviously, but reading about the effects on an actual person, just brought it home to me.:(

[Duncaninfrance]

I never understood why a cadet-rifle could jam and FTF even more than the LSW, when there were less parts to go wrong...

Possibly because they were not as well looked after as Regular or TA pieces and also not being mounted firmly enough on the body of the cadet ( a sloution not a crit ).
I do remember one night taking a lesson on the then New SA80 and substituting my Baker. I took my platoon right through the weapon, sighting, aiming and some drill. Light relief but surprising how much they enjoyed it.
Duncan

[RyanM]

According to that article no handgun can cause damage by "energy transfer", penetration is the key. That means that a .44 magnum is no more an effective killing tool than the old Colt Dragoons are. Both give penetration. I believe that the article stated that shot placement was very important.

I mean no disrespect to you and hope that I have not offended you in anyway pointing out these few quotes, and there was many more, but that would be a waste because the article is available to all here.

The article is mostly about handgun cartridges used for law enforcement. Below a certain power level, the temporary cavity won't cause any additional wounding except to inelastic organs, like the liver and kidneys. And even then, the effect is slight, compared to a high powered rifle. The threshold is around a 5-6" wide temporary cavity, to tear elastic tissues. FMJ pistol bullets of any caliber make a 1 to 2" temporary cavity at the biggest. Modern hollowpoints in most calibers are 2.5 to 3.5".

But a .44 magnum can approach the 5-6" range with more powerful loads. Of course, high-powered rifles exceed it by a large margin.

Tissue damage isn't really an absolute. Not all handguns are unable to make a big enough temporary cavity to contribute to wounding effect. A Thompson-Center Contender in a rifle caliber will be nearly as effective as a carbine in the same caliber. .44 magnum, with powerful ammo, is somewhere between typical handgun levels, and high powered rifles. The .500 S&W probably approaches high powered rifle terminal effect levels. But for... let's say .45 ACP and below, temporary cavity is basically a non-issue. Unless you're shooting very small animals.

However, they are correct in saying that "energy transfer" doesn't damage tissue. It's force and stress which cause damage. And the temporary cavity really has more to do with a transfer of momentum than anything, even though there is a correlation between energy and temporary cavity volume. Physics is crazy like that.

[dwave]

Enen though this is about round ball ammo, I will make this comment, I would rather get hit my a 9mm anyday over a .44 mag! I don't care what that article states about handguns.

[Beartracker]

In Mec's book "Percussion Pistols and Revolvers' there is an article by Jim Taylor in appendix F . Jim witnessed a man shot in the stomach by a 1860 Army .44 in a kitchen.The ball went clear though the man, bounced off the kitchen table and went through a cupboard door and lodged in a loaf of bread.
The man dropped immediately . They got him to the hospital in time to save his life but he was in there for a long time and Jim don't know if he ever completely recovered.
One friend of mine shot a wild bore with his Remington .44 with 40g of Goex 3 fff and a .454 ball. The bore dropped on the spot and the ball tore up the bore so bad that it traveled clear through it but only after it had cut a large channel.
Steve, who is one of the members on here shot a hog not Long ago with his 44 and he never did recover a ball that went through the skull , down through the neck and into the cavity..... somewhere.
After taking several Deer myself with my .44 Remington's and 40g of powder and a .454 ball I know the wound these guns cause.
The idea that these guns are equal to a .38 is ridiculous. What works on paper by using someone calculations may not always give you the true facts, testing on humans and animals will.

[dwave]

"paper specs" almost never equal to the real world. I cannot believe that a .44 Remington only equals a .38. I think that they also say that a .36 equals a .32, am I right on that?

[Dave Markowitz]

I'd really like to know how anyone could design a bullet that could fly accurately 500 yards, then all of a sudden, touch skin, and become a whirling dervish, and spin all over the place and do so much corkscrew like damage.

This is not voodoo, just physics.

This is typical behavior of all FMJ spitzer bullets, which have a center of gravity towards the rear. The spin imparted to the bullet by the rifling adequately stabilizes it while it's travelling through the air. However, once it hits something the stability is lost causing the bullet to tumble end over end after penetrating a certain distance, which varies according to the projectile and impact velocity. Some FMJ bullets cannot survive the stress of the tumbling motion and as a result, fragment. The best example of this is the 55 grain FMJ-BT as loaded in 5.56x45MM M-193 Ball. As far as I know, this wasn't a design goal, more of a fortuitous result.

Generally, the higher the impact velocity the greater the tumbling and fragmentation. I recall reading a 1940s US Army manual on the M1903 Springfield, which discussed penetration of .30 caliber bullets in pine. The bullets penetrated less at 50 yards than they did at 100 yards or so, because the higher impact velocity at the shorter range caused more immediate tumbling.

