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Old November 26, 2008, 12:53 PM   #26
David Armstrong
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I also gather that the lesson the FBI took from this situation is that the 9mm needed to be replaced,....
I think I said this before, and it needs repeating. The FBI did not decide the 9mm needed to be replaced. The FBI decided that the 9mm ammo they were using needed to be replaced. Quite a bit of difference there. Even after they decided to go with the 10mm, the 9mm was still avaible to them and used by a number of agents. In fact, the 9mm Sig was the issue weapon from the early 1990s through 1998 when they changed to the Glock .40 S&W, IIRC.
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Old November 26, 2008, 05:11 PM   #27
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The FBI did not decide the 9mm needed to be replaced
Apologies Mr Armstrong, some other people were trying to convince me otherwise, which is what I had "on my brain" when I wrote my comment.

I do stand corrected.

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Once made by the BGs, the agents lost their biggest tactical advantage; surprise. It was huge.
Agreed.
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Old November 26, 2008, 08:32 PM   #28
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If Platt had been hit with .38 Special 158gr LSWCHP +P instead it probably would've passed completely through his heart and he probably would have been stopped much sooner.
The same could be said of the lowly 9mm FMJ in this case. This is one of the rare instances where FMJ would probably have been more effective than the "premium" ammo that was in the agents guns.
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Old November 27, 2008, 12:26 AM   #29
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For myself, it's pretty simple. Bigger AND faster is always better, or big and slow is better than light and fast. Could I be wrong, yes. Just my opinion from presonal experience.
You can't make a decision in a vacuum and hope to come up with an accurate conclusion.

If there were absolutely no other factors affecting the outcome of a shootout other than terminal ballistics then your approach would be reasonable. However nothing could be farther from the truth.
One quick example from this situation: Gordon McNeill might very well have ended the fight before any agents were killed had he posessed a gun with a few more rounds of capacity. He expended all the ammunition in his revolver, tried to reload it with a badly injured hand and ended up being shot at close range & paralyzed before he got it back in action. Clearly capacity can sometimes play an important role in surviving gunfights.

Yes, if big & fast can be had without trading ANYTHING else that might be useful or make a significant difference in a self-defense situation then go for it. Unfortunately that's not the real world. You can't isolate a single factor and pretend that it's the only one that matters.
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No, this was the best shot he made. He also hit Platt in the thigh as he rolled out of his car. All in all Platt had 12 projectile wounds in the fight. Matix had 6gunshot wounds one of which was caused by Grogan without his glasses. The FBI fired a total of 70 shots.
The point is that if you fire 70 shots and the analysis says that things went bad primarily as a result of only one of those shots then the analysis is ignoring a LOT.

Dove fired 20 rounds. Had he connected with a 6 or 7 shots (a third of his rounds instead of only about a tenth of them) I think it's quite reasonable to assume that the outcome would have been quite different. So is it really logical to say that the problem was one round that supposedly "underpenetrated"? Or would it be more logical to say that the problem was the other 18 rounds he shot that missed entirely?
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Not always, another good article...
Of course, not always. But you won't get poor betting on the guy with the long gun. In fact you'll rarely lose a bet.
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Old November 27, 2008, 07:48 AM   #30
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If there were absolutely no other factors affecting the outcome of a shootout other than terminal ballistics then your approach would be reasonable. However nothing could be farther from the truth
I realize that the word life is made up of "if". We are certain of nothing in this world, other than the fact that we will all die given time.

I did not draw my conclusion of "bigger and faster is always better" speciffically for this gun battle, but as a general statement overal pertaining to bullets, and the effect they would have.

That said, I can't help but think that if the exact same location were hit on living tissue with the same type of bullet, increasing both the bullet weight and velocity of the bullet, would cause more tissue damage. Would I be incorrect in this opinion?

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Gordon McNeill might very well have ended the fight before any agents were killed had he posessed a gun with a few more rounds of capacity.
Likewise, I'm sure it could be argued there were many other variables and "unforseens" which played out either for or against the agents in question who conducted the felony stop on Platt and Matix.

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Yes, if big & fast can be had without trading ANYTHING else that might be useful or make a significant difference in a self-defense situation then go for it
For the record, I probably carry my 9 or .380 just as often as I carry a .45 or 10mm for self defense against two legged animals.

