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Going to the gun range made me think: What causes worse injury, a gun or a knife?
If the same person were to be either a) stabbed or b) shot, in the exact same area of the body, which injury would likely cause more damage, the gun wound or the knife wound?
I would assume that the bullet would either go all the way through the body, or lodge in it. The knife would be pushed in and then pulled back out. The bullet would be an \”ordinary\” round, not a fragmentation round or one made to cause excessive damage.
The knife wound would be narrower, but would pulling it out cause more bleeding than the bullet, which would go straight through? The bullet might hit with greater velocity, would the added speed cause greater damage?
Anyone know the differences?
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GiantkillerThe added speed of the bullet would cause more damage. Of course, a lot depends on the size, weight, velocity etc as to the amount of damage.
Unless death is the end result in both scenarios, then they seem pretty equal.
Penetrating trauma
As a bullet travels through a soft fleshy (mostly water) body, it causes two different types of trauma. The first one is whats known as a permanent wound cavity, this is the physical path of destruction that the projectile causes as it travels. The second source of trauma is the temporary stretch cavity that is caused by the hydrostatic shock of the displaced fluids in reaction the the energy of the projectile as it passes through said fleshy body. Example; while shooting small furry animals with a handgun, a clear entrance and a clear exit hole are apparent, but unimpressive (even with the good old .45 ACP). However, when shooting those same varmints with a small caliber, high velocity rifle, a general \”turning inside out\” was noticed. This is because said varmints furry little body could not handle the hydrostatic shock, it literally blew them apart. This is also why velocity tends to trump diameter in rifles, and vice versa in pistols. Pistol rounds generally (with very few high tech exeptions) can not generate enough velocity to be as devastating as rifle rounds. If you can’t go fast, you should go big. Both would be great, but then we run into portability and controllability issues. As far as rounds that are made to cause excessive damage?????? Too much TV going on there….Hollowpoints (I have to assume this is what you mean) simply take advantage of the hydrostatic pressure and \”open up\” a little wider than normal. Very useful (when they do not get clogged with clothing and fail to open), but hardly something that is going to throw the victim through a plateglass window and send them cartwheeling down main street as they bleed out.
A penetrating knife wound has a very narrow permanent wound channel and a no temporary stretch. All of the homicide victims via stabbing that I have seen were stabbed multiple times. This is because unless you get the pump or an artery right away, it takes a while for the leaks to cause the machine to stop.
Hope this was helpful. BTW, isn’t it great that we live in a country that trusts it’s Citizens to go to a shooting range? If any of you are more interested in this type of thing, go see your local Armed Forces recruiter. They can send you to a place with some great on the job training.
Great response, Jeremy!
Thanks for the \”on the job\” offer, but I think I will stay put for now, the NTC needs my lethal skills right here… 🙂
So if speed is a big factor, would it make a difference from what distance a person was shot? Let’s say someone was shot at point blank range compared to a bullet flying a hundred feet before impact? Would the bullet that has travelled further have lost velocity and therefore have become less destructive?
Also, why are bullets shot from rifles faster? Because of the longer barrel?
As far as bleeding is concerned, would a shooting wound generally bleed less than a knife wound? Or about the same?
As far as special bullets, I remember reading some links on some other thread posted here about \”fragmentation rounds\”, bullets that cause specific damage (because I believe they break up and \”explode\” into different directions as they enter the body). But maybe that was concerning rifles, not handguns.
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GiantkillerTrauma
Brent, why on earth would it be innapropriate to laugh at that? What’s next, I can’t laugh after I punch someone in the groin and watch them writhe in agony? I think the Westside touchy-feeley vibe is finally getting to you!
Let me clear up some points. Theoretically, a projectile does lose velocity shortly after leaving the barrel of the firearm. As a practical matter, it is inconsequential. Your ability to actually engage the target will let you down before the projectile does. However, as a purely theoretical exercise, if you were to shoot two insurgent assholes with the same rifle, and the same ammo, but one of them was, say at least ten percent further away, then the round would hit with less energy, and hence, less temporary stretch cavity. Come to think of it, this sounds like a swell test. It almost makes me want to go back to the sandbox (purely in the name of science).
Projectiles fired from rifles travel faster because the cartridge case (the shiny tubular brass colored thingy) holds more propellant in relation to the mass of the actual projectile. More propellant equals a faster projectile. The type of propellant and the rate at which it burns (yes, that’s right, it BURNS, it does not EXPLODE) also play a role, but thats getting into a bit much detail for this forum. The longer barrel plays a smaller role, as a rifle bullet fired from a pistol length barrel is still much faster than a pistol bullet fired from a rifle barrel.
As far as bleeding goes, any self defense sized pistol round (say 9MM or larger) will generally cause more trauma than a knife (see last post). That being said, there are always exceptions. Say, for instance, sword attacks, which could sever a limb and cause quite a bit of blood loss and associated discomfort.