The bullet in British .303 Mk. VII and Mk. VIII Ball was a 174 grain FMJ, which had an aluminum or fiber filler under the tip, with the remainder of the core being made out of lead. This was done to make a bullet which was longer than normal for its weight, and thus more aerodynamic. It had the secondary result of making it more base-heavy and therefore more prone to tumbling upon impact.

In the 1970s the Soviets designed the bullet for their new 5.45x49MM round similarly. There's an air pocket under the tip of the FMJ-BT. The bullet is very long for its weight. Upon impact the core tends to shift position causing violent tumbling.

[Burt Blade]

Sorry. Insufficent Irony Indicators on my last post. Is that five yards or loss of down?

I did not mean that the .44 Remington cap-n-ball was directly comparable to the .38 Special in real terms, merely "on paper". A hard lead conical .38 (.357) slug behaves a bit differently than a soft lead .44 (.454) sphere. Neither are energy titans, but both seem to have counted quite a few coup.

The "perception of adequate lethality" has certainly changed over the centuries.

[gmatov]

Is this THE Dave Markowitz whom I have read on numerous other sites?

I saw a post by you here, or on TFL a while back, and wanted to reply, just to congratulate you on the writings I have read.

Now, I have to step back a pace and ask myself if you really know wherefore you speak.

I have never done that with any of your other articles, but, as Elmer Keith said, there are shooters and there are writers who talk about shooting.

A well designed bullet is NOT designed, either intentionally or otherwise, to tumble after it hits a tissue mass. It is designed to continue on a straight line path through any game you shoot it at, as nearly on its axis as it started. WHILE retaining as much of its mass as it can from the mass it started out with.

Many bullets have been made that look good till they hit SOMETHING, whether tissue or bone, then go to hell, as you are implying that a "well designed" bullet does.

A well designed bullet WILL penetrate the length of the game it is designed for, and will do so in a straight forward path, keeping its axis as it does.

A "tumbling" bullet will wear itself out, use up its energy cutting stuff in the first 6 to 12 inches of wound channel. Try killing a Cape Buffalo, or even a whitetail, with a bullet that turns itself into a "whirling dervish.

You ain't agonna do it.

Jeez, the ammunition companies spend tons of money trying to make bullets that are stabilized. Core-Lokt and the like, they show you recovered bullets in pictures, brag that they are at least twice caliber, but still near original weight, and people say, "No, they want it to hit, flip all over the place and spray lead fragments for 3 or 4 inches of the total wound channel.."

They'll die in a while from lead poisoning, don'tcha know?

If the US Marines had been issued such ammunition in WWII, they would have been pissed. If it can't hit where I aim at 500 yards, and do damage when it gets there, I don't want it.

Contrary to popular belief, I think I can find the reference to a page that says the US is not a signatory to the fully jacketed ball. We do use ball ammunition, but not because of the proscription on open tipped lead, or even "dum-dum" bullets. The purpose of the US Military is to kill the enemy, not cripple and cause 2 or more suckers to drop out of action tending to the unfortunate one who couldn't get his ass out of the line of fire.

You're hit, you're toast, at least till we get this situation under control.

Cheers,

George

[355sigfan]

QUOTE
The idea was to use the bullets to actually knock the Filipinos over, breaking the momentum of their attack
END QUOTE

Actually this is fantasy. No small arm fired bullet will knock a man down or back. If it did it would have to do the same to the shooter. That whole laws of pysics issue for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

And the only thing that reliabily stopped the Moro's was the 1897 12 gauge shotgun. Not even the Krags worked that great on them. The 45's did better than the 38 long colts but neither was all that effective.
Pat

[gmatov]

Dave,

"Upon impact the core tends to shift position causing violent tumbling."

That's the Soviet round, which, coincidentally, was designed so that it could not be used in a US made 5.56, but a 5.56 could be fired in it. Tricky, them Soviets.

When you shift the mass of the core from the rear to the front of the projectile containment case, the jacket, just why, since you have moved the center of gravity forward, would you say it would cause the thing to go to tumbling all over the place. Designed to do so or not.

It won't do it, but if you are the designer, and you can fake the results, well, mebbe the Soviets, bastards that they must have been, not constrained by physics, could have pulled it off. Could explain why they were fought to a draw in Afghanistan. Bad bullets. Couldn't kill people, just wound them, and I don't know if Afghanis would do as the major powers would, assign a couple riflemen to look after the poor unfortunate.

