I know this question gets asked all too often and I appologize. I am wondering what the lethal range of typical, over the counter .223/5.56mm ammo is (45,55 & 62 gr loads, basically the stuff you get in UMC "value-packs"). I am not talking about the latest wis-bang type of bullet, just lead core FMJ or lead core SP.



I am in between getting another AR in 5.56m or a AK in 7.62x39mm. I like the idea of weight savings and NATO standardization of the 5.56mm, but I am concerned that it won't be lethal enough out to 350m unless I use the latest wis-bag special tactical etc ammo.



Anyway, what does the hive think about this?

You won't need any special whiz-bang ammunition, but something designed with terminal ballistics in mind is going to be effective at a much longer range than cheap range ammunition - not that it's inefficient at close range.
Barrel length is going to play a role in it, I'm going to assume a 16" barrel.  The generic WWB or similar surplus 55gr should be effective for practical civilian social distances (again, most civilian involved shooting occurs in rock throwing range anyway), but if you have the ability to get better ammunition, by all means get a few mags loaded with that, function test your rifle with that load, and then find a surplus load that matches that bullet weight and ballistics so you can keep using your optic zeroed as-is.
The 300+yd 5.56 single hit kills have usually been with some type of OTM ammunition - the tangible difference in accuracy has justified our move to Mk318 ammunition.

My suggested pairings:
55g:    DRS/Federal/Win/PPU/S&B/Etc. 55gr surplus;  M193 for stockpile stuff if needed; Hornady 55gr TAP, or Black Hills 55gr (there are others)
62gr:   PPU 62gr FMJ Practice stuff (or similar 62gr stuff);  IMI M855 for stockpile stuff;   Barnes TSX 5.56 62gr loads for lead line magazines
69gr:   PPU 69gr HPBT;  BlackHills 69gr Match, Barnes 69gr, 70gr Barnes Copper
75gr:   PPU 75gr HPBT or Hornady Steel Cased 75gr Practice;  BlackHills 77gr Match/Mk262 Clone, Hornady TAP T2 (again, there are more)

I've got sets of all these - I'll probably narrow it down to the 75gr and 62gr, but the availability of 55gr from local sources is a compelling reason to just go with that.

If you have a candidate load in mind, search for Molon and DocGKR posts, because if there are any from either of them they'll be most informative stuff around.

That makes more sense. I understand that there are more advanced loads out there than XM193 or M855, but honestly the ammo I would stockpile would be one of those two (most likely the former). IMO, having a stockpile of ammo that is not the standard bulk range stuff is great, but I want to know that pretty much any ammo that I pick-up in a SHTF scenario will reliably kill human/deer sized targets out to 350m as effectively as it will within 100m (assuming a center mass shot placement).



My summary of the above posts leads me to believe that the maximum distance that a basic, run of the mill load for .223/5.56mm will reliably kill out to 200m. Is this correct?

In a nutshell, yes.

As do all your teachings, oh wise one...


 

At what range does 5.56 mm ammo have the same energy as 22 lr?

About 1300m

If you are hit at 1300 m anywhere in the head or chest, you will die with out seeking medical attention.


Lethal is not the same as incapacitated.

COM hit from 5.56 out to 500m will incapacitate.

Wouldn't the bullet still yaw even if it doesn't fragment? (Assuming no fragmentation because you are shooting beyond 200 yards)

Internal yaw is a great wounding mechanism at any distance that is what makes the .223 such a good round is its capabilities to yaw (and fragment when closer in but yaw will defiantly exceed wound capabilities over fragmentation of such a small round). The Yaw of the bullet creates a wound cavity a good 3 times the length of the bullet when in soft tissue and about 1 1/2 when going through bone. This causes not only a cavatation to occur but also transfers a large amount of the energy to what you hit with it.

The serious problem with the 5.56 ammo most of the military uses is the lack of yaw capabilities at longer ranges. The M855 round with its penetrator tip makes the bullet less likely to yaw due to the weight and density of the steel wanting to keep it intact as it passes through flesh leaving little holes with not much damage. The  XM193 is not much better in its ballistics when entering gel/flesh it takes a little to long to yaw and doesn't really fragment very well.

