Does a bullet really need to reach the "vitals"

[Newton]

I know full well that I am flying in the face of overwhelming profesional opinion to the contrary, especially the FBI's wound ballistics lab, but why does a bullet have to penetrate so deeply to be effective ?

I was thinking about this whole issue with the now common "should I get an FMJ or a HP in .32/.380ACP" type of threads. More and more people are loading out with FMJs to ensure 10 or more inches of penetration, and I think they are making a mistake. There sometimes seems to be this assumption that every major structure in the body, blood vessels included, lie exactly one half inch under the skin of your assailants back.

Isn't the real factor here how much your target bleeds, and if you want a "bleeder" a wider hole seems a better bet than an ice pick that runs a little deeper. What was that formula, if you increase the diameter by x you increase the wound surface area by x squared (math majors apply here).

I have never seen ANY study, of any kind, involving actual street results or tests on lab animals, where solids were anything less than dismal performers when compared to expanding rounds. Even 36 grain HV .22LR hollowpoints significantly outperform 40 grain solids.

To me a traumatic and messy 6 inch wound will always be vastly superior to a through and through .380 hole.

Am I in a minority of one here ?

 

[Devonai]

I think the issue is how fast your assailant is going to exsanguinate before he ceases hostile action. Even a severed artery may not be fast enough when seconds count.

 

[Sean Smith]

To me a traumatic and messy 6 inch wound will always be vastly superior to a through and through .380 hole.

Main thing I think you are overlooking is that ballistic gelatin penetration does not equal real-world penetration. 10" of jello does not mean 10" of bad guy; it means more like anything from 5-10", maybe less, depending on what path the bullet takes. Hence, with sissy calibers alot of folks belive you can get either adequate penetration OR nice expansion, but not both... hard to get a free ride with only 100-200 ft-lbs to play with.

 

[Preacherman]

I only carry "mouse calibers" like .32/.380 ACP as backup guns, having seen their failure in real life all too often. However, I carry hollowpoints in them, simply because the sharp edges of hollowpoints tend to "dig in" and penetrate on bone rather than glance off, as roundnose projectiles do. This can happen even in the big leagues - there are numerous verified reports of .45 ACP ball bouncing off the skull or other big bones. Sure, it leaves a raging headache behind, but that ain't stopping power!

Basically, with any of the small calibers, you're giving up stopping power to a very large degree. However, even with the larger/more powerful handgun calibers, you're also giving up stopping power compared to a long gun... There are innumerable cases where a BG has soaked up multiple hits from major-caliber handguns and kept on fighting. A handgun is always a weapon of last resort, and only when there isn't a decent long gun available!

 

[P95Carry]

''Stopping'' is as ever the real challenge. In the hopefully unlikely circumstance any of us has to actually discharge our piece in anger to defend .... the pre-requisite is always to stop the aggressor ... fast.

Almost any shot will cause a bleed ... but that in itself is no guarantee at all of a quick drop ....... as others have noted, even a major artery hit (unless aorta, heart etc) will not slow the perp anything like instantly.

To connect with CNS is probably more a matter of luck but is probably the quickest stopper.

That leaves whatever we choose to define as ''shock'' effect ..... the rapid and devastating trauma affecting a large area, and probably yeah .. from an expanding bullet..... providing said bullet will actually expand anyways.

Shot placement will always be critical but in a high adrenaline situation I'll doubt many have the skill or cool to actually achieve this .... so again, luck will play a part.

As for ''vitals'' ....... well, ''damage'', ''trauma'' are keywords ...... and for the most part the ''vitals'' are most likely to produce faster effects when disrupted, pain itself often not entering the equation as it appears it is masked for some while and thus may not affect a BG's ability to continue the fight.

Ultimately, IMO - good penetration is a must .. but how much and the effects thereof, will affect the nature of the outcome ...... not very predictable.

 

[Mike Irwin]

"To me a traumatic and messy 6 inch wound will always be vastly superior to a through and through .380 hole."

That's to YOU.

But what about to the person that you actually shoot?

It may not be traumatic to that individual. At all.

A flesh wound is just that, and no matter how severe it is, it's still a flesh wound if it doesn't hit something critical.

I've seen some seriously ugly flesh wounds before (ever see someone with a hand most stripped of flesh, or gloved?), where the individual was hardly phased, continued to be well focused, and while in pain, wasn't unduly uptight.


"Main thing I think you are overlooking is that ballistic gelatin penetration does not equal real-world penetration."

Well, yes and no.

No, there's no hard and fast 1" = 1" correlation, but that's true for ANY testing media.