I wonder what would happen with a spear, if you attached the pound or so of blade to the back of it instead of the front. Would it fly as true, and would it go through a lion if it did manage to hit it? I mean, if you made it so it would slide along the shaft and change its center of gravity, it should tumble all over the place and give you a well cleaned out lion.

Bet them dumb Massai never thought of that.

There has never been a bullet, intentionally made, to spin all over the place, and chew flesh on its way to doing its job. I should qualify that, there may be some specialty law enforcement experiments gone awry that were followed up. NO military, NO hunter, wants a bullet that does not penetrate, on a stright line, as far as the kinetic energy of the ball/powder charge/rifle barrel characterics, will allow.

Shoot through an elephant end to end? Indeed. A Cape Buffalo? Indeed. A full grown Lion? You better believe it. The more dangerous the game, the better the bullet you want and the highest velocity you want, and penetration, without tumbling, is supreme
.

Cheers,

George

[ROAshooter]

Oh Patsy Patsy Patsy..........your obsessive/compulsive need to correct others......just never ends......as if stating the obvious..about "Knock
downs"....is not known by all....

[gmatov]

ROA,

A 1:38 Am post and makes no sense.

What are you smoking or snorting? Booze couldn't make you post that.

Cheers,

George

[Cosmoline]

By the 20th Century, this kind of thing started to seem a little cruel and unusual to people, so they made rules mandating smaller bullets with metal coatings that would keep them from "splattering". The basic idea is that a hit to the vitals is still likely to be lethal, and a hit to the extremities will still put a soldier out of action— but there will be many fewer people with missing pieces after the war.


Incorrect. The reference is to the Hague convention's ban on explosive or expanding bullets, which has nada to do with Civil War era lead bullets. The move to smaller rounds had to do with the development of smokeless powder in the late 1880's. They were given a jacket of gilding metal in order to prevent leading caused by their greatly increased velocities.

I do generally agree that soft lead handgun slugs are very much underrated. At the same time, fancy expanding rounds tend to be very much OVERrated. A .45 Colt lead slug will work just as fine as some HP. Probably better. Most handguns simply do not have the velocity needed to take advantage of fancy bullet designs. HP's and SP's tend to either fail or act like "fleshbrakes" preventing penetration.

[Low Key]

What works on paper by using someone calculations may not always give you the true facts, testing on humans and animals will.

Agreed! I thought a lot about the actual abilities of BP revolvers when I first started shooting them regularly about 8 months ago, so one of the first things I tried to find out was "what kind of velocity and energy do they produce?" I found that you can compare them to this gun or that gun on paper, but you are basically comparing dissimilar animals. Even though modern handguns and BP handguns do the same thing basically, they fire a projectile at high speed, they achieve their end results in different ways. Moderns bullets, ie fmj hollowpoints or semijacket hp or rn lead behave differently upon impact that does the round lead ball.

I take beartracker at his word as to how he has dropped several deer with the round ball from a 58 Remington and his account of his freind who shot a boar and dropped it in it's tracks, and I also believe steve who shot the domestic hog through the forehead and failed to recover the ball from the animal because of its deep penetration into the entrails, (guts). I haven't personally shot any deer or hogs with a BP revolver yet, but I have killed plenty of targets with it. Many of them were attached to a 12inch diameter log at the time, and I've recovered some of the balls that have penetrated 12 inches or more into the log itself. I wouldn't want to be hit with one of those! I don't think you can base all conclusions on what you can prove on paper. I can prove a cow has nine legs on paper, but I have yet to see one in the real world, :p

[Beartracker]

"I can prove a cow has nine legs on paper, but I have yet to see one in the real world,"

Low Key, You mean to tell me that you all have them there cows in Tenn too!? I always figured they only lived right here in WV:D

Yep, Lots of different thoughts, opinions, non-facts and facts when it comes to bullets , guns and which one is the best and which one will drop a man or animal best.
Many years ago I was hunting Moose and Bear in the wilds on Kenora Canada up above Minn.with a few friends. We were so far back in that it took us two days to get to the spot we wanted to hunt. One night sitting around the fire by a lake a guy and gal showed up in a canoe and they had 2 huge Moose quarters in the canoe. He were Indians and lived in the woods most of there lives. They had coffee with us and he got to looking at our big rifles, 30-06-270 and so on. We asked him what he used for Moose /Bear. You should have seen the look on our faces when he showed us him Remington .22!He said the ammo was much cheaper and he just shot them in the eye or as close to it as he could. He said they drop real fast.
We all know that a .22 can kill in a hurry and it travels and bounces all over the inside of the body if it hits just right. It was (is) one of the most used guns in execution style killing.
Bottom line is that if the bullet hits the right spot....size don't mean a thing, you will just as dead from the .22 as you would be from the .44 or .357 mag.:uhoh:

[dwave]

When shooting a .45 acp and my .36 navy, I was able to recover one bullet from each. Here are the results of the bullets:

http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=35425&stc=1&d=1139723267

The roundball expanded very well, but the .45 did not expand at all. Since the round ball is made from pure lead it will expand better, and if it would hit something hard like a bone could expand quite a bit.

