Questions about the irrelevance of energy (ft-lbs)

[Lou270]

Clear ballistic gel is not useful as you state, but properly calibrated organic gel is a very different thing, and really does provide useful information for how a bullet behaves in tissue.

No, organic gel is closer in density so penetration, bullet upset, and general shape of the temp cavity will be similar to soft tissue. However Gel tears much easier and the temp cavity will be wider and longer in gel. It is useful for comparing things like how deep a bullet may penetrate or deform but you can’t “measure” a wound cavity, at least with the intent of saying it will give you the same damage in flesh. Nor can you show how “wide” it is by superimposing colored pictures of gel with die as the tearing and whatnot in gel will show the whole (exagerrated) temp cavity not what is actually damaged.

Lou

 

[Formidilosus]

Form,

Thanks for this additional detail. You've indicated a few times that something is in the works on getting this information out there. I'm excited to hear that someone else might be tackling this cause the amount of work and cost is daunting. Do you have any rough timeline on this other effort?

No. Hopefully there will be something usable by fall season.

There is also research professor who is thinking about a study of these same issues. But what I'm really after is a standardized rating for "all" hunting bullets similar to what Brian Litz did for BC. If nobody else is going to tackle this than I intend to try.

The main point here is that the “answer” already exists. It has been demonstrably proven over and over for near 40 years despite repeated attempts to show that it doesn’t work, and/or come up with some other way- including all the “math” engineers love.
The data simply isn’t available publicly- but how to get the information is already known. Don’t reinvent the wheel, especially to a wheel that doesn’t work.

If I'm the "ignorant" one you are referring to

You are not.

You clearly have more access to industry "behind the scenes" information than most everyone and I appreciate your willingness to share it. And if you have resources that you can share with all of us that show us some of this data please do tell me where to look. I've spent quite a bit of time digging.

Hornady, Barnes, Blackhills, Federal, Sierra, Speer, etc all have some gel information out there. But you have to search for it.

Minor Question: do you happen to know standard gel block sizing that would work for testing up to the big bores? FBI test blocks are quite small and I'm pretty certain won't contain many hunting bullet impacts which essentially negates the test. Of course, bigger gel blocks = more cost.

8x8x18” for common centerfire rifles. You stack them end to end to catch deeper penetrating bullets.

Major Question: Cost and headache could be significantly reduced if another medium besides calibrated FBI gel were utilized. I 100% understand that any other medium fails to simulate wounding in real animals.

That is correct- it is the only medium that correlates to tissue.

BUT, if all we are doing is trying to compare bullets to other bullets and not determine the size of likely wounding:

Why would you want that? First you still must use calibrated tissue simulate as bullets behave dramatically differently in different media. You can shoot bullets at steel plates and measure back face deformation- but still not have a single usable or functional price of information about what that bullet does in tissue- that is the entire point. What will this bullet do in tissue?
Every single thing else is ballistic and mental masterbation by people that are consumed with meaningless numbers.

Said a different way: the end result for testing would be a numerical value for each bullet for wound size creation and another numerical "rating" for penetration. So a bullet would be tested and ranked against other bullets and assigned a value on a comparable scale. Bullet might score an 8 for wound size and a 3 for penetration.

Why on earth would that preferable to the actual, correlated wounding of bullets? Why are you guys so stuck on a math equation instead of just measuring the actual wound?

So a bullet gets a “3” on penetration- neat. WTF does that tell anyone anything about what to expect in an animal? Does a “3” bounce off of a squirrel, or does a “3” penetrate end to end of a buffalo? It’s nonsense.


Instead:

Bullet “A” penetrates an average of 16”. The permanent crush cavity is approximately 3.5” wide. It has an average temporary cavity of 6” wide by 7” long. The neck length is less than 1”.



Bullet “B” penetrates an average of 22”. The permanent crush cavity is 1” wide. The temporary cavity is an average of 3” wide, by 5” long. The neck length is 2-3”.


Using those two examples, you have a 3d image of what that bullet will do- it tells you the difference that matters- depth, width, and shape of the wounds. Then that information can be directly overlayed if desired on an animal graph and you can see exactly how each effects the animal.

In this case, wouldn't it be defensible to use wax tubes or other medium since we aren't trying to simulate wound size and penetration in flesh, just trying to get a fair comparison between bullets.

Again- there isn’t a “we” in that. I, nor anyone with a single bit of education and knowledge of this wants anything to do with another useless “calculated math equation”.