The best round for over 500 yard incapacitation/death would be something heavier than both the m855 or the XM193 with at least a hollow point up front. The hollow point does not have the same function on the .223 that hollow points in pistols do. They are not there to help the bullet expand but to put more of the weight in the rear of the round to keep the heavier part going faster when it encounters an object while letting the hollow point slow down due to the resistance. This is what causes the bullet to tumble and what gives the .223 its great stopping/killing power.

This works at both close and long ranges and if it weren't for the Hague convention I am sure that these are the rounds that most of the military would be using.

It was mentioned earlier in one of the posts the 69/75/77gr BTHP as being a great round and every test I have made for the .223 has confirmed this as being one of the most wound intensive/penetrator rounds. The 75gr BTHP is what the squad designated marksman and most civilian contractors use out in the field.

My tests also found the V-max and A-max to create an even more devastating wound but unfortunately they just don't have the penetration power but for the skinnies out in the middle east with little clothes or body armor and no vegetation to shoot through I could see it doing considerable damage to any one it hit. Imagine being shot in the hand/arm/foot and just seeing instead of a hole going though it you would see it almost completely disintegrate. The cavity that it would cause in any soft tissue would be something you could almost put a punch bowl in but overall for an effective killing at up to 600 yards and further if you hit something soft or vital it would have to be the 69/75/77gr BTHP. I found Hornady 75gr BTHP extremely accurate and capable.

Do you have any proof of your statement? The BLACK HILLS 77gr. SIERRA MATCHKING OTM based AA53 MK 262 MOD 0/1 cartridge has been DOD's 5.56MM LR combat loading for about a decade. And the bullet normally loaded for both the magazine length 5.56MM AMU MATCH & the 5.56MM USMC AA67 Moly-MATCH loadings has also been the 77gr. SIERRA MATCHKING OTM.

What is this M195 stuff you speak of?  It must be new, and likely secret, ammo and I want some .



As has been said already, the 5.56 round is generally good to 200m and reasonable accurate to 600.  If you're needing to hunt or take man-sized targets out at more than 200m I would jump up to the 6.5/6.8 or the .308.

You know not of what you speak.  I suggest you spend some time studying the  works of Dr. Martin Fackler and Dr. G.K. Roberts.





"Energy transfer" is not a wounding mechanism for small arms fire.  Again, study the works of  actual terminal ballistic experts such as those cited above.

This is a very interesting post. My grandpa actually killed deer with a 22 during depression in KS so even at 1300m it's deadly.

Is this why guys are using 6.8, 6.5 and .308... to extend fragmentation range?  Thanks.

-JD

1000 yards



ETA: A 5.56 M855 to the face or upper chest at 1k will kill you.

I haven't seen anything conclusive to support this statement.  This is what the 5.7 guys always talk about and I just don't buy it.  I would need to see some data to support it and so far I haven't.  In fact, I believe this was one of the myths associated with the 5.56 round at its inception and has been fairly well disproved but I'll look at any testing or data that supports your statement.



Please share.  I'd love to see what testing and data you have.



Here we agree.

I bet you nobody here would let you shoot them with a 55 grain FMJ round from 350m

Thx

Here is a very interesting post I found searching for "barrier blindness" - guy shoots though loaded AK mag into gel with various calibers and 308/5.56 in general.  Check it out thread starter...I learned a lot.

http://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=19878

-JD

Do you have any proof of your statement? The BLACK HILLS 77gr. SIERRA MATCHKING OTM based AA53 MK 262 MOD 0/1 cartridge has been DOD's 5.56MM LR combat loading for about a decade. And the bullet normally loaded for both the magazine length 5.56MM AMU MATCH & the 5.56MM USMC AA67 Moly-MATCH loadings has also been the 77gr. SIERRA MATCHKING OTM.[/quote]

My mistake it is the 77gr that the SDM use in the white box. I just have had limited experience with the 77gr and have mostly dealt with 75gr and under in my shooting. But in my limited experience with the White box stuff I found almost negligible difference in the charateristics of the 77gr Matchking and 75gr BTHP. If you have a different experience I would love to hear it.