[Low Key]

You mean to tell me that you all have them there cows in Tenn too!? I always figured they only lived right here in WV

We have more cows than we know what to do with, but so far I've only seen the 4 legged variety. :p

[Duncaninfrance]

LK, Don't go near them with BP or naked lights - they produce METHANE and that goes BANG!
Duncan

[Beartracker]

"LK, Don't go near them with BP or naked lights - they produce METHANE and that goes BANG!"

:D Good advice Duncan!:) Mike

[JohnKSa]

A well designed bullet is NOT designed, either intentionally or otherwise, to tumble after it hits a tissue mass.True with respect to hunting bullets, not necessarily true of military antipersonnel ammunition. I suppose there could be some debate about whether the 5.56NATO was designed to tumble or not, but the current Russian issue round definitely is.I found that you can compare them to this gun or that gun on paper, but you are basically comparing dissimilar animals. I believe that Elmer Keith would agree with you based on his experience with both BP and smokeless powder hunting.

[Chuck Dye]

Derek,

Lyman’s Black Powder Handbook puts the ballistic coefficient of a .562 roundball at 0.079. Run that into a ballistics program with the 150 grain load in a 32" barrel, muzzle velocity 1340 fps, and the ball has 292 fps remaining velocity and 100 foot pounds kinetic energy at 800 yards. It has a midrange height of 1016 inches if zeroed for that 800 yards. You do not cite the velocity Baird reached in his experiment, so let’s bump it 50% to 2010 (generous?). At that muzzle velocity the retained velocity at 800 yards is 348 fps, the K.E. is 133 ft.-lbs., and the midrange height is 747 inches.

While hitting a man at 800 yards with 4 to 5 minute of angle rifle (do you have a shotgun patterning board?) might be problematic, I do not want to be the target.

Oh, BTW, the points of impact at 780 and 820 yards, zeroed at 800, are 9 to 14 feet off.

[RyanM]

The purpose of the US Military is to kill the enemy, not cripple and cause 2 or more suckers to drop out of action tending to the unfortunate one who couldn't get his ass out of the line of fire.

Actually, that is precisely what the plan was, when switching from a battle rifle caliber (.308) to a low impulse, high speed, small caliber cartridge (5.56mm). Wound, but not kill. But because 5.56mm tumbles, fragments, and also penetrates quite deep (fairly similar to a hunting softpoint, but with more delayed expansion), they achieved the opposite effect.

There has never been a bullet, intentionally made, to spin all over the place, and chew flesh on its way to doing its job. I should qualify that, there may be some specialty law enforcement experiments gone awry that were followed up. NO military, NO hunter, wants a bullet that does not penetrate, on a stright line, as far as the kinetic energy of the ball/powder charge/rifle barrel characterics, will allow.

Actually, "spoon-pointing" FMJ bullets is a very common trick overseas, especially in Scandanavia. Spoon-pointing involves grinding, filing, scraping, or drilling the side of the tip of a bullet so that it's asymmetrical, but no lead is exposed. The bullet is still stable in flight, but on impact with an animal, it tumbles like crazy. Poachers over there will commonly take elk and moose with "spoon-pointed" FMJ bullets of pretty small calibers, like 6mm, 6.5mm, etc.

[gmatov]

JohnKsa,

I would doubt that the Soviets, either, sent their trooops into the field with ammo that would tumble so, with the CG so far off to do so, that it could NOT be made to SHOOT accurately at ANY distance.

Where do you guys come up with this BS?

If it does not leave the muzzle accurately, there is no way that you can get it back on target to do all this stupid, I will repeat, stupid, damage you seem to insist it does. There IS no midflight correction.

If you don't hit your target, I don't care what kind of buzz saw round you got, you might cut limbs from the canopy, you will not kill nor incapacitate troops.

Accuracy is supreme.

Round ball is accurate, for us.

A "devastator" balll, as you seem to be describing, is ridiculous.

Cheers,

George

[355sigfan]

QUOTE
Actually, that is precisely what the plan was, when switching from a battle rifle caliber (.308) to a low impulse, high speed, small caliber cartridge (5.56mm). Wound, but not kill. But because 5.56mm tumbles, fragments, and also penetrates quite deep (fairly similar to a hunting softpoint, but with more delayed expansion), they achieved the opposite effect.
END QUOTE

Actually the 5.56 does not penetrate deep at all. in fact most softpoints and hollowpoints only penetrate about 9 to 15 inches depending on the load. Thats less than a lot of handgund rounds.
Pat

[gmatov]

"Spoon pointing", your giggybutt.
This makes an accurate round that goes all to hell when it hits an animal? Kills it twice?

