Two slightly different scenarios for stopping a threat

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peacebutready

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Two slightly different scenarios. In the first one, the armed defender hits bad guy with bullet that penetrates far enough so that the bullet is up against the skin at the end of travel. In other words, it goes through but doesn't exit. In the second scenario, everything is the same except the bullet does exit the back. Scenario 1, entry wound only. Scenario 2, entrance and exit wounds.

All other things being equal, how much more effective is scenario 2 to stop the threat?
 
I don't think having a flesh wound in the back matters, it's how much damage the bullet did to organs and arteries on it's path there that makes the difference.

I know I've shot deer with 12 GA slugs that left exit wounds, and I've also found the slug inside the deer on 2 occasions. But every time the deer have dropped in their tracks.
 
It depends more on what was hit on the way through than if it exits or not. Granted...if bleeding out is the outcome of the shot...two holes will bleed more, faster than one. But if rapid incapacitation is desired, then you have to hit important things (like CNS) and if that is done the fight will be over quickly. So called 'energy dump' in handgun wounds not very effective but in very high velocity rifle rounds there IS something to it as the bodily fluids cannot get out of the way fast enough and this can cause a systemic shock that can incapacitate almost instantly.
 
If the bullet did not exit, muzzle velocity was probably too low to create hydrostatic shock, so dusted both sides gets my vote.

BobWright
 
Handgun or rifle? If handgun, how much energy did #2 still have? How much of that energy was converted to expansion and thus more tissue damage vs. being wasted in the air behind them? Only the permanent wound cavity volume matters with handgun wounds, so the most effective one (to a perhaps inconsequentially small and un-verifiable degree) would be the one with the larger wound volume.

Given same caliber and energy available, I'd take .6" expansion stopped in the skin vs. .45" expansion and it went through...though in the real world with same shot placement I bet the results on the target would be the same.
 
peacebutready said:
All other things being equal, how much more effective is scenario 2 to stop the threat?
Click to expand...
Key words: "ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL." No matter what CNS, organs, or vessels the first round hit, the second hit the exact same things. The only difference is that now, BG is bleeding out of two places instead of one, makes compression harder, and flow easier. How much may depend, but, assuming the second round didn't hit bystanders, it will be preferable.
 
Both scenarios assume you didn't hit CNS. Considering you have multiple shots, my
choice would be for the energy dump to be completely inside the attacker. There is
empirical evidence that when the round over-penetrates, the attacker has the ability
to remain a threat. This is why Browning was commissioned by the US Army to
create the 1911, in the first place. And, YMMV.
 
I don't think the projectile popping out of the skin would make much performance difference. The real damage is done- whatever got a hole in it got a hole in it. Bleeding is bleeding-whether its internally pooling up in the body or slinging all over the place. Now- if the guy runs on you- the exit wound is preferable in order to produce a blood trail.
 
I'd go with option #1 being better. It went as far as needed, and used ALL of it's energy.

How much energy did #2 still have when it exited? Did it fail to expand? Was it ball? It may have ice picked it's way through and hit nothing important.
 
FWIW, I read lots of memoirs. Many of them are military memoirs. I read or re-read a couple of them recently from a doctor and a medic. They both preferred to see a wound with no exit. Maybe it's different with rifles.
 
Tallball said:
FWIW, I read lots of memoirs. Many of them are military memoirs. I read or re-read a couple of them recently from a doctor and a medic. They both preferred to see a wound with no exit. Maybe it's different with rifles.
Click to expand...

I find this very interesting. Not saying it isn't true but it defies logic as common sense would dictate you'd rather not deal with having to fish around inside someone to find said bullet. But I guess two holes is worse than one?
 
Hanzo581 said:
Isn't the whole point of hollow point ammunition to expand upon entry and not just whiz through?
Click to expand...

Sort of. Penetration and expansion are rivals and usually one comes at the expense of the other. The key is to find a bullet that strikes the right combination to provide adequate performance in your situation. Expansion occurs relative to a bullet's velocity so increasing a bullet's velocity will always increase the speed of expansion and the total expansion. As a bullet expands, its frontal area increases, which increases drag. This slows the bullet down. A bullet has potential energy in the form of mass and velocity. It only turns this into kinetic energy that actually does work by losing either velocity or mass. Now, you can shoot a common one gallon milk jug full of water with a 9mm or .45 and witness the bucket's violent end as a result of so-called "hydrostatic shock." It is an impressive display and these forces do exist in an impact with tissue as well, but thankfully tissue is significantly more resilient to these forces than the plastic milk jug. Because tissue is so elastic, little or no damage is caused by these hydrostatic shock forces with projectile impacts less than 2000 fps. This is what makes rifles so much more effective than handguns. Handguns operate significantly below the velocity needed to do any more than permanent wound channel damage, that is, the damage caused directly by displacement by the projectile, it's penetration and expansion. So a JHP handgun bullet may indeed expand as designed and this does in fact limit its penetration through tissue, but the projectile is still moving much too slow to cause tissue damage through hydrostatic shock.
Much is made of over penetration concerns and this energy dump theory that states a bullet that expends all of its energy in the target and comes to a rest inside it has done more work than a bullet that exits and therefore expends some of its energy elsewhere. Professionals seem far more concerned with achieving adequate penetration rather than worrying about getting too much of it. I've seen high-powered rifles fail to anchor game animals with levels of energy far in excess of any handgun to trust energy figures and formulas to give me a numerical expression of a bullet's effectiveness. Terminal ballistics isn't that cut and dried and I find it a comical over-simplification trying to quantify a bullet's effectiveness with foot-pounds or TKO value, or whatever other mumbo-jumbo. I think an understanding of a bullet's design and construction and basic understanding of it's terminal effect is important but stress that generally, formulas should be taken with a grain of salt. For example, I don't adhere to any arbitrary minimum ft-lb nonsense but I do like to know where my rifle bullets cross the 2000 fps threshold because this is the maximum range my rifle kills like a rifle and because most expanding rifle bullets require about 2000 fps to show appreciable expansion. Pretty much all defensive JHP for handguns are designed around the same parameters and so it should be no surprise that they perform similarly.
Experience as a hunter has taught me that two holes bleed marginally better than one, all things being equal, so success to me is a gaping exit wound.
 
The potential advantage of a through and through is loss of blood pressure, a key to incapacitation in the absence of a solid central nervous system hit, psychological stop, or disabling skeletal damage. Even a partially expanded bullet will push a bigger exit than entrance hole.
 
Tallball said:
FWIW, I read lots of memoirs. Many of them are military memoirs. I read or re-read a couple of them recently from a doctor and a medic. They both preferred to see a wound with no exit. Maybe it's different with rifles.
Click to expand...
Remember, these guys are trying to SAVE the guy who got shot. The fact that they prefer no exit would probably means the odds of survival are lower with an exit wound.
 
Vern Humphrey said:
Remember, these guys are trying to SAVE the guy who got shot. The fact that they prefer no exit would probably means the odds of survival are lower with an exit wound.
Click to expand...
Only depending on where you were hit. As far as surviving, a bullet that passes cleanly through would be preferred over one that's stuck in you. Too many factors here though. Way too many.
 
A through and through is going to increase blood loss. A bullet lodged under the skin is easy to remove.
 
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