Bullet Penetration Question

[Gatehouse]

This includes ones that were not hung up on the hide.

They may not have been "perfectly" forward- INdicating they did indeed yaw or stray fromt he course slightly while hitting bone and flesh, but none of them were backwards.

If you are saying bullets yaw a bit or stray from a perfectly straight line, I'd agree with you, but to me (and I suspect most people) tumbling indicates going end over end.

 

[sheephunter]

This includes ones that were not hung up on the hide.

They may not have been "perfectly" forward- INdicating they did indeed yaw or stray fromt he course slightly while hitting bone and flesh, but none of them were backwards.

If you are saying bullets yaw a bit or stray from a perfectly straight line, I'd agree with you, but to me (and I suspect most people) tumbling indicates going end over end.

Ya, I agree that tumbling is likely a poor choice of words and I suspect the only time you'd see a true end over end is going through a void like the chest cavity or organs like the heart or lungs that have huge large voids in them. The problem even with balistic gel is that it has too much surface tension and quickly controls a tumble. I guess my point was that jacketed bullets do not travel nose first after impact and may move through side ways or even tumble end over end. I serious doubt they'd travel backwards long either though as the expanded petals would force them to roll to a sideways or more nose first aspect. There is no doubt that they will tumble but I agre that it's not in a rapid spinning motion or anything like that. Tumbling to me could be as simple as doing one end over end and that could occur in the span of several inches but there's no doubt it does occur.

 

[Murf]

I still haven't seen anything that refutes the high speed photography which show bullets continuing to travel nose front with only slight yaw motion.
On occasion a bullet has been found in a position other than point forward but that has been after striking bone changed the direction of its travel which has always been the same as the attitude of the bullet before it stopped. An example was a bullet that passed through a deer's spine then travelled down the off side sliding along just under the hide. It was found sideways to the initial impact but had been travelling the same way it was pointed after the turn of direction. Flipping or tumbling would cause the bullet to travel the hard way, in that it would be trying to punch a hole with a much larger area than the area of its diameter. It would seem that any beginnings of a tumble should be cancelled when the increased resistance once again forces the bullet to right itself. Also would the gyroscopic effects of the rapid rotation not work to keep the bullet travelling front forwards.

The only cases where I have seen evidence of a bullet which often travels in other than a front leading aspect have been soft round ball muzzle loader bullets which flatten to fifty cent piece shape and then travel edge on. Once flattened the least resistance is for the now disk shaped bullet to travel edge forward which would be passing through the animal in the allignment which means following the least resistance.

 

[ben hunchak]

Bullets penetrate differing amounts due to: BC, velocity, weight, composition(expansion),RPMs at time of penetrating(this may be a factor in bullets that "tumble"). We have seen and tested alot of bullets on animals and media and alot of popular bullets either expand too much or penetrate too much.That is why I prefer to use a wide, long, flatnose cast bullet, with the hardness matched to the velocity.

 

[sheephunter]

The big problem with most high-speed photography is that it's done in mediums that control the tumbling too much. Even in gel, you need to be using very high velocity bullets to see the effect. Check out the stuff on the PermaGel site and you'll see how much rifle bullets deviate from their nose forward aspect. In a less controled environment like a deer or moose, there's no question that the slight yaw would continue into a tumble as it's not confined.

This photo definitely demonstrates the tumble....likely just one end over end. Note the size of the wound channel prior to the bullet coming apart. The tumble likely had much to do with the fragmentation as the gel was pulling on the rear-facing expanded bullet.

 

[sheephunter]

Another interesting photo....unconfined by gel, this bullet is definitely tumbling after going through a soda can. Why whould that be different than a bullet in the chest cavity??????

 

[Dogleg]

Keep pointing out that bullets are MORE likely to tumble in animals, and we'll keep pointing at little round holes in hides. What are the odds of a tumbling bullet suddenly righting itself to go through the hide on the far side? I hope this picture is clear enough for you to see the 3 bullet holes and how perfectly round they are. Two are exits and 1 is an entrance. Tumbling bullets just can't cookie-cutter perfectly round holes .416 holes in 1/2" thick hide.

 

[Boomer]

The reason the bullet tipped in the last photo is because it left a dense medium, the full soda can, and entered a less dense medium, air. It doesn't look like an expanded super sonic soft point rifle bullet in any case.

You are misinterpreting what you are observing. Show me a picture that illustrates the effects tumbling would have on a soft point bullet and I might conceed that it had in fact tumbled.

On the other hand, I can show you a picture of a soft point that turned it's self into a pretzel and lost better than 60% of it's ability to penetrate a dry medium as a result:

 

[sheephunter]

Other than a solid, and even then it's unlikely you are not going to get a cookie cutter exit hole. An expanded/jacketed bullet is far from uniform so I fail to see how it would make perfectly round hole either and there seems to be this huge misconception that an exiting bullet somehow magically cuts through hide. It can't! It pushes its was through with no cutting action at all. It's the same as poking your finger through some cling wrap. I fail to see how any bullet in the world could make a perfectly round exit hole...it's just not possible. It's not a sharp leather punch....it's a deformed piece of lead and copper pushing its way through the hide until the hide ruptures and allows the bullet to exit. There is most defintely no cutting action with a exiting bullet!

 

[Dogleg]

Another interesting photo....unconfined by gel, this bullet is definitely tumbling after going through a soda can. Why whould that be different than a bullet in the chest cavity??????

Bullets sometimes tumble when they hit twigs or branches too. It doesn't mean that they always do. Pictures of bullets exiting and flying point on are easy to find as well.

 

[sheephunter]

The reason the bullet tipped in the last photo is because it left a dense medium, the full soda can, and entered a less dense medium, air.

