Good Shot, Wrong Ammo?

[APLP]

Originally Posted by Psywar1-0

As to the ammo any low weight bullet loaded to near proof round energy will give you shredding.

Please expound on what it is you are trying to state with respect to the Le Mas ammo, and if you will, be specific.

Stan

[Psywar1-0]

Originally Posted by APLP

Please expound on what it is you are trying to state with respect to the Le Mas ammo, and if you will, be specific.

Stan

What I am trying to state is that if you take a lightweight bullet, 45 grains just for discussion purposes, and put enough powder behind it to make it move 1K more fps than the average military 556 round, your going to have a round that is either nearing, or exceeds what is considered a proof round. You are going to have a horrendous wound, one that is very impressive to the eye. Especially if the shooter has not ever seen the effect of non milspec bullets on living tissue.

Also your going to significantly shorten the life of certain parts of the weapon. Air Force CATAM's using DoD approved Frangible ammo have reported throat errosion gauge failures at as early as 1500-2000rounds on M4's. I am not trying to say your ammo is frangible, just that it shares having a light weight bullet and high velocitys, and that is very hard on M4 barrels.

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by Psywar1-0

What I am trying to state is that if you take a lightweight bullet, 45 grains just for discussion purposes, and put enough powder behind it to make it move 1K more fps than the average military 556 round, your going to have a round that is either nearing, or exceeds what is considered a proof round. You are going to have a horrendous wound, one that is very impressive to the eye. Especially if the shooter has not ever seen the effect of non milspec bullets on living tissue.

Also your going to significantly shorten the life of certain parts of the weapon. Air Force CATAM's using DoD approved Frangible ammo have reported throat errosion gauge failures at as early as 1500-2000rounds on M4's. I am not trying to say your ammo is frangible, just that it shares having a light weight bullet and high velocitys, and that is very hard on M4 barrels.

Since we are having a professional discussion, and no one is taking this personally, I will add this.

I am not a ballistician, but I have stayed in s Holiday Inn Express before, and fired hundreds of thousands of rounds through an assortment of small arms. I have personally fired more than 1,000 rounds of the LeMas. I have never seen any excessive pressure signs in any of the LeMas cases, and I have looked at a lot of them. Do you have documented evidence of excessive pressure, especially if it was tested by a strain gauge at an approved testing lab, or is this anectdotal commentary?

TR

[Psywar1-0]

TR,

I have read 2 reports, one from Quantico and another from McDill regarding this ammo. I do not have copies to refrence, nor could I refrence them here on this site.

[APLP]

Originally Posted by Psywar1-0

What I am trying to state is that if you take a lightweight bullet, 45 grains just for discussion purposes, and put enough powder behind it to make it move 1K more fps than the average military 556 round, your going to have a round that is either nearing, or exceeds what is considered a proof round. You are going to have a horrendous wound, one that is very impressive to the eye. Especially if the shooter has not ever seen the effect of non milspec bullets on living tissue.

Also your going to significantly shorten the life of certain parts of the weapon. Air Force CATAM's using DoD approved Frangible ammo have reported throat errosion gauge failures at as early as 1500-2000rounds on M4's. I am not trying to say your ammo is frangible, just that it shares having a light weight bullet and high velocitys, and that is very hard on M4 barrels.

Generic 5.56 NATO LW Short barrel

10.5 inch 1/7 twist 3025fps
12.0 inch 1/7 twist 3400fps
14.5 inch 1/7 twist 3450fps
------------------------------------
16.0 inch 1/7 twist 3650fps
20.0 inch 1/7 twist 3875pfs
------------------------------------

The Short barrel LW round is not designed to be fired from any 1/7 twist barrel longer than 14.5 inches. The design limit for the LW bullet from a 1/7 twist barrel is 3650fps. To fire the LW Short barrel 5.56 ammunition in any 1/7 twist barrel longer than 14.5 inches is contrary to product guidelines Le Mas Ltd. provides to its clients. To pressure test the Short barrel 5.56 LW ammunition in a non ported 1/7 twist barrel longer than 14.5 inches is stupid. To then publish such data is very stupid.


Generic 5.56 NATO LW Long barrel

10.5 inch 1/7 twist 2725fps
12.0 inch 1/7 twist 2850fps
14.5 inch 1/7 twist 325fps
16.0 inch 1/7 twist 3475fps
20.0 inch 1/7 twist 3600fps

Generic 7.62x51 LW
16.0 inch 1/10 twist 2950fps
20.0 inch 1/10 twist 3200fps
26 inch 1/10 twist 3450fps

Very doubtful that any human being could survive a bare thoracic cavity impact from the Le Mas 7.62x51 LW bullet, period.