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But you won't get poor betting on the guy with the long gun. In fact you'll rarely lose a bet.
Agree. It was mentioned that other agents not involved in this shootout, but who were on the highway looking for the same men (Matix and Platt) were armed with submachine guns. Just curious as to why the agents who did the stop were not (armed with submachine guns)?

As mentioned, it was brought to my attention by more than a couple of people (not on this forum) that it was this gun battle that was the deciding factor of determining that the 9mm was just plain "weak".
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Old November 27, 2008, 12:03 PM   #31
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That said, I can't help but think that if the exact same location were hit on living tissue with the same type of bullet, increasing both the bullet weight and velocity of the bullet, would cause more tissue damage. Would I be incorrect in this opinion?
Maybe. This is getting into some esoteric ballistics stuff, but after a certain point, the faster you drive a bullet the quicker it expands and the less it penetrates, thus doing less damage, as just one example.
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It was mentioned that other agents not involved in this shootout, but who were on the highway looking for the same men (Matix and Platt) were armed with submachine guns.
AFAIK, this is an urban myth perpetuated in no small part by some rather lurid fiction. Nothing I've seen officially indicates that any FBI agent in Miami had a submachine with him that day, and there are no records of any of the subguns at the office being checked out.
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Old November 27, 2008, 12:31 PM   #32
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To me, the critical failure in Miami was the agents' decision to engage Platt and Matix while woefully underarmed. They knew that these two were using long arms in their robberies; there was every reason for the agents to make sure they had equivalent (preferably superior) firepower before making a felony stop. They were specifically looking for these two, and knew they had used long arms in their crimes in the past. They entered into this encounter criminally underarmed for what was to follow.

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Old November 27, 2008, 12:33 PM   #33
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Maybe. This is getting into some esoteric ballistics stuff, but after a certain point, the faster you drive a bullet the quicker it expands and the less it penetrates, thus doing less damage, as just one example.
I can see your point, however please keep in mind I mentioned
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but as a general statement
Take two .400 180gr JHP bullets. One going over 200 fps faster than the other.

Which one do we "assume" will do more damage to a human being if shot placement is in the exact same location in the chest area?

I guess the question I now have is what is considered the "optimal" speed for a JHP bullet to do the most tissue damage?

Or say, we take a 180gr .400 JHP bullet and a 200gr .400 JHP bullet. Both traveling at the same speed. Which would do the most damage, again if both hit the same location on tissue? (at the same distance) I could be wrong, but I'd guess the 200gr would do more damge.

Keep in mind, I realize the question is moot if you can't hit your target, and I realize a lot of "what ifs"

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AFAIK, this is an urban myth perpetuated in no small part by some rather lurid fiction. Nothing I've seen officially indicates that any FBI agent in Miami had a submachine with him that day, and there are no records of any of the subguns at the office being checked out.
Interesting, I think you could now blame the internet for a lot of "facts" that people take for granted.
Read it on the internet, and it must be true!

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Old November 27, 2008, 05:54 PM   #34
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The point is that if you fire 70 shots and the analysis says that things went bad primarily as a result of only one of those shots then the analysis is ignoring a LOT.
I am not sure who is making that analysis but it is not me. I think things went bad for a number of reasons most importantly Platt's determination to continue the fight. 9 out of 10 people of more would have a) Surrendered b) Gave up and died after receiving the wound Platt got from Dove early in the fight.

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Dove fired 20 rounds. Had he connected with a 6 or 7 shots (a third of his rounds instead of only about a tenth of them) I think it's quite reasonable to assume that the outcome would have been quite different. So is it really logical to say that the problem was one round that supposedly "underpenetrated"? Or would it be more logical to say that the problem was the other 18 rounds he shot that missed entirely?
I am not one of those that get too worked up about the underperformance of the 9mm in that fight. Sure the ammo today is better and that is good but the 9mm effectively killed a lot of folk prior to 1986.

Now, I am not an expert in civilian firefights and perhaps you are John, but considering the conditions (agents were in bright sunlight, dust and BGs were in shadows) adrenline high lots of movement and cover I think Dove did pretty well considering until a lucky shot put his gun out of commission.

Do you think poor marksmanship was the cause? Maybe, but I don't think so.

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AFAIK, this is an urban myth perpetuated in no small part by some rather lurid fiction. Nothing I've seen officially indicates that any FBI agent in Miami had a submachine with him that day, and there are no records of any of the subguns at the office being checked out.
This statement is not completely true.

