Bullets....any firearms experts here? (People who shoot guns..?)

Yes, Brandon Lee, but that was a blockage by a dummy bullet left from a previous shot forced out by a blank. It got stuck in the barrel somehow (I think someone 'fired' the gun with the dummy and the hammer pushed the dummy into the barrel) and wasn't properly checked. Heads rolled on that one.

 

Only if it is a very sloppy investigation. First, be sure you are referring to the "bullet" when you mean the "bullet," to the "case" when you are referring to the now-empty brass shell, and to the "cartridge" when you are referring to any unfired rounds still in the gun.

Even a mediocre ballistics investigation is going to involve inspecting the fired bullet (if it can be recovered), the fired case, the firearm, and then the ammunition remaining in the gun. The ballistics investigator will attempt to determine if the ammunition is factory loaded or hand loaded. It will involve opening up at least one, and possibly two or three, of the remaining cartridges to determine how much powder is in each one (and possibly what brand and type of powder -- they don't all look the same). Then they will take one of the cartidges that remained in the gun and shoot it, into water or into a soft medium that won't completely destroy it, so they can compare the marks the barrel inscribes on it against the marks on the recovered crime scene bullet, to confirm that the gun they recovered is, in fact, the gun that fired the bullet they recovered.

But you have a huge plot problem to overcome. In my humble opinion -- I've been shooting since my grandfather taught me on his trusty .22 almost 70 years ago, I'm an Army veteran (which does NOT make me a ballistics expert!), I have shot in competition for more than 50 years, and I've been an instructor and reloader for about 15 years. I'm also a factory-certified armorer (gun fixer -- less qualified than a "gunsmith") -- it's just not possible to download any cartridge to a power level so low that the bullet won't penetrate bare human skin when fired at close range. To be honest, at indoor distances and shooting at a guy who isn't wearing a shirt -- a BB gun would probably penetrate.

Sorry to be the bearer of unhappy tidings, but it is what it is. I don't see your scenario as being at all plausible.

I think you're moving in the right direction. Keep in mind that, while a single shot can kill someone, more often than not they don't. People have survived multiple gunshot wounds. I had a professor in college who had a metal plate in his skull because he was shot in the head during WW2.

You may have watched too much television and too many movies, where they show every shot killing the adversary, and a single shot from a handgun will pick up a 200-pound man and throw him back ten feet. That's all Hollywood. In the real world, they teach that there is no such thing as a "one shot stop." I have a friend who is a retired police chief. He has survived two gun fights, both of which he won. His rather crude but succinct analysis is that to stop a bad guy it takes a shot directly "to the snot locker." Professionals tell us that the only reliable way to stop someone is to either break their hip with a shot, or incapacitate the central nervous system. Even a shot through the heart won't be instantly fatal.

So make your plot gun a smaller caliber. Small, pocket guns are popular, and they are often chambered in .380 ACP caliber -- which many self-styled "experts" loudly and widely proclaim is inadequate. (But they won't volunteer to stand there and be shot with one -- curious, eh?) Make the gun a .380 -- say a Keltec P3AT. If a shot from a .380 hits your rapist in the arm or leg, or a grazing wound on the side of the chest or abdomen, it'll be a real hit, he'll be wounded -- but it will be very survivable. Heck, if it hits him on the side of the head (a grazing wound rather than a direct hit) it might just bounce off, leaving him with a cut and a huge headache.

 

Yeah, I forgot he had done that.

 

@SapereAude you can correct me if I am way off, but I do think that the answer to question number 2 is it depends. I have friends who do cowboy action shooting and they underload the cartridges with black powder or pyrodex and top them with Cream of Wheat to keep the powder from sloshing. The main thing in competition is accuracy and time so firing full powered ammunition with associated recoil is not optimal and the reduction in fps and ft/lbs of force when shooting steel targets is not as important as a non-competition application. Getting shot with these rounds still would seriously mess you up if not kill you outright but a .44-40 with a half load of pyrodex is definitely going to be weaker than one with a 40 grain load of black powder, which is what the original recipe was.

