pellets guns are lethal too (duh...)

E

Evil Monkey

New member
I found this and thought it was very interesting. It doesn't take much for projectile weapons to kill. These pellet guns are generating around 10-30 joules of energy and can penetrate upwards of 6 inches!!:eek: For reference, 25acp from a 2-3in barrel generates 80-100joules of energy.

http://www.brassfetcher.com/Brass Fetcher Evaluates 0.177 and 0.22 inch airguns.pdf

pellet guns can definitely hit vital organs. Pretty obvious to some but I've never really focused on pellet guns before.
 
Every so often somebody posts threads here about people being killed or seriously wounded with BB and pellet guns. High velocity projectiles are dangerous, regardless of how they are launched.
 
My .22 pellet rifle will shoot clean through a cardboard box filled with newspaper. Not that impressive, but still a bit of a wake up call.
 
sometime I question ballistics gel....

how is it that a pellet generating around 20-30joules of energy and an absolute garbage sectional density can penetrate 5-7 inches, yet a 135gr 40sw hollow point generating over 500joules struggles to reach 10 inches of penetration?:confused:
 
probably 20+ years ago, the son of a police chief in one of the smaller towns northeast of here was on his bike, and a handful of punks that had been harassing him shot him with a high power pellet gun with a bb in it.


It hit this kid in the jugular vein, and the BB was pushed straight to his heart. They left it in there, as it made no sense to go after it. I suspect that by this time, it has dissolved away.

Is there any punishment appropriate for shooting a cop's family members?
 
Is there any punishment appropriate for shooting a cop's family members?
Click to expand...

Probably the same punishment appropriate for shooting anybody's family members. :rolleyes:

As for the OP...
The projectile generally doesn't care how it is launched. Be it a fast burning powder, a liquid fuel, or just compressed air, the principle is the same- high pressure behind the projectile accelerating it to dangerous speeds.

Sure, a pellet isn't that big, but as we keep preaching, it's all about placement. That kind of thing can be lethal in the right spot... I have an air rifle that the maker says will drive a .177 pellet at 750fps... that's not real far off the muzzle velocity of some handguns. Definitely something one wants to be careful with.
 
I've killed many small animals with pump bb guns, even grouse and pheasant. Hitting a human in the jugular with a bb is most likely to cause some damage. .177 pellets do even worse.
 
The son of a woman I know accidently shot his little sister directly in the heart with a pellet rifle. She died on the way to the hospital.

My son won't get a pellet gun until I'm completely confident in his gun safety practices.
 
Any high speed projectile is dangerous. I have an Echo PAS-265 split shaft power head that takes many attachments like string trimmer, edger, tiller, pole saw, etc. The most dangerous one, IMHO is the string trimmer. It can and does launch small stones at high enough speeds to break skin and I'm sure there are folks out there that have lost an eye to them. I don't know of anyone killed by a string trimmer but the same principles of physics apply to a BB and a stone.

My wife, thankfully, cleared the kids out of the area on a side hill she was mowing near the house. She hit a stone that is still stuck in the hole it punched through the aluminum flashing along the edge of the roof. Thank the Lord it happened after she chased the kids out of there...

I too have taken squirrels and other small animals with a pellet gun. Some of them are now up to 1100+ FPS as I recall.

OK, I went and did a search. Holy Cow, a lot faster than I recalled.

This is from the Benjamin Trail NP XL


"Quiet power...something you don't usually find in a spring gun. 1500 fps with lead-free pellets."
 
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My boy won't get a BB gun until he is totally competent handling a "real" firearm.

I feel the reason for so many accidents with these guns is that parents set their children loose with them thinking "they are just a toy".

LMAO When I got my first Red Ryder, I shot a metal coffee can and it bounced back and hit me in the eyelid. "You'll shoot your eye out kid!" Luckily they are weak guns and it just left a bruise.
 
Modern pellet rifles

Gentilmen,
There are "Pre-charged Pneumantic Air Rifles" that are .45 Cal. and shot a 0.45 Caliber hour-glass shaped pellets that weigh 150 gr. at about 750 to 800feet-per-second. They are expensive though a whole set-up for about $900.00 U.S. Dollars. This puts these large bore pellet rifles in the power rang of a .38Special pistol.

J.Budd
 
how is it that a pellet generating around 20-30joules of energy and an absolute garbage sectional density can penetrate 5-7 inches, yet a 135gr 40sw hollow point generating over 500joules struggles to reach 10 inches of penetration?
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A decent .40S&W self-defense loading will typically penetrate 12" or more.

