2 shots center mass from .45 acp story

[Moloch]

Shoot the throat! If you hit the throat veins he will be dead in seconds.
I've heard that the brain needs about 30% of the entire blood in the body, and this blood is delivered by the throath vines.
Its soft tissue no bones ar anything, with a good JHP you will put any attacker down.
And if you miss the vines you will hit the neck.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

I was told once that a sniper will aim for a spot just below the nose and that will shut off a man like a light switch.

Then you were told by a person who enjoys blatant over-simplification or has an amazingly poor understanding of terminal ballistics.

That magical spot below the nose could be cut out with a knife, hit with a fist, or shot from the side and not produce the desired result. Why? It isn't the spot under the nose that is relevant.

The magic spot under the nose is meant as an aim point to produce a shot that will strike the top of the spinal chord or bottom of the brain stem. For this to happen, the shot needs to be impacting level or with a slight downward angle and needs to shot from a location where the target is oriented such that there is perfect alignment between the sniper bullet's path, that magic spot, and the brain stem or spinal chord. Note the that target has to be completely vertical, right side up or down, for this to happen. If the target is leaning to any side, the impact location needed to produce the brain stem/spinal chord shot will have to change. Upon striking the magic spot under the nose, the bullet's will need to remain true and not alter course as it passes through skin, the premaxilla, maxialla, pallate, soft pallate and other connective tissue before passing through the sphenoid to impact the brain stem or below to the spenoid to pass through the atlas or axis vertebrae to hit the top of the spinal chord.

How would this be accomplished to get the correct direction of penetration from the spot under the nose to his the lower brain stem/upper spinal chord? The shot w ould need to be a close range shot with a flat trajectory or a long range shot where the shooter is on a lower plane than the target's spot belong the nose such that as the bullet arcs through its trajectory it would enter and pass straight back as would happen with a close range flat trajectory shot.

Could this happen? Sure, but it is remarkably difficult to aim at an exterior feature with hopes that it will then impact the necessary internal small structure after passing through various types of hard and soft tissue and not be deflected off course.

 

[riverrat66]

Then you were told by a person who enjoys blatant over-simplification or has an amazingly poor understanding of terminal ballistics.

Just exactly what is your point? I only stated a fact for what I knew it to be but as usual someone has to find fault with what someone says and humble us all with their superior knowledge and wisdom all for the sake of inflating their own ego. So I guess I should stand corrected.

After reading all that mumbo jumbo that you obviously copy & pasted, how am I to know that it is indeed correct or just the opinion of someone who enjoys a blatant over-simplification or an amazingly poor understanding of terminal ballistics.

That magical spot below the nose could be cut out with a knife, hit with a fist, or shot from the side and not produce the desired result. Why? It isn't the spot under the nose that is relevant.

I could kick you in the balls and not produce the desired result also but I'm not going to write 10 paragraphs on why it should be a straight on kick and not a glancing blow yada, yada, yada.

BTW, my source of information was a program on The History Channel about snipers and they did not go into detail only that they mentioned the shot placement to "shut a man off like a light switch". Sorry.

 

[Mikeyboy]

That is the way the bullet bounces. Again I got to bring up the Trooper Coats incident (If you don't know the full story do a forum search). The BG was hit FIVE TIMES in the COM with a .357 rounds, was still able to return fire at least for a short time and was still very coherent when other troopers arrived. Meanwhile Trooper Coats got hit with one unlucky .22 round, and he died. I would take increased capacity over caliber anyday.

 

[Don H]

Anyone ever fractured a bone? Tell me that didn't hurt.

Fractured pelvis in 3 places and plateau fracture of the tibia. Didn't hurt a bit at the time. I was talking coherently with others at the scene and moved myself into a more comfortable position (needed help with my legs).

 

[the_oklahombre]

RiverRat+1

 

[riverrat66]

Fractured pelvis in 3 places and plateau fracture of the tibia. Didn't hurt a bit at the time.

I'll bet it hurt the next day! But really you're talking apples to oranges. I worked with a guy who fell off a scaffold 30' onto a concrete floor and broke his pelvis, arm and lots of other stuff and didn't feel a thing. I put him in my car and drove him to the hospital but stopped for a six pack of beer on the way! I think someone goes into shock when suffering an injury like that. Try this, take a 24oz. hammer and place your hand on a steel beam then hit your hand with that hammer as hard as you can. I'll bet it will hurt like hell! But yet I saw a guy shot by a sniper and the bullet took off the tips off all four fingers down to the knuckles and it hardly even hurt. Sometimes I think the guys who were screaming the loudest were actually afraid of dying and not really in that much pain.

I remember once this guy had been shot seriously and was screaming pretty loudly and this cherry 1st Lieutenant says to "shut that guy up, he's giving away our position" and I said, "Lieutenant, Charlie already knows exactly where we are!" Boy did I make his sh*t list.

 

[Niantician]

I've never been shot but I've had shrapnel tear apart my cheek and jaw. The only thing I felt was the warmth of blood running down my body. On the other hand I once cut my finger while chopping onions and passed out. Addreneline is better than morphine!!

