killing movie monsters with firearms

..the .17 s are center fire cartriges ?... i can buy a box of 500 .22 rimfires for $10 at kmart ...let me guess, 500 rounds of the bb sized bullets would cost me 5 times as much or would it be 10 times as much as my trusty and universally available .22,s ? ..is the rounds performance that much better? ..in almost any podunk ,backwoods sporting or hardware store in the usa one can buy 9mm ,38, 357 ,44, 45 ,22 ,223,243 ,270,3030,7mm ,306 ,410 and 12 gauge ,,,it seems pure folly to me, to own a weapon that dosnt shoot one of these common calibers , kinda like driveing a car that burns only ethanol or coconut oil or martian jujumung fuel from area 51...

 

Some .17's are centerfire, such as the .17 Remington. Others, such as the .17HMR (Hornady Magnum Rimfire) are rimfires and are available in the many of the same rifles as the traditional .22 Long Rifle. The .17HMR comes in bullets using hollow point and polymer tip designs. Weight are 17 grain and 20 grain.

All of the cartridges you named where new at one time also.

 

of course they were ..i guess im thinking about practicality in a world turned upside down as to supplys and transport where guns may be a valuble commodity and obscure calibers will make some guns virtually useless .

 

I can see that. Every American should have a .22, 12ga, and a .30-06. Everything else is novelty.

 

What about the .357 Magnum?

 

.357 mag is a pistole round ..some few carbines will chamber it ..it is quite puny if compared to any ww2 era rifle round ...even the smallish jap and italian cartridges are way more powerfull than the .357..and those big game rounds like .375 make make regular rifle rounds look small

 

What about the .375 Magnum and .44 Magnum?

 

They are both pistol rounds, (think smith & wesson revolvers, Desert eagles and some carbines)

They aren't major hunting rounds, but are used in the UK for "humane killing"

 

But the .44 Magnum should be a larger round than the .375 H&H, except the H&H is a very common hunting round.

 

The effectiveness of any round is dependant on a number of factors, the weight of the bullet and velocity (Muzzle velocity is usually used as the yard stick) are a reasonable starting point since these define how much energy the round has on impact.

A .44 magnum round will have quite a heavy bullet, but in common with all pistol type rounds it is limited in terms of how much punch it will have by the fact that the power behind the bullet is limited to whatever the shooter can cope with recoil-wise, and the recoil of a pistol on one or even two hands is a great deal more than from a rifle snuggly held into the shoulder with two hands.

It's a mistake to assume that just because a certain round's bullet has a larger diameter it is automatically more powerful than one with a smaller bullet, for example .38 is slightly larger than .357, yet the .357 magnum is considerably more powerful than the .38 special.

Comparing pistol rounds to rifle in rounds in this respect is really an Apples & Oranges excercise.

If you take the weight of the round and velocity you can come up with a half-way meaningful figure for the impact energy of the round, I say halfway because this will only count for standard full metal jacket ball type ammunition and will fail to take into account effects like tumbling, fragmenting and mushrooming that may occur with other types, it will similarly fail to give any indication of what kind of penetration of "armour" may be expected (Whether it be Kevlar, metal, bony plates or thick leathery skin).

It also is only good for the muzzle energy of a round (How much power the round has at the moment it leaves the muzzle of the firearm), it's impossible to predict from just this information how well or not a round will perform over any given range, say 50 metres, 100 metres or 400 metres and how well (or not) it will retain this energy. Pistol rounds are notoriously short ranged and will lose their power quite quickly, rifle calibre rounds will generally hold their energy for a much greater distance.

Accuracy (From a bench test) is another intangible which whilst it can be affected by the quality of the ammunition is as much down to the combination of individual weapon and ammunition as a whole and that's without trying to account for the skill of the user themselves.

 

I see.

 

another problem with the big magnum pistole rounds is that the muzzle flash at night will blind the shooter (temporarily of course ) this is why most cops no longer use them in the usa ..also its way more gun than is needed for shooting at mere mortals and the velocity works against you too ..it shoots clean through the guy and mabey the next three apartments but dosnt knock him down ..he still hits you repeatedly with the shovel but dies later ..too much later ..if on the other hand you expect to deal with lions tigers and bears , a 44 mag is just ducky ..unless you have a rifle or 12 gauge with buckshot which is so much better than any pistole ..the only advantage a pistole has is its small size ,its worn on your person and so is always very handy and also it can be easily concealed under your jacket in an urban setting .