The lurid fiction David talks about is urban legend and I will not repeat it.

However, if you read the letter to SAIC Gordon McNeillby from SA Edmundo Mireles on page 3 he mentions that there were agents that day that were not able to respond to the firefight that had both MP5s and a full auto M-16.
Reference page 122 Forensic Analysis of the April 11, 1986, FBI Firefight by W. French Anderson, MD.

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Of course, not always. But you won't get poor betting on the guy with the long gun. In fact you'll rarely lose a bet.
Can't argue with that, but again I don't think the agents planned for or wanted that type of encounter. The real tragedy IMHO was that the next day a request for driver license photos requested by the FBI (with Matix' picture) arrived and with the ID of the second quarry victim who survived they would have taken these guys at home with no loss of life. The pictures came by mail! What irony.
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Old November 27, 2008, 06:09 PM   #35
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To me, the critical failure in Miami was the agents' decision to engage Platt and Matix while woefully underarmed.
You have to understand what was going on that day to really get the right picture. Nobody was planning on encountering Platt and Mattix. Agents were all over the place looking for the suspect vehicle, but there were no plans to try to engage them. The normal FBI tactics for this stuff were to just follow along, hopefully not get made, and wait until the BGs went home, where a perimeter would be set up and they'd bring in all the other agents, uniformed police, and so on. Just as an example, going back to Heyduke's "agents with submachine guns" thing, there were a few agents with them but none from that office. I may have the home office locations wrong, but the (Miami?) teams didn't have anything but their normal guns because they planned on just getting the subguns and such if they saw the guys and then got them barricaded up. A visiting team (Orlando?) had brought their stuff with them, but they weren't anywhere close to the action.
Everybody needs to keep in mind this was 20 years ago, it was a very different time, and the agents, just like LE everywhere, were trained to do things very different than we train them today. The agents didn't decide to engage the BG's, they they were forced into the altercation and were trying to make the best of a situation they didn't want and hadn't planned for.
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Old November 27, 2008, 06:15 PM   #36
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Which one do we "assume" will do more damage to a human being if shot placement is in the exact same location in the chest area?
Don't know. That extra 200 fps might cause the bullet to fly apart and not penetrate more than about 6 inches if you exceed the design spec. Thats my point. You really can't generalize with a lot of this stuff. With a number of designs, faster can mean a shorter wound track, slower can mean greater depth of wounding.
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I could be wrong, but I'd guess the 200gr would do more damge.
Again, maybe or maybe not. Modern ammo designs just don't work that way.
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Interesting, I think you could now blame the internet for a lot of "facts" that people take for granted.
The internet does its part to spread nonsense, but before it there were books, TV, and movies. The internet just made it easier to pretend to know what you are talking about when you don't.
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Old November 27, 2008, 07:33 PM   #37
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Modern ammo designs just don't work that way
No sarcasim intended, but how does modern ammo work? I'm guessing to cause the most tissue damage possible with both penetration and expansion?

Kind of reminds me of the argument that the 5.56 round was designed to cause serious injury and not to kill, because an injured soldier cost more to take care of to his country (again, no sarcasim intended).

All I know is no matter what the bullet weight, type or velocity, I wouldn't want to be hit with it.

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but the 9mm effectively killed a lot of folk prior to 1986.
Agree 100%
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Old November 27, 2008, 08:58 PM   #38
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Tennessee Gentleman writes:
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Now, I am not an expert in civilian firefights and perhaps you are John, but considering the conditions (agents were in bright sunlight, dust and BGs were in shadows)
I doubt there's any significance to shadow/sunlight theory. I live in FL so I have an appreciation for bright sunlight. I often take a couple of breaks during my workday to take a short walk. The tree that Platt/Matix collided with was a bottlebrush tree. Anyone familiar with the bottlebrush tree knows it's pretty scraggly. It doesn't provide much shade.

While walking and looking at the bottlebrush trees on the grounds of where I work, I sometimes think about the FBI shootout. On sunny, bright days I notice that, while Platt and Matix were technically in a shadow, they were also backlit by sunlight on the other side of the shade.

This is different than looking into an open garage (or aircraft hanger in my case) when there's bright sunlight. The garage is an enclosed cavern of darkness in which it can be difficult to see what's inside.

