Perfect Union banner

Terminal Ballistic Performance

1K views 1 reply 2 participants last post by  PigBat 
#1 ·
This is one of those "oldie but goodie" movies made years ago, and shared with me recently by a retired US Army officer who worked in the Army's medical corp.

It is a comparison of historic firearms to modern rounds, demonstrating ballistic performance through ballistic gel and bone. The movie features Civil War era weapons and runs through up to and including the 5.56 NATO round.

I cleaned up the video and audio as best I could and added my friend's comments at the end.

I think you will find it really fascinating.

 
#2 ·
Good stuff!
It's an interesting "blast from the past" to see the emphasis on temporary cavity. For those who don't know the history of wound ballistic research, it was Bruce Ragsdale's work summed up in this movie that was the primary impetus for the ill-fated Relative Incapacitation Index (RII) that drove the shift to light, fast hollowpoints in the 1970s and 80s.
The "failure" of a single 9mm Silvertip in the infamous FBI Miami shootout (1986) prompted the FBI to look more closely at how pistol bullets behave in people. The result was the FTU's seminal "Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness" in 1989. From this work comes the current FBI protocols for ammunition testing, including the requirement for a 12 inch depth of penetration in gelatin (now standardized as 10%, rather than Ragsdale's 20%).

For those who have not read the HWFE paper, it may be over 20 years old, but it's still quite valid, and short enough that there's no excuse to not read it.
Link:
http://www.firearmstactical.com/pdf/fbi-hwfe.pdf
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top