As if it wasn't bad enough plus extensive discussions!!

[Norfdet]

IMHO ballistic gelatin has muddled the ballistic waters enough over the years that now I don't even see it as a viable test medium any more. Being a cop for the past 16 years has taught me more about how guns and rounds work more so that any gelatin block can. Now to make matter worse people are using gelatin blocks to test contact wound shots. Here is the link;

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=bb5aa3475cc9ea810dd20902bbc59200&t=262409

[oldgranpa]

Well, yes, that's the highroad (trollsville) looking for something sensational to publish. Let's thing about it......

Is the BG going to let you jam your gun into him?? Or is he going to grab the gun and turn it away??

Are you going to let the BG get that close to you before you fire?? Is he shooting back?? Did you get behind some good "cover" when you first saw the threat??

I'm sure there are some records of contact wounds in autopsy reports, but it's probably pretty rare.

Anyway, I'm not planning any wetpack "contact wound" tests because that just doesn't make sense. Besides, if a BG survives such a contact wound he will sure file a big lawsuit for damages.

Thanks, Norf, for the link. I will say those are pretty pictures, almost MythBuster quality.

Seems like we are seeing more stuff like this lately. People looking for the "magic bullet", like the RBCD bull that's being pushed right now.

og

[JTL]

Great link.
Putting your faith in how a block of jello reacts to a bullet is foolish.
Gun go's bang, Bullet fly's through air, strikes target and makes hole.
Size of hole depends on caliber of bullet.
Depth of hole depends on velocity and mass
Your skill level ( mental and physical ) will serve you better than jello test.

[canon6]

Norf,I agree with you that experience will always trump gel tests,they do serve a purpose I am just not real sure what that is.I have seen more than one contact wound, most to the head and there was damage caused by the gas,but I am not sure how much was caused by the passage of the projectile.

[twoguns]

Howdy folks,

I just read the link you provided Mr. Norf, and I guess the best I could say about it was that it was "interesting".  I personally do not think it is real world at all, but it is ... well, interesting  .

I worked homicides for 14 years, and during that time witnessed a ton of autopsies to take custody of any evidence retrieved.  I made it a point of getting friendly with all the state MEs, and was lucky enough to have the state ME's office do all my autopsies.  The state ME's did this for a living, and were amazing at their job. 

I would simply ask the county ME, who was a practicing doctor wearing a second "hat" to let the state docs cut one floor up, and they were always happy to allow that.  The counties docs did not want to have to lose time from their normal practice going to court to testify, or being deposed by attornies, etc..  I was lucky that my county also had the state office one floor up in the hospital.  It was really a moot point on who was going to perform serious autopsies.

If I had witnessed mine and they were preparing to start on another one they thought I would find interesting, they would simply suggest I stick around if I had the time.  I would simply bless it with that investigating detective, and would watch his autopsy as well.  Every body benefited from those situations in my view.  The docs would point out things that helped us do investigations better, and we asked questions and explained legal issues to the docs.  We agree the back and forth just helped us all do our jobs more professionally.

I dealt with many contact and near contact wound head shots.  Granted this was in the 70s and 80s, and some of the existing rounds of today did not exist then.  But as some of us have noted in other posts, handgun ammo during that time period often sure seemed to be at least the level of +P loads of today, if not even a bit hotter.

I don't see any real need to make a lot of comments that might simply offend some of our members who might find it disturbing.  But I just don't think what they tried to demonstrate in the gel test has any real world relationship to what I witnessed many times during autopsies. 

They seem to ignore the fact that a skull is a bit harder than the outside of the gel block is as well. They also did not factor in that brain tissue by comparison would be much softer than ballistic gel.  So again I think what they did is interesting, but not very practical based on what I saw many times.  To me all they did was was fire one contact round from a .38 J-frame into a block of ballistic gelatin.

twoguns   

[Stephen A. Camp]

Hello.  I see the ballistic gelatin as a medium by which to compare one round to the other, but do not see it as the holy grail of load effectiveness.  I was told by one "serious researcher" (the implication being that those of us not using laboratory conditions are not serious) that the homogeneous gelatin does replicate human tissue and therefore is a very good approximator of what a bullet will do in a body.  I disagreed then and do now.  As have others here, I've seen the same caliber/loads used on human beings (some darn sure deserved it, too) with very different results from very similar appearing wound locations.  I believe that the results would have been very similar in gelatin and not shown the divergence actually seen in real life.  Of course, this is "anecdotal" due to my not having it videotaped and documented with a notary's stamp to the "serious researchers." 

