Man Shoots Himself Point-Blank To Test Bulletproof Vest

Yes you are right there about the diaphragm. The vest stops penetration, however the concussive force could result in organ rupture/damage. Even though the bullet has stopped it has expended all it’s energy at the surface. Though the vest helps somewhat to disperse this force, it is still considerable and the resulting shock waves could very well be lethal. Sometimes even something as weak as a baseball to the chest is sufficient in the right circumstances.

Stop here everyone if you’re only interested in the immediate subject at hand. The rest is not directly pertinent.

Ballistics is a fascinating subject. The more energy that a bullet expends within a body the more damage it does. In this way a small caliber bullet can sometimes do more damage than a large caliber. I stress sometimes, as there are many factors involved.

Say for instance a large fast moving projectile cuts neatly through a body. It’s moving so fast that very little of it’s energy is given up to the target it passes through. Effectively leaving a relatively small passage. The projectile still retains much of it’s energy, which will be expended on whatever else it hits after exiting.

However a small caliber slower moving projectile can expend all of it’s energy within the body. The concussive force is very damaging to surrounding tissue. Also slower projectiles will tend to ricochet off bones and even organs around the body cavity doing much more damage. The bullets potential to pass on it’s momentum energy is actually the most damaging part of a bullet. The bullet itself carves a rather small channel. It’s passing as much of its energy as it can to surrounding tissue that is the killer. Creating concussive waves in the tissue ruptures and destroys it.

That’s the innovation of hollow point ammunition for example. It spreads the inertial energy of the projectile inside the body by effectively peeling the projectile to pieces and spreading it’s energy over a larger area. Small hole going in, large hole coming out. Expending as much energy within the target as possible.

An example to be found in pop culture is when you see someone in a war movie observe when a projectile has gone “clean through”. As in “You’ll be ok it went clean through”, or something to that effect. (I’m doubtful sometimes that the writers are even aware of why this is said, or why it’s supposed to be a good indicator, it’s just something that they’ve heard is said during battles)

When the exit wound is aligned with the entrance wound, also when the exit wound is no larger than the entrance wound, that is “clean through”. (This rule of thumb was discovered early on by medics in warfare with guns) When the exit and entrance wounds are aligned that means the the bullet only traveled a straight path through the body, which means it stayed at relatively high velocity while passing through. This means that there was a minimum of potential energy deposited within the body as it passed through. Often times this is still plenty of energy to be lethal, but if the person is still alive after even a short period of time this could be an indicator that damage to the surrounding tissue was minimized.

Lower velocity projectiles will “wander”, for lack of a better term. Wandering means not taking a direct path, which means more loitering time within the body. The more time the projectile takes to exit the more energy it is expending in the body. The more energy it expends in the body will result in massive  damage to the tissue surrounding the path traveled. You wouldn’t need to hit a major organ in order to get a lethal reaction, the projectile merely needs to get close.

“Clean through” is a rule of thumb term which means that the bullet went through while expending the least amount of energy. As opposed to a bullet that penetrates and makes a mess of everything.

Oh dear, look at that I’m babbling on again. Sorry.