[swatsurgeon]

I will say from a ballistics and chest surgery perspective, it is entirely possible that the .308 round hit only soft tissue and exited the chest cavity both intact and with little loss of kinetic energy. I recently had a .270 round go through a patient that left a nice permanent cavity through anterior (front of chest) intercostal muscle, lung and out posteriorly though intercostal muscle...never hit bone and when I operated for bleeding there was a symmetrical hole in the lung, no bullae (changes to the lung tissue c/w a blast type injury/overpressurization). The damage was underwhelming and the patient did well.
The LeMas rounds we fired into the hog chest cavity: some also did not hit a rib and the previously posted pictures speak for themselves: massive tissue damage both to the lungs and heart. Would not have made it if it took 10 minutes to get in the operating room....would have been dead long before getting to it.

So the moral of the story (without first hand knowledge from the operative surgeon or coroner) is theat the round was 1) poor choice of targets...head would have been a primary with his hand on a "detonator" rather than a chest shot, 2) ammo choice: a round that offers a maximum amount of tissue injury regardless if it hit bone to begin its energy dump, tumbling, fragmentation, etc, like the LeMas round could potentially cause enough physiologic and anatomic injury to incapacitate extremely quickly would have been a good second choice if the head shot was not feasible.

ss

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by Psywar1-0

TR,

I have read 2 reports, one from Quantico and another from McDill regarding this ammo. I do not have copies to refrence, nor could I refrence them here on this site.

I suspect that both reports came from the same source and neither involved the use of the right weapon and ammo with the appropriate instrumentation to establish the actual chamber pressure in c.u.p. or p.s.i.

Writing a report is one thing. Writing an accurate one is another matter altogether.

Again, nothing personal, not attacking your integrity here. I am just tired of people repeating the same info from the same single source with little in the way of scientific testing or methodology. Love to see something from an accredited source, like HP White Labs, or even Crane, firing the right ammo in the right weapon under valid test conditions.

TR

[Razor]

I've never handled LeMas ammo before. How "lightweight" is the .45 round?

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by Razor

I've never handled LeMas ammo before. How "lightweight" is the .45 round?

Last ones I shot were in the 90 grain range, making 2300-2500 fps from a pistol.

You can easily feel the difference. A mag of them feels almost unloaded.

TR

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by Razor

I've never handled LeMas ammo before. How "lightweight" is the .45 round?

Ever held a .45 snap-cap?

It's light!

[Psywar1-0]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

I suspect that both reports came from the same source and neither involved the use of the right weapon and ammo with the appropriate instrumentation to establish the actual chamber pressure in c.u.p. or p.s.i.

Writing a report is one thing. Writing an accurate one is another matter altogether.

Again, nothing personal, not attacking your integrity here. I am just tired of people repeating the same info from the same single source with little in the way of scientific testing or methodology. Love to see something from an accredited source, like HP White Labs, or even Crane, firing the right ammo in the right weapon under valid test conditions.

TR

So what exactly do you need to get HPW to do a test?

From my understanding, and that is mostly with armor, all it takes to get HPW to do a test is money. Companies that want to be able to bid on our body armor contracts pay to have their armor tested/certified, if and when it passes the test they can then submit that cert with their bid.

Companies know this and the cost of the tests, which I understand is a large ammount is just the cost of doing business.

[swatsurgeon]

So of course this all comes back to wound ballistics and the desired results of shooting someone:
1) injuring them so they 'should' survive
2) injuring them so they likely won't survive in the long run (alive to get to trauma center and have us try to save them)
3) incapacitating them so the 'threat' is neutralized (LEO world)
a) instantly/damn close to it; no further potential harm can be done by bad guy to self/LEO/public/etc. within seconds of being shot
b) not instantly...potential harm can still be done; pull trigger a few more times, push detonator button a few times, run around the corner/next room/etc. then collapse and die or be able to be resuscitated/operated on and live to see a court room/jail cell/etc.
4) killing them (military world)

So, shot placement, (rules of engagement), type of ammunition and desired/ordered outcome are all a factor. The combination of these 3 are beyond this response but let it be stated that shot placement and ammo type (caliber, characteristics, etc) are the 2 critical factors and the type of ammo can be a larger factor IF a less than ideal shot placement issue is presented to the shooter.
I have dealt with every part of the human body being shot and if you recall the handgun statistics I have posted in the past, only 62% of head shots end in the death of the person.....38% do not and that is with shot placement being right on, so ammo characteristics do make up for the rest of the potential. I don't have rifle stats......but I have to believe more 'should' be dying but I can not support that with data. If anyone has that data please share........

ss

[Odd Job]

Shot placement cannot be discussed only with reference to the position of the entrance wound as seen exteriorly. It has to be discussed with reference to the z axis of the barrel relative to the 3 anatomical planes of the body part that was hit, also. In short, it is more about the incident trajectory than the placement per se (unless you can specify placement with respect to an internal landmark)

For the target discussed in this thread, I would like to know:

1) The position of the entrance wound.
2) The exterior trajectory (muzzle to entrance wound) relative to the three anatomical planes of the thorax.
3) Whether there was any significant deviation of the bullet from its intended trajectory.

