The thread on the HAT bullets shot into phone books, and several others has once again brought to light most people's misunderstanding of wound ballistics and terminal ballistics testing.
First a short thought on testing with "Phone books".
To quote Dr. Roberts (one of the, if not the, foremost Ballistitian in the world) on different mediums for testing bullets, specifically paper-
"Calibrated 10% ordnance gel at 4 deg C; the other proposed simulants have NOT demonstrated adequate results compared to living tissue"
Unfortunately you can't use paper as a comparison between bullets either. Length, weight, jacket thickness, bullet composition, bullet type (IE.. plastic tip, hollow point, aluminum tipped, jacketed soft point, etc,), impact velocity, RPM's, yaw, etc., all combine to create variances in bullet performance; one bullet may expand/fragment violently in paper, yet perform poorly in tissue, and vice-versa.
If one just wants to test bullet upset, with no real idea of penetration depth or crush cavity, water is a much better medium.
Another quote from Dr. Roberts- "Water is a good test medium to assess bullet upset; many crime labs use water recovery tanks for that purpose. Be aware that water generally reveals the maximum upset which can occur to a projectile in soft tissue—your actual result in living tissue may be somewhat less"
Below are links to papers on wound ballistics that will be very beneficial to anyone trying to understand wounding effects in tissue by projectiles and/or those trying to test bullets themselves.
http://ammo.ar15.com/project/Fackler_Articles/Theodore_Kocher.pdf
http://ammo.ar15.com/project/Fackler_Articles/bullet_fragmentation.pdf
http://ammo.ar15.com/project/Fackler_Articles/effects_of_small_arms.pdf
http://ammo.ar15.com/project/Fackler_Articles/wounding_mechanism_projectile_shape.pdf
http://ammo.ar15.com/project/Fackler_Articles/wounding_mechanism_projectile_shape.pdf
http://www.rkba.org/research/fackler/wrong.html
http://ammo.ar15.com/project/Fackler_Articles/shock_wave_myth.pdf
Hope it helps,
Charles
First a short thought on testing with "Phone books".
To quote Dr. Roberts (one of the, if not the, foremost Ballistitian in the world) on different mediums for testing bullets, specifically paper-
"Calibrated 10% ordnance gel at 4 deg C; the other proposed simulants have NOT demonstrated adequate results compared to living tissue"
Unfortunately you can't use paper as a comparison between bullets either. Length, weight, jacket thickness, bullet composition, bullet type (IE.. plastic tip, hollow point, aluminum tipped, jacketed soft point, etc,), impact velocity, RPM's, yaw, etc., all combine to create variances in bullet performance; one bullet may expand/fragment violently in paper, yet perform poorly in tissue, and vice-versa.
If one just wants to test bullet upset, with no real idea of penetration depth or crush cavity, water is a much better medium.
Another quote from Dr. Roberts- "Water is a good test medium to assess bullet upset; many crime labs use water recovery tanks for that purpose. Be aware that water generally reveals the maximum upset which can occur to a projectile in soft tissue—your actual result in living tissue may be somewhat less"
Below are links to papers on wound ballistics that will be very beneficial to anyone trying to understand wounding effects in tissue by projectiles and/or those trying to test bullets themselves.
http://ammo.ar15.com/project/Fackler_Articles/Theodore_Kocher.pdf
http://ammo.ar15.com/project/Fackler_Articles/bullet_fragmentation.pdf
http://ammo.ar15.com/project/Fackler_Articles/effects_of_small_arms.pdf
http://ammo.ar15.com/project/Fackler_Articles/wounding_mechanism_projectile_shape.pdf
http://ammo.ar15.com/project/Fackler_Articles/wounding_mechanism_projectile_shape.pdf
http://www.rkba.org/research/fackler/wrong.html
http://ammo.ar15.com/project/Fackler_Articles/shock_wave_myth.pdf
Hope it helps,
Charles