Ammunition Calibers, caliber of bullets in SR4? Options

[Wounded Ronin]

Actually it's hard to get good data on what is actually used by police forces in the US at an aggregate level. In general it's believed that popular police pistol is the Glock 22/23. Which is .40 S&W. What I've seen suggests that there a lot of dept that issue 9mm, a lot that issue .40, a smaller number that issue .357 SIG and a smaller number that issue .45.

In general, shot placement is what determines how effective the bullet is. Pistol bullets have very limited ability to damage a person or animal. If you don't actually hit something important the only way the opponent is going to stop is if he decides to stop. Which happens, this whole being shot deal wasn't part of his plans, but you can't depend on that. A good hit with a .380 beats a peripheral hit with a .45 every day. And what little decent gunfight data shows that 9mm PB to .45 ACP are about equally effective (or ineffective) in stopping committed aggressors when used with quality police ammo.

But the key thing is that all pistols suck. You use a pistol because it's handy when you are attacked without warning, or because you only have one hand free, not because it's almost as good as a rifle or shotgun. If your rules don't have rifles and shotguns being hugely more effective there is no relationship to reality and there is no reason to try to talk about caliber.

I am really really not convinced that .223 Rem at close range is going to be "better" than, say, .45 ACP or 10mm or what have you, at least if we're comparing FMJ to FMJ. It has got a higher velocity, it's pointy, it's small. It's supposed to tumble, but if I shoot someone 10 feet away from me with my Mini 14, I am not convinced at that range that the .223 will cause more physiological trauma than if I hit him in the same spot using my 1911. I think that if I used my AK, or my Mosin Nagant, that might cause more trauma than the Mini 14, because you'd have both the high round velocity as well as a larger diameter. But .223 is an itty bitty round and if it just punches through you at point blank range, it doesn't seem like it would cause much trauma relative to something with a significantly wider diameter.

EDIT: I know that all the data is always saying that 9mm and .45 ACP are almost the same. I learned that from playing Phoenix Command. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) But again, the fact that lots of departments moved away from 9mm tells me that empirically people don't have confidence in that data. I do know that the NYPD uses 9mm, and that they used to use .38 special, but I believe that they actually use Federal Hydra-Shok 9mm, not 9mm FMJ. So right there they didn't feel that basic 9mm was up to the task. Also, the NYPD is known for pistol spamming (eg. Diallo getting completely blasted away), so either their training sucks, or they don't think 9mm is going to stop anyone.

[kzt]

I am really really not convinced that .223 Rem at close range is going to be "better" than, say, .45 ACP or 10mm or what have you, at least if we're comparing FMJ to FMJ. It has got a higher velocity, it's pointy, it's small. It's supposed to tumble, but if I shoot someone 10 feet away from me with my Mini 14, I am not convinced at that range that the .223 will cause more physiological trauma than if I hit him in the same spot using my 1911. I think that if I used my AK, or my Mosin Nagant, that might cause more trauma than the Mini 14, because you'd have both the high round velocity as well as a larger diameter. But .223 is an itty bitty round and if it just punches through you at point blank range, it doesn't seem like it would cause much trauma relative to something with a significantly wider diameter.

How many people get killed by single handgun bullets? Significantly less than 50%, probably under 25%. How many of the the Beltway "snipers" targets died? 10 of 13. The Ft Hood shooting had 43 people shot and 12 die from pistol wounds. Pistols are not rifles.

Rifle bullets are moving a LOT faster then a pistol bullet, and they behave differently. For example a military FMJ 5.56 bullet doesn't punch a hole in the target as you think, or as a .22LR really does. What actually happens is that after about 6 inches of flesh the bullet yaws 90 degrees. If it's moving faster then 2700 FPS at impact it then breaks at the cannelure and fragments.

You can see an illustration of the typical terminal ballistics of a 5.56mm/.223 FMJ here. Compare to the ever so mighty .45 ACP, or to the whimpy .22 LR.

[Smokeskin]

I am really really not convinced that .223 Rem at close range is going to be "better" than, say, .45 ACP or 10mm or what have you, at least if we're comparing FMJ to FMJ.

If you're shooting someone with pistol FMJ rounds, you're just going to pretty much drill a hole the diameter of your bullet, which doesn't give you much stopping power anyway.

A 5.56 FMJ round hitting at low velocity won't do much either - it needs the velocity to tumble and fragment to do real damage. But as long as you have a decent length barrel, you're going to have the velocity needed, and you'll outperform even .45 expanding bullets.