Actually I know very well of what I speak and this knowledge doesn't come from a book but hundreds of rounds pulled from phone books, sand, gell and mud. The number of fragmentation parts from a .223 is small and tends to only happen at close range and if your talking about m855 or 193 it is almost nonexistent past a couple hundred yards. This means the true wounding capability of the .223 is not in fragmentation but in the yawing capabilities of a SMALL HIGHSPEED bullet. I am typically able to pull about 80-95% of the bullets weight in one piece out of most of the materials mentioned above. That means only about 5% to 20% of that bullet fragmented (not including ballistic tipped I only get about 20% of the original weight in the largest piece I can find) and most of it was the copper jacket in very small pieces.

I will give you this these small pieces would make it very hard for a medic or surgeon to remove all of the shrapnel but for the over all wound unless you got lucky and had one of those fragmentation pieces hit an artery while the main round travels through without causing much damage then they are more of a nuisance than a true incapacitation technique.

As for Energy Transfer you are just getting into semantics. Because the more energy that is transferred from the round to the target is the more energy that must be absorbed by the target. The only way to absorb more energy minus a bullet proof vest is to sacrifice organs/fluids/bone or vessels so in physics it is not a direct wound maker but it will cause more damage the more energy you transfer to the target.

A great example is the .308 round. At closer ranges traveling at faster speeds the bullet tends to pass right though the body not having time to expand or tumble It is able to transfer less of its energy. This leaves a small hole going in and coming out with little cavatation and is less lethal to the target. Start to get out to 400 yards the round has slowed down and is able to spend more time inside where it can transfer its energy to the host by creating a larger cavity and making a much greater wound channel causing greater trauma and quicker death.

I don't see problems with my claim and you haven't pointed out any problems with what I wrote you yourself said that conical bullets yaw and of course its only going to be a brief moment that the bullet travels through sideways. In that moment through a typical torsoe it will likely fully rotate as many as 3 times. Imagaine a blender traveling at 2,000 to 3,500 FPS and every time it turns it grabs something pushing it out of the way not with a clean slice but a blunt force. Now imagine the inertia that it creates from moving all those parts around as it makes its way out and you have a wound channel that looks like a much larger bullet has been through there.

I never said it was a death ray, now that would be a big problem with my claim.

First, I know most conical bullet tend to yaw that is just phyisics but it is the .223 line and other fast moving, small diameter, long bullets that take the yawing capablities to the extremes. But before I go further I also know that the larger the round and the faster it is moving all things being equal will have more energy to punch through walls/glass/vests/armor than a smaller/lighter round.

The great thing about the smaller faster rounds is that with proper bullet manufacturing this small bullet can have a greater incapacitation effect than bullets larger than it. The Yawing capabilities are greater in long, light and fast moving bullets than that of the larger, heavier and slower rounds. This is the genius in the bullet itself as the heavier/larger ones have greater mass to overcome to become unstable as they travel through an object.

Just ask any hunter with a larger caliber round and you can see when they pull the round out of the game they usually will use a soft point to expand because the heavier round is just too stable to get any real yaw to do the damage.

Your posts read like BS gun-rag articles.  The fact that you would bring up “phone books,” “sand and mud” as test mediums, in a discussion in this technical forum demonstrate how clueless you are on the subject matter.  Your posts show that you completely fail to understand the wounding mechanism of fragmenting .223/5.56mm rounds, which has been described in detail in the scientific literature, test results, surgical reports and autopsy reports as noted by actual experts in the field of terminal ballistics.    You’re a perfect example of what Dr. Roberts was referring to in his statement as to why many industry professionals choose not to post on the website:

“AR15.com can be very frustrating due to the significant number of posters who have NO idea what they are writing about, yet are quite strident in defending their erroneous beliefs. I believe that to be why few professional end-users and industry insiders tend to routinely contribute to posts here . . .”

Fortunately for the rest of us, there are a few experts in the field of terminal ballistics that have been willing to share the results of their scientific testing and those results totally disprove the BS being spouted in this thread.  The works of Dr. G.K. Roberts and B&T Ammo Labs are perfect examples of such.
















You’re wrong again.  It’s not a matter semantics, it’s a matter of science.  Again, the actual experts in the field of terminal ballistics prove you wrong.  From Dr. G.K. Roberts:

"As clearly illustrated in the relevant scientific literature over the past 20 years, kinetic energy or momentum transfer from a projectile to tissue is not a wounding mechanism."