Ballstic gelatin has proven to be, however, the best replicant for actual bullet performance in tissue. What's been observed in laboratory testing with many bullets very closely relates in many cases to what is later observed on the autopsy table.

 

[SigP220ST_Guy]

FBI/Miami Shootout
http://www.firearmstactical.com/briefs7.htm

 

[buzz_knox]

Look through medical texts and you'll see some amazing things. People who continue functioning after limbs are traumatically severed; people who struggled on despite massive blood loss; even people who have lived after having their hearts nearly torn in two. But you won't see any examples of people doing anything after their spine is severed or their brain is turned to mush. And you don't get either of the two with a round that won't penetrate to the degree needed.

A wide bloody wound is nothing to the body in the short term. It may be sufficient to kill, but it's usually insufficient to stop.

 

[Mike Irwin]

"But you won't see any examples of people doing anything after their spine is severed or their brain is turned to mush."

I beg to differ.

Most Democratic politicians are living proof that denies your theory...

 

[buzz_knox]

Most Democratic politicians are living proof that denies your theory

I didn't think I needed a caveat that my theory didn't apply to the supernatural, i.e. the spawn of satan.

 

[agtman]

Good question.

The need for adequate penetration is tied to the need for immediate incapacitation on the street (i.e, stopping the BG's lethal assault right now).

From LE's perspective, the study of wounding ballistics is, at least in part, about determining which types of available service cartridges - and bullet configurations - can best accomplish the goal of immediate incapacitation.

The following link takes you to an excellent discussion of this issue:

http://www.firearmstactical.com/hwfe.htm (See, in particular, the paragraphs following the Section entitled, "Ammunition Selection Criteria").

HTH.

 

[caz223]

Priorities when shooting to stop:
1. Central nervous system.
The only sure way to immediate incapacation.
Spine, brain, brain stem, etc.

2. Vitals
Heart, lungs, etc.
People seem to continue to return fire even after their heart/lungs are
not operational. Takes many seconds, or sometimes even minutes for
true physical incapacation. Sometimes called 'critically injured'.

3. Loss of blood pressure, due to extreme loss of blood.
Major arteries in neck, armpits, groin area, lower belly, rib cage.
The BG is fully capable and mobile, and will prolly be physically able to
continue an active role in your demise until he loses most of his blood supply.

4. Fractures.
While not really what you prolly intended, a bone fracture limits mobility,
and it is easy to outrun a person whose pelvis is broken. Sometimes adrenaline, shock,
or drugs/alcohol can mask the pain of a fracture.

As always, a person need not be physically incapacated to discontinue his attack, and a person who is only immobile can continue his attack just to spite you or wait until his buddies arrive to skin you.

Basically keep shooting until the desired results have been obtained.

You will note that in order to have any desired effect, the bullet MUST get to the target area, and still have enough velocity to cause the desired result. Simply getting there is not enough. Sometimes the bullet must take an indirect route though thick clothing, appendages, or layers of fat to even get near anything vital. A bullet that reached a vital area, and didn't have enough steam left to inflict sufficient trauma to the target didn't really acheive the desired result.
Penetration is vital.

 

[agtman]

Another good point ....


"***A bullet that reached a vital area, and didn't have enough steam left to inflict sufficient trauma to the target didn't really achieve the desired result. Penetration is vital."

Yep.

And in reality the "results" can be catastrophic, since underpenetration can get you killed. Case in point: Miami, 1986. Cartridge in issue: 9mm STHP.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Newton, first and foremost, the bullets have no needs. The shooter has the need. What the shooter needs is for the bullet to do sufficient damage to make the bad guy stop. The surest way the bad guy stops is when he does not actually make the decision, but when the decision is made by his body, such as by shutting down the CNS, shutting down respiration, or shutting down circulation. There are numerous reports of actual stops made via a conscious decision on behalf of the bad guy, sometimes without even firing a shot, but these are the most unreliable of stops.

A good bleeder is fine, but I had no wish to be killed just as dead as the bad guy. He may bleed out in 2-10 minutes, and in that time, he may manage to kill you.

In the FBI-Miami shootout in 1986, most of wounded FBI and all of the killed FBI were killed AFTER the gunman suffered a lethal wound to an artery that was slowly filled his lung with blood. The wound to his artery was one of his first injuries. As quoted by an FBI agent after the fight, PLatt and Matix were dying, but they were not dying fast enough. I believe 5 FBI agents were killed while Matix was bleeding.

 

[Mike Irwin]

It should also be noted that Platt and Mattix were finally stopped by an agent who had, part way through the shootout, sustained a very severe wound to his, I believe, right arm.