If you really shorten down an assault rifle barrel, you might have a problem, and carbines like the M4 might have stopping power issues at ranges that your pistol could never hope to hit at anyway.

But the bottom line is that rifles, even with FMJ rounds, do much, much better than any sort of pistol round.

And if we stop handicapping the rifle by only allowing FMJ and load it with expanding heavy rounds, you're going to see an even bigger difference.

[Wounded Ronin]

So the .223 Rem is going to tumble like that, even if I shoot a skinny man who is only 10 feet away using a Mini 14? If so, how do you explain the stopping power issues that were raised in "Black Hawk Down"? Conventional wisdom is that all that happened because the Somalis were skinny and the Rangers were using green tip rounds. However, if the round tumbles anyway, then whether or not the round was green tip shouldn't really reduce physiological trauma very much.

[Smokeskin]

I don't the characteristics of green tip rounds, maybe they're different.

The fragmenting is the most important part, and that depends very much on the exact round. If green tip rounds don't fragment, you're not going to see good terminal performance.

Tumbling isn't as important, but it also depends on the round, like where is the center of mass relative to the geometric center, and the rifle, like how much the twist is - I'd imagine that the tighter twist in M4s make for less tumbling.

From what I understand, there's a lot of data pointing the other way regarding 5.56mm stopping power - that there's no clear indication of the round lacking stopping power, and the bad reputation are mostly just exaggerated stories or misinterpretation from soldiers who don't know better. People don't just drop like they do in the movies, unless you hit them in the head.

Last year I shot a deer (much smaller than a human) with a .308 expanding round (ammo graded to shoot bears and moose), took out the heart, at least one lung, and shattered a shoulder joint, and it still ran 30 meters before dropping. If that had happened as part of a chaotic fire fight, and I didn't have the chance to go look for the body, and I didn't know that the only thing that drops people reliably is oxygen levels in the brain going too low because of lack of blood flow, what would my experience be? What I see is I place a perfect shot to the vitals, and the guy just runs off.

You can see how such stories about the ammo not working emerging.

[kzt]

There are some odd issues with M855/M193 rounds. Apparently some minor variations well within the acceptance specs can produce significantly reduced terminal effects in some weapons with some rounds. This study is really advocating for 6.8mm, but the details of 5.56 wound ballistics are interesting. Page 7 shows fragmention based on velocity. Page 8 talks a little about fleet yaw.

If you want a much more in depth examination, try this.

However the analysis of soldier reports by the Army showed that the more highly trained in marksmanship and CQB a soldier was the more satisfied he was with the performance of the M4 in combat. But nothing is perfect.

A story from Gabe Suarez on "stopping power":

In the fading light of a Southeast Asian sunset they saw a small Viet Cong soldier in the distance, running directly at their position, yelling and agitated. My friend, a fire shot, center-punched him with his M16. The soldier fell but momentarily got back up and resumed his charge. Several other shots hit him, but to no avail, Astonishment turned to terror as they saw he was carrying a large satchel chrage!

My friend told me everyone, including the M60 gunner, opened up on this man. After several hits, including one from the M60 that hit his shoulder and literally ripped off his arm, he fell. This event disturbed everyone, because of the lack of effect their shots had, and the fact that the enemy had gotten dangerously close with the satchel charge. No one slept that night.

The next morning, my friend went out into the kill zone to see what happened to the determined VC attacker. He found him, tangled in the wire, still alive! The man's arm had been shot off, and he had enough metak in him to sing a ship. He was still trying to set off the charge with his other hand but he could not reach it! My startled associate finished him off with a head shot from his 1911. A subsequent autopsy revealed no drugs in the man's system. If a man can take so much damage and still try to accomplish his mission, what will a single bullet do? Remember, there are no guarantees.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

There are some odd issues with M855/M193 rounds. Apparently some minor variations well within the acceptance specs can produce significantly reduced terminal effects in some weapons with some rounds. This study is really advocating for 6.8mm, but the details of 5.56 wound ballistics are interesting. Page 7 shows fragmention based on velocity. Page 8 talks a little about fleet yaw.

If you want a much more in depth examination, try this.

However the analysis of soldier reports by the Army showed that the more highly trained in marksmanship and CQB a soldier was the more satisfied he was with the performance of the M4 in combat. But nothing is perfect.

A story from Gabe Suarez on "stopping power":

In the fading light of a Southeast Asian sunset they saw a small Viet Cong soldier in the distance, running directly at their position, yelling and agitated. My friend, a fire shot, center-punched him with his M16. The soldier fell but momentarily got back up and resumed his charge. Several other shots hit him, but to no avail, Astonishment turned to terror as they saw he was carrying a large satchel chrage!