And how does that differ from shooting a moose through the ribs? That's exactly what I was pointing out and why I used the photo to illustrate my point. Gel is too consistent of a medium to allow a bullet to tumble to its full potential. A bullet going from a dense medium (hair/hide/meat) to a less dense medium, (the open expanse of chest cavity and air filled lungs) will exhibit the same characteristics!

 

[sheephunter]

Bullets sometimes tumble when they hit twigs or branches too.

I've never seen any evidence of that but I guess if expansion occurs you could be right. I know they will deviate from their original course but I wasn't aware they tumbled as well but I guess it's not out of the question depending on how they contact the twig, how much expansion occurs and such.

 

[Dogleg]

Sheep hunter,
On thick hide it is rather easy to see. Those exit holes are from solids BTW. On straight on shots the holes are round, on angled shots the hole is angled but just as obvious as if they were drilled through a wall with a drill. Whether the hole is cut, or punched is semantics, it doesn't change the the bullet had to be travelling point on to do it. Keyholes are very obvious when they do occur.

 

[sheephunter]

Sheep hunter,
On thick hide it is rather easy to see. Those exit holes are from solids BTW. On straight on shots the holes are round, on angled shots the hole is angled but just as obvious as if they were drilled through a wall with a drill. Whether the hole is cut, or punched is semantics, it doesn't change the the bullet had to be travelling point on to do it. Keyholes are very obvious when they do occur.

Throughout this entire discussion I've been limiting my involvement to jacketed bullets typically used in NA....not solids and have conceeded many times that solids may exhibit different performance characteristics so why do we keep going back to solids. I'm talking about bullets that experience dramatic expansion in a very short distance and yes, they do tumble. And exit holes from expanded jacketed bullets are neither punched nor cut, they are a rupture in the hide that often produces a very ragged looking hole that is no indication of the direction the bullet was facing when it exited....just that a very fast moving mass hit the hide and stretched to the point where it ruptured. On thinner hides such as pronghorn, sheep, bears and even deer, I've seen tears that extend several inches from the actual exit hole but still wouldn't use that as proof of anything but a mass hitting hide until it ruptures.

 

[Dogleg]

OK, back to softs, though the TSXs you like to mention act a lot more like solids than you think. How do you explain that bullet after bullet is found against the hide, point on? A large exit hole only proves that the permanent cavity is larger than the bullet. A round hole that is the size of the bullet or smaller can show quite a bit. A long shanked bullet like a TSX that is going sideways through thick hide cannot make a round hole that is more or less caliber sized. It simply cannot, yet they seem make tiny little exit holes that taxidermists love. Even arrows going through paper leave tell-tale tears that show when they are not traveling straight. I've skinned a few too many animals shot with TSXs to think that the bullet was tumbling on exit, although I'm certain that some do, sometimes. The one TSX that I'm certain tumbled never exited.

 

[sheephunter]

Dogleg...where does the arrow comparison come in. Broadheads are sharp and do indeed cut and they do not mushroom.....again I fail to see the relevance. And comparing a TSX to a solid...come on. While the TSX holds together incredibly well, it also has some very measurable expansion making it a great NA bullet. Anyhow, I've done far more testing and research on this than I care to mention and some choose to believe and some don't. In the long run, it really doesn't matter if the bullets tumbles or not.......if it's on target it will do the job. I really didn't mean for this to turn into a big debate....I was just trying to share some information I have....I'm done before this gets drug any further off track!

 

[Boomer]

And how does that differ from shooting a moose through the ribs? That's exactly what I was pointing out and why I used the photo to illustrate my point. Gel is too consistent of a medium to allow a bullet to tumble to its full potential. A bullet going from a dense medium (hair/hide/meat) to a less dense medium, (the open expanse of chest cavity and air filled lungs) will exhibit the same characteristics!

Because: an expanded soft point rifle bullet's center of gravity is at the nose, therefore it can do nothing but fly straight; no tumbling, no dipping, no change of direction unless it glances off a very hard object. The bullet in your photo is not a an expanded soft point rifle bullet, rather it appears to be a straight sided pistol bullet whose center of gravity is either at the base or in the middle depending on the design of that bullet. Therefore, it's attitude can be effected by moving through through mediums of very different densities. Had that bullet had a caliber and a half expansion at the nose, it would of continued to fly nose on. Neither are there shock-waves coming from that bullet which indicates that it was sub sonic at the moment the picture was taken, and sub-sonic bullets behave differently than super-sonic bullets.

Edited to add . . .
Your theory about the lop sided mushroom throwing the bullet askew doesn't hold up either when one considers that the bullet's rotational speed is much greater than it's velocity.

 

[bushwhacker]

I think the most significant finding of this thread, is that when elephant hunting you should choose a 7.98mm over a .405 Win, despite Teddy Roosevelt's experience.

 

[Gatehouse]

Who has film of a bullet performing inside the chest cavity of an animal?

That's one way to make some positive determination about what bullets do inside animals. Otherwise it's speculation about what goes on in there...

 

[Boomer]

Who has film of a bullet performing inside the chest cavity of an animal?

That's one way to make some positive determination about what bullets do inside animals. Otherwise it's speculation about what goes on in there...

As a matter of fact I have a book called "Gunshot Injuries" by Lagarde which has many interesting pictures of early X-rays taken at the time that the switch was made from black powder to smokeless. The pictures include gunshot wounds sustained by both high velocity jacketed rifle bullets, low velocity lead rifle bullets, lead and jacketed pistol bullets, and shotgun wounds. Very interesting stuff when you can see the effects inside the body.