DumDum?

[Jean-Loup]

I found this bullet with my metal detector on a battlefield. It looks like somebody was trying to make a dumdum bullet. The strange thing is that although the bullet is out of its case, it hasnt been fired. What do you guys think?

[Josh Beckett]

It has been in a case before, check the sides for rifling marks.

It may be a dumdum bullet.

[Soldat de Fer]

Hello
If a soldier was captured and had these in his pouches , for sure his captors would have executed him on the spot!!! The Geneva convention forbid the use of such bullet. Maybe he dumped them before capture ?
Best Regards
Pierre-Yves

[Gary Cain]

Jean-Loup,

If the projectile has had a cross cut in it then it has been made into a dum-dum. It has not been fired as you accurately surmised.
My guess is the casing rotted away as they were using steel cases and they are fairly thin.


Gary

[Jean-Loup]

The projectile doesnt have a cross, only a single cut. This is not a german bullet, so I highly doubt the casing was made out of steel. I think the bullet was taken out on purpose, or was liberated when somebody threw the round into fire... The cut sure looks like it was done by hand, and I dont see why else it would have been done then in the hope of changing the bullet into a "dumdum".

JL

[Raven26]

Jean-Loup,

As you know it could have been made for a few reasons.

1) a soldier made the cut to cause the bullet to fragment. A close contact technique. The casing was lost during a fire or some similar reasonalbe expaination.

2) or some soldier, out of complete boredom, removed the bullet from the casing and cut a slit into it, just for the sake of doing it.

I have seen both occur, but the second idea is most common. Anything to pass the time. I have seen it happen many times. Not as a real method of combat, but rather "hey...look at this guys"

Regards,

Frank

[Gary Cain]

I just thought of another reason to do it and that is to make a piece of trench art. I have seen a lot of projectiles modified this way to attach them tovarious works of art. The cut is too deep into the projectile for a Dum-Dum. The cut has gone deep enough to cause the bullet to come apart in flight after firing. The effect is fairly common on ultra high velocity cartridges (like the .220 Swift) where the projectile simple fails. That is with an unmodified projectile. You modify them like this and they won't be going far. My guess is the projectile wopuld come apart within 50 feet of leaving the muzzle.


Gary

[Jean-Loup]

Frank, I would vote for option number two. Making a dumdum bullet takes time, and is virtualy useless. If you shoot a guy with a rifle bullet, it is probably going to cause a serious wound, wether the bullet is dumdum or not. Dumdums and holow points are way overrated. In fact at autopises, there is often no difference found wether a person was shot with a regular bullet or an "explosive" bullet.

Gary, the fact that the modification is technicaly badly done doesnt mean much. You probably know much more about ballistics then most WW2 soldiers. Soldiers have been known to do lots of stupid things, just like any other group of humans.

Below is a bullet found with a body. There are 99.99% chances it was not a dumdum, and yet, it pretty much exploded, probably after hitting a large bone; or maybe because it hit an other target first?

JL

[Gary Cain]

Hi Jean-Loup,

The projectile you show looks to have hit a rock(my guess would be sandstone or limestone based on tests I have conducted) before hitting the person it was found with. I don't know where you are getting your data about hollow point bullets being overrated, I would suggest you find some copies of the "Journal of Trauma" and review them first. It is true that when a hollow point projectile fails(usually beacause the clothing plugs the cavity) the wound is very much like a standard ball projectile, however, when they work properly(which is more and more frequently because of research and development to fix those problems) the effects are devestating.


Gary

Frank, I would vote for option number two. Making a dumdum bullet takes time, and is virtualy useless. If you shoot a guy with a rifle bullet, it is probably going to cause a serious wound, wether the bullet is dumdum or not. Dumdums and holow points are way overrated. In fact at autopises, there is often no difference found wether a person was shot with a regular bullet or an "explosive" bullet.

Gary, the fact that the modification is technicaly badly done doesnt mean much. You probably know much more about ballistics then most WW2 soldiers. Soldiers have been known to do lots of stupid things, just like any other group of humans.

Below is a bullet found with a body. There are 99.99% chances it was not a dumdum, and yet, it pretty much exploded, probably after hitting a large bone; or maybe because it hit an other target first?

JL

[Jean-Loup]

I have seen many regular bullets extracted from bodies that were completely exploded just like the one picture above. Trust me that a bullet going through a femur will come out in very bad shape on the other side. Although it is possible this bullet hit some stone first as you sugest, it is even more likely it simply hit a major bone in the mans body. Regular bullets have a tendency to breack up even without hittng any bone after travelling through a certain quantity of soft tissue. The bullet starts to become unstable, then "turns around"; at this turning around point, the bullet often fragments/"explodes". It realy depends a lot on the specific bullets and manufactureres.

I get my knowleadge of hollow point and dumdums from forensic science litterature written by people with very high knowleadge in their domain. All the articles and books I have read said clearly that the popular view that dumdums and hollow points are "devastating" was very exagerated. Their effects may be worse, but are often indistinguishable from those of a regular bullet.

[Jean-Loup]

This is an exelent link concerning the disintegration of normal bullets when traveling through soft tissue only; no bones or stones involved: http://www.fen-net.de/norbert.arnoldi/army/wound.html

Here is an illustration picture showing the condition of an M16 bullet after hitting gelatin at various ranges. As can be seen, at high speeds, the bullet disintegrates, with no hard objects needed to cause that disintegration. Also the disentegration is just as complete as if the bullet had been a dumdum.

[Jean-Loup]

An illustration showing how the bullet wants to travel heavy end first once it enters soft tissue. This causes the bullet to turn around, and disintegrate if it is going fast enaugh, or is fragile enaugh. Once again, no stone or bone is required to cause this.