They have played for years wit the plastic tipped bullets, found that the plastic compounds were too heat sensitive, would melt, point the bal in the wrong direction, back to the drawing board.

When they got to 3500 to 4000 FPS, they found that the exposed lead tipped bullet melted off, irregularly, made an inaccurate flight..

They made a copper jacket with the lead recessed into the taper at the nose, no lead to melt from friction from the air, and, guess what, they came up with a 1,000 yard bullet. The copper was symetrical with no little lumps of lead or slag on one side or the other. Flew true..

Who knew a couple grains less lead was the breakthrough?

Casters who have taken their cast balls apart, sliced them open, to see if they have any voids, learn how to make a round ball. Casters, who do the same, and roll and weigh their cast conicals, whether they be .217 or .460, want the best ball they can cast.

I don't know how you guys can say there are balls, as a matter of course, that are made to fly all over the place, but when they DO hit meat, just tear the hell out of it.

Cheers,

George

[RyanM]

Actually the 5.56 does not penetrate deep at all. in fact most softpoints and hollowpoints only penetrate about 9 to 15 inches depending on the load. Thats less than a lot of handgund rounds.

In testing, .223 military FMJ with cannelure loses about half its mass as fragments, and penetrates 13-14". That's pretty similar to .223 softpoints. A little better, actually.

http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/M193.jpg
http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/M855.jpg
http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/223%20Remington%2050gr%20JSP.jpg

-----------------------

"Spoon pointing", your giggybutt.
This makes an accurate round that goes all to hell when it hits an animal? Kills it twice?

All it does is tumble earlier than usual after hitting. Accuracy is unaffected. The base of a bullet matters more than the front, for accuracy. Works well, apparently. Making a bullet tumble isn't that different from expansion. Both increase the "frontal" area of the bullet, that actually hits flesh.

Actually, over in Scandanavia, 6.5mm is considered a perfectly adequate round for elk, as long as heavy bullets are used. And hunters there do just fine.

They have played for years wit the plastic tipped bullets, found that the plastic compounds were too heat sensitive, would melt, point the bal in the wrong direction, back to the drawing board.

Apparently you're a few years behind the curve, here. Plastic tipped bullets work fine.

I don't know how you guys can say there are balls, as a matter of course, that are made to fly all over the place, but when they DO hit meat, just tear the hell out of it.

Okay, you're obviously purposely misunderstanding every word I say, so I guess there's no point in explaining anything.

[JohnKSa]

I would doubt that the Soviets, either, sent their trooops into the field with ammo that would tumble so, with the CG so far off to do so, that it could NOT be made to SHOOT accurately at ANY distance.

Where do you guys come up with this BS?1. Your doubts don't affect reality.

2. The fact that a bullet is unstable in a fluid medium has no bearing on its stability in air (and therefore its accuracy.)

3. Strong opinions without knowledge to back them up are like a meal composed exclusively of spices and condiments.

[4v50 Gary]

The original 55 grain 5.56 mm bullet fired from the original slow twist barrel (1-14") became unstable after it entered the target. We then changed the twist to 1-12".

I believe the Soviet round does the same thing. Nice stable flight path until it meets flesh. Then it's tumbles.

We however, have seen fit to make the 5.56 reach out further (to meet the NATO requirement of penetrating a helmet at 500 meters), lengthened it and increased its weight, put a faster twist on the barrel and thus it's like a hot poker. Goes through the bad guy, bad guy drops, bad guy gets up and keeps going. Read Black Hawk Down for what happened when the folks were struck with the 5.56 fired from an M-4 Carbine.

BTW guys, let's get back on topic with regards to the lead ball.

[gmatov]

Gary,

Don't blame the round for anyone getting up after getting hit in a nonvital spot. Or for the people being hit being in a frenzy. That always gives a little adrenaline kick. Full disclosure: I have not read "Blackhawk Down". It sounds like a Mack Bolan/Stoneyman takeoff.

To say that purposely deforming the nose of a bullet does not harm flight is ridiculous, and, yes, the early plastic points were easily melted off at hypersonic speeds. Hell, you can fry bacon in the plastics we have today, going 3000 FPS would not ablate them.

Regardless, we buy pure lead swaged balls for our BP pistols, because they are supposed to fly truer than a cast ball with mismatched mold halves (ask me how I know about that), and we send a ball downstream at the best velocity we can attain.