Personally I think the best match for a non-penetrating non-lethal round would be simunition. https://simunition.com/en/ . I have personal experience being shot by it and I will tell you you will think you have been freaking shot by a real bullet. In my case, I was OPFOR (playing the bad guy) and took a round of it in my right leg during a room clearing exercise. My leg involuntarily buckled and and I thought it was broken. Took a long time for that bruise to go away. You can do some research but the system fits on to real guns but only allows you to chamber and fire the simunition rounds when installed. It is visually marked by bright blue parts such as the slide of a semi automatic pistol. But if a perpetrator is taunting that "you don't have the balls to shoot" and you double tapped him center mass with a couple rounds of simunition from point blank range, he probably is going to think he was really shot for a minute or two. In fact from close enough range it is going to break the skin and make him bleed; when training with it, we were given permission to "mercy" kill people at ranges of six feet or less for urban or ten feet or less outdoors rather than shoot them. We also were not allowed to shoot in the head on purpose, even though we all wore face masks.

 

Cowboy action shooting is a special case, because they are using black powder (the original "gunpowder") rather than the stuff most people (and all commercial ammunition) today use, which is called "smokeless powder" and which is very different in chemical composition from black powder. Black powder needs to be compressed in the case to obtain reliable ignition so, when they load wimpy cartridges for those cowboy competitions, they mix the black powder with an inert filler so they can still compress the load.

Modern, smokeless powder doesn't need to be compressed, and should not be compressed.

And, yes, even those under-powered cowboy competition loads will punch holes in people. But in a scenario such as posited in the opening post of this discussion, even if the rapist loads his own ammunition it would be exceedingly unlikely that he would be using black powder. Other factors aside, the residue is extremely corrosive -- so much so that many black powder shooters will spritz their guns with Windex (containing ammonia) before they even leave the shooting range to drive home. The ammonia neutralizes the corrosive elements in the black powder to prevent (or, at least, slow down) corrosion until they can get home and subject the firearm to a VERY thorough cleaning.

 

@SapereAude yeah I would not volunteer to stand in front of anything with a projectile, even a red ryder bb gun, much less an under powered cowboy action round. I have been shooting guns since I was 7 when my parents let me have my first .22 to shoot varmints on the farm. I just never got into reloading, although since my favorite old gun to shoot is a No 4 Mk 1 Lee Enfield in .303 British, I might have to take up the hobby. Last box I bought was $75 for a box of 20. I just knew that powder, atleast black powder, was often topped with inert substances, mostly due to its flash point being higher than smokeless powder.

This question did intrigue me so I did some more research and I found one example of someone being shot with a smokeless powder cartridge and surviving with only a minor wound. It occurred during prohibition when the son of a West Virginia bootlegger purchased a .45 caliber break-action double-barrel pistol from a peddler. It was obsolete when he purchased it and the ammunition for it was no longer in production but the peddler assured him that .32 Winchester Special cartridges fit just fine. Apparently they did chamber and he carried it around as deterrence against rival bootlegger gangs. One day he got in an altercation with another kid, pulled it out and shot his antagonist center mass. The bullet hit the other kid in the sternum but failed to penetrate any further than the bone and was easily removed with a pocket knife. I can only assume that a number of factors played out here. First the undersized bullet almost assuredly bounced down the barrel and probably was key holing (tumbling) by the time it hit the target. Second, the cartridge case itself, being a .32 neck in a .45 chamber, would have either expanded or cracked, allowing much of the powder to burn off and escape around the bullet without actually providing much propelling force. But this is the only case I could find of someone surviving a smokeless powder round that did not involve the bullet being stopped by object such as a bible, a stack of coins, girlfriend's letters, ect.

