Centerfire Rifle Terminal Ballistics

Introduction

Terminal ballistics is the study of the interaction between penetrating projectiles and body tissues. Evolving in tandem with small arms development, most of our current understanding of terminal ballistics has come from the hard work of dedicated trauma surgeons, starting with Dr. Emile T. Kocher's groundbreaking work towards the end of the 18th century up to contemporary times with Dr. Martin L Fackler. Unfortunately, much of their work is relatively difficult if not impossible for the general public to access. Rather than a summary article, we've compiles a short list of some relevant terminal ballistics articles by Dr. Fackler and made them available for download here.

• Applied Wound Ballistics
• Ballistic Injury
• Bullet Fragmentation : A Major Cause of Tissue Disruption
• Effects of Small Arms on the Human Body
• Ordnance Gelatin for Ballistic Studies
• The "Shock Wave" Myth
• Theodor Kocher and the Scientific Foundation of Wound Ballistics
• Wounding Mechanism of Projectiles Striking at More then 1.5km/sec
• A Reconsideration of the Wounding Mechanism of Very High Velocity Projectiles: Importance of Projectile Shape
• Wounding Patterns of Military Rifle Bullets

The reader must be advised that ballistic gelatin testing does not, and cannot reliably predict the incapacitation potential or "stopping power" effected by the various ammunition we have tested here at tacticalworks.ca.

Properly prepared ordinance gelatin used as a testing media simply approximates projectile wound profiles as observed in adult swine leg muscle tissue; it does not describe exactly how any projectile may behave in all conditions. Interpretation of the wound profiles must be limited to simple comparison of the two different tissue disruption mechanisms.

Far more relevant than the evaluation of one type of ammunition as compared to another is the weapon operator. There are absolutely no substitutes for quality training, effective & frequent practice, well developed tactics, and a high level of fitness.

Calibrated Wound Profile Library

• Simplified Ordinance Gelatin Preparation  
  
  
• .308 110gr Hornady TAP FPD
• .308 125gr Frangible Bullet
• .308 125gr Nosler Ballistic Tip
• .308 130gr Barnes Triple Shock
• .308 147gr Winchester FMJ
• .308 150gr Nosler Ballistic Tip
• .308 150gr Barnes Triple Shock
• .308 155gr Hornady TAP FPD
• .308 168gr Nosler HPBT J4 Competition  
  
  
• .223 40gr Hornady V-Max
• .223 55gr Hornady TAP FPD
• .223 60gr Hornady TAP FPD
• .223 62gr SS109 NATO
• .223 69gr Sierra HPBT

Hunting Data

One thing we've long felt has been missing from much of the available literature is decent real-world examples detailing actual shootings. While grim in nature and certainly not the controlled conditions of a laboratory environment, there is still much of value to be gleaned from this type of documentation. To circumvent the ethical issues surrounding making public information on rifle shootings involving people (albeit likely opening the floodgates to a parallel form of ethical controversy), we've instead elected to use examples gathered from a hunting environment where prey animals approximating the physiological size and makeup of Homo-sapiens were shot with centerfire rifle ammunition.

Lots of experience has been collected on centerfire rifle ammunition; we're intending to start out our hunting data library with some of the more unusual types of ammunition as compared to the staples of the hunting world. As time allows, we hope to gradually grow the library, pushing to include a wide variety of different centerfire ammunition.

• .308 125gr frangible Sinterfire terminal ballistics report - Whitetail Doe
• .308 125gr Nosler Ballistic Tip terminal ballistics report - Mule Deer Doe
• .308 125gr Nosler Ballistic Tip terminal ballistics report - Mule Deer Buck
• .308 125gr Nosler Ballistic Tip terminal ballistics report - Whitetail Doe

Body Armour Discussion

Coming soon...a discussion on body armour and centerfire rifle rounds.  

Copyright 2005-2011 - Thanks for stopping by