Dr. Martin Fackler goes into detail debunking the myth of energy-transfer as a wounding mechanism in his report cited below.  Try reading it to educate yourself.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WOUND BALLISTICS LITERATURE, AND WHY

by M.L. Fackler, M.D.
Letterman Army Institute of Research
Division of Military Trauma Research
Presidio of San Francisco, California 94219
Institute Report No. 239

Let's make this a good one.

Molon,





First I never argued that fragmentation of the mk262 rounds would not be much greater closer in. Your failure to read my post completely where I said "past a couple hundred yards" Yaw plays a much greater factor in the wounding capabilities of the round!  





What you see in that ballistic gel test is probably within 25-50 yards and has been about the same fragmentation as what I have found too. Now as you go further out because this is a thread on long range lethality and especially with M855/193 you will get little to no fragmentation. As shown in the chart the 77gr OTM has a fragmentation threshold of around 200 yards:





Frag Chart





Second I like to keep things simple and when describing wound characteristics that is hard to do. Rather than go into a long dissertation I did use the term "Energy Transfer". What I DID NOT do is use the word "kinetic" or "momentum" These are the two word commonly thrown around by novices and I can understand your pouncing on anything sounding like that. But if you would like I can give you a great deal of formulas and notes that would better make you understand the way a bullet DOES transfer its ENERGY to the target to create the wound.





An important fact to remember is that not all energy is "created equal". What this ultimately means is that a kinetic energy value used as a measure or threshold for lethality is practically meaningless. The character of the work done by a certain quantity of kinetic energy will be dependent upon the mass, construction and velocity of the projectile. In other words, 1000 ft-lbs of kinetic energy generated by a slow-moving rock is not as lethal as that of a bullet. Furthermore, the damage actually caused by a lesser amount of kinetic energy may easily exceed that caused by a greater quantity of kinetic energy! Expressed differently, kinetic energy has "quality" as well as "quantity". This is easier to understand in terms of heat energy, which has temperature (degrees F or C) as well as quantity (BTUs or Joules). Kinetic energy is governed by similar laws. This is part of the ENERGY Transfer I used as a catch all.





As further evidence of this fact, observe that when terminal ballistic experiments are scaled the velocity is held constant. Kinetic energy, mass and the dimensions are scaled, but velocity is not. In like manner pure water at standard pressure boils at 100° C, regardless of quantity. A small amount of water does not boil at a lower temperature than a larger amount. The heat required to bring a quantity of water to a boil is directly proportional to the mass of the water (just as the kinetic energy is proportional to the volume of displacement by a bullet), but the character of the work done on the water by that heat energy is determined by the temperature it produces. It is velocity, not kinetic energy, which is the quantity of greatest interest in the terminal ballistics of small arms.





Since a knowledge of the velocity and projectile construction is essential to evaluating the character of the kinetic energy and its wounding potential, simply relying on a quantity of ENERGY can be quite misleading. The way in which a sporting bullet (say, a 7 mm 140 gr spitzer boat-tail at an impact velocity of 3000 fps) expends its first 1000 ft-lbs of kinetic energy on a target (from 2797 ft-lbs to 1797 ft-lbs) will little resemble the way in which it expends its last 1000 ft-lbs (at an impact velocity of 1794 fps, where it will most likely fail to deform and simply drill straight through causing a neat little hole with negligible cavatation). In the former case, a lung shot would result in a wide wound track and a gaping exit wound as it exits the body at 2405 fps, but cause rapid collapse; in the latter case even a lengthwise shot which fully absorbed the ENERGY of the projectile would probably mean a lost game animal because of the low probability of causing rapid hemorrhage. Interestingly, in the former case probably 20% or more of that kinetic energy would be lost to deformation of the bullet, whereas in the latter case all of it would be delivered to the target. However, that same 1000 ft-lbs of ENERGYdelivered by a .41 caliber 280 gr LBT-WFN flatnosed hard-cast bullet at 1268 fps would quickly drop a bull elk with the same lung or lengthwise shot because its larger diameter and strong flat nose would create a large diameter and deep wound even after smashing through heavy shoulder bones.