Second, the pellet uses all of its energy penetrating--poking a pellet diameter hole in the target medium. None of it is used to create a large temporary cavity or to deform the projectile.

Also, the pellet has a very small forward surface area compared to the larger round, particularly after the larger round has expanded. An expanded .40S&W round will probably be close to 0.6" in diameter for a forward surface area of about 180 square mm while a .177 pellet has a forward surface area of only about 16 square mm.

A quick and unscientific comparison of the two using my made up "penetration index" (momentum divided by forward surface area) indicates that we might expect a 135gr .40 JHP at 1300fps that expands to 0.6" to out-penetrate an 8 grain pellet at 700fps by roughly a factor of 2.8.

If we assume that the .40S&W load in question will penetrate 12"-14" then my "penetration index" calculation suggests that we should expect the 8 grain pellet in question to penetrate 4"-5". That ignores the energy the .40S&W uses up in generating temporary cavity and deforming the projectile which would mean that we should probably expect the actual penetration figures for the pellet to be a little deeper than what was calculated.
 
I read an article a few years ago about airgun suicides in Britain. Seems the usual sub 12 ft/lb air rifle is powerful enough.

This shouldn't surprise anyone. 12 ft/lbs shoot right through small game.
 
John ksa, nice work.

A pellet at the speeds attained uses practically no energy destroying gelatin or itself. Almost all of that energy is used just slipping through gel, and it isn't that special to get 6 inches. popping a phillips head screwdriver into a block is practically the same thing and takes just as much energy in ft pounds.

a high velocity hollow point round expends most energy turning the jello into soup and no energy is left for driving forward. If you put that 40 s&w round into a 30 caliber blunt nosed design, you'd drive that high sectional density round that uses all of its energy displacing only the gel that is in its way 3 or 4 times deeper.

In penetration, several things matter.

HIgh sectional density, not only initial, but throughout penetration. Expanding rounds lose sectional density and penetration potential as soon as the point starts to deform.


Stability. A bullet that keyholes on impact goes from a high sectional density with great penetration potential to something that is worse than a BB. It can make a better wound, but we're talking about penetration, not larger wound.

Once you have those, penetration is going to go up in almost perfect ratio with velocity. Very little energy is going to be expended destroying "tissue" or gelatine. It will all be expended making a deep hole, and sometimes, that is what is needed, as opposed to violent tissue disruption.

You can destroy a prairie dog with a comparatively huge bullet, and penetration isn't an issue. You can kill an elephant by using great penetration with a bullet that is proportionally microscopic compared to a prairie dog round. Penetration is the key to an elephant, or practically anything bigger than a few pounds, because you simply can't create that explosive energy dump equivalent to a prairie dog hit.
 
I was at a flea market when some stupid kid about 12 years old shot a pellet into a puddle in an exactly line with me and him so that it could easily have ricocheted and hit me. I told him not to be firing that thing in a crowd of people like that because he could kill someone. He lined up the puddle with me and shot again deliberately. That kid doesn't have a clue how much I was tempted to draw my .45 and give him a new hole to think about. I didn't do it of course but I did call the police. About that time his dad showed up and once the kid had told him what happened they jumped in their truck and left. The stinking cops never did bother to show up.

Kids can be incredibly stupid at times. Parents think the new "toy" they just bought their kid is perfectly safe in his hands. Parents are incredibly stupid too. If I had been hit by a pellet I don't know if I could have resisted the urge to shoot back or not. I'd hate to kill anyone but when someone is shooting at you it's generally a good idea to shoot back. I should have taken the gun from him and give it a brand new bend between the receiver and the barrel by whacking him over the head with it.

I know I would have gone to prison if I had shot back and rightly so. But when someone is shooting at you the thoughts do go through your mind. They still do. That stupid kid could have easily killed me and he didn't have a clue. I could have lost an eye very easily too. What really irks me is that the sheriff never did show up. So much for protection by the LEO's in my county.
 
I have an old Sheridan pneumatic that I used to use a large chunk of wood behind my targets, because they would stick in the wood with just a few pumps. Max out the pumps and it would fully penetrate the wood. Not good, but rather a constant reminder that they were real weapons.
 
Learned something new

I had thought that the .177 was the better penetrator. I don't know where I got that from? Maybe an old Outdoor Life article?

The brassfetcher data you linked clearly shows the .22 to be the more consistent deeper penetrator.

Thanks for dispelling a misconception.
 
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