That leaves me with one big issue to design around: For measuring, I'd prefer to use 3d imaging which would be more accurate and which should yield a very accurate cubic area of wound cavity. This seems like it would be far superior to the old width/depth 2d measurement used in FBI protocal. I've contacted a local imaging company as well as a dental imagining equipment supplier. Still don't know if this is attainable cost wise. The goal would be to directly import 3d imaging with all measurements into computer eliminating the need for dye and less accurate hand measuring.

Holes? Missed Assumptions?

Dag

Well, yes. Lots of holes. First, your goal of comparing bullets in a non correlated substance, then assigning a number to them, is no more useful than all the other long disproven ideas like “TKO”, “momentum”, “ft-lbs of energy”, etc, etc. They do not work. They do not tell anyone a single useful piece of information about how a bullet destroys or damages tissue- and that’s it. Tissue destruction and damage of vital organs is what leads to incapacitation and death.

On the other hand, using a simulate that has been proven ad nauseam to not only be consistent in outcome, but highly correlative to results in real tissue, does give useful information- the only actual useful information. The wound created.

 

[Formidilosus]

No, organic gel is closer in density so penetration, bullet upset, and general shape of the temp cavity will be similar to soft tissue. However Gel tears much easier and the temp cavity will be wider and longer in gel. It is useful for comparing things like how deep a bullet may penetrate or deform but you can’t “measure” a wound cavity, at least with the intent of saying it will give you the same damage in flesh.

You are wrong. 40 years of terminal ballistics research by every branch of the DOD, the FBI, every major LE agency, most foreign high level government entities, almost every bullet that been made for the last 20 plus years for hunting, and every single legitimate medical study has proven time and again that the FBI’s protocol is highly correlative to actual tissue performance.

There is knowledge that has to accompany on how to read what is shown in the gel; but to say what you did is factually wrong.

Nor can you show how “wide” it is by superimposing colored pictures of gel with die as the tearing and whatnot in gel will show the whole (exagerrated) temp cavity not what is actually damaged.

Lou

Oh, you mean exactly like I demonstrated with the gel, the correctly modeled image of the wound from the gel and it superimposed on the deer outline, then a live tissue example of that exact bullet within 20fps impact of the gel shots?

Here’s another. Same bullet-



And another, same bullet at near same impact velocity-


Same bullet, similar impact velocity. You'll have to zoom in to see the 8-10” wide exit hole in the center of the body-




Ironically, give or take- those wounds look very similar to the gel shot correctly superimposed.

 

[Lou270]

You are wrong. 40 years of terminal ballistics research by every branch of the DOD, the FBI, every major LE agency, most foreign high level government entities, almost every bullet that been made for the last 20 plus years for hunting, and every single legitimate medical study has proven time and again that the FBI’s protocol is highly correlative to actual tissue performance.

There is knowledge that has to accompany on how to read what is shown in the gel; but to say what you did is factually wrong.






Oh, you mean exactly like I demonstrated with the gel, the correctly modeled image of the wound from the gel and it superimposed on the deer outline, then a live tissue example of that exact bullet within 20fps impact of the gel shots?

Here’s another. Same bullet-
View attachment 849868


And another, same bullet at near same impact velocity-
View attachment 849869

Same bullet, similar impact velocity. You'll have to zoom in to see the 8-10” wide exit hole in the center of the body-
View attachment 849870



Ironically, give or take- those wounds look very similar to the gel shot correctly superimposed.

Uh, no. Nothing I said is inconsistent with 40 years of ballistic research. To the point where it can easily be googled so I am not going to argue anything. Hunting companies use ballistic gel to test bullets because it is possible and consistent not because it is perfect. They also field test. The RS revered FBI test does not look at volume or “dyed up blocks” (penetration depth, diameter, retained weight of bullets recovered). Many of the match bullets would fair very poorly in fbi scoring though in fact we know they can be effective.

Lou

 

[HandgunHTR]

If you don't see these things or have analytical mind that doesn't turn off or don't have the 'ask too many questions' attributes due to that then yeah...most everything off the shelf at cabelas's will give you a shade of death. We don't, and haven't, actually needed to get this nerdy on the subject. We did have to get this carried away in inflight once rangefinders came along and we 'could' see the potential and pushed and pushed to where we are now.

No biggie if you need or want that level of nerdy but yet you may use it for long range shooting, hunting and competition and figure 'meh, 1800 fps impact rule' is good enough for me.

I actually am an engineer who understands these things, so I do have a questioning attitude and have done quite a bit of R&D on various projects. Your problem is that you lack a fundamental understanding of what you are talking about. So while you think you have a big idea, you are like a three-year-old claiming that it is possible to turn invisible because when you close your eyes you can’t see yourself.