Compare a garage with a carport. The difference is startling. The bright sunlight/shadow effect encountered by the agents that day would have been more like a carport than an enclosed garage.

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Old November 27, 2008, 09:57 PM   #39
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I doubt there's any significance to shadow/sunlight theory.
This was brought up in Dr. Anderson's book as well on page 15. Looking at the color photos of the crime scene show quite a bit of shadows (taking into account the sun was at a different angle during the firefight) I would contend that shadows/light could make a difference. But the photos I saw weren't conclusive.

PS I see you live in Titusville. I lived at Patrick AFB while attending Florida Tech about 20 years ago. Loved going there to get that fresh OJ!
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Old November 27, 2008, 10:58 PM   #40
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Tennessee Gentleman,

I think you and I are mostly in agreement.

I believe that the Miami fiasco was the result of a confluence of circumstances. Fiascos generally are. I believe it's a mistake to try to focus the "blame" narrowly onto one or two aspects of the situation.
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Old November 28, 2008, 12:30 AM   #41
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Agreed. John, I just wish it hadn't happened to those agents. Duty can be a heavy burden but they bore it well.
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Old November 28, 2008, 10:11 AM   #42
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No sarcasim intended, but how does modern ammo work? I'm guessing to cause the most tissue damage possible with both penetration and expansion?
That is the goal, and to best achieve that goal ammo designers work within certain parameters. For example (just making up number here) maybe a 230 grain JHP with a particular bullet design works best at around 800 fps, but if you bump that same round up to 1000 feet per second it tends to expand too quickly and does no tpenetrate very far. But if you slow it down to 700 fps it doesn't expand well, so it works like a hardball round and penetertes a whole lot. Another manufacturer's 230 JHP uses a different jacket material and point design, so it works better at 700 fps. You push it real fast and it starts to have a shallow wound pattern.
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Old December 5, 2008, 11:29 PM   #43
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there's significant contrast in skill sets between tactical operators and field investigators.

the former constantly trains for armed engagements, thereby increasing the likelihood of correct shot placement, the use of cover, and the ability to close ground effectively to stop a conflict.

the latter visits the range, standing statically, firing 100 rounds a month.

leo's, and the agencies they represent, often fall into the mindset of "we have badges, legal authority, and power of the agency behind us. nobody can challenge us." unfortunately, the bogies don't always know those rules. had p and m been confronted by 1 single trained operator who was both mentally prepared and physically trained for said engagement, they would've been neutralized in short order.

this was anything but a product of ballistics.
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Old December 6, 2008, 12:22 AM   #44
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That is the goal, and to best achieve that goal ammo designers work within certain parameters. For example (just making up number here) maybe a 230 grain JHP with a particular bullet design works best at around 800 fps, but if you bump that same round up to 1000 feet per second it tends to expand too quickly and does no tpenetrate very far. But if you slow it down to 700 fps it doesn't expand well, so it works like a hardball round and penetertes a whole lot. Another manufacturer's 230 JHP uses a different jacket material and point design, so it works better at 700 fps. You push it real fast and it starts to have a shallow wound pattern.
And to expand upon the problem bullet designers face, tissue isn't tissue, necessarily. Unlike ballistics gel, our bodies are not tidy and homogenous. There are many different types of tissue a bullet might encounter on its path through a body - skin tissue, muscle tissue, body fat, vascular organs, "stretchy" organs, bone, etc. The path and behavior of a bullet isn't precisely predictable because it's impossible to know exactly which tissues it will traverse, as each of us is built differently. Terminal ballistics will always be an inexact science insofar as knowing exactly what WILL happen when lead meets flesh; it is, however, quite good at describing the phenomena which occur once the interaction has already occurred.
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Old December 9, 2008, 06:55 AM   #45
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Kinetic energy

The Kinetic energy a 2000lb big Ford or Gm vehicle at say 40 MPH, probably surpasses some artillery shells! It was a company car yes?

The vehicle they were following was a match to the info they had, and going at a slow speed, weapons observed, IMO it should have been seat belts tight, swing wide, nail drivers door!

Windows open on passenger side of FBI vehicle, shoot from inside, driver and rear seat passenger exit. Advice to the shooters in FBI car, do not shoot the ones with FBI on their backs!