If you have points (1) and (2) in line with whatever protocol you are applying to the current target, and you can say no to point (3) then you can discuss ammunition variables because you have excluded sub-optimal placement.

In a case where (1) and/or (2) above are suboptimal, any consideration of point (3) becomes academic, as does any discussion about possible differences in the outcome of the shoot if different ammunition was used.

As for SS's statistic of 62% of head shots from handguns not being fatal, I haven't tried to calculate that percentage from the cases I have access to, but I agree based on experience that a similar number may be arrived at if I sift through the cases seen in the trauma units in South Africa.

However (and this is a big however), medical staff have a tendency to lump many gunshot wounds of the face in with the gunshot heads proper. They also include superficial and tangential injuries in their statistics. This all comes down to the trajectory again. It is very difficult to arrive at a 'clean' gunshot head statistic. Possibly the best way to get a pure head shot statistic would be to have a sample of gunshot heads that have been CTed, and derive the mortality percentage only from those cases where the inner table of the skull vault has been breached. That will exclude trivial injuries to the head and also composite injuries involving the head, neck and chest, where the head injury is trivial but the neck or chest injury is fatal. Of course the sample will have to include only single shots to the head area.

To give you an example of the difficulty in discussing 'head shots,' I had three interesting cases in my research, all labelled as gunshot heads by the triage team:

1) A penetrating gunshot wound where the skin breach was almost exactly between the eyes. An onlooker might say it was good placement. The projectile was deflected by the frontal bone inferiorly through the face and it lodged in the neck. There was no intracranial damage.

2) A penetrating gunshot wound where the skin breach was in the proximity of the angle of the mandible. There was no intracranial damage, but the projectile smashed facial structures, damaged the oesophagus, the right lung, diaphragm and liver. In the books it is a gunshot head, but the patient's most significant injury was to the chest and liver!

3) A contact rifle injury to the face (.303). Almost the entire face was removed. The patient was fully conscious and could squeeze my hand on command. There was no intracranial injury. The features of this injury were very similar to those of a previous case I have seen where an individual had a device explode in his face.

As for handgun vs rifle I also don't have enough cases to arrive at percentages, but I also suspect that the rifle injuries will be more likely to be fatal (if you consider all ammunition types, not just ball).

[swatsurgeon]

As Odd Job stated, the trajectory really tells the story, not just the external shot placement. It would be a great advancement in the world of wound ballistics if the majority of GSWs could have a 64 slice CT scan with 3-D reconstructions to facilitate trajectory mapping. This is my issue with the FBI ballistics lab. Other scandinavian countries are using information from:
-animal testing (live tisue ballistic hits)
- computer modeling
- autopsy data
- surgical/trauma surgeon records
- scene/gun/officer/witness information
- gel tests
They take all of this information for a type of ammunition and let it tell a story. We are trapped in antiquity with the current FBI lab method of wound ballistic "science", actually, pseudo-science in the world of scientific analysis.

Odd job, we need to change the world of american wound ballistics, up for some fun?? This is the genesis of the LeMas controversy: inadequate testing by the 'authorities' on wound ballistics of this type of ammo. Gel does not equal wound ballistics...it is merely a piece of information and far from the entire scope of information.

Back to the case at hand. Odd job, I'll see if the operative surgeon will share more information with me about the particulars of the case in the operating room.

Like I have posted, the LeMas ammo will cause significant injury adjacent to the primary trajectory (permanent cavity and somewhat of the temporary cavity of other bullet types) and has the 'potential' to cause a more severe injury as compared to other commercially available ammo.

ss

[Odd Job]

@ SS

I agree on the CT, definitely. It would make trajectory mapping very useful.
In the US you are ideally placed to get the right data: in South Africa I had gunshot numbers but we couldn't CT them all and in the UK they all get CTed but there aren't sufficient numbers. I've only seen about 4 or 5 all the time I have been here.

LeMas: I have to keep away from that topic. I've turned it this way and that way in my mind and each way I try to come at it, there are.....issues..
I hope all you gents will understand (for the sake of peace) if I don't comment at all about LeMas ammunition, its manufacturer, agents, sponsors or other parties with a vested interest.
I have set a narrow lane for myself on this board and I intend to keep to it.