And man, for a long time I also said energy is irrelevant, even early in this thread, and it still is largely because it's not really put into effective measurable and comparative ways. As long as it goes deep enough and wounds enough stuff...we're happy.

At the same time we've concluded that it's all about the bullet for inflight and all about the bullet for terminal. We've also concluded that the bullet does 'work' so that energy does matter. At least that's what I think we've established in this thread and answered the OP ask...haven't we? lol But here we have people who still say it doesn't, so which is it?

Yes, the bullet does work, but the energy it carries at impact doesn’t matter because it is damn-near impossible to separate how much of that energy is going to doing work on tissue vs the work being done to fragment/deform the bullet, is being converted to heat, and being used up for continued rotation, just to name a few of the many incalculable variables.

 

[DagOtto]

The main point here is that the “answer” already exists. It has been demonstrably proven over and over for near 40 years despite repeated attempts to show that it doesn’t work, and/or come up with some other way- including all the “math” engineers love.
The data simply isn’t available publicly- but how to get the information is already known. Don’t reinvent the wheel, especially to a wheel that doesn’t work.


Hornady, Barnes, Blackhills, Federal, Sierra, Speer, etc all have some gel information out there. But you have to search

Instead:

Bullet “A” penetrates an average of 16”. The permanent crush cavity is approximately 3.5” wide. It has an average temporary cavity of 6” wide by 7” long. The neck length is than 1”.

Thanks for thoughts. Your points on fbi calibrated gel are clearly right. And doing some research, the other options that retain the shape and size of representative wound cavity wouldnt save much time or money in any event. So fbi gel it is.

My idea of simplifying the size of wound cavity and penetration to a “rating” metric is simply to try to create something that would be easily and quickly communicated to a larger audience. Similar to the dumb silhouettes of game animals that bullet makers place on their ammo boxes to guide hunters to correct choices. While those are horsepucky and miss-leading, I was thinking the “metric” would be 1000 times more accurate and honest.

Based on your input, sounds like a bad idea. Its just as easy in the end to put real dimensions in a bullet rating system— something like Wound Size- 18.5 cubic inches, Penetration- 14.5 inches. Shorten it to WS18.5cu” P14.5” and its easy to understand and tied to actual terminal performance.

In the end of the day that is a minor detail to the giant elephant in room which is cost to do this testing per bullet. Especially when one realizes that every weight / caliber of every bullet has to go through the entire test protocol. Even at just $100 per gel block test thats 3k for each bullet tested. And I expect that is low.

More Random questions:

1- do you know if labs doing this work re-melt and re-use gel? I see conflicting info on-line.

2- does neck distance change enough between various hunting bullets to be worth measuring and tracking? Seems like a bullet is either expanding in the first 1-2” or its not suitable as a hunting bullet. But am I missing a use -case or a performance difference that makes this an important metric to track and compare?

Thanks,

Dag

 

[Formidilosus]

Based on your input, sounds like a bad idea. Its just as easy in the end to put real dimensions in a bullet rating system— something like Wound Size- 18.5 cubic inches, Penetration- 14.5 inches. Shorten it to WS18.5cu” P14.5” and its easy to understand and tied to actual terminal performance.

We’d be functionally there is ammo/bullets had available just had the depth of penetration and width of permanent and temporary cavities, along with a picture of the gel shot.

In the end of the day that is a minor detail to the giant elephant in room which is cost to do this testing per bullet. Especially when one realizes that every weight / caliber of every bullet has to go through the entire test protocol. Even at just $100 per gel block test thats 3k for each bullet tested. And I expect that is low.

It’s expensive, but quite that expensive.

More Random questions:

1- do you know if labs doing this work re-melt and re-use gel? I see conflicting info on-line.

Absolutely not.

2- does neck distance change enough between various hunting bullets to be worth measuring and tracking? Seems like a bullet is either expanding in the first 1-2” or it’s not suitable as a hunting bullet. But am I missing a use -case or a performance difference that makes this an important metric to track and compare?

Thanks,

Dag

It does. Lots of bullets are inconsistent, and lots fail to open frequently (monos).

 

[prm]

Some reading (I’m not arguing for or against any):

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA183285.pdf

Terminal Ballistics: How Bullets Wound and Kill

In this article, we're digging into terminal ballistics: the science of what happens when the bullet impacts a target. In particular, we're going over the history of the research and what we know today about how bullets wound and kill a target.

www.everydaymarksman.co

Reloader's Press | Handloader Magazine

www.handloadermagazine.com

Terminal Ballistics