Quantitative Ammunition Selection
Endorsements
"I believe this model to be viable, logically deduced, and no more complicated than it should be for its intended purpose. It offers the armed professional a method of acquiring vital information about the performance of his/her own self-defense ammunition, shot from his/her own handgun, without the expense and complications of full-scale laboratory tests."
- Mr. Thomas Johansson, Development Engineer
CBJ Tech AB, Kungsbacka, Sweden
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Under what conditions does the quantitative terminal ballistic model operate?
A: The quantitative model operates under three conditions:
1. All significant plastic deformation of the projectile occurs within periods of 10-4 seconds.
2. The projectile behaves as a rigid body after expansion (no further ductile or ablative erosion occurs) and exhibits no significant yaw during any portion of the penetration event.
3. The terminal behavior of the projectile is governed by a material strength variable and the inertial and viscous (or frictional) drag losses that occur during the projectile's penetration through the medium.
Q: Does the quantitative terminal ballistic model take into account any other property of soft tissue?
A: Yes, it does. Besides including a variable for the density of soft tissue, the quantitative model employs a material strength variable within its governing expression that allows for the computational evaluation of any type of soft tissue. Within a confidence interval of 95%, the quantitative model predicts the terminal penetration depth of projectiles in calibrated ordnance gelatin with a margin of error of one centimeter.
Q: What are the benefits of using water as a medium to test and evaluate the performance of self-defense ammunition?
A: Because water produces dynamic forces on transient projectiles that are nearly identical to those produced by calibrated ordnance gelatin, it is an excellent tissue simulant. Water is insensitive to ambient environmental conditions, requires no calibration in order to produce valid test results, and can be used with little difficulty. Ballistic tests conducted in calibrated ordnance gelatin require rigorous environmental control to ensure a valid test outcome and can cost in excess of $400 per test shot. The ease of use and low cost of testing in water make it an attractive option for those individuals seeking a valid, cost-effective ballistic test medium.
Q: What is the procedure for determining the average expanded diameter of a test bullet?
A: The procedure requires the use of a caliper or micrometer capable of making measurements to the nearest thousandth of an inch. An equal number of measurements across the largest widths (#1, #2, and #3, in red, below) and smallest widths (#4, #5, and #6, in blue, below) of the recovered bullet’s expansion face are taken and added together. The sum of the measurements is then divided by the total number of measurements taken (six in the example below) to arrive at the average expanded diameter of the recovered bullet.
Q: What about thermal effects? Can a bullet produce enough heat to burn or vaporize soft tissue?
A: No, not at any realistic impact velocity. In Chapter 2 of Quantitative Ammunition Selection, the reasons for this are explained in detail and by example. The truth is that no bullet launched from currently available small arms (pistols, shotguns, or rifles) is capable of producing a significant wounding effect through the conversion of the bullet’s kinetic energy into thermal energy.
Q: In many action movies, whenever someone is shot, their body is often picked up and thrown violently through a nearby wall or plate glass window by the bullet’s impact. Can that really happen?
A: No. In Chapter 7 of Quantitative Ammunition Selection, this Hollywood fallacy is disproven using Newton’s third law of motion. While such exaggeration makes for an exciting story, it is not an accurate depiction of what actually happens when a bullet strikes someone.
