.45 isn't even a cell phone stopper, let alone a manstopper

[moooose102]

well, that does it. now i know i am going to have to sell my 45acp, and buy a 45 winchester magnum! who would have thought that after ONLY 1/4 mile, a 45 bullet would loose most of its energy:banghead: i wonder why nobody has ever thought abould rocket powered bullets so as the velocity slows, the rocket lights and kicks it in the hiney! that way, we could get 3 or 4 miles of range from our pistols! sheesh!

 

[Mike J]

As others have said please make sure you have an adequate backstop. Incidents like this just give ammunition to those who would take our rights away.
I'm just glad the man wasn't seriously harmed.

 

[1858rem]

soooo... buy the number of lands and groves, direction of rifling and rate of twist..... who can figure out what gun it came from. righthand twist maybe....5-6 lands/groves, relatively fast twist cause you can see the directionality over a, what, 5/8 inch tall bullet? so who knows what it came from?

 

[1858rem]

they did make rocket powered caseless ammunition before to reduce weight..... but, if your just at the range, maybe slip one of the rockets into a case to launch it from for the added range maybe. originally the caseless ammo failed because it, well i dont remember, i do remember at very short ranges it was about useless because it hadnt built enough speed yet off the little rocket.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

http://www.wwltv.com/perl/common/slideshow/sspop.pl?recid=13161&nextimage=4

Somehow, I have trouble believing the story given the picture of the shirt with the nearly perfect hole in it, as if the bullet went through at high velocity, but then only dented the phone. Something doesn't add up. This is especially significant given that the bullet would have been going through the shirt as it was impacting the phone.

 

[savage116]

In the one slide someone said "You just appreciate everything so much more, and how fragile life really is. (If not for the cell phone) he would not be with us."

I don't think he would have been injured severely.Sure it would hurt but it didn't go through the phone.It would probably be like a frozen paintball.

 

[Mal H]

The pictures Mississippi posted make it looks like a .45ACP. Picture 2 looks too long, but when you look at 7, you realize it's on a reflective surface, so the "cannelure" is just the base of the bullet being reflected.

You're right! They didn't mention that the bullet was photographed on a mirror. The TV news I watched only briefly showed the closeup of the bullet. Yep, that's a regular old 230.

 

[mgregg85]

It was a .45 caliber bullet, and it hit his cell phone. Investigators said the bullet was probably shot a quarter of a mile away or more, and was probably falling at the time it hit Richard.

Yeah I doubt 9mm would have done a thing at 1/4 mile but this is a troll post anyways so what the hell.

 

[ccsniper]

we know how dangerous a wounded cellphone can be

your not kidding!! i once was following on through the backwoods of arkansas only to find it still alive... most horrific scene of my life. to see that sony ericson flying at my face, lukily i shot it 2 more times with some buckshot and finally put it down.

 

[tblt]

I just went outside and shot my old cell phone with a 22 and it went right thru it then pulled out my 9 and it blew it apart.I didn't want to use my 7 mm mag its too noisy

 

[xd .45 shooter]

i agree with above poster

this is definitely a troll posting. at a real range the 45 would have definitely at least really wounded the cell phone. depending on shot placement he would have to buy a new one for sure. no seriously, glad he was not hurt, but if it would have been meant to hurt him, he would not be with us anymore as the shot would have been made much closer and he would have been a drunken idiot trying to run you over with his lawn mower.. nine more deadly thatn a 45 rrrrrright. i think you would be dead with either when closer that 100 yards not close to 500 yards, what a troll:banghead:

 

[Officers'Wife]

By the use of penetration at a quarter mile, a .22 LR would be more effective than the .45. It would appear smoothie should find work at a Gannet newspaper as he has a remarkable talent of slipping on a premise and sprawling to a conclusion.

 

[Yellowfin]

I wonder if Motorola or his cell provider will use this for an ad.

 

[230RN]

The bullet looks like a 230gr .45 pistol bullet. But it's not cannelured --the circumferential mark is just from where the mouth of the case is. Note the rifling mark starts just ahead of that mark, as would be expected if it were a case mouth mark rather than any kind of reflection. It's not from a Colt barrel, since AFAIK all Colt pistols have a left hand twist, though a Colt may have been re-barreled. The rifling twist looks like the slow twist of a handgun.

It does not look as it it had ricocheted off dirt or rocks, though it may have clipped branches, etc, without leaving any substantial marks. The little ding on the nose which looks almost like a drop of water could be anything, but I've certainly seen enough bullets after striking earth or rocks, and the marks from that are indisputable. Perhaps it's from the impact with the cell phone.

The cell phone looks like it was struck a glancing blow, and the hole through the shirt looks as if the bullet had some energy to it. A direct 90 degree hit probably would have penetrated the cell phone and might well have caused at least a serious injury if it had gone between ribs. Or hit any vulnerable/soft parts without being slowed by the cell phone.

I wonder how come the shirt hole is round, but the cell phone shows a glancing hit. Perhaps the bullet was tumbling rather than spinning when it struck, which might account for this.

I am also interested in whether Richard had reported hearing shooting, or even a shot, before being struck, although he may have been wearing ear protection or any report may have been swamped by the mower noise.

The above is just as I see it. Seems to me it's a little better than 60-40 that it's a true story. We all know how anti-gunners will make up stories about their houses being hit, and showing an empty case or even an unfired complete cartridge to "prove" it, and the like. Not calling Richard a liar, but P(false) = 0.40.

Moral: As population density increases, you cannot simply say, "Why, I've been shooting here for years with no problem."

Copyrighted pic added for critical review purposes.

 

[1858rem]

ill betcha anything the hole is so "perfect" form his wife poking her finger through the shirt so many times showin it off.... who here has a smaller than .45 finger? i think she made it quite a bit bigger, glancing blow definitely helped reduce deadliness, but as long as the bullet had a stabilizing spin i think it would remain at least 450+fps .....230g bullet and you still got 103 ft/lb energy, little more than a frozen paintball ~300fps eh?

 

[Double Naught Spy]

So the bullet made a beautiful hole because it still had so much velocity to cut like a wadcutter, then glanced off the phone and no longer had the energy to exit fabric anywhere or enter the guy's body (which it apparently didn't actually hit)?

Still hokey.

 

[230RN]

I got hit by a Bible thrown at me once. If it weren't for the bullet in my shirt pocket, that Bible would have gone right through to my heart and killed me.

 

[45R]

9mm........

 

[The Annoyed Man]

9mm would have penetrated that cell phone.

I have a spent 9mm bullet sitting on my desk right now. It was sitting on the door mat outside my office one morning, the first day back at work after New Year's Eve about 20 years ago. The ogive on one side is very slightly flattened, and there was a corresponding "skid" mark on the paint of the wooden front door. It is obvious that the bullet struck the door at a downward angle and came to rest on the door mat. As undamaged as were the door, the doormat, and the bullet itself, it is obvious that there was not much energy involved.

That bullet most certainly would not have gone through a cell phone. It would have dented the phone a little bit, and it might have torn a hole in a shirt - if the fabric was light enough. But there is no way that this 9mm bullet would have done any more damage than the .45 caliber bullet which is the subject of this story.

I worked for several years on the PM shift of a level one trauma center back in the 1980s. Late one afternoon, we treated a guy who was hit by a .45 ACP FMJ. He was sitting in the driver's seat of his rag-top Jeep at a red light. The bullet came down through the top and struck him in the thigh, breaking his femur at the mid shaft - a very serious and significant injury. Since there were no tall buildings anywhere nearby, and since nobody heard the shot, that bullet had to have been fired upward at an angle and then arced in from some distance.

Mr. R.J. Richard is damned lucky he didn't get hurt worse, but I suspect that you can't support your assertion that a 9mm would have penetrated the phone. Maybe it would, and maybe it wouldn't. It's entirely possible that if R.J. Richard cared to repeat the experiment, he might be killed. So let's look at the numbers to see what they can tell us....

I've just looked at the Federal Cartridge website, as an example, and here are the data for a 124 grain 9mm FMJ compared to a 230 grain .45 FMJ (both are standard loads for the caliber):

Load No		Caliber	Muzzle	25 Y	50 Y	75 Y	100 Y
AE9AP		9mm	1150	1095	1049	1010	977

Energy in Foot Pounds (To nearest 5 Foot Pounds) 	
Load No		Caliber	Muzzle	25 Y	50 Y	75 Y	100 Y
AE9AP		9mm	364	330	303	281	263


Load No		Caliber	Muzzle	25 Y	50 Y	75 Y	100 Y
AE45A		45 Auto	890	872	856	840	824

Energy in Foot Pounds (To nearest 5 Foot Pounds) 	
Load No		Caliber	Muzzle	25 Y	50 Y	75 Y	100 Y
AE45A		45 Auto	404	389	374	360	347

Now, I have nothing against the 9mm caliber, and some day I'll buy one; but I think it is safe to say from the above data that, given identical circumstances of a 440 yard distance and with just a caliber change, there is no way on earth that your 9mm would have gone through the phone when a .45 couldn't. Not a chance.

But that's just me. I'm a numbers guy.