What happens when you press a gun into an attacker's body?

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The damage inside the human body from the gases is massive.

Back when we carried revolvers my partner carried a 4" Model 29 loaded with 44 Specials per department policy.

One night he responded to a burglary alarm at a Pharmacy. While checking the building he surprised the burglar that was still inside. A short foot chase followed then a physical fight with the perp winning. My partner went down and as the perp leaned over him he pulled his gun, jammed it into the perps body and fired one round. The bullet entered into the liver and exited the back of the body.

My partner said when he pulled the trigger the gun just made a mild "pop". In fact the noise was so mild he thought the round had misfired. He was fixing to pull the trigger a second time when the perp stopped his attack and said "you shot me."

The Doctors almost finished the job. Over the next two week period the perp under several surgeries (four I believe) each time the Doctors cut out more and more of his liver. The perp was a parole violator wanted in California. No charges were filled against him and he was sent back to California with 2/3rds of his liver missing. Even the media thought the incident was interesting enough they reported on it several times.

I guess the D.A. thought being shot. Being operated on several times and missing 2/3rds of his liver (I think he made have lost some other organs such as the spleen also) was enough punishment.
 
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It's partially the thought that a defensive gun use may well involve a contact shot that leads mention prefer a revolver for CCW. IIRC in the Zimmerman case that was the case and although the first shot worked the gun then jammed.
 
Lung tissue is necessarily very elastic and is designed to accommodate a large volume of gas. I think the biggest danger, aside from the bullet itself, in a contact chest shot is instant pneumothorax.
 
That may well be true but we are talking about a flamethrower going off inside the chest cavity. The burning gases will sear through lung tissue along with super heating the air already inside the lungs.

Either way it is going to be a very nasty wound.
 
Maybe with higher has pressure and/or volume but this test, at least, seems to indicate that the muzzle blast dues little to increase the severity of the wound.
 
I was told that if you had to perform a press-contact shot with an autoloader, it's best to press the lower part of the muzzle area of the pistol into the surface area; in essence, it's kind of like tilting the gun downwards a little bit, so that you don't push directly on the crown of the barrel, pushing the slide out of battery. If you are using a CZ 75, Berettas or certain Sigs (Where the entire top slide area will still go out of battery regardless of which area you press with the muzzle area), then I don't know what technique you can use. I think this technique will only work with handguns where the lower part of the frame/slide area is static and the upper part is mobile.
 
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