Now we could try and use a variety of formulas such as (get out your scientific calculators):


Optimal Game Weight: OGW (lbs) = Velocity (fps) 3 x Bullet Weight (grs.) 2 x 1.5 x 10-12


Lethality Index: LI = Kinetic Energy (ft-lbs) x Sectional Density x Bullet Diameter (in)


Force exerted by the smaller mass on the larger at impact as:  F = m d2s / dt2


For a spring-mass system, the total force exerted by and on the projectile is given by: F = M d2s / dt2 + K s


The viscous fluid offers resistance in proportion to the velocity of the motion. In consequence, the total force is expressed by:





F = M d2s / dt2 + D ds / dt + K s





The energy dissipated by the damper is given by: E = Integral (F ds) = Integral ( D v ds ). The acceleration is reduced by: ( Ks + Dv ) / M. Since in each case the input is identical, we must conclude that the acceleration on the mass in the case of the viscous damped spring-mass system is less than the acceleration experienced by the rigid mass. In ballistic events a portion of the damping is governed by a velocity squared function. Therefore, neglecting the damping and elastic dissipation of energy results in an overestimate of imparted motion.





Real world penetration is best described as a fluid mechanics problem. For inviscid hydrodynamic flow, the dynamic pressure is (according to Bernoulli's Law) proportional to the fluid density and the square of the velocity: P = ( rho / 2 ) v2. The force exerted on the bullet at the stagnation point is equal to the dynamic pressure multiplied by the presented area of the projectile in the direction of the flow, F = P A.





The first thing that this tells you is that the mass of the bullet has no direct bearing on the diameter of the cavity created - rather, that is governed by shape and velocity. The kinetic energy expended during penetration is given by the force exerted over the distance of travel by the bullet, or: E = F ds. So, the differential penetration depth, ds, is simply the kinetic energy divided by the force acting on the projectile, ds = E / F. Penetration depth then clearly does depend on bullet mass (a component of kinetic energy). This expression could be integrated very easily (and conveniently) in terms of velocity.





Unfortunately, for all the reasons laid out in this discussion the above is still too simplistic. Living tissue is not a Newtonian fluid. It is solid, with fluid characteristics in high velocity impact events. It obeys non-linear behavior laws. It is viscous and exhibits second-order damping effects, as well as compressibility and elasticity (fluids are inelastic and, notwithstanding popular mythology to the contrary, all fluids are compressible), so calculations of the permanent cavity created by the bullet will be complex. We need a velocity dependent drag function and a constitutive relation governing the strength, elasticity, compressibility and failure mechanisms of the target material.





Even with everything I just showed you it still doesn’t give a complete picture for your "IT’S A MATTER OF SCIENCE” quote. So, I will still just call it "ENERGY TRANFER” <Inappropriate comment removed - Z>
 

No even M855 will easy kill IF you hit the upper torso or head out to 1000 meters.  At 1000, it is area fire and volume of fire is important.

Many discount the effects of 5.56 hit at those range, comparing it to being hit with a 22 or it creates "ice pick" wounds. Well ask yourself this, are willing to get a ice pick shoved into your chest? Or do you honestly think that a hit of that nature is anything less than debilitating.

At least 1km in the right hands.

Or, so claims one particular pathological liar in my neighborhood, who claims to have been an army sniper in the first gulf war, and to have killed a camel at 1km with a single shot to the head, with a standard-issue M16 or M4, I don't recall which.

Your statement is so absurd it has ventured into the comical. Do you have any sources to show this "blender" like ability?

[ETA] I'm not going to let this go too much furhter. This is a TECHNICAL forum, and I will not allow someone to continue to spew misinformation of that order. I have plenty of sources that show that bullet yaw consists of the bullet making exactly ONE 180 degree turn to travel base first (with a couple of exceptions), and have NEVER seen this magical blender behavior. Your statement about "all those parts moving around" also indicates you have absolutely no background in wound ballistics. Please provide some scientific background to support your claims post-haste.
 [/quote]

Zhukov,

The blender analogy was probably over the top but a long .223 round traveling through a gel/semi fluid or semi solid object at ranges where fragmentation has little chance of occurring has the momentum to continue to rotate as it travels through the object. I have seen this effect personally especially with longer .223 round. I am sorry but I don't have the time right now to find the documentation and slow motion video of a .223 round traveling through a transparent gel and rotating multiple times as it does. Until I do so as not to get the tread closed I will not say anything further on the subject until I can prove it. Thanks for your patience.

