Thoughts on shot placement and penetration

[DeltaKilo]

Is it standard to test rounds in gelatin with a simulated sternum or other objects simulating bone in place?

No. The FBI protocol test tests against bare gel, which simulates an "Average" of all tissue densities (which has proven very accurate over 25 years), 4-layer denim added to the bare gel which simulates heavy clothing, Plywood, Wall board, and spaced steel sheets simulating a car door, utilizing 12-14ga steel.

Bare gel profiles temporary cavitation and "best possible" penetration and expansion with no hard barrier interruption. The others simulate other possible barrier penetration mediums.

Bones themselves are not typically considered as for the round to be considered effective for Law Enforcement use (and by extension, self defense use) the round must show adequate penetration and expansion through all barriers listed above, and the presumption is that if it penetrates adequately and expands after 1/2" plywood, wall board, or other hard barriers, it will typically handle bone.

When considering the penetration of bone, too, one of the major criteria of bullet design is that it is blunt enough that it will crush bone if it strikes, rather than glance off. With round-nosed projectiles, unless an ideal center placement is achieved, the round profile will cause the bullet to glance off and do little to no damage to the bone comparative to flatter meplats which will have greater effect on bone even with more marginal shots than ideal center placement. There will of course be a point at which the bullet is striking along a radial surface to such a degree that not enough flat portion of the nose will strike the bone and cause damage but will rather simply slide and deflect.

Typical "center of mass" targets will actually place shots just at or below sternum level, which present little bone tissue interruptions, but neither do they avail themselves to quick incapacitation as in the sub-sternum region lie liver, kidneys, stomach, intestines, and other organs which, while certainly important and capable of profuse bleeding, will not be as damaging to the subject's effectiveness as shots to the upper center of mass, between sternum and collar bone, illustrated below:



As you can see, a strike to typical "center of mass" is only going to produce a possible shot to the lower quarter of the heart, presuming size of organ to scale.

Further to-scale diagrams show the rib structure and other internal organ placement, suggesting that the heart, with typical center of mass placement, will not be exposed.





Thus, it is my opinion that utilization of rounds that prove themselves capable of penetration of hard barriers are ideal, and likewise an upper-center-mass shot placement, allowing for greater possible impacts to major Cardiovascular and Pulmonary structures.

Edit: I am not a medical professional, so exact anatomy and physiological minutiae may be inaccurate on my part. However, I did stay at a holiday inn express last night.

[EVP]

Pretty cool diagrams. I have the nice benefit of having a medical examiner in the family. So I ask all sorts of questions and receive good info and feedback. Makes good discussion, except the others seem to tune us out when we start talking about this stuff.

[Odin Bravo One]

Intersting observations. Certainly a good deal of time, energy, and effort are put forth by the various scientific personalities to the study of anatomy and ballistics. Of course, we should thank them and appreciate their efforts and resulting information which we can hopefully use to increase our awareness and knowledge when it comes to bullet selection and changes to our training philosophy and mindset to give us every possible advantage in a lethal force encounter.

But we also need to keep in mind that what happens under controlled testing conditions is not an accurate representation of what happens when bullets start hitting flesh and bone. Bullets do weird and unexpected things when they hit people. And people tend to do weird and unexpected things when hit by bullets.

I, as many people do, continue to monitor new bullet designs and continue to study terminal ballistics and ammunition performance, but tend to spend more time on getting lots and lots of rounds into the parts of the anatomy that house the important parts of the pulminary, cardiovascular, and nervous systems than I do focusing on whether or not the previous shot was an inch high, or two inches low. I will know my rounds were effective in hitting important parts of an adversary's anatomy when the threat presented is no longer a threat. That could be a single round placed into a less than ideal location, or multiple rounds put into the "text book" perfect location. Fact is, we don't know what will happen until after it has happened, and we can go back and examine what was what.

[Frank B]

It seems to me, that the supposed hit zone on the most targets is placed to low.

[DeltaKilo]

Intersting observations. Certainly a good deal of time, energy, and effort are put forth by the various scientific personalities to the study of anatomy and ballistics. Of course, we should thank them and appreciate their efforts and resulting information which we can hopefully use to increase our awareness and knowledge when it comes to bullet selection and changes to our training philosophy and mindset to give us every possible advantage in a lethal force encounter.

But we also need to keep in mind that what happens under controlled testing conditions is not an accurate representation of what happens when bullets start hitting flesh and bone. Bullets do weird and unexpected things when they hit people. And people tend to do weird and unexpected things when hit by bullets.

I, as many people do, continue to monitor new bullet designs and continue to study terminal ballistics and ammunition performance, but tend to spend more time on getting lots and lots of rounds into the parts of the anatomy that house the important parts of the pulminary, cardiovascular, and nervous systems than I do focusing on whether or not the previous shot was an inch high, or two inches low. I will know my rounds were effective in hitting important parts of an adversary's anatomy when the threat presented is no longer a threat. That could be a single round placed into a less than ideal location, or multiple rounds put into the "text book" perfect location. Fact is, we don't know what will happen until after it has happened, and we can go back and examine what was what.

Sean, while it is certainly true that testing only gives us a highly controlled ideal of what will happen, testing gives us the ability to tell what particular rounds will do in a controlled manner, that in turn gives us an excellent idea of what to expect in the field. Much like any other testing, while it doesn't necessarily cover everything and give us a guarantee, it gives us a reasonable level of expectation from which we can work.

As I pointed out in my post, practicing for shooting in to an effective location is a good thing. As you point out, we DON"T know what will happen until put to the test, and getting as many rounds on target as possible is the primary goal. With that said, however, practicing and training, along with an understanding of gross anatomy and where your rounds will be most effective, are also valuable in that through repetition and training, the mind will bias towards areas of more critical value.

In pointing out where hits do the most damage, and a basic understanding of critical structures and areas to aim, this hopefully gives an advantage overall in assisting a shooter in hitting those zones and making them aware of areas that will likely decrease the time of the engagement.

[Odin Bravo One]

I agree %100 that the faster you finish the fight, the less shot you will get.

[SLG]

I can't speak for Sean, but it seems to me that he is pointing out that more shooting (in practice and on hostiles) and less study, is what most of us need to worry about. Wazoo bullets are great, and I appreciate them, but I'll take an unflappable guy who practices a lot- shooting 9mm hardball- as my backup, over a less skillful, more excitable guy shooting the latest and greatest. That's not quite an apples to apples comparison, but I assume you get my drift.

[TCinVA]

Absolutely. Ammo selection is not insignificant, but in the grand scheme the ability to put bullets where they need to be under extreme stress is of greater importance by many orders of magnitude. Many a bad guy has met his doom at the hands of a well trained individual using sub-optimal ammunition.

It seems to me, that the supposed hit zone on the most targets is placed to low.

Agreed. The A zones in targets are often placed in the center of the target, which isn't where you want to shoot a person at if you are interested in making them knock off their obnoxious behavior.

[ToddG]

As I read DeltaKilo's post, it was much less about what bullet to shoot and much more about what body part to shoot at.

[turbolag23]

As I read DeltaKilo's post, it was much less about what bullet to shoot and much more about what body part to shoot at.

thats what i got out of it. that and theres a lot of bone protecting the organs that will drop you faster.