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Subject: Bullet behavior
Amorphous Blob    3/10/2008 12:07:16 AM
I recently read "Hard Corps", a good story of a former gang member's experiences during the invasion of Iraq. (He was awarded the Silver Star.) He was describing one firefight where he had a shot at a guy standing sideways to him, but hesitated and then aimed at the guy's head because "bullets can bounce off ribs". Is this really a factor to consider? Would it happen with a .30 caliber round? Why would it happen with ribs and not a skull?
 
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Herald12345    Not an expert on rifles.........    4/25/2008 1:49:13 PM
.................but any object passing through matter that has some lateral force applied to it, will suffer deflection or YAW influence. This becomes especially pronounced when you go from one state of matter to another as in from air [gas] to flesh  [plastic solid] and bone [elastic solid]. The tendency to bullet veer will generally be in the direction of least resistance to momentum. At 500 meters per second I can well prove that simple breeze cross wind of about 5 kph will affect bullet  lateral drift in the trajectory. So a bone will prove to be quite an impediment, it will deflect a bullet-even shatter a bullet if the bullet strikes at the right angle and velocity. WATER will deflect or smash a bullet; if the bullet hits with enough kinetic energy.

Will a rib stop a bullet? Not likely. Will it change the trajectory radically? Absolutely.

I don't have to be expert rifleman to prove this. Its physics.

Herald
 
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larryjcr    Bullet deflection   4/25/2008 2:12:04 PM

.................but any object passing through matter that has some lateral force applied to it, will suffer deflection or YAW influence. This becomes especially pronounced when you go from one state of matter to another as in from air [gas] to flesh  [plastic solid] and bone [elastic solid]. The tendency to bullet veer will generally be in the direction of least resistance to momentum. At 500 meters per second I can well prove that simple breeze cross wind of about 5 kph will affect bullet  lateral drift in the trajectory. So a bone will prove to be quite an impediment, it will deflect a bullet-even shatter a bullet if the bullet strikes at the right angle and velocity. WATER will deflect or smash a bullet; if the bullet hits with enough kinetic energy.

Will a rib stop a bullet? Not likely. Will it change the trajectory radically? Absolutely.

I don't have to be expert rifleman to prove this. Its physics.

Herald

All true, but doesn't matter in this case.  A bullet delected by a rib is still going thru the body, just on a slightly different path.  Once it's inside the torso, it's going to be doing damage in any event.  As for shattering (and I know from personal experience that the lighter Viet Nam era 5.56mm would do that) it would just mean that instead of one bullet punching thru the thorax, a spray of metal and bone shrapnel goes thru doing even more damage.  Take the shot.  Bullets are cheap!
 
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k3n-54n       5/26/2008 9:57:41 PM
this sounds like something more important for gangs using pistols, probably often .32 auto and smaller.  I would not be at all surprised if ribs offered better protection than the skull against such bullets.  The ribs are a lot thicker, and they are designed as springs (so we can breath) rather than eggshells.  It shouldn't have mattered in this case, but that doesnt mean it is never true.
 
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