What were the terminal ballistics of the round ball fired from a smooth bore vs a minie ball? Has anyone ever seen or have a link or information on a comparison with ballistic gellatin?
Here is a link with some information, but I don’t see anything on it about terminal ballistics, just exterior ballistics such as MV, etc.
http://www.whitemuzzleloading.com/long_range_muzzleloading.htm
Any help at all on this would be appreciated. 
Dr. Fackler published several articles touching this topic, with WP illustrations of similar representative projectiles:
http://ammo.ar15.com/project/Fackler_Articles/Theodore_Kocher.pdf
also: http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/259/18/2730
Thanks, Doc.
‘The Evolution Of Wound Ballistics’ Pages 5-7 has some information about round balls and Minie balls…
http://www.bordeninstitute.army.mil/published_volumes/conventional_warfare/ch03.pdf
What were the terminal ballistics of the round ball fired from a smooth bore vs a minie ball? Has anyone ever seen or have a link or information on a comparison with ballistic gellatin?
The Minie ball, round ball and the later large bore metallic cartridge lead bullets, would flatten or mushroom after impact. I believe that the flattening of the bullet points may have been the primary reason for their effectiveness.
The much smaller diameter.303 British Dum Dum bullet was the first solution to the then new FMJ bullet’s ineffectiveness. I suspect that the Dum Dum design did not expand very much but that the flattening of the exposed lead point achieved the desired effectiveness. A modern test of any surviving original Dum Dum bullets would be very interesting.
Although this is nothing related to long arms, it is interesting to note that the Colt 1851 Navy revolver fired a .36 caliber round ball of almost the same weight and velocity as the .380 ACP 95 gr FMJ. I have read that many users considered the Colt Navy an effective military weapon. Perhaps the soft lead ball flattened somewhat at impact, contributing to its effectiveness. A modern test of these old .36 caliber balls would also be interesting.
That link was very useful, thank you.
Doc,
Was Prof Kocher’s work a direct and primary influence on Declaration III of the 1899 Hague Convention?
Clearly his collaboration with Col Rubin gave rise to the fully jacketed projectiles whose effect was obvious to the signatories. When considering the definitions and mechanisms of unnecessary suffering, however, did they refer to his work directly to update the sentiments of the '68 St Petersburg declaration? Did they refer to any contemporary medical literature or simply rely on their own humanitarian understanding of suffering?
The reason I ask is that any challenge to Hague will likely center around the agreed understanding of unnecessary suffering. How the original signatories came to understand suffering is therefore important.
Not all nations have a JAG with the (I believe your word is cojones?) to reconcile pragmatism with international protocol.
And thanks for the link, fascinating stuff.
Brett
While they don’t use original “dum dum” bullets, they come reasonably close for a reasonable person:
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot32.htm
While they don’t use original “dum dum” bullets, they come reasonably close for a reasonable person
Interesting test but those modified .30 M2 ball bullets were lighter than their original 150gr weight and were probably traveling at a much higher velocity than the 215gr .303 Dum Dum bullets fired from a Lee Metford or Enfield rifle.
A better duplication of the original .303 Dum Dum load would be a current .30caliber 220 gr softpoint loaded to about 2000 fps.
Possibly the most famous photo from Gettysburg - The Gettysburg Sniper
Great photo, but too bad the photographer staged the shot using the corpse and the gun.
True.
The sniper wasnt shot in his hide, but was drug back for the photo.
Interesting investigation regarding the photo in question: http://www.jamescgroves.com/henry/hcp1a.htm.
Great link, Doc.
Here’s an unposed shot of a dead soldier from Gettysburg, though the rifle across his knees was put there by the photographer. This one had his chest ripped open by a shell and his face and other parts are now bloated from the heat of the July sun. Sometimes the dead would swell up twice their ordinary size and the faces would blacken, the eyes bulge, and the mouths turn into something resembling Gumby’s. If you look closely at the face, you can see this starting to happen. You can also see his severed hand lying near his legs.
The smell must have been thick enough to climb.
That picture serves to show just how little glory there is in war.
War to me is a necessary evil that is preferrable to a more horrific alternative.
That is the only thing it can be.
True. On the subject of the extreme disillusionment Civil War soldiers experienced, given their prewar ideals of glory, a great book is Gerald F. Linderman’s Embattled Courage.
An additional comment on the photo above is that there was even nastier things witnessed by the Marines in the Pacific in WWII. If you have seen WWII in HD, then you have seen shots of the dead at Tarawa–an even more grisly scene than that above from the Civil War.