The round ball has put down at least as many men, and animals, as the pointed smokeless bullets have, and I think that they probably made a wound channel that was at least as destructive as our modern bullets.

I, for one, wouldn't like to be hit with one, and not because it would spray all them lead fragments around and kill me from lead poisoning, even if the surgeons stopped all the internal bleeding and repaired the structural and tissue damage.

I think you might just have a lesser chance of surviving the round. Hydrostatic shock, and all that, is fine for the Jack O'Connors to speak of. The Elmer Keith types say a big ball at as high a speed as you can attain will kill better, be it a squirrel or a Cape Buffalo. When the ball, as another poster here will verify, will pass the length of a wild boar, it is at least as good as today's 44 mag, and I don't say that lightly, I do own 2 44 Mags, love 'em, but the BP pistols are favourites, for now.

Cheers,

George

Edit: I have to address this:


2. The fact that a bullet is unstable in a fluid medium has no bearing on its stability in air (and therefore its accuracy.)

What in the heck does that mean? It will sail through the air like a harpoon, even with its nose bent out of shape, "spoon shaped", from a post above, hit a tack at 500 meters, then when it hits a piece of paper, or flesh, becomes a whirling dervish.

Them asses who use dial indicators to spin their bullets to accept or reject for long, nay, even 100 yard matches, are just that, asses, use any old blob of copper and lead, it will nail the 10 ring, but might tumble all over the place when it hits the paper. Why don't you go to a precision shooting site and tell them they are asses? They could put a lump of coal in their barrel, it only goes to hell after it hits the center of the 10 ring.

And, here, all along, I thought that was how the Wright Brothers finally got a plane off the ground. They found that if the wing was longer on the top than the bottom, the pressure differential would lift it. So a ball that is nonconcentric will do the same, fly toward the side that has the longest surface, whether it is spinning, from the rifling, or not.

Strong opinions? Your argument could use just a little beef, too. So far, seems to be strictly MSG.

[Duncaninfrance]

I am not going to go into the where's or why's BUT there is such a thing as 'Reverse Swing' on a cricket ball which allows it to move in flight. It is dictated by the bowlers action and the smoothe/ rough side of the ball ( probably the same in baseball but that's a game for the clonies!!!!!!) and the passage of air accross it. So at speeds of up to 90 mph for a cricket ball there is some influence on it's trajectory through the air. It seems obvious that the same could be said for a round ball and it's shape.

Not sure if this is relevat but I enjoyed writing it anyway!!

Lighten up guys!
Duncan

[JohnKSa]

Your argument could use just a little beefDo a google search with the following terms.

"5.45" tumble

Here are the results:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%225.45%22+tumble

I didn't say anything about anyone intentionally deforming a bullet's nose before firing it. I don't know anything about that procedure and so I didn't comment on that. My comments were specifically about the 5.45 Russian military round, and they are correct, as are my comments about the difference between stability in a flesh (fluid medium) vs stability in air.

Look, anyone can be misinformed, or uninformed on a particular topic--there's nothing wrong with that. But anyone with the internet at their fingertips should at least spend 5 or 10 minutes doing some searches before calling "BS".

[gmatov]

Duncan,

OT, but to reply to you, in our sissy game of "Rounders", which we consider our national pasttime of Baseball, we have a few of what are known as "knuckle ballers", pitchers who can "push" the ball, usually in the 50, 60, 70 MPH range. So slow, though it looks fast, that the batter swings and misses before it reaches the plate, or if he's patient and times it, the ball dances up, down, or sideways. HARD to hit.

No spin to the ball, place the stitches where you want them, and the ball follows the laws of aerodynamics, longer path for the airflow, lift the ball. or sink it, or swerve to one side or the other.

I've watched very little of Cricket, will have to watch more, see if I can get the gist of it. Another forum I used to visit regularly had a number of Brits, ask about Cricket, We don't care about Cricket, all WE watch is Footie.

I've been taking my granddaughter to all her Footie practices and games for the last 9 years. Since I'm American, I shouldn't say this, but I love the game. Practice starts in about 2 weeks for the Spring session.

She put in a rebound off the goalie for the first goal of the first game of the last season, as a forward, 3 minutes into the game last Fall session. One proud Grandpa there.

JohnKsa

"If you want to hurt bad guys, my understanding is that the Commie bullet is constructed in such a way as to be much less velocity dependant than the Yankee round. Something about hollow a cavity with a lead slug inside it that shifts on impact and initiates tumbling more readily."

One guy's "understanding" from a post 3 years old, and that becomes the basis for whirling dervish ball.