The human body contains bones, muscle, fluids, and organs of differing densities and elastic properties. I think this is why pathologists and firearm examiners almost always say that no two gunshot wounds are the same.  I think this is why we see loads that may not be the "best" in gelatin actually work pretty nicely on the street or in the field.

I personally have no problems with using the gelatin as a means by which to compare bullet performance but I do have a problem accepting that it will exactly duplicate the real deal, but I sort of quit worrying about the "absolute best nuclear load" in a given caliber after a couple of officers shot a BG through the neck with a Remington 125-gr. SJHP (and managed to hit nothing of value despite much being there; gunshot wounds are different yet again) and simultaneously pop him mid-sternum with a 12 gauge at about 18" with No. 4 Buck.  His heart was shredded and there was a gaping "rat hole" type wound.  Still, he looked behind him then leaned against a wall while saying something like, I didn't think you'd shoot."  He slowly slid down the way and sat down.  He then lowered his head and died. ( FWIW, none of the shot pellets exited the body.)  The .357 did exit the neck.

After that I began worrying more about being able to get handgun hits quickly and accurately and repeatedly.

I think there's a definite place for "serious" testing in the lab and right now, gelatin seems to be the best, but I do not believe that it is more than a guess nor perhaps valid if bone is struck.

Best.

[unit1069]

A couple of months ago I watched part of a cable tv program
and the young people demonstrating whatever it was they were
had a skeleton torso encased in gelatin.  Some people told me I had
seen a program called "Mythbusters".

Now if a couple of young people with limited financial resources
can whip up a test medium like that why can't ammo manufacturers
or government laboratories?  It seems to me that's the way to test
power, trajectory, deflection, and most of the other factors that come into play
in the real world without it being a real world situation.

[whkento]

...you know, I was wondering the same thing, unit1069...

[Norfdet]

"Mythbusters".

Now if a couple of young people with limited financial resources
can whip up a test medium like that why can't ammo manufacturers
or government laboratories? 

I can assure you that they are not synonymous. Mythbusters would HAVE to have a rather large financial resource to do what they do from week to week. However, if they can do it I agree, why couldn't the ammo companies also do it?

[mr surveyor]

hey....sssshhhhhhh..... you're gonna wake up oldgrandpa 




I still say Carey's hot

[oldgranpa]

I'm watching, surv, but so far this thread has been very "entertaining", from my standpoint. No problems, just a nice friendly, somewhat funny  discussion.
I can't do gelatin tests with my limited funds so I don't really care one way or the other. However, I have been concerned about the problem with bones. So I really like the simulated sternum bone wetpack test idea as a way to tell if your caliber/ammo of choice could penetrate bone. That method doesn't really matter if it's on a wetpack, gelatin, or hamhock.
With rifle rounds it is a different story. The old timey calibers like 30/30, 30-06, 8mm, stuff like that will go right thru bone and keep going in pretty much a straight line.
I'm not so sure about the new high velocity stuff like the WSSM types. They just explode and fragment in the first 3 - 6 inches of entering a wetpack. A friend with a new .243WSSM fired into a wetpack and it blew a hole about 8" diameter. That would end a shootout at once.

So if people have money, time, and a facility to do gelatin testing, have at it. The rest of us will just have to be happy with wetpacks, water jugs, or whatever else happens to be available.

BTW, surv, how is Carey doing??

og

[flyandscuba]

If states would employ firing squads in place of the "inhumane" lethal injections for executions -- we'd have all the "real world" ballistic testing we could ever want....

[whkento]

oh, flyandscuba, you are soooo un-PC...   I like it!      I wonder if they'd be willing to change caliber each time... youknow, just so we'd have good comparison data. 

[Norfdet]

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[whkento]

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