I don't necessarily believe this, but bear with me a moment. It is true that longer heavier bullets have better fragmentation at lower velocities due to their their long legnth. They also appear to have more catastrophic wound profiles, but there may be a problem. Every lunk head on ar15.com knows that fragmentation is the primary wounding device of M193 and M855, and that this fragmentation works so well (at least in theory) b/c it takes advantage of the temporary wound channel. By this I mean that when the bullet is entering it causes a temporary wound profile many times the size of the projectile diameter as a result from the extreme velocity of rifle projectiles. Sometimes the velocity from the projcetile may be so high, that this shock wave causes significant tearing even of rather elastic body tissues, so that when the tissue collapses the final resulting wound profile is significantly larger than the projectile diameter. With enough velocity (and weight), this may happen even with non fragmenting projectiles, however the M193, for ex,capitalizes on this moment of wound profile expansion by showering the walls of the stretched cavity with fragments of hot lead that cause a bunch of tearing thus makes the "temporary" wound channel rather permanent and messy.
Now we all understand the above, my ?, that I hope gets addressed by many, especially those testing the newer heavier grain bullets is: Is it possible that when velocity is reduced, even though fracturing occurs well at much lower velocities with these longer projectiles, that there is a significant reduction of the force of the strecthing incurred in the temporary wound channel reduces the effectiveness of the fragmenting. Let me say it again, without hyper velocity stretching the wound profile violently enough, will the fragmenting merely create a series of insignificant wound channels radiating of the main wound channel, OR will the fragments be able to create a more singular large jagged wound cavity???
Yes, I have seen the pictures of the 75, 77, and 100gn projectiles in Ballistic gelatin, but it is not clear to me whether the little fragment channels are the type that let a good amount of blood into the main channel (and then out of the body), or if they are so small that the hydrolic pressure in the surrounding tissues simply collapses the little channel and prevents blood flow. Consider the head on cross sections of blocks of gelatin shot with these heavier loads compared to say m193 looking at the relative size of the main channel to the other channels.
Thanks