Never mind, Gary suggests we get back to BP and round ball or conicals. I think I'll go back there. This is a dead issue for me, henceforth. (Big word, huh?)

Cheers,

George

[JohnKSa]

One guy's "understanding" from a post 3 years old, and that becomes the basis for whirling dervish ball.Not hardly.

I told you how to do the search. I posted the link for you so you wouldn't even have to navigate to google or type in the search terms.

After all that, it was apparently still too much work for you to read past the second hit in the results page.

The "3 year old THR thread" was only two of 12 hits specifically related to the 5.45 tumbling in flesh from the first 20 search hits.This is a dead issue for me, henceforth.That's mighty big of you...

You accuse me of trying to BS and when I show you that it's not only NOT BS, but it's easily confirmed on the web, you can't even scrape up the decency to just let it drop.

I never dreamed of or expected an apology or even an admission that you were wrong when you accused me of "coming up with BS", but I figured that you would at least just drop the topic when it became patently obvious that you didn't have a clue what you were talking about.

Nope--even that was beyond you. You have to post again pretending that this is all a misunderstanding generated by a 3 year old post on THR.

Since you like big words, here are some especially for you.

Suffice it to say that I'm underwhelmed by your pathetic attempt at magnanimity... :rolleyes:

[Beartracker]

When I started this thread it was just to point out how deadly the round ball was/is and to show another's view on the subject, hence the Internet article I came across.
We were not discussing high powered rifles and ammo and that wasn't my intention or desire to do so nor was it intended to start any arguments over
who has the best military round. I myself have been in a few arguments on here and other sites but you learn when it's time to call it quits and move on instead name calling because someone doesn't agree with you.

My biggest biggest pet peeve on the subject of round balls is how some people really believe that these guns that fired the round balls were just a joke and that there ability to kill was so poor. Some even believe that the muskets and revolvers of the day never had enough power to do much damage.
If we look at the ballistics and the results of test conducted by people like Mike Cumpston and Keith along with several others it's easy to see just how accurate and lethal these guns and the round ball could be.

[RyanM]

Okay, back on topic, round balls that've been fired from cap and ball revolvers are actually fairly close in frontal shape to expanded hollowpoints. Even closer, after impact at close range. Rather blunt, not very aerodynamic. So a .44 caliber roundball is fairly similar to, say, a 9mm hollowpoint that underexpands.

http://www.firearmstactical.com/test_data/9mm/win9-147ssxt-g26.htm

Similar weight, similar velocity, similar recovered diameter (after hitting tissue, not dirt or solid steel), similar penetration.

[gmatov]

John,

Sorry, I guess I shuld have pulled excerpts from all the rest of the links in that google.

If you will read a few of them, you will see that most of those that say the bullet, ALL bullets, including round ball (which do not "yaw" per se, as they are round, but will not always follow a straight line), will yaw whan they hit flesh, not because they are designed with a "spoon" on one side, but because flesh is not homogeneous. There is solid muscle, space between muscle groups, fat, tendons and ligaments, bone.

When the bullet hits tissue of different densities, it tends to go the way of least resistance, toward the softer tissue.

Most of the links your search led to also said that those "whirling dervishes" would tumble 1 to 3 times and come to rest after rather shallow penetration, ie., a bullet that does not tumble on impact will make a deep wound channel, those that do, don't.

This is not just the Russian round. The last buck I got with a 7mm-08, I shot running at about a 45 degree angle, through the ribs heart and lungs, no exit wound, my butcher found the bullet in the paunch near the hindquarters.

Oh, yes, I liked the one that said the US Gov designed the cannelure on the 223 to secretely design a "weak spot" that will cause the bullet to "snap in half" and "spray bits of lead" all through the wound. And, here, everybody thought that was to make a crimp groove to prevent the ball from sliding back into the case. Boy, was that sneaky of them mad scientists.

It did not tumble, it hit bone and ricocheted, changed direction while it had plenty of momentum left and went near the length of the body.

A round ball can do the same thing, it hits something hard enough to divert it without stopping it, a glancing blow, will change direction and come out of that tissue at a completely different angle from which it went in.

Some of the links from that google were papers written 25 years ago. I've read a couple dozen, bookmarked half a dozen, bookmarked the search itself, as I want to read more.

Quite a few are anectdotal, links to Q and A's on forums. Those are hardly what you could call the Gospel.

I said I was leaving the subject as Gary said we should be back to BP. Can we return to BP now?