[Jean-Loup]

I dont have any of my books with me right now, but this is quote from Vincent DiMaio's book "Bullet Wounds" (pages 310-311.) concerning hollow points. DiMaio is considered in authority in the field of wound ballistics:

"Hollowpoint bullets, in comparison to traditional solid lead bullets, THEORETICALLY have a greater ability to kill by virtue of greater physiologic injury to an organ, such differences are probably only THEORETICAL.

"Hollowpoint bullets do not mutilate organs or destroy them any more than their solid-nose, all-lead counterparts. The wounds in the skin as well as those in the internal organs are the same in appearance for both types of ammunition. One cannot examine the wounds in a body and say that the individual was shot with a hollowpoint rather than a solid lead bullet. No organs are reduced to 'chop-meat' by a pistol bullet.

"Hollowpoint bullets, though generally lighter than solid lead bullets, are loaded to considerably higher velocities. Hollowpoint bullets are more effective because of their higher velocities. Non-expanding hollowpoint bullets are effective due to their increased velocity.

"People inexperienced with hollowpoint ammunition do not let this inexperience stand in the way of their offering 'expert' testimony on the topic."


I have read multiple times that although dumdum and hollow points can produce slightly more damage; the differences arent spectacular, and usualy can not even be recognised by examining the victim.
This is far from the terrible explosive effects you hear about in the gun world mythology. What is realy important is where a bullet hits.

JL

[Gary Cain]

Yes he is and the book is now very dated. What is the publishing date of the latest volume? The M855 ball and the M193 5.56X45 before it are noted for the rear bias of the center of gravity and yes indeed upon hitting almost anything they will indeed flip and in the case of the M193 break apart at the cannelure. The M855 breaks apart up near the beginning of the ogive. These are very high velocity projectiles designed to do what they do. The soviets copied them with their 5.45X39 round ansd the Afghanis called those "poison bullets" because people hit with them tended to die as opposed to the much more stable 7.62X39 round which drilled holes through them.

On the other hand the US 7.62X51 is noted for being particularly stable and drilling holes through whatever they hit with minimal secondary missle production. The German version of the round on the other hand also had a rear bias to the center of gravity and a softer brass cladding to encourage bullet deformation resulting in bullet flip and correspondingly more damage.

Obviously there is a tremendous amount of variation in projectile deformation based on tons of factors, what did it hit prior to penetrating the body? clothing? web gear? canteen? etc., what did it hit in the body(hits to bone tend to produce secondary missles, note I said tend to, they don't allways. I have sat in on a few autopsies where the projectile literally drilled a hole right through the bone with minimal secondary missle production interestingly enough this was noticed in hits to the femur, the theory being the bone is massive enough to take the hit and deform around the projectile as it passes through. Lighter bones Tibia, Fibula etc. tend to shatter when hit however), what was the impact velocity, what was the angle of impact, was the target moving, how was it moving, what type of construction was used in the bullets design etc. There are probably 100 different variables that will determine what happens to the poor individual who gets hit. It is never a simple thing to say X+Y=Z.

The problem that I see a lot when testifying(I am an expert witness on firearms related subjects) is that most experts reference materials are woefully out of date. The science of exterior ballistics has advanced dramatically in the last 7 years. I have volume two of the book you cite and it was published in 1999 but he added very little from his earlier edition and includes no information about the newer projectiles developed by Winchester and Remington to deal with the problem of hollow point plugging.


He does however ignore the effectiveness of soft lead projectiles like those used in muzzle loading weapons which were far more effective than the modern ball ammunition used today. I have multiple Civil War books that go into the horrific wounds created by those types of projectiles and later during the Spanish American war men were surviving wounds that would have killed them 30 years earlier.

The "Journal of Trauma" is probably the most respected publication out there that deals with current methods and techniques of saving people from traumatic injury. Pathologists also use it religiously because of its up to date information and uses for identification of injury types.


You are absolutely correct though that shot placement is the single most critical aspect of winning a gunfight!


Cheers
Gary

I dont have any of my books with me right now, but this is quote from Vincent DiMaio's book "Bullet Wounds" (pages 310-311.) concerning hollow points. DiMaio is considered in authority in the field of wound ballistics:

"Hollowpoint bullets, in comparison to traditional solid lead bullets, THEORETICALLY have a greater ability to kill by virtue of greater physiologic injury to an organ, such differences are probably only THEORETICAL.

"Hollowpoint bullets do not mutilate organs or destroy them any more than their solid-nose, all-lead counterparts. The wounds in the skin as well as those in the internal organs are the same in appearance for both types of ammunition. One cannot examine the wounds in a body and say that the individual was shot with a hollowpoint rather than a solid lead bullet. No organs are reduced to 'chop-meat' by a pistol bullet.

"Hollowpoint bullets, though generally lighter than solid lead bullets, are loaded to considerably higher velocities. Hollowpoint bullets are more effective because of their higher velocities. Non-expanding hollowpoint bullets are effective due to their increased velocity.

"People inexperienced with hollowpoint ammunition do not let this inexperience stand in the way of their offering 'expert' testimony on the topic."


I have read multiple times that although dumdum and hollow points can produce slightly more damage; the differences arent spectacular, and usualy can not even be recognised by examining the victim.
This is far from the terrible explosive effects you hear about in the gun world mythology. What is realy important is where a bullet hits.

JL

[Jean-Loup]

"There are probably 100 different variables that will determine what happens to the poor individual who gets hit. It is never a simple thing to say X+Y=Z."

Very well said, and if the bullet if hollow point or not is just one of those variables, with only limited effect.

You obviously know your ballistics well, so I dont think there is more need to continue the discution.