Should i say something about how we are all waves of probability floating around in 11 dimensional hyperspace. And that non of this really matters or exists anyways. Or just keep my mouth shut?

You knock it off!

I am struggling enough to keep up with the discussion at hand let alone some cosmic theory talk...

My simple mind could not take them both!

Zhukov,

I have tried to keep it short I have tried to keep it long but no matter what I say you tell me I am clueless. I have tried to be civil and understanding of what your point of view was but all I ever got was how worthless my knowledge is. You said that I am the reason that "Experts" don't post on this board but I submit to you that is people like you who have read a couple of books and now think that you know everything.

I have tested thousands of rounds in the .223 at all different ranges and into many different materials and all I did was try and give a little enlightenment to the masses of what I have learned doing so. All this has brought was attacks by armchair warriors who have probably never even mixed a gelatin solution to get data.

I am done with this if you don't think I know what I am talking about then please show me your reams of data and how everything I have posted  "IT IS COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT" and "blatantly obvious that you don't have a clue when it comes to how bullets work and how they cause damage".

So, oh wise master of all that is terminal ballistics please enlighten this moron who knows nothing about how a bullet wounds.

P.S. If you had read my post you quoted completely you would see that my last paragraph says that all those formulas couldn't do justice to how a bullet actually wounds since it is incredibly complicated involving a variety of sciences that still can not give a one size fits all formula to determine wounding capabilities.

P.S.S. Those formulas that you said were completely irrelevant were not made by me. They have been around for many years and came from far greater minds than you or I in the shooting world. To disregard them as irrelevant shows you may be in need of little more education on how a bullet wounds.

P.S.S.S.  I don't know what an official warning means here but thanks for not giving me one (no sarcasm intended). I didn't think it was anything bad and not any worse than calling someone clueless but I won't do it again since I do enjoy at least lurking here.

That is kind of an ironic statement isn't it.

I honestly don't know one person who regular carries a gun to war, who has ever mixed a gelatin solution to get data.

telephone books, sand and mud are great for hollywood! i prefer ballistic gelatin as a suitable scientific test.

M195 is used to launch rifle grenades, which I believe went out of conventional use in the 80's.

I think you need to look up what an armchair warrior is.

Pretty much most guys who talk about gunfighting, its gear and the TTP to support but it but don't go off to fight with guns or at least carry them into harms way.

Agreed (to a point),

That is why hundreds of my shots were done into gel. While I was out on the range I would also set up other targets such as sand bags/blocks of mud/cinder blocks/brick stacks and yes even Telephone books. I was interested in all things to do with terminal ballistics and gel is only one good tool in getting that information. To be even more precise there are even variations on what type of gel you can use and what you can put into the mix. Each different mix will sometime provide different  results with all other things being equal. Truth be told I would have loved to do even more testing with the gelatin but it is heavy and not cheap for the good stuff so when I am putting 6 to 10 blocks 600 yards down range and only getting one shot on each unless I was lucky and they only made it half way through than I could turn them around and shoot them from the other side.

Giving me something else to shoot at not only made my day a little more fun (because I actually like to shoot) but actually seeing how the bullets react into the material is not just great for hollywood but great for anyone who is really interested in how a bullet reacts to different mediums.

P.S. The only scientific test of shooting a bullet into gelatin, is the result of what happens when a bullet is shot into gelatin! Without taking into account the many factors I mentioned above ( viscous, second-order damping effects, as well as compressibility, elasticity, bones, different organ density, muscles, veins, skin...) it can only give a poor reproduction of what happens in a human body.

We meet at last!
 

Recoil737,
I recognize your passion for knowledge by actually doing things yourself and seeing how they work as opposed to reading things other people have done, adopting their conclusions and parroting them to everyone you meet as the gospel.
Your path to knowledge is MUCH more work than many people are willing to put forth, and someone who has gone through that process can understandably come out the other side with a high degree of confidence that what he saw with his own eyes is "the truth."
However, what are we talking about here is someone's conclusions about what would happen to a human target when a specific bullet hits it at a specific velocity based on the state of a tissue simulant after the bullet has stopped traveling.
We are talking about an interpretation of data that like all perspectives is subjective.
The opportunity to misinterpret both what you are seeing in the simulant and the effects of that same action in a human target are significant.

