I took care of a patient several nights ago who suffered a through and through gunshot wound to the right thigh after he was “changing a pistol grip on my AR15”. He leaned the muzzle against his right thigh and the gun discharged. He shattered his right femur (and couldn’t walk), but had almost zero blood loss and the exit wound was about 1 inch in diameter. He really wasn’t in much pain initially. This proves several points…
The .223 is a serious round up close (this guy was almost 300lbs and had a huge leg that was just mangled inside)
Gunshots aren’t like the movies…he hardly bled and was in stable condition…He could have easily continued to fight/kill.
FMJ sucks for self defense…I feel that a dedicated self defense round (that dumped more energy) wound have taken most of this guy’s leg off and caused some serious vascular damage
I hope he learned his lesson. I bet that recovery is going to suck, especially since it sounds like he’s not the healthiest individual to begin with.
Sounds like there was some amount of luck involved, with respect to the minimal blood loss. I’m no doctor, but I recall there being at least one pretty important artery in each leg… FMJ might not be the best round for self defense, but it could still be lethal.
4 simple rules… amazing how many people just don’t care.
The relevant scientific literature over the last twenty years from actual experts in the field of terminal ballistics has shown that “energy transfer” is not a wounding mechanism for small arms fire.
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE WOUND BALLISTICS LITERATURE, AND WHY
by M.L. Fackler, M.D.
Letterman Army Institute of Research
Division of Military Trauma Research
Presidio of San Francisco, California 94219
Institute Report No. 239
The “Shock Wave” Myth
By Dr. Martin Fackler
Wound Ballistics Review, Winter 1991 and the Journal of Trauma, (29[10]: 1455, 1989).
Ballistic Injury
By Dr. Martin Fackler
Annals of Emergency Medicine, December 1986
Bullet Penetration
By Duncan MacPherson
Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness
By Special Agent Urey W. Patrick
Firearms Training Unit
FBI Academy
This just goes to show that there is huge variable performance in ball ammo. FMJ is like a box of chocolates you never know what you’re gonna get. You can get lucky like the gentleman posted above or you can end up like this guy:
Yup. You can also get shot in the thigh with M193 and walk into the clinic without even a limp and return to duty in a few days.
Fackler, ML: “Literature Review”. Wound Ballistics Review; 5(2):40, Fall 2001
“In 1980, I treated a soldier shot accidentally with an M16 M193 bullet from a distance of about ten feet. The bullet entered his left thigh and traveled obliquely upward. It exited after passing through about 11 inches of muscle.
The man walked in to my clinic with no limp whatsoever: the entrance and exit holes were about 4 mm across, and punctate. X-ray films showed intact bones, no bullet fragments, and no evidence of significant tissue disruption caused by the bullet’s temporary cavity.
The bullet path passed well lateral to the femoral vessels. He was back on duty in a few days. Devastating? Hardly. The wound profile of the M193 bullet (page 29 of the Emergency War Surgery—NATO Handbook, GPO, Washington, D.C., 1988) shows that most often the bullet travels about five inches through flesh before beginning significant yaw. But about 15% of the time, it travels much farther than that before yawing—in which case it causes even milder wounds, if it missed bones, guts, lung, and major blood vessels. In my experience and research, at least as many M16 users in Vietnam concluded that it produced unacceptably minimal, rather than “massive”, wounds.
After viewing the wound profile, recall that the Vietnamese were small people, and generally very slim. Many M16 bullets passed through their torsos traveling mostly point forward, and caused minimal damage. Most shots piercing an extremity, even in the heavier-built Americans, unless they hit bone, caused no more damage than a 22 caliber rimfire bullet.”
I don’t have illustrations or bibliographies for documentation, but last week, I was at a social event with a Marine who had returned from two tours in the desert. When I led the conversation to m4’s, he said he did not understand the fervor in States for the 556 round. He insisted it would not do the job. He said he personally placed rounds in the heads of combatants only to have them continue fighting or running away. He said the 762 met his needs but if given a choice he would prefer the M14. I’m familiar with the pros & cons of that system. Top of mind is weight and limited rounds capacity.
This falls into the “I have to see it to believe it” category…I’ve personally seen 5.56 take a 580lb guys leg off when he was hit in the knee…granted this was under 50 yards, but I don’t buy the “I hit a 90lb guy in the head w/ 5.56 and he just laughed at me”…deer hunters say the same thing about 308. I think most of the time they missed the deer that “I shot broadside and he just ran away”. They usually say this after buying 300 win mag for white tail.
The problem with anecdotes is it takes one, or a couple interactions into account. Hunt for a while and you realize each animal reacts differently. Same with people. One might collapse from a non-fatal chest wound from a pistol. Another will take multiple fatal rifle rounds to the chest and keep fighting for a few seconds.
Thats why scientific gel data, and police shooting data is needed to find out what you can really expect. These also have confirmed hits. A person overseas might believe a good hit, but without an autopsy you don’t really know what the bullet did.
More like this marine missed entirely and blames the round. I highly doubt he got multiple ineffective headshots. I mean he couldn’t have possibly missed since every marine is a rifleman right? :rolleyes:
APA is the only legit method unless you’re a damn commie studying basket-weaving.
That said, regarding the OP, I don’t see how a controlled expanding round would have done more than “mangle the leg inside”, “leave a 1” exit wound", and “break the femur”. I’m not saying FMJ is good, I’m just saying that that is exceptional performance, given the shot placement, regardless of the projectile.
I actually prefer APA Style (American Psychotic Association).:lol: