Originally Posted By MedicOC:
Actually really good video. I have a suspicion that he has a nice collection of firearms.

Originally Posted By gajeep94yj:
That settles it. I am not carrying a pistol any more, gotta stay lugging a rifle with me every where!

In all seriousness that does reinforce the thought that any thing worth shooting is worth shooting multiple times.

Thanks for the video link.

Originally Posted By dana:
Good video and mirrors what i have seen over the years. There are a few things that i have been preaching for a while that he points out.

Rifle < pistol. It is that simple. A pistol makes a hole, that's about it. 9mm, 40, 45 really just make a small hole. Maybe a entrance and a exit or maybe just a entrance but it does not matter. The damage is done internal and the only difference is penetration and slight difference in size. Yes there is the exception if you compare a .25 to a 44mag 300gr fires out of a 10" barrel. But for all practical reasons pistols make a small hole, finger sized. Rifle make a mess, it is night and day, no comparison.

People dont drop dead when shot. Multiple times i have seen people with fatal GSW to the heart or chest that are found dead 100yrds from where they are shot. Often around corners or over fences from the shell casings. They obviously ran AFTER being shot.

His comments on trajectory are great. People dont stand up straight when getting shot and are often in strange positions. Don't rely on what looks like a entrance and exit wound. It might be multiple wounds. Yes i do ask my patients how many shots were fired. But i take this with a grain of salt because we all know how unreliable that information is. Also dont think that since the hole is in the chest that the bullet might not be in the pelvis. Bullets change direction all the time when they hit obstacles internally.

This is the reason i dont like fragmenting pistol rounds for SD. I had several patients shot with a fragmenting pistol round. One of they held their hands out in front of them in a defensive position at the time of the shooting which makes perfect sense. The round went through one hand, into the lower arm/wrist area of the other arm and finally right into the sternum. It started to fragment when it hit the arms and failed to penetrate the chest. Would a FMJ have been better? I cant say for sure but it looks that way to me. My point is simple that the positioning of the human body and anatomy that the bullet transects is highly unpredictable. Don't think that because someones torso is 12" thick that a bullet with 18" penetration will go right through.

this brings up the next point. He talks about how strong skin is. I have been thinking about this for a while. Ballistic gel is a consistent density. I dont think the human body is consistent but i think it is made up of multiple different levels of density. I have seen many times bullets (handguns mostly but 5.56 one time) hit people and travel under skin or follow bone between layers of tissue or muscle. Classic example is GSW to hip area with 9mm where bullet lodged in the ankle. It didn't really "penetrate" 36" of tissue, it traveled between layers of tissue.

PS let me just say that these are just MY PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS AND THOUGHTS. I have no interest in arguing or trying to say why i am right and you are wrong or who is smarter with a better resume of trauma care. To each their own.

Originally Posted By dana:


No i am not a doctor, not even close. Just a pee-on in the medical field.