Even with the severity of the wound, it didn't stop him from continuing with the fight.

 

[Newton]

Aviation buffs will remember the story of the F-104 and how it was designed almost purely for rate of climb and speed, at the near complete expense of combat manoueverability, purely because designers over focussed on these areas to the expense of all else.

I wonder if we similarly over-focus on the Miami shoot out because of the disastrous consequences of that single incident of under penetration. There may be a hundred examples of someone living for days after a .380ACP FMJ wound, where a JHP would have put them down in seconds, but we never hear about it because it didn't cause the death of 5 law enforcement officers, or because it was just another street shooting with a sub-optimal caliber so who cares how effective it was or wasn't.

A spinal cord, or heart shot may be a near instant stop, but these are far from common. As for Miami, maybe if that Silvertip hadn't expanded perhaps it would have missed that artery completely, and if the narrow path of a 9mm FMJ had missed the heart, the perp may never have died.

The best results at Strasbourg were obtained using Magsafes that sometimes managed only 4 inches of penetration, and whilst I'm not saying that's a good thing, it does seem to illustrate that messy shallow wounds are usually more effective than small deep ones.

I would like to see another test carried out on the lines of Strasbourg, this time without the lies and accusations that surrounded those tests. We eat plenty of Pork in this country, perhaps someone could sacrifice their piggies in the interest of a wound ballistics study.

I can easily see the argument for using FMJ in say a .380ACP, especially in winter, but a 95 grain Hydrashok always seems a more effective choice, but hey, that's me for you, always contrary

 

[Mike Irwin]

I'm still of the opinion that the Strausborg tests were the fabrication of some gunwriter's overactive imagination.

I put no stock into it, or any of the so-called information gleaned from it.

However, ff anyone chooses believes that 4 inches of penetration in a drugged goat is a reasonable measure of performance for selecting your CCW ammo, then I have but one request.

Leave your guns to me in your will, please. At least they'll have a good home...

 

[444]

As has been mentioned, penetration is vital. A lot of people tend to think of a shooting where someone is standing, facing you, in correct anatomical postion. You think to yourself, the heart and lungs are only a few inches under the skin, why do I need 14" of penetration. In reality, the other guy isn't going to be standing in anatomical position. If he is shooting at you, he will have his arms up in front of his body holding a gun. You need to penetrate though his arms to get to the vitals. After penetrating through his arm(s) you need to penetrate the sturnum...................................
A severely bleeding wound is good, but a shot to the heart is better. You need to have a gun/load/bullet that will penetrate AT LEAST to the vitals no matter what position the person is in and no matter what the person is wearing (short of body armor). Being able to penetrate light cover is a plus. One you have adequate penetration, you need more holes.

 

[Oleg Volk]

Reason to favor penetration is that a defensive shot is very likely to go at the chest of the perp...though outstretched arms which hold a weapon.

 

[Tim Burke]

A few nits.

-2 FBI agents were killed in the Miami Massacre.
-The Strausborg tests, if real, used, by design, chest shots with no intervening barriers, on animals that are significantly smaller than grown men. Thus, the importance of penetration was minimized by the study design. You can't then look at the study results and conclude that penetration isn't important.
-The very first FoF exercise in which I drew a weapon, I was facing a knife wielding assailant at about 2 yards. When I started my draw he was facing me squarely, but by the time I got the shot off he had turned 90 degrees to his right, and I hit him COM. However, with that target orientation, COM was his left bicep, about 6 inches down from the shoulder. 4 inches of penetration would not have even entered his chest, although it may have torn up his arm. I've seen a similar shot, on the forearm, from a shotgun loaded with birdshot at close range. Again, no pellets entered the chest.

 

[George Hill]

"I wonder if we similarly over-focus on the Miami shoot out because of the disastrous consequences of that single incident of under penetration. "

Not really, it's just a well documented and graphic example... of something that has been played out many other LEO shootings.

WWII veterans have stories of Japanese troopers getting blasted with direct machinegun fire - even blowing hole sections of the cerebellum away - still charging and firing.

There are a lot of misconceptions about bullets and how they work. There is no voodoo to what a projectile does. There is no mystery. There is only ignorance and misunderstanding. So, the next time you see a full color 2 page advertisement for some wonderfully tactical ammunition that is obviously used by every Special Forces Ninja out there… take it with a grain of salt.