Cheers,

George

[RyanM]

No one but you said these rounds would be "whirling dervishes."

http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/AK-74%20545x39.jpg

That's what the AK-74 round does. Tumbles once, tumbles again, and goes off on a curved path because of the deformed lead core.

http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/AK-47%20762x39mm.jpg

As you can see, the original AK-47 round tumbles much later, because it is more stable, because it has no airspace.

http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/M80.jpg

M80 military ball is also a late tumbler, because there is no airspace.

http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/M193.jpg
http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/M855.jpg

Both types of M-16 ammo tumble early, because they're long for the caliber, and thus unstable in denser media.

All those tests were done in calibrated 10% ballistic gelatin, which is quite homogenous.

You are really fuzzy on some very simple laws of physics. A pointy bullet has the center of mass behind the center of the bullet. Therefore, the bullet will attempt to rotate to a base-forward orientation. If there is no rifling spin, or the spin is insufficient, it will do this in air. Water, flesh, and other dense media require an inordinately high spin rate to stabilize them. What is stable in air is not always stable in water. Destabilization happen in water, oil, dirt, flesh, or anything else significantly denser than air, not because of inhomogenous composition.

It's like a badminton birdie. The ball part is heavier than the back part, so it travels ball first. If you throw a birdie backwards, it will tumble once or twice, then reach a stable heavy-part-forward orientation. Same thing with bullets in a dense fluid medium. In air, the bullet's spin is sufficient to keep it from tumbling.

A spoon-pointed bullet will tumble even earlier than one with an airspace. Then it will flop once or twice and finish going backwards. It may "corkscrew" for the first inch or two, because of the spin. It will not significantly change the bullet's flight in air, at ranges up to about 200 yards, because the rifling spin is enough to stabilize it. H&K was also developing spoon-pointed bullets for their G11 project, but switched to standard ones after activists said that the result of a spoon-pointed bullet impact was just as bad as a hunting softpoint.

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot19.htm
If you still need more pictures, here's a test that demonstrates that FMJ rounds will definitely tumble in water, which is also quite homogenous. M-16 rounds tumbled (though the so-called M-193 ball he was using has no cannelure, so it didn't fragment), 8mm ball tumbled so much it was deflected out of the top of the box, and .30-06 armor piercing ammo tumbled enough that it was stopped by only 7 jugs of water.

Water is not the same thing as air. Go try breathing some water if you still don't believe that (you don't seem to). :neener:

[Duncaninfrance]

You know, I do wish that George and Ryan would stop beating about the bush and say what they mean instead of being so vague lol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Duncan ( In a silly mood!! )

[Low Key]

oops! thought I was about to post in the blackpowder shooting forum...:confused:

cheers Duncan, :neener:

[owen]

Beartracker is obviously insane if he thinks an ounce of supersonic lead, formed into a sphere could hurt anyone! I mean a round ball, c'mon!

If round balls were so dangerous we wouldn't let our kids use them for sports. Why I bet a basketbal woul be a WMD! :evil:

[Beartracker]

OK Owen, Now you done it!!!! I'll meet you at high noon on main street of Dodge right in front of the Long branch Saloon. The winner gets miss Kitty and the loser gets a free trip to boot hill:neener:

[owen]

i'm warning you, my gun shoots scissors and bumblebees!

[Beartracker]

:D Mine just shoots hot lead from a Remington .44 in the right hand and hot lead from a Colt .36 in the left. If the right one don't get ya, the left one will!
One thing about all the lead that they were shooting in the Civil war and the wild west, they sure had to make sure the caps fired and the powder was dry.
Otherwise the size of the lead ball and how well it performed didn't mean a thing.:uhoh:

[JohnKSa]

My biggest biggest pet peeve on the subject of round balls is how some people really believe that these guns that fired the round balls were just a joke and that there ability to kill was so poorI posted something about hunting with an Old Army on a hunting forum and got mostly negative results...

Given Keith's opinions on ball ammo, I would have thought more people would have at least tried it and had some good experiences.

On the other hand, I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that many people make up their minds on a topic without worrying about the facts.

[Low Key]

I'm starting to see a lot of people around here that won't hunt with it unless it's the newest 5000 Magnum Ultra Express. They really need those for the big long hundred yard shot you might get in these tight woods around here! :rolleyes:

[Beartracker]

Low Key has it pegged. Over the years I have hunted Deer, Moose , Bear, Elk and many smaller critters with gun and bow. At one time or another I have owned or shot everything from the .44 mag to the .22 and the 7 mm mag. to the .410 shotgun. I'm here to tell you one thing....The Remington .44 with 40g of powder and a round ball or conical will drop a Deer size critter stone cold dead. Been there and done that several times.
I have found that when you have hunters snickering at the .44 C&B Revolvers it's because they have never even fired one or when they did it was loaded with 10-15g of powder. Load one up with 40g of 3f and a 200g. conical and they will become a believer:)