 

[riverrat66]

I've never been shot but I've had shrapnel tear apart my cheek and jaw. The only thing I felt was the warmth of blood running down my body.

Same-same

"Adrenaline is better than morphine!!" Amen to that!

 

[bclark1]

yea i've had some pretty good injuries (broken bones, wood beam to the head, needed most of a finger reattached once) that i've been okay with, a lot of blood but no panic, just get myself to the ER. to indycolt's point as well, car wrecks are a "good" place to see this. i happened to be first-on at a pretty bad one a few months back, 80+mph roll, and one guy got thrown. he refused to acknowledge that he was spaghetti from the waist down and was flaming pissed at me for trying to keep him from moving, he wanted to walk it off. i don't know if a gunshot's the same, but i'd say weirder things have happened than someone quite suddenly reconsidering when they realize deadly force is being employed against them. different people will respond to trauma in different ways.

 

[Moloch]

Anyone ever fractured a bone? Tell me that didn't hurt.

Crashed with my bike into a tree, left elbow bone shattered into more than 12small pieces and 2 fingers on my left arm were broken 4 times . Didn't hurt, I was able to drive more than 2 miles to the car while driving with both arms. I thought I have big bad bruises but at the hospital it started to hurt and sting. A LOT.

 

[Varmint Eviscerator]

Riverrat, could you elaborate??? Secondly My first hunt was with an 06 and I got to pick my own ammo- I picked hornady high energy loads-180grn goin 2950+fps
Well I thought I was going to do some long range shooting- buck that weighed 168lbs came to about 180yrds of my blind and I nailed him. His back legs collapsed and his front right leg stepped over to the left side to counter the "impact" or so it seemed, there is definitly "impact" pr "knock down" power, I had a cci velocitor ("wimpy" 22lr that moves a 40grn gold dot hp at 1435fps) With this load I shot a grey squirrel that weighed an honest to god 7lbs! When the shot hit it knocked him off his perch with pronounced authority!
BTW while a pistol round is nothing to scoff at it lacks the impact energy or inertia to really "baseball bat him"
Chase

 

[Odd Job]

@ moloch

Shoot the throat! If you hit the throat veins he will be dead in seconds.

I'm afraid that's not true. Firstly the venous return is not as critical as the arterial supply. Secondly the arterial supply is duplicated on the left and right side of the neck (the carotid and vertebral arteries are in pairs and there is intracerebral crossover). Even if you nail one of those arteries, you have no guarantee that you will stop the guy at all. I have seen many guys come to hospital with damaged neck vessels and most of them have been in good enough condition to go for an angiogram before going to theatre for repair. By the way, damaging a vertebral artery high up in the neck is almost certainly going to involve damaging the spine, but whether the spinal cord is involved depends on deflection and the angle of incidence of the bullet relative to the person's neck.
One thing that should be made a 'mental sticky' in everyobody's mind is that it takes time to bleed to death. Even if you sever the aorta don't think he will drop just like that: he has time to draw and shoot if he is willing and otherwise able.

 

[riverrat66]

could you elaborate???

I'd be glad to but on what should I elaborate?

Odd Job wrote:
One thing that should be made a 'mental sticky' in everybody's mind is that it takes time to bleed to death. Even if you sever the aorta don't think he will drop just like that: he has time to draw and shoot if he is willing and otherwise able.

+1 That's precisely the reason for my "shut him off like a light switch" comment.

 

[Dre_sa]

the REAL moral of the story

from all that has been discussed, i have concluded one thing;

pistols should not be considered deadly force, as this implies that anyone that is shot with a pistol will die.
rather, lets call it potentially lethal force. this implies that a person shot with a pistol will have the potential of dying.

from all the evidence supplied, one could assume that you'd have to be pretty lucky to get much of an effect out of a pistol.

 

[Niantician]

dre sa NO! That's the "wrongest" opinion I've ever seen on this site

 

[shield20]

"Deadly physical force" is usually defined as "readily capable of causing death OR serious physical injury"...pistols definetly meet that criteria (especially if you carry something bigger then 9mm! )

 

[choochboost]

I have a .45 acp, and I've assumed it would 'put somebody down'.

Probably the biggest myth related to handguns is that a certain caliber/pistol/ammo will "stop" someone or "put them down". No matter what caliber/pistol/ammo you have, keep shooting until they are no longer a threat.

 

[OneInTheChamber]

Anyone ever fractured a bone? Tell me that didn't hurt.

When I had a compound fracture of my femur, I didn't even realize it until they cut my pants off; I was complaining from the pain of a small fracture in the tibia (which is below the femur, the femur being your "thigh" bone).

I think part of the thing that lets people continue to fight is that they feel they are fighting for their life; which tends to make one overlook any external circumstances. I can attest that during motocross races I have been hurt in a crash, remounted the bike, finished the race, and only then realized the severity of the injury (most of the time by the blood that has bonded my ________ (insert body area) to my clothes. I would bet the feeling is magnified a 100 times when you have lead coming your direction.

 

[riverrat66]

Quote of the Day

OneInTheChamber,

Quote of the Day by ian garbe

Adrenaline is better than morphine!!

It can't be said any better than that!