My friend told me everyone, including the M60 gunner, opened up on this man. After several hits, including one from the M60 that hit his shoulder and literally ripped off his arm, he fell. This event disturbed everyone, because of the lack of effect their shots had, and the fact that the enemy had gotten dangerously close with the satchel charge. No one slept that night.

The next morning, my friend went out into the kill zone to see what happened to the determined VC attacker. He found him, tangled in the wire, still alive! The man's arm had been shot off, and he had enough metak in him to sing a ship. He was still trying to set off the charge with his other hand but he could not reach it! My startled associate finished him off with a head shot from his 1911. A subsequent autopsy revealed no drugs in the man's system. If a man can take so much damage and still try to accomplish his mission, what will a single bullet do? Remember, there are no guarantees.

As the above quote points out, you can indeed shoot a man to hamburger and unless you hit something vital you will still not kill him immediately, nor, sometimes (anecdotally), even after he bleeds for a while night... guns supplanted more archaic weapons because of their ease of use and extremem portability... pistols are for self defense (though shotguns will work just fine too) and rifles were for long range shootinh/hunting (greateer than the ranges of pistols, which is not that far in the grand scheme of things)... can a pistol round ruin your day... yes, which is why there are far more laws affecting handguns than longarms like shotguns and rifles... they are a more personal weapon, and can be hidden fairly easily... try that with a rifle sometime...

I have fired almost any caliber of gun imaginable, and htey are all good for certain things... in the long run... I would rather be shot by a .223 than a .45 in the hands of an average person (I have personally witnessed the effects of both in a standard torso shot... and the .45 was not pretty... and the guy still lived for over 15 minutes,with both lungs most of h8is heart and many of his other internal organs severely damaged... he was truly dead on impact, it just took his brain/body that long to realize it)... give the shooter some experience, though, and any caliber can be extremely deadly... the fact is, most police rarely (if ever) use their weapons, so no matter how much range experience they have, their practical experience will be far less in an actual use of their weapon... which is why you can have a shootout that expends 800 rounds of ammunition and only a fraction of actual hits at the end of the scene...

Keep the Faith

[Earlydawn]

I've been having a hard time getting into Shadowrun lately, because my recent RPGs have been modern, and I study foreign policy / defense at my college. I think it would be neat if someone went in and re-wrote the arsenal to include the modern stuff, instead of just pretending like hundreds of millions of weapons weren't produced before the regular timeline kicks in. There would be something cool about carrying around a smartlinked AK-47, or trying to find someone who could fit a gyro-stabilizer on an M4, while keeping all of the current brands and more high-tech stuff, like Assault Cannons and airburst grenades.

Just my two cents.

So the .223 Rem is going to tumble like that, even if I shoot a skinny man who is only 10 feet away using a Mini 14? If so, how do you explain the stopping power issues that were raised in "Black Hawk Down"? Conventional wisdom is that all that happened because the Somalis were skinny and the Rangers were using green tip rounds. However, if the round tumbles anyway, then whether or not the round was green tip shouldn't really reduce physiological trauma very much.

I was always lead to believe that the entire "tumbling round" deal was a total myth formed from a mis-representation of a slight (couple of degrees) yaw by 5.56 in flight, and that it wasn't the mortal-wound maker that the internet thought it was. Nevermind, upon re-reading, I think you guys are talking about terminal ballistics, not flight characteristics. My fault.

[Method]

Ah the ol' terminal ballistics debate alive and well on DS. For those who have access, HERE is a great article from the trauma journal Injury entitled "Ballistics: a primer for the surgeon".

Tumbling isn't as important...

A rifle round that tumbles causes far more significant injury. The thing is, due to decreasing procession and nutation the further the round moves away from the barrel (leading to stabilized flight), external tumbling is usually more significant at shorter ranges. The .223 fired from an M16/M4, for example, will have significant yaw out to about 30-40 meters, which then decreases as its flight stabilizes. Beyond that range, the round's wound channel will be similar to the caliber of the round and straight. (Ironically, all those through-and-through anecdotes from recent years may reflect better training, which allows modern troops to engage and hit targets at greater ranges.) But you can also have internal tumbling, which can result from the round hitting bone or even from hard items of clothing, like buttons, belt buckles or worn equipment. In similar fashion you can get external tumbling from rounds hitting walls, cars, light posts, etc before entering the target. In that regard, ricochets or "rabbit rounds" can be worse than direct hits. At any rate, the fact of the matter is, (like most factors that apply to ballistics) its extremely difficult to predict with any real accuracy how a round will behave in a combat situation, and you certainly can't depend on a round to yaw in a predictable way to enhance stopping power (except maybe the 5.45 mm AK-74 round, which is somewhat designed to yaw upon entry into the body).