 

Hmm, I might be misunderstanding this statement, but think again about folks in rural areas not knowing what is what. LE response time in parts of this county is 45 minutes on a fast day on pavement, much longer when the roads are wet or snowy. One learns to deal with everything from bad guys to rattlesnake bites while awaiting the cavalry which may indeed take while to arrive.

Why would you even shoot blanks AT each other? What is the benefit that can't be gained by shooting at a target?

Twice I've taken part in active shooter workshops, once with the shooter using a water gun and once with the shooter using a special kind of pellet gun. While it is shocking to get shot in the face with water, getting shot with a pellet gun was a completely different experience, way more riveting and considerably more painful. I came away with blood blisters from the latter experience (we wore protective face gear but the rest of me was vulnerable). In addition to being victim, I also got to be the active shooter and once again: huge difference between shooting a water pistol and shooting a weapon with the capacity to inflict pain if not permanent injury.

 

My point was, whenever you shoot with live blanks with a lethal weapon, all it takes is someone to misload the weapon, or even if some piece of hard debris gets lodged in the barrel, and you can kill the person you are shooting at.

That's why I'd prefer the simulated ammunition noted above by @Selbbin where the weapon is modified to where it can't even fire 'real' ammo.

 

I wasn't arguing, Bruce, just kinda free associating about the non-military value of shooting at people with whom one isn't angry.

 

Always fun!

 

Then you use a BFA or Blank Firing Attachment over the end of the barrel. I cannot believe for one second that even the US miilitary is stupid enough to shoot blanks at each other, for any reason, without a BFA. Also, a semi automatic rifle or automatic rifle wouldn't work without a BFA as there is no gas pressure built up to recycle the system if there is no projectile. The BFA plugs the barrel (not fully) to stop fragments escaping and to allow for recycling of the weapon.

It would look something like this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank...ed_to_Naval_Mobile_Construction_Battalion.jpg [/IMG]


Fragments from blank rounds can kill, but you would need to be unlucky indeed. The greater risk is damage to the eyes and then less serious wounding. The only deaths I am away of are from very close range, less than a meter, or in contact. Several people have died from close range shots to the neck. A stuntman died from a shot to the chest during a music video, but again this was from less than a metre away,


I can't feasibly see how you could tamper with a round to remove its ability to penetrate flesh. Even a low powered air rifle or even a bb gun can penetrate flesh at the ranges you are talking about. Not deep penetration but penetration none the less. There are Frangible bullets which are designed to break up on impact and cause minimal penetration but not at close range, they would still penetrate flesh easily.

 

What was the cause of death doctor?

 

Well it does happen. Look at the case of Spc. Kevin J. Rodriguez of the 101st. They were using blank rounds, they had BFA's fitted, but one soldier had 3 rounds of live ammunition in his magazine, which blew out the BFA and the next two rounds killed Rodriguez. Or Richard King of the Grenedier Guards who was killed in the same way. Or Wayne Richards of the Royal Marines.

 

Debri from the blank round penetrated his heart.

 

The joke is that usually the words "Killed by a shot from a—" are followed by some type of gun. It's quite rare that shots are fired from music videos.

Ba-dum Tiss!

 

Yeah yeah, saw that afterwards and have corrected my post - should have read during a music video not from a music video. The actual weapon was a double barrelled shotgun.

 

I've seen music videos that sounded like they ought to be shot with a double barreled silencer.

 

Frangible rounds are designed to be used against people. They very definitely penetrate skin -- and clothing. That's what they are designed to do. The "frangible" part comes into play if you miss and the bullet hits a hard surface, such as a wall. The bullets are then supposed to fragment into, essentially, metallic powder. Air marshals carry (or used to, anyway, I haven't kept up with their current technology) frangible ammunition to reduce the possibility of puncturing the fuselage of an airplane in the event of an "incudent."

 

That's classic. You just made my day!

 

Think you misunderstood what I was saying there. You're not wrong, but I wasnt implyig anything different.

 

And that appreciative post just made mine. Thanks.