Are hollow points really "deadlier" than FMJ?

CraigC said:

Forget about energy. It is a meaningless number...

Energy and velocity are irrelevant.

What the hell is "remote damage"???

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I rest my case. You sir are the one who is arrogant and ignorant, and I have nothing further to say to you.

ETA: I would also submit that you came to this thread with your mind already made up based on preconceived notions and your only purpose here is to bully your way to winning an argument by belittling anyone who dares to contradict you. You have provided nothing of any substance to this discussion. Not only that, you've turned this thread into a hostile environment and by doing that may have very well discouraged others from posting who wish to have a logical, respectful discussion based on the scientific findings currently available to us.

CraigC said:

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Why don't you just call me a stupid doo doo head and be done with it already?

Seriously, please stick to the subject at hand before you go and get this thread locked.

CraigC said:

I'm trying to enlighten you but you must first set aside your preconceived notions and open your mind. Just entertain the idea that your conclusions might be incorrect.

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No, you're stroking your own ego. Your only arguments consist of a bad photo of a deer heart you claim to have shot with a hand cannon, and the fact that you were quoted in a book that doesn't seem to have anything to do with this thread.

The rest of your argument consists of brow beating, ad hominems, and wild claims that are so blatantly erroneous they have left me stunned.

Your words:

"Forget about energy. It is a meaningless number..."

"Energy and velocity are irrelevant."

"What the hell is "remote damage"???"

With all due respect you don't know what you don't know. All you've proved is that the loudest voice is usually the most ignorant of the facts at hand. If you don't know what remote damage is (as well as its direct relationship to kinetic energy and velocity) then you can't even begin to understand the questions posed in the original post. I'm not trying to insult you, but that's the facts of it. How can you even respond to a thread in which you don't know the meaning of the primary terminology used in the original question?

Corpral_Agarn said:

To be fair "remote damage" is a term typically used in legal cases:


The only place I found "remote damage" talked about with relation to firearms was the Wikipedia article on Hydro-static Shock:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydro..._shock_as_a_factor_in_selection_of_ammunition

Reading the article I think I understand more about where this thread came from.

And it isn't just Craig that is disagreeing with you.

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Remote wounding and remote damage are interchangeable. From the studies, they say things like, "remote tissue damage caused by hydrostatic shock" etc. Or "remote wounding effects from hydrostatic shock."

I have read that same wikipedia article and found it well written in general. What parts do you take issue with specifically? Have you even looked at the various studies quoted there or did you just glance at it? I found it a really good place to start from personally, as it turned me on to several papers I would not have found otherwise. People rag on wikipedia a lot, but it can be a good tool if used correctly.

Corpral_Agarn said:

I thought that the thread was about JHP and FMJ bullets, not Hydrostatic Shock.

The wiki article is fine, but Hydrostatic Shock isn't really applicable to most commonly carried handgun rounds as Hydrostatic Shock is about speed and lots of it.

On top of that, there are lots of highly qualified people (even mentioned in the Wiki article) who have some interesting things to say against the hydrostatic shock theory.

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Again, you're failing to understand the principles pertaining to this discussion. You're making mutually exclusive statements just like CraigC, and based on the same lack of understanding.

In one instance you say that hollow points cause more tissue damage than FMJ. Then here you are saying that common carry calibers don't produce enough hydrostatic pressure for it to be relevant (which I generally agree with, obviously).

But here's the thing. If hollow points are to be believed to cause significantly greater tissue damage, then hydrostatic shock is the mechanism by which that is going to happen.

All a hollow point does is increase the diameter of the bullet, but that in and of itself does not necessarily translate to a bigger hole, due to the fluid nature of human tissue. It's like a boat going through water. A bigger boat creates a bigger wake, but the wakes from both boats simply close behind it. The shape of the bullet is also somewhat negligible, as there's an area of high pressure that proceeds the nose of the bullet. Thus, the bullet does not "crush" an area equal to its diameter, unless as the result of hydrostatic shock. Any crush cavity larger than about a pencil is necessarily the result of hydrostatic shock.

Take the photo below as an example. The "crush cavity" here is obviously much smaller than the diameter of the bullet. This is possible because ballistic gel has some of the same fluid properties as human tissue. The area of high pressure ahead of the nose of the bullet cuts that pencil-sized track, and the rest of the material simply "gets out of the way." This is what a wound track looks like in the absence of hydrostatic shock. Yes, the wound track is larger earlier on when the bullet is going faster, because there it had sufficient velocity to cause remote damage to the gel due to the pressure wave being exerted laterally to the bullet's flight path.

Now looking at the size of the crush cavity below, do you really think that there would be any appreciable difference between common calibers or between FMJ and HP? For argument's sake, let's say this is a .45 HP. Do you really think it's going to make any difference whatsoever going down to a 9mm FMJ? Now don't go thinking I'm saying that you can compare wounds in gel to wounds in human tissue, because I'm not. But gel does illustrate the principle I'm trying to convey here, even though it doesn't mirror the magnitude of the results. My reading is suggesting to me that gel is much more susceptible to remote wounds than human tissue, and therein I believe lies the problem. In general, it seems living tissue is tougher and more resilient than any gel.

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It's also erroneous to say that hydrostatic shock is all about speed. It's about kinetic energy. The kinetic energy is what dictates the magnitude of the pressure wave that extends laterally from the bullet. This is how CraigC's deer heart got the way it did, despite the fact that the bullet was only going 13-15 hundred fps. Yes, it lacked velocity, but it is an extremely powerful cartridge nevertheless.

The same relationship can be seen in armor piercing capability. In general, only high velocity bullets are capable of piercing body armor. But, very heavy bullets traveling at comparatively lower velocities can pierce body armor through sheer kinetic energy.

ETA: To further illustrate this, would you rather I dropped a marble or a bowling ball on your chest, both from a height of ten feet? They're both going the same velocity on impact, but obviously the bowling ball possesses much greater kinetic energy, and the resulting pressure wave that travels through your body will be much, much greater.

Also think of the marble and bowling ball being dropped into a pool of water from ten feet. The resulting splash and ripples going out laterally from the bowling ball are going to be absolutely massive compared to those of the marble.