...the only thing that drops people reliably is oxygen levels in the brain going too low because of lack of blood flow...

Hmmm, not exactly... or rather, thats a big over simplification. Thats like saying my gun makes people stop breathing. There are quite a few steps in between points A (I shoot) and B (my target stops breathing) and a plethora of different routes to the same end point, some of which are faster, more efficient and/or more reliable than others.

[Wounded Ronin]

As the above quote points out, you can indeed shoot a man to hamburger and unless you hit something vital you will still not kill him immediately, nor, sometimes (anecdotally), even after he bleeds for a while night... guns supplanted more archaic weapons because of their ease of use and extremem portability...

Gee, I guess the Katana should have been STR + 3 S, not STR + 3 M, then.

[Smokeskin]

A rifle round that tumbles causes far more significant injury

Sure, compared to just a 5.56 mm diameter hole, a bullet going sidewards (the best case) will be more like a 15mmx5.56 mm hole. That's somewhat better, but still not an impressive cavity. The fragmenting is what really delivers.

he only thing that drops people reliably is oxygen levels in the brain going too low because of lack of blood flow...

Hmmm, not exactly... or rather, thats a big over simplification. Thats like saying my gun makes people stop breathing. There are quite a few steps in between points A (I shoot) and B (my target stops breathing) and a plethora of different routes to the same end point, some of which are faster, more efficient and/or more reliable than others.

No, this is the only thing that does it reliably*. You can hope that pain makes your target go unconscious or just lie down and give up, but that's hoping for pure luck. A determined individual probably won't do that, even after gruesome damage. What you need to do is punch holes in him that makes him bleed out, and once he's lost about 20% of his blood, he loses consciousness. Even if you take out his heart or aorta, the brain can go on for over 10 seconds on the oxygen in the cells there, and the muscles work fine without blood flow.

This is pretty much what you're looking at, anything short of head shot, your target can keep on moving and fighting until he's lost at least 1 litre of blood, and at least 10 seconds. I hunt with a .308 rifle and 185 grain soft point bullets, that's about the most powerful small arm you can get, and even shots through the lung/heart region often don't drop the animal right away. As you trace the animal from the spot it got hit, you'll find pieces of lung and such in the grass - that's a pretty nasty exit wound when you get your lung blown out through it, and probably there's pieces of the heart too but I can't tell that apart from the gore - and still it managed to run. Once I hit a deer through the ribs but behind the lung/heart, it just fell down and got right back up but facing the opposite direction so I could see the exit wound - it hardly seemed fazed, but it had a large piece of gut hanging out through the exit wound. I've never had a wounded animal get away from me, but I've heard of gut shot deer (and we're still taking soft point ammo from rifles) being found alive after many hours, still with the energy to run. If you don't hit a major artery, even a large hole center mass won't do much because it doesn't bleed enough. I've never shot a human, but I don't think humans drop easier than deer or young boar.

You just can't rely on anything but blood loss.

* along with brain/upper vertebrae hits, which I also mentioned but you didn't quote it.

[Ed_209a]

I think part of the problem is also that we all grow up watching movies where anytime the heroes bullet goes anywhere near the bad guy, he helpfully lies down and does not move again.

At some level, we are disappointed when the rifle in our hands doesn't act like the rifle in our movies, and so we blame the rifle.

[Sengir]

I think part of the problem is also that we all grow up watching movies where anytime the heroes bullet goes anywhere near the bad guy, he helpfully lies down and does not move again.

You mean "he flies backwards 5m although the hero does not seem to be affected by recoil at all".

[Warlordtheft]

You mean "he flies backwards 5m although the hero does not seem to be affected by recoil at all".

And don't forget the hero never runs out of ammo!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[kzt]

A shooting instructor once used the phrase "depressurizing their circulatory system" when referring to the desired effects on bad guys.

In the real world people have kept fighting with wounds that would be nearly impossible to survive even if they happened in the ambulance bay of level 1 trauma center with a full trauma team waiting. A good example was Michael Platt when he shot 4 FBI agents in the several minutes after taking a wound to major blood vessel.

[Smokeskin]

A shooting instructor once used the phrase "depressurizing their circulatory system" when referring to the desired effects on bad guys.