A friend of mine, for some 35 years (he can retire any time) works for a Police Dept. that has 870s and AR15s in the shop, he is the only one on the shift who books one of each out every day he works, the same two he has shot a bunch of rounds through. They can only ride in cases in the trunk.

He tells his Buddy's he has a fire extinguisher as well, but does not intend to start a fire! In fact I will email this to him, Charlie come in!
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Old December 9, 2008, 09:39 PM   #46
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csmsss writes:
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And to expand upon the problem bullet designers face, tissue isn't tissue, necessarily. Unlike ballistics gel, our bodies are not tidy and homogenous. There are many different types of tissue a bullet might encounter on its path through a body - skin tissue, muscle tissue, body fat, vascular organs, "stretchy" organs, bone, etc. The path and behavior of a bullet isn't precisely predictable because it's impossible to know exactly which tissues it will traverse, as each of us is built differently.
This entire argument is irrelevant. The purpose of ballistic gelatin testing is observe bullet performance (penetration, expansion, fragmentation, yaw) in a realistic "typical" soft tissue medium. All vital tissues are soft tissues.

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Quote:
this was anything but a product of ballistics.
I'm unaware anyone who's ever made such a claim. The closest I know of was a comment by John Hall, then SAIC FBI-FTU, who I paraphrase: "All else aside, Miami was an ammunition failure." Jerry Dove achieved a perfect hit but the bullet didn't penetrate deeply enough damage Platt's heart, which, given the bullet's path, would have substantially decreased it's ability to deliver blood.

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Old December 9, 2008, 10:45 PM   #47
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This entire argument is irrelevant. The purpose of ballistic gelatin testing is observe bullet performance (penetration, expansion, fragmentation, yaw) in a realistic "typical" soft tissue medium. All vital tissues are soft tissues.
I must disagree. Yes, all vital tissues are soft tissues. But the human body isn't composed only of vital tissues. It is also composed of skin and muscle and bone, all of which may be between the bullet as it enters the body and the soft vital organs. All of these tissues have an effect in slowing the bullet, deflecting it from an otherwise predictable path, and altering its penetration/expansion properties. Further, even vital organs react differently from organ to organ - to direct trauma from the bullet, as well as to temporary trauma (cavitation, if you will). A lung will not react the same way to a gun shot wound that a kidney will, for example, yet a wound in either location can of course be fatal.

I don't disagree that ballistics gelatin is as good an objective simulacrum as we have for examining how bullets perform in soft tissue; however, it is still extremely imperfect when it comes to making ironclad predictions as to how a bullet will perform when it strikes a human being. There are just far too many other variables which enter the picture and which cannot be perfectly accounted for when designing a bullet.

If my "argument" (if you want to call it that) is so irrelevant, then why do bullet wounds, even from the same firearm firing the same cartridge, create such disparate effects from shooting to shooting?
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Old December 9, 2008, 10:59 PM   #48
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Simple Brit or Canadian Mil Spec hardball at 1250 fps would have gone through both lungs, and the heart!
To assume that two bullets that are exactly the same would have taken the same path is guessing. Even more so if one bullet was JHP and one a HB.

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Old December 10, 2008, 04:09 PM   #49
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csmsss writes:
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I must disagree. Yes, all vital tissues are soft tissues. But the human body isn't composed only of vital tissues. It is also composed of skin and muscle and bone, all of which may be between the bullet as it enters the body and the soft vital organs. All of these tissues have an effect in slowing the bullet, deflecting it from an otherwise predictable path, and altering its penetration/expansion properties. Further, even vital organs react differently from organ to organ - to direct trauma from the bullet, as well as to temporary trauma (cavitation, if you will). A lung will not react the same way to a gun shot wound that a kidney will, for example, yet a wound in either location can of course be fatal.
Instead of paraphrasing MacPherson's explanation I'll post an extract which discusses the lack of practical differences between ordnance gelatin and typical soft tissues:
Extract from “Wound Ballistics Misconceptions.” (Duncan MacPherson, Wound Ballistics Review, 2(3): 1996; 42-43)

When a bullet is penetrating any material (tissue, water, air, wood, etc.), the total force the bullet exerts on the material is the same as the total force the material exerts on the bullet (this is Newton’s Third Law of Motion). These forces may be represented as a combination of shear forces and inertial forces (don’t be concerned if these words sound too technical – the concepts are easy). Shear force may be thought of as the force that resists deformation; if you push on a wall you are creating shear forces in the wall material that resist your push. If you push your hand down very slowly on a water surface, you feel no resisting force; this is true because a liquid cannot support a shear force….

You can fan your hand back and forth in air quite rapidly because there seems to be no resistance, but a similar fanning motion cannot be done nearly as rapidly underwater because moving the water can take all the strength you can muster. The forces that resist the movement of your hand in water are inertial forces….

A bullet penetrating a soft solid (tissue or a tissue simulant like gelatin) meets resistance that is a combination of shear forces and inertial forces….

…Anyone who has worked with gelatin knows that a finger can be pushed into gelatin with a force of only a few pounds; this force is similar to the resistance to a finger poked into the stomach, but the tissue does not fracture as easily as gelatin does. A finger poked into water does not meet this kind of resistance, which is due to shear forces. Penetration of a 9mm bullet at 1000 ft/sec is resisted by an inertial force of about 800 pounds; it is obvious that the presence or absence of a 3 to 5 pound shear force makes no practical difference in the penetration at this velocity. This also explains why the fact that gelatin fractures more easily than tissue does is not important.

The extension of these dynamics to soft tissue variation is obvious. Different types of tissue present different resistance to finger probing by a surgeon, but the surgeon is not probing at 1000 ft/sec. Different tissue types do have differences in the amount of shear force they will support, but all of these forces are so small relative to inertial forces that there is no practical difference. The tissue types are closer to one another than they are to water, and bullet expansion in water and tissue are nearly identical at velocities over 600 ft/sec where all bullet expansion takes place (See Bullet Penetration for a detailed explanation of bullet expansion dynamics).

Since inertial forces depend on accelerating mass, it makes sense that these forces should be lower at lower velocities (because the penetrated material cannot be accelerated to a velocity higher than the bullet). Shear forces have little velocity dependence, and as a result, shear forces are a much larger fraction of the total when bullet velocity is below the cavitation threshold. This low velocity effect is the reason that total bullet penetration depth is much different in water and in tissue or a valid tissue simulant.

As a result of the penetration dynamics, most soft solids with a density very near soft tissues (i.e., near the density of water) are satisfactory tissue simulants when shear forces are not important. However, total penetration depth depends significantly on dynamics at velocities below 400 ft/sec, so most materials do not properly simulate penetration depth. The total bullet penetration depth in tissue and a valid tissue simulant should be the same; standard practice is to use calibrated gelatin to insure this. In effect, gelatin calibration is done to ensure that the shear forces in the gelatin are the same as in typical soft tissue (as described in Bullet Penetration, the technical parameter used in the dynamic is viscosity).
Is lung tissue going to deflect a bullet from center punching the heart, as would have been the case with wound Dove inflicted on Platt? No. IMO, the the other factors you present are of little practical relevance.

Quote:
If my "argument" (if you want to call it that) is so irrelevant, then why do bullet wounds, even from the same firearm firing the same cartridge, create such disparate effects from shooting to shooting?
Extracts from “The Wound Profile & The Human Body: Damage Pattern Correlation.” (Martin L Fackler, MD, Wound Ballistics Review, 1(4): 1994; 12-19)

The test of the wound profiles’ validity is how accurately they portray the projectile-tissue interaction observed in shots that penetrate the human body. Since most shots in the human body traverse various tissues, we would expect the wound profiles to vary somewhat, depending on the tissues traversed. However, the only radical departure has been found to occur when the projectile strikes bone: this predictably deforms the bullet more than soft tissue, reducing its overall penetration depth, and sometimes altering the angle of the projectile’s course. Shots traversing only soft tissues in humans have shown damage patterns of remarkably close approximation to the wound profiles.

The bullet penetration depth comparison, as well as the similarity in bullet deformation and yaw patterns, between human soft tissue and 10% ordnance gelatin have proven to be consistent and reliable. Every time there appeared to be an inconsistency…a good reason was found and when the exact circumstances were matched, the results matched. The cases reported here comprise but a small fraction of the documented comparisons which have established 10% ordnance gelatin as a valid tissue simulant.
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Old December 11, 2008, 01:31 AM   #50
JohnKSa
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Is lung tissue going to deflect a bullet from center punching the heart, as would have been the case with wound Dove inflicted on Platt?
Didn't the autopsy show that the bullet in question went through Platt's upper arm before entering his chest?
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