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

 

[DagOtto]

Thanks for sharing. Hadn't read the article from the everydaymarskman on the history of Terminal Ballistic Research. Good Stuff

Has anybody seen the old poster from Handloader Magazine showing various bullets expanded at different speeds? If so, does anyone know where one could find a legible resolution copy?

 

[BigEd36]

Through this thread I've seen reference to clear ballistic gel, organic gel, and FBI calibrated gel. Could someone explain the difference between them. And, if FBI calibrated gel is capable of more accurately predicting wounding capability of a projectile, why do we see hundreds of videos, pictures, and results posted, of bullets being tested in clear ballistic gel? ??

 

[KyleR1985]

Through this thread I've seen reference to clear ballistic gel, organic gel, and FBI calibrated gel. Could someone explain the difference between them. And, if FBI calibrated gel is capable of more accurately predicting wounding capability of a projectile, why do we see hundreds of videos, pictures, and results posted, of bullets being tested in clear ballistic gel? ??

Social primates needing social validation.

And money.

 

[WTFJohn]

Through this thread I've seen reference to clear ballistic gel, organic gel, and FBI calibrated gel. Could someone explain the difference between them. And, if FBI calibrated gel is capable of more accurately predicting wounding capability of a projectile, why do we see hundreds of videos, pictures, and results posted, of bullets being tested in clear ballistic gel? ??

Here are some links to get started. They are more long winded than your posts, but contain the information you're seeking.

Clear Gel vs Calibrated Organic Ballistic Gel - Good primer of the importance of calibration.

Basics of the FBI Protocol

Hornady Law Enforcement Ammunition & Test Report Application Guide - This is like a ballistic bible for a lot of Hornady ammo. From pistol to rifle to shotgun.

Start with link one, it will explain the differences in gel types and why it matters. Then two if you'd like to know more about the intermediate barriers. Three (especially the first 8 or so pages to build a knowledge base) should the be the final link you read. It has calibrated gel tests for rifle calibers from .223 to .300WM.

There are other links similar to these out there for other ammo manufacturers. Take what you learn from those links and start playing with search engines to find the rest.

 

[BigEd36]

Start with link one, it will explain the differences in gel types and why it matters. Then two if you'd like to know more about the intermediate barriers. Three (especially the first 8 or so pages to build a knowledge base) should the be the final link you read. It has calibrated gel tests for rifle calibers from .223 to .300WM.

There are other links similar to these out there for other ammo manufacturers. Take what you learn from those links and start playing with search engines to find the rest.

Thank you for this information. This clears up my questions! I've downloaded all 3 of the links and have saved them into my laptop.

Ed

 

[Babarkidd]

I like to eat my game meat not mangle it.

 

[wind gypsy]

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.

I move that ammo manufacturers simply put the bare gel info that Hornady includes on their website for TAP/LE ammo on the back of ammo boxes.

147 gr ELD® MATCH TAP PRECISION® - Hornady Law Enforcement

...

www.hornadyle.com

 

[DagOtto]

I move that ammo manufacturers simply put the bare gel info that Hornady includes on their website for TAP/LE ammo on the back of ammo boxes.

View attachment 852013
View attachment 852012

147 gr ELD® MATCH TAP PRECISION® - Hornady Law Enforcement

...

www.hornadyle.com

I second that motion! And offer a friendly amendment that they include second showing exact same info at the minimum impact velocity they recommend.

 

[Stinky Coyote]

Thanks for sharing. Hadn't read the article from the everydaymarskman on the history of Terminal Ballistic Research. Good Stuff

Has anybody seen the old poster from Handloader Magazine showing various bullets expanded at different speeds? If so, does anyone know where one could find a legible resolution copy?

View attachment 851514

Quite an image. So much data there to measure and we didn't measure it.

And what to do with that data if it were measured? Go all Bill James on it to show the relationship of bullet transformation to energy transfer across varying impact speeds, rates upon rates, in relationship to not just work transfer but over a certain distance. Relationships and rates to them, numbers. Cute pictures though, Bill James would laugh if asked to look at this stuff and say it's still at infant stage, call me back when you have some numbers to work with.

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

Agree! But you can measure some other things. Like the bullet. That did change while doing work and figure out the relationship to the work it did and for how long it did it. Why we still focus on the outcome of the work after 50 some years is baffling.

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

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?

Part A, that explains a lot. Sure hope the viewers looking at this also start considering measuring the bullet for a change. And that it's not just one guys interpretation of what's important in actually moving this whole thing forward.

Bullet A, bullet B, goes 16" inches with a 3.5" x 8" wound cone...in gel. We go shoot animals and already know this.

We are not stuck on a math equation. We don't even have enough numbers to start doing math lol. We are stuck on objectifying terminal ballistics and that is the future because we've done nothing new all this time trying to measure shades of death by the wound itself when the bullet tells us so much more and everyone seems to have their blinders on that this possibility exists.

What does the work? The bullet. And we try to measure the work while ignoring the bullet. We can't compare rates of bullet change at varying impact velocities to anything against known performance on certain game classes, across bullet family types etc. There's no calculator. Yet there's plenty of numbers there to be able to do math and Bill James the whole thing and create a calculator, and expand it etc., if we actually capture all the information to make comparable in useful way.

It's ad nauseam and beating the horse to keep doing the same thing we have always done.

I do this for living, look at the numbers and make useful for my team, for the goals of my team. And I got lucky to get a job that works for my mind like that. Make it easy, make it fast, create calculators and useful way to see and use the data.

