A Medical Perspective On Ammunition And Lethality
BY PGF
2 years, 2 months ago
[Lindsay] Gietzen is a person of incredible experience and equal amounts of sharp wit; the combination of those qualities makes her one of the world’s leading experts and educators on traumatic injury care. She’s seen thousands of gunshot injuries in the worst part of Michigan and is now doing her best to get tourniquets and bleeding control kits right next to AED machines on the wall of every building.
The revelations here may surprise you, and perhaps you’ll buy your own bleeding control kit after reading this.
There are EDC folks that carry extra mags and a med kit too. I would never tell somebody not to do this if they felt it necessary.
A gun needs to be two simple things: reliable and reliable again—everything else coming in order of personal preference. Accuracy comes with practice and cosmetic choices are largely irrelevant, so as a baseline, the gun must function. Now what about bullets?
I’ve been telling people this for years. The gun needs to go bang every time you pull the trigger; that’s primary. Next is the ability to hit with it, and thirdly, time to muzzle on target. After you can do all that well, caliber selection should be considered because a gun that doesn’t go bang and you can’t hit with is just a paperweight.
“What causes death isn’t really kinetic force or expansion,” said Gietzen. “What causes death is rapid exsanguination (blood loss). A hit to the central nervous system or head does not guarantee an instantaneous kill. Despite what you see in the movies, the survival rate for wounds to extremities is very high, and death becomes more likely the closer you get to the heart of major arteries. The most deadly places to hit are the groin, armpits or a major artery in the torso.”
Read the section on Caliber and Effectiveness at the link. Bottom line: big bullets on target win.
H/T George 1, in comments.
On September 27, 2022 at 2:28 pm, =TW= said:
By the late ’70s I had settled on the 1911, it remains my favorite platform.
In those days ammo choices in .45 ACP were limited to hardball and a very few hollow points- CCI “Flying ashtrays” and Federal HydraShok were regarded as effective choices.
Nowadays there is a confusing array of “improved” hollow points which all seem to expand beautifully in gel but may fail when encountering more realistic targets. (Thank you, Mr. Harrell.)
This led me to search for effective non-expanding ammo.
Speer Lawman 230 gr RNFP at 1000 FPS looks likely, and Honey Badger/Lehigh type bullets show considerable promise.
I might point out the difference between eventual death by exsanguination and nearly instantaneous incapacitation by CNS disruption.
The solid bullets mentioned above would have an advantage in this respect.
On October 4, 2022 at 1:32 pm, =TW= said:
^^ Edit: Speer Lawman 200 gr. TMJ RNFP at 975 FPS.