The history of the science of ballistic wounding mechanisms is fraught with misinterpretation. In the last 20 years of this science, there has been a shift in the conclusions based on a combination of 10% gelatin testing corroborated by forensic analysis of actual wound victims. At the forefront of this science is Dr. Martin Fackler.

Most people on this board and several others of note (myself included) find Fackler's science to be authoritative. The problem is that much of the gun media and vast dark reaches of the internet continue to parrot the discredited theories of the past, and the (potentially life threatening) confusion that the bad information creates generates a HIGH volume of traffic on this forum. We are after all talking about the tools that people use to defend their lives with. It is important.
WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WOUND BALLISTICS LITERATURE, AND WHY

The conclusions you have reached through personal testing have some things that Fackler-ites like myself agree with and some things that we disagree with. The things that we disagree with also happen to be OLD myths about wounding mechanisms that we fight to dispel on this board daily.

So how did this happen? How can your own experience differ so greatly from others who seem passionate and educated on the subject? First of all, don't feel alone. Your misunderstanding of what happens was shared by MANY before you.
It all stems from the interpretation of the data. In this chart of the scientific method, it is the analyze results - draw conclusion step.


Two people seeing the same thing may reach different conclusions.
In Fackler's case, he observed the effect's of a bullets impact on real people and then corroborated his findings with gel analysis. Observing the path of bullets and fragments in gel and the disruption that they create in the media by itself is good data. Seeing the results on real humans (and the variability that the less consistent composition of a human target can create) leads to a much more meaningful analysis. Fackler has spent a lifetime doing this.

The huge amount of science that it took for us to get from primitive theories of WW1 and WW2, through the pseudo science of Marshall and Sanow, to the comprehensive understanding we have of these interactions of bullets and flesh today leads people who have reviewed the history to react with great frustration to anyone who out of ignorance of the labors of Fackler, etc. attempts to breathe fresh life into the old discredited theories of the past.
Too much work has been put in by others to get to the truth of how bullets work to allow things to move backwards again.

Again, the information on how bullets wound is often used in the selection of specific rounds to defend peoples lives. Getting this information wrong is literally a life and death mistake, and thus is taken VERY seriously by the people posting in this thread.

The generally accepted understanding of a bullets wounding mechanisms evangelized by this board are not the conclusions of a handful of internet geeks after a few hours with google, they are the result of YEARS of exhaustive research by professions in the field.

PS: You said:

An armchair warrior is someone who talks about war without having ever fought in one. You probably would have gotten less grief if you said "armchair ballistic scientist," kind of like "armchair quarterback." This is after all a gun board frequented by real warriors, most of whom have never done anything with gelatin except eat it.

The thing that I hate most about threads like this is that the OP started out with the wrong question.
The OP started this mess by asking:

A question this vague and non-specific should have been first answered with more clarifying questions, or with a simple statement that any bullet will do if the shooter can hit the target. There is no magic bullet. ONLY HITS COUNT.
The fact is that ANY .223 bullet traveling over 600 FPS can be lethal if it's trajectory passes through the eye and into the brain. More velocity would likely be required to penetrate the chest cavity and puncture the heart.
A slingshot with a sharp rock could sever the jugular vein. David brought down Goliath with a rock.

So here we have 2 pages of BS all because some dude asked a bad question.

My hope is that this response will inspire Recoil737 to do a bit more research into the work of scientists working on terminal ballistics to supplement and clarify his own findings.

This board values people who bring their real world findings to share with others. Where you got out of whack with others in this thread is when you presented your subjective analysis of your tests as facts and came to the discussion relatively unaware of the history of those who came before you.

I would be thrilled to see pics and a full writeup of your testing in another thread dedicated to the topic if you might still be willing to share.

Thanks.

since people have called you on phone books, sand and  mud all of a sudden you also shot hundreds of rounds  into ballistic gelatin? please stop your nonsense!

Ok. The chest pounding has been performed.

Can we get back on track now?

What I am excited about is how much is going into recent .223/5.56mm bullet technology to increase the lethality of the round.


Just think if we compare 1965 M-193 vs 2010 MK318 it's almost like a new caliber!

I'm going to lock this since it has veered way off course. MichigamaGunslinger: Feel free to repost your original question if you still have unresolved questions.