Fragmentation rounds are a figment of the Medias imagination. Any round (even plain, boring ball projectiles) can fragment when subjected to the hydrostatic pressure of a human body. This myth was blown way out of proportion when the \”Black Talon\” craze hit the nation in the wake of the Long Island subway attacks in the early 90’s. We had hypocritical asshole Doctors saying that the ammo should be banned because all of these \”deadly talon fragments\” made it impossible to do their job. I say hypocritical, because more people are killed every year due to Medical malpractice than bullet fragments. Can a bullet fragment and cause a secondary wound cavity? Absolutely. Does it usually happen? No. Even after striking bone, most projectiles stay intact (deformed, but intact).
There are many good resources out there if you have any more questions, Dr. Martin Fackler has done good work, and so have some others.
GK, I’ve seen people get stabbed numerous times and be very lucky. I’ve seen people get stabbed once and D.O.A.. This hold true to gun shot wounds also. Where the paths of those projectile takes is still not a good thing in your body. As Strafford so nicely informed us with a touch projectile ballisticts, it’s all realitive to each situation, individual, gun, knife. I think when it comes down to it you really don’t want either one!
This is probably a total \”planet hollywood\” thing, but I remember being impressed by a section of the novel \”The Day of the Jackal\” by Frederick Forsyth when I was in high school (far to long ago).
The passage detailed how the assasin character in the novel took hollow point bullets and put mercury in them. The idea being when they hit the mercury would burst out causing more damage than just a bullet or a hollow point would cause.
I don’t know there is anything to that, comments?
Re: Penetrating trauma
quote \”Jeremy Stafford\:As a bullet travels through a soft fleshy (mostly water) body, it causes two different types of trauma. The first one is whats known as a permanent wound cavity, this is the physical path of destruction that the projectile causes as it travels. The second source of trauma is the temporary stretch cavity that is caused by the hydrostatic shock of the displaced fluids in reaction the the energy of the projectile as it passes through said fleshy body. Example; while shooting small furry animals with a handgun, a clear entrance and a clear exit hole are apparent, but unimpressive (even with the good old .45 ACP). However, when shooting those same varmints with a small caliber, high velocity rifle, a general \”turning inside out\” was noticed. This is because said varmints furry little body could not handle the hydrostatic shock, it literally blew them apart. This is also why velocity tends to trump diameter in rifles, and vice versa in pistols. Pistol rounds generally (with very few high tech exeptions) can not generate enough velocity to be as devastating as rifle rounds. If you can’t go fast, you should go big. Both would be great, but then we run into portability and controllability issues. As far as rounds that are made to cause excessive damage?????? Too much TV going on there….Hollowpoints (I have to assume this is what you mean) simply take advantage of the hydrostatic pressure and \”open up\” a little wider than normal. Very useful (when they do not get clogged with clothing and fail to open), but hardly something that is going to throw the victim through a plateglass window and send them cartwheeling down main street as they bleed out.A penetrating knife wound has a very narrow permanent wound channel and a no temporary stretch. All of the homicide victims via stabbing that I have seen were stabbed multiple times. This is because unless you get the pump or an artery right away, it takes a while for the leaks to cause the machine to stop.
Jeremy = Are you a doc, or a ballistics expert (or both)?
yeh kravjeff, but as alot of poeple do is get stabbed in the gut. Which puts your \”S___T\” so to speak in your belly, which is very toxic and extremly painful.As being narrow it just takes a knick! Watch Paul Vunak’s video on Youtube, \”knife defense\” very interesting and scary!
Yep – Actually work on a trauma service at a busy hospital … I’ve seen my share of these types of injuries, was just curious about Jeremy’s background.
Incidentally, the same type of \”knick\” can, and unfortunately does occur during surgical procedures. I’ve seen people get sick as he!! from a \”knicked bowel\” during \”routine/elective\” procedures. Peritonitis generally occurs when there is gross spillage of bowel contents (or other \”stuff\” such as that contained in a ruptured appendix) into the peritoneum; but the knick can cause bacterial translocation into the bloodstream without actual peritoneal contamination.
when comparing knife vs gun damage,consider one of the tenets of knife-fighting.That is,combining the stab into the body with a slash exit.
By the time the knife exited,the stab/slash combination would do tremendous amount of body damage.
So, in that case, you wouldn’t pull the knife straight out, but in a type of slashing motion instead?
What about the poisoned bullets KMCat mentioned? Do they exist or could they be made somehow?
Also, how far can a bullet fly on average? Could it happen that, if I stood at the right distance far away, the bullet would lose so much velocity that it would just bounce off me, the way it might bounce off Superman? 😀
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Giantkiller
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