Let’s take a look at how a bullet stops a bad guy. Lots of people who read gun magazines and little else use a certain phrase way too much. “One Shot Stopâ€. These are the same guys that go on and on about bullets and loads and are always searching for that Magic Bullet. The “Black Arrow†that will slay evil even if it misses. There is no such thing. Some hollow points are better at certain aspects of bullet performance than others… but in effect, they all do the same thing. Make holes. The trick is to make the holes where they do the most damage. This is called “Shot Placement†and is the most critically important aspect of a bullet wound.

There is more than one way to skin a cat. There is also more than one way for the bullet to stop a threat.

1. Hydraulically. Making the target bleed out. Once a human looses enough blood, he goes into Hypovolemic shock. Hypovolemic shock refers to a medical or surgical condition in which rapid fluid loss results in multiple organ failure due to inadequate tissue perfusion. Most often, Hypovolemic shock is secondary to rapid blood loss (hemorrhagic shock). The cardiovascular system initially responds to Hypovolemic shock by increasing the heart rate, increasing myocardial contractility, and constricting peripheral blood vessels. This means to you and I that shots to extremities get a biological response that naturally reduces the loss of blood. A center mass hit is required to insure this rapid loss of blood. If you aim Center Of Mass (COM from now on) the bullet has the best chances of penetrating deeply into vital internal organs.

2. Structurally. The human body is built on a solid framework we call the skeleton. Certain bones in the skeleton support the whole weight of body. I’m talking about the legs and the pelvis. A shot that hits and shatters one of these bones disrupts the structure and causes a collapse. Actually making this shot is difficult as the legs are much thicker than the actual bone. There is another downside to that kinda of a shot, and that is the subject may still have some fight left in him. He may not be able to stand, and probably wont be doing any tap dancing for some time, but if he is armed, he is still a threat. He just might still be able to take a shot back at you.

3. Electrically. CNS. Central Nervous System. The nervous system in the human body is basically like electric wiring and all the wires run to the brain via the conduit called the central nervous system. It’s located in the spine. Sounds easy enough, but really this is where it gets complicated. If you fire a shot that hits the spine and severs the CNS, you’ve disrupted the electrical system. But only everything “Down Stream†from that wound. That could be a problem. If it was a COM shot and you hit the subject in the spin in the middle of the back, he will not be able to use his legs, but the upper body is still connected and functional. The subject could still return fire. The place that you want to hit to turn the subject off like a light switch is a very small target. You want to hit the Medulla Oblongata. It is the size of a Grade A Medium egg, it is nested in a protective covering of very solid bone. Making that shot with a handgun is unlikely. Unless your subject is bound and kneeling in front of you and your about to give him the Mafia Classic “Two shots to the back of the headâ€â€¦ don’t even think about taking that shot. In such a dynamic event as a gunfight, you’re a fool if you think your going to be making that kinda of a shot. Even bench rested. Your target is small and the subject is moving… Take the shot you can get and aim COM. Now, if your in the urban police sniper role and you have a nice .308 rifle with a high power scope, then MAYBE this shot is an option. Especially if you only have one shot it has got to stop the subject instantly… that is what you want to hit. Like a light switch. Effective – but hard to get.

4. Psychologically. Getting a bullet wound, even a minor can have a drastic effect on someone’s moral motivation. Some people, they see a little blood, and they just lose the will to fight. They give up right then and there. They may even go into shock. Some people have even died from this, when the wound its self was not even life threatening. Although this does and can happen, don’t bank on it. You might think that the bad guy might stop having been hurt. There is a pretty good chance if they were not bright enough to stop at the sight of an aimed gun, they are not going to stop with a mere wounding. Sometimes getting hurt just makes the subject all the more dangerous. Your shot may have been a lethal one and that guy will die… but in the mean time, he wants nothing more than to take your head off. The famous Miami Massacre in which two mortally wounded villains took on and wounded and killed several agents of the FBI is a good example of this. Then again, a wounded villain could have caught a poorly aimed slug, and all the sudden has a vision of his mortality and throws in the towel right there on the spot. You never know. Don’t count on this… if you get it, great. But predicting psychology is a lot more guess work than predicting the weather.

Looking at these four ways of how a bullet stops a fight, I am left with the simple conclusion that the only thing that you can bank on is well aimed shots to the Center Of Mass. You want to use as big of a bullet as you can handle… in as powerful of a load as you can handle. You want to drive that slug deep into the vital organs of the threat. That has the best chances of stopping the threat via one of these 4 ways. Notice that I used the word “shots�

I have never seen a situation where a shooting was warranted that only warranted one single shot. You can multiply your bullet’s “stopping power†by multiplying the number of hits. Follow that first shot with another one. Shoot until the threat stops. Firing one shot and waiting to see what happens is not a good idea. You shoot until the threat is no longer a threat. This is for Police or Military or Momma at the Mall in the parking lot. Banking on the One Shot Stop is a bad idea. The only people who do are the gun writers who get to deposit the check for the articles.

