Help Identifying Bullet (From Xray)

[Doc_Glock]

A fellow surgeon posted the following Xray for a patient who walked into their clinic asking for ideas on how to address the Humerus fracture. I thought it might be interesting to the folks here and had some questions of my own outside of the medical treatment.



I don’t know the treating physician, but suspect this is an OCONUS, possibly Kurdistan and likely with a military rifle.

The disintegration of the humerus is impressive. The injury is described as having only an entry wound and having the nerves and vasculature to the arm intact.

I see some sort of penetrating bullet tip that is intact in the Xray. The rest of the bullet has completely fragmented.

Any idea what sort of cartridge and bullet this is?

Is this typical bony destruction one can see with small caliber, high velocity rifle injuries?

[Jim Watson]

5.56 mm M855 (FN SS109) bullet has a steel front core and a lead rear core in the usual copper alloy jacket. The triangular image in the x-ray might be that steel cone, with fragments of lead and copper scattered all over.

[Doc_Glock]

5.56 mm M855 (FN SS109) bullet has a steel front core and a lead rear core in the usual copper alloy jacket. The triangular image in the x-ray might be that steel cone, with fragments of lead and copper scattered all over.

I suppose the Russians would field something similar as well?

[Jim Watson]

Can't find plans for Com bloc bullets.

[Wondering Beard]

I suppose the Russians would field something similar as well?

5.45 7N6 had a steel rod penetrator but I'm not sure it would look like the cone in the Xray.

Here are the newer ammo variants that the Russians could be fielding: 5.45×39mm cartridge variants

You say this might be from Kurdistan and there are a whole lot of calibers used over there, as I understand it, not just the classic Russian and US ones.

[witchking777]

Green tip. I'm 100% sure. I've got a penetrator pin that looks exactly like that from my own ballistic tests. That and a the lead fragments after hitting a bone.

[Dr_Thanatos]

A fellow surgeon posted the following Xray for a patient who walked into their clinic asking for ideas on how to address the Humerus fracture. I thought it might be interesting to the folks here and had some questions of my own outside of the medical treatment.



I don’t know the treating physician, but suspect this is an OCONUS, possibly Kurdistan and likely with a military rifle.

The disintegration of the humerus is impressive. The injury is described as having only an entry wound and having the nerves and vasculature to the arm intact.

I see some sort of penetrating bullet tip that is intact in the Xray. The rest of the bullet has completely fragmented.

Any idea what sort of cartridge and bullet this is?

Is this typical bony destruction one can see with small caliber, high velocity rifle injuries?

The bony destruction is absolutely typical for a high velocity rifle injury. .223/5.56 usually doesn't look that impressive vs. a long bone, at least the ones I see don't. I would actually be a little bit suspicious of a slightly larger or different caliber.

[Wayne Dobbs]

I think it's the penetrator/nose cone from an M855A1 round. Maybe @DocGKR can opine on that.

[HCM]

I suppose the Russians would field something similar as well?

Russian 5.45 rounds have different construction than SS109 green tip.







The bullet tip in your x Ray appears to be a penetrator from M855 or M855A1.

Given the copious numbers of M16A2s provided to the Iraqi army as military aid and the number diverted to black market sales and captured by ISIS the round is not really indicative of who might have fired it.

[45dotACP]

The bony destruction is absolutely typical for a high velocity rifle injury. .223/5.56 usually doesn't look that impressive vs. a long bone, at least the ones I see don't. I would actually be a little bit suspicious of a slightly larger or different caliber.

That the nerves and blood vessels were OK was fascinating enough to me. Would it be more typical of a person in a developing nation to have weaker/more brittle bones due to nutritional deficits? Perhaps that explains the dramatic difference from your patients (who are presumably at least not malnourished).

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