This (terminal ballistics as part of hunting/shooting), is a hobby and I could see that IF THIS WAS MY WORK I'd see we are missing info in order to then study the info and THEN make it usable and useful for my team, and THEN improve on it, upgrade it, add functionality to it.

That is all I'm pointing out. I don't have the gel or bullets or the other resources needed, or the time in a week to start this work and pay check to go with it, so can only talk about it a bit between ice fishing weekends lol (another 40 fish last weekend btw and a new PB walleye). And hope that those who do have all this resource and people on payroll (cough hornady) etc. will see the benefits of what this work would do to assist the team (hunters).

There's no way to make useful and usable tools (for comparing and running all scenarios one wants to imagine for goals intended) or views for hunters based on the info we have been looking at and doing the same thing for as long as I've been shooting. Running an 800 yard comparison between bullets, running a 1600 fps comparison between bullets, and seeing expected rates of change and work transfer etc. We look at basic info at one impact velocity and I mean basic. Like mid 20th century basic.

So I know this gets wordy but in my mind I'd be looking to get the delta's of data from the bullet work/change info between say every couple hundred fps impacts, then use those delta's to fill in the blanks every 25 fps to start, run v-look up tables in background of calculator. The inputs would be the new ones we're missing of course that I've been talking about. Heck at some point the terminal ballistics calculator could merge with the ballistics calculator so you input all your inflight atmospheric and bullet parameters then your terminal bullet parameters (Bill James style boiled down rates) and now you would see at every fps impact velocity the expected terminal performance in numbers of work transfer over expected distance. No different than drop and wind drift columns etc. But we are so far off getting to this level. Just where my mind takes it right now and it's not fart in the wind stuff, I've demonstrated this is possible. We know the bullet will drop less work over greater inches as the yardage increases as it's rate of change slows, but currently in inflight ballistic calculators we get enough data to see what the bullet lands with for energy and it's starting sd and that's it, you get to imagine the rate of change and transfer load and penetration distance from there. It wouldn't take that much to fill in the blanks with a few more numbers to make usable and comparable for all bullets we hunt with and get it to fill in the blanks every fps marker along the flight range to target and then show what to expect over the next 13-36" etc. You want the most work transfer over 14" at 800 yards? Run the calculator, run the bullet library, get your answers and top 5 choices....etc.

 

[Thegman]

Why we still focus on the outcome of the work after 50 some years is baffling.

Baffling?

Because the outcome is what actually determines terminal performance...as opposed to pseudo-scientific mis-application of mathematics.

That this is baffling to you is baffling to me....

 

[Stinky Coyote]

Baffling?

Because the outcome is what actually determines terminal performance...as opposed to pseudo-scientific mis-application of mathematics.

That this is baffling to you is baffling to me....

lol,

I hope Form's guidance on the next 'useful' terminal ballistics project ends up something that can follow along every fps marker in it's own columns of information along side the inflight data in the calculators, 2-3 columns outta do it. If it's gonna be temporary permanent crush type sizes it will be better than nothing. But why speak about energy in inches instead of a unit of energy like ft/lbs? Ft/lbs speaks in 3d. you want the info to come in 3.5" x 8" 2 axis plains? That makes no sense. People trying to imagine 2d type things into a 3d type thing when they can't even tell the difference between 5" and 6"? LMAO

The easy way is to look at the finished bullet and apply it's rate of change (sd) to the work it transferred and get numbers that way rather than measure the workload inside the gel in terms of inches of temporary/permanent/crush whatever. Especially at a single impact velocity. Need to get the data every couple hundred fps and math the delta's between to apply to every fps along the flight path. Gonna need new and more info to do that, and we can come up with it, we have the grey matter to get the numbers in order to do the math. Gotta crawl before we can walk, gotta walk before we can run.

We have the ability to add a few columns to the ballistics calculators for the terminal part of the flight. So lets get crackin, it's only 2025 after all. We can sure get the bullet there but then it's fairy dust and unicorn piss from there.

 

[hereinaz]

I jumped out of this thread cause it jumped the shark.

For anyone genuinely trying to sort through this stuff, Stinky Coyote is WAY too interested in some numbers to quantify things and he is unnecessarily complicating the issue…

I am not addressing him because I won’t respond to his convoluted rants. This is for anyone confused by him.

His premise is that we need a number and complex model to predict what a bullet does in tissue. He repeatedly compares terminal ballistics to ballistic flight computations and modeling. Even suggesting that a few more fields could add numbers he wants.

The problem with his approach is that he consistently fails to acknowledge what we actually know—while complaining about what we don’t have.

We have proof as plain as the pictures Form posted. But, Stinky wants numbers spit out by a terminal ballistic calculator so he can see a number attached to it.

As hunters, do we actually need numbers and a field in a ballistic calculator?

Bottom line for known highly fragmenting bullets is put them inside the vitals at least 1800 fps and it will result in lethal wounding with significant tissue damage.

There is idea that, we don’t see bullet failures is because they live—so we can’t know. That is a good question to ask, but it has been thoroughly disproven with the testing that shows incredibly consistent performance with no failures in proper gel.

If you need more than what is out there with actual FBI gel testing and confirmed in hundreds if not thousands of pictures of dead critters— you might be the kind who needs proof the moon isn’t actually cheese.

Like Form says, there is no debate about the facts anymore. Stinky is making this about numbers that he wants as proof of what we know the facts to be.

Those are two different things entirely.