 

Only to add something to Simon1978 fine message: Usually rifle bullets are much longer than pistol bullet despite that they have same diameter. This leads to higher sectional density, that with higher muzzle velocity leads to much longer effective range. Typical 9mm pistol bullet (various 9mm, .357 and .38 calibers) weight from 6 to 10 grams while same diameter rifle bullets tend to weight from 12 to 16 grams.

 

How can a man take a bullet clean through him and still hit the shooter with a shovel?

 

If the bullet misses anything vital to the shovel wielder's immediate survival (Heart, lungs, brain, arteries/veins, etc) and passes clean through without damaging too much tissue or breaking bones it's not unlikely that the person hit may have enough adrenalin running around thier system (Especially if combined with drugs or alcohol) that they'll attack first and worry about their injuries later. If drugs are involved it's entirely possible they may not even realise they've been hit in the first place.

In all fairness, this is the first I've heard of this being a particular problem with the .44 mag, although it may well be true, but it seems to crop up as a fairly common criticism of the 9mm P.

 

A big bullet like a .44 not taking down a person? Hmmm....

Then again, I've heard of a female police officer who was stabbed with a 6-inch screwdriver and thought it was a punch.

 

But remember, if it doesn't deform too much on impact, doesn't fragment and doesn't hit anything major and leaves the body without destroying too much tissue (Unlikely but not impossible) all you're really left with is a fairly small hole even with something fairly big like a .44.

That said, I'll just reiterate that this isn't something I've ever been aware of being a problem with the .44 magnum, I can see how it would go straight through a person at most pistol engagement ranges (Which is undesirable in itself, great you take out the bad guy but you also kill the completely innocent person standing behind him), but this is the first I've heard of .44 magnum rounds going through individuals and only fleshwounding them. It's possible, but I'm not terribly convinced it'd be a widespread problem. Perhaps some of the gun owners/shooters/law enforcement types from the States have more information?

 

But if a large .44 Magnum bullet has these problems, then why don't smaller bullets like the 9mm or Magnum .357 have them? Or even the .45?

 

Some, like the .45ACP have a fairly heavy bullet with a relatively low velocity making it less likely to over-penetrate, as it passes through the body it'll tumble, mushroom, fragment (If intended) and form a decent sized wound cavity.

I'm going into a degree of uncharted territory here since I'm not terribly sure of wound ballistics so take what I'm writing with a pinch of salt.

Most bullets on impact with a human body will continue straight forward for a certain distance, after which the change from air to a solid affects the bullet's travel and it begins to turn itself around so that if it can travel far enough it will leave the body backwards. This, in addition to the shock (hydrostatic?) if the bullet is travelling fast enough on the body cause a cavity to form in the tissue (With hydrostatic shock though the tissue isn't removed by the passage of the bullet, just forced outwards), as the bullet completes it's turn around the size of the cavity narrows again to around the diameter of the bullet.

It's this cavity that causes the bulk of the tissue damage.

Usually there isn't enough flesh to pass through for the bullet to complete the turn so you end up with a large, open exit wound (Which is basically the part-formed wound cavity).

If a round is travelling fast enough (or the amount of tissue is thin enough) it's possible that it may pass through the body before the change of state affects it sufficiently to get far enough into its turn around and the cavity wont form (Hydrostatic shock may still take affect though).

This can affect all pistol rounds, but a heavy high velocity round like the .44 will resist the change much more than a lighter or lower velocity round such as the ones you've mentioned, so is more likely at very close range to just go straight through and out the other side.

That said if a .44 encounters resistance (Such as bone) it will cause much more damage, having a much higher impact energy and will be more likely to break the bone which in turn may cause additional wounding itself (severing veins, arteries, damaging internal organs etc), where a lower energy round will be more likely to be slowed, deflected (Possibly out of the body, possibly into something more vital), or even stopped on impact.

Different types of ammunition will behave differently to, soft points and hollowpoints will deform or fragment far more readily causing generally greater tissue damage than a full metal jacket ball round.

Why doesn't this affect heavy, high velocity rifle rounds? Rifle bullets are longer and as such to a degree more inherently unstable when encountering such a change of state so will tumble more readily than a similar diameter pistol round.

Note that this all only applies to basically muscle tissue, pretty much any bullet going through any internal organ is going to mess you up badly regardless of how fast it's travelling or how heavy it is.

Now for the disclaimer, I am not a medical man and the above has been basically pieced together from bits and pieces I've read over the years, if anyone wishes to correct any inaccuracies or incorrect information or even tell me that everything I've posted is total BS please feel free.

 

Simon;
That is a good basic explaination.