 

[Black Snowman]

A very informative and well written post Mr. Hill, I'm filing that one away for future reference. Better and more comprehensive than anything I've read or seen elsewhere.

 

[444]

George, that is the first time I ever read on an internet forum a post that sums all that up, and does it correctly.

I have only a couple things to add. Hypovolemic shock: This isn't something that takes place instantly, and in reality isn't even what you are trying to achieve in and of itself. What you want is for the blood volume to be diminished to the point that the brain is no longer perfused resulting in unconsciousness. Obviously, hypovolemia is what causes the brain to become hypoxic, or it could become hypoxic because the blood being circulated isn't being oxygenated by the lungs. The brain will be one of the last organs to be perfused as the heart tries to maintain blood pressure. The body shunts blood to the vital organs as it recognizes that it is in trouble. This is why people become pale; the body is shunting blood away from the skin to the more important organs. Evenutally you will lose your radial pulse (pulse at the wrist), then your femoral pulse (in the groin), and last your carotid pulse (in the neck) as the blood pressure drops.
For blood to circulate through the body, we bascially have to have three things: a pump (the heart), blood, and a means of transport (the blood vessels). We also have the lungs which exchange gases and provide the oxygen to the blood. Our goal is to get the brain to shut down through hypoxia (lack of oxygen). We can accomplish this by interupting the operation of any one of the four things: we can disable the heart, we can take away the blood through hemorage, we can rupture the vessels, or we can disable the lungs. The best way to do this is with COM hits. We can possibly hit the heart itself, we can cause massive bleeding from the ruputure of the great blood vessels, we can disable the lungs by allowing air into the chest cavity, we can rupture the diaphram (a vital organ for normal respiratory effort), we can cause the lungs to fill with fluid.............. Obviously we need to make COM hits and we need to have adequate penetration to reach these vital organs. The more holes we put in these organs, the faster the whole process is going to be achieved. And the bigger the holes the faster this will be achieved.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

I mistyped. Yes, there were only 2 FBI agents killed at the shootout in Miami. Platt and Matix were finally stopped by Mireles who had his left forearm rendered useless by a single .223 round.

I mistyped as well when I noted the damage done by Matix. It was Platt, not Matix. Everything Platt did after he exited his car and received his first wound was the work of a dead man. His first wound was a series of wounds by Dove's 9 mm round that passed through Platt's arm and into his chest, damagin brachial arteries and completely passing through one lung but stopping short of the heart. He had 1300 CC of blood in that one lung and it is posited that the wound was not survivable. Regardless of the final shots by Mireles, Platt was a dead man. He just did a lot of killing and injuring of FBI agents for a couple of minutes while he was still alive.

Platt received some 12 wounds. After wounds to the feet (#s7-10, 2 in each foot, shotgun blast from Mireles) and late in the fight, Platt was battle ineffective. No doubt this was the result of multiple wounds and considerable blood loss. By then, the damage to the FBI was done. He staggered up to Mireles and fired three shots at point blank distance from a revolver and missed with all three rounds. He then turned and staggered back to the car into which he hoped to escape. Mireles followedand fired the final shots of the battle into both suspects.

See http://www.firearmstactical.com/briefs7.htm

Counting on blood loss to create the needed stop is not a good idea.

The singer, Selena, was shot in the shoulder. The wound would not have been life threatening had it not hit a major blood vessel. She traveled by foot from her room at the h/motel and into the lobby where she had the clerk call for help and where she answered questions from the dispatcher relayed by the clerk. She was able to name her shooter at that time. There were minutes where she was still alive and fairly functional. She could have returned fire had she had a gun.

 

[DMK]

Aviation buffs will remember the story of the F-104 and how it was designed almost purely for rate of climb and speed, at the near complete expense of combat manoueverability, purely because designers over focussed on these areas to the expense of all else.

Interesting analogy. The F-104 was designed to intercept high flying Russian bombers, not to be a dogfighter. The rational was to get the fighter up to the bomber's altitude and get the enemy in air to air missile range as quickly as possible. If the aircraft couldn't get to where it could do some damage, manouverability and high weapons loads wouldn't do much good anyway.

Similarly, if you can't get a .32ACP, .380ACP or any other round to drill deep enough to hit something important, it doesn't matter much what kind of bullet design you are using.