That's great, I'm stealing that quote (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Method]

The fragmenting is what really delivers.

Yeah I agree, I was just pointing out that you cannot discount tumbling. Especially with FMJ and other low frag/low deformation rounds it can be a significant factor.

You just can't rely on anything but blood loss.

Well again, I'm just pointing out that this is a big oversimplification. I guess it depends on what you meant by "drops people" in the initial post. I assume you are talking about a lethal shot and not "stopping power" or whatever mythic force people like to invoke. The problem with "relying" on blood loss is that its not quick in most cases. At any rate, we all seem to agree that expecting a determined attacker to just lay down and die after you shoot him (especially with a pistol) is just foolish.

I have never shot anyone either and I don't hunt, but I am just about done with medical school and will be starting a surgical residency in July. I also happen to shoot a lot and plan to focus on trauma/critical care. I've seen more than my fair share of GSWs, and my experience has been that tamponade is what kills people fast, either true cardiac tamponade (bleeding into the pericardial sack) or a tension pneumothorax (air in the pleural space), either of which will generally kill people faster than blood loss through most *singular* GSWs. Blood loss is nothing to scoff at, but the people that really crater tend to die from tamponade (or CNS as you mentioned). Bleeders usually have some time. So me personally, when I train, my goal is to hit the upper-torso CoM and hope to create tamponade physiology. Of course, hitting the same target areas on a human happens to result in massive blood loss, which essentially gives this approach a built-in contingency plan. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[As an aside, inducing a pneumothorax may have been the most reliable method stone-age hunters used to bring down big game animals like mammoths. It would have been extremely difficult for early humans to inflict massive blood loss, CNS damage or destruction of the major vasculature on an animal that size, but a sucking chest wound was easy to dish out with your pointed stick...]

[Smokeskin]

Ok I see what you mean now.

We agree that you need to shut down the CNS, either through a direct hit or oxygen deprivation, and these are the only reliable ways - hoping that people just give up from the pain because your round has "stopping power" is just that, hoping. When it comes to oxygen deprivation, I only thought of bloodloss - when you said this was an oversimplification, you didn't mean "hey you forgot stopping power", you meant tamponades and pneumothorax, which I guess impedes heartbeat and/or breathing. You're of course correct.

I guess shooters just think of blood loss because the oversimplified model is good enough, what matters is the fact that even good incapacitating shots, you'll have to wait at least 10 seconds and maybe minutes before the fight goes out of your target, and you need to plan for that.

Btw, I'm wondering about this pneumothorax. Is that common from GSWs, as opposed to the air escaping the chest from the wound? I didn't receive medic training in the army, but I did do basic first aid instruction as a sergeant, and I don't remember learning or teaching about pneumothorax, only plugging holes in the chest with air bubbling out. I guess you need special training to diagnose and handle it, you push a needle in the chest but you have to avoid hitting something bad? (and you need a needle of course, which iirc we didn't have unless I took apart the atropine injectors) Also, we learned to plug bubbling holes by putting a piece of plastic on it, then a dressing with a hard object in it for pressure - I guess that is only airtight when the guy breathes in and theres negative pressure inside, but it'll still let air out, otherwise wouldn't we just give the guy pneumothorax?

[kzt]

Rifles can also produce immediate temporary incapacitation due to things like the temporary wound cavity striking the spinal cord. My impression is that this doesn't happen much at all with pistol velocity rounds, and its not common with rifles.

Pneumothorax occurs pretty much any time you get a hole in your lung. Typically penetrating trauma does this but you can get it from blunt trauma, and some people have it happen spontaneously.

Tension pneumothorax is what happens when you have a hole in you lung and you are getting air escaping from the lung and getting trapped in the chest. This pressurizes the chest, making breathing increasingly hard, and also starts to shift the heart etc. Things can go bad in a hurry. The solution is to relieve the pressure. Typically this is done with a 12G 3" angiocath, but there are other options if you don't have the needle if the guy has penetrating trauma. For example, you can, in theory, use the existing wound channel to let the air out with a finger. This is hardly the optimal solution, but a tension pneumo will kill him in short order.

The other neat thing is that one of the best ways to convert a pneumo into a tension pneumo is positive pressure ventilation.....

[Sengir]

No, Monty Python.

I know, but it perfectly fits the style of Corporation.

[Ed_209a]

The fragmenting is what really delivers.

Yeah I agree, I was just pointing out that you cannot discount tumbling. Especially with FMJ and other low frag/low deformation rounds it can be a significant factor.

Many small, high velocity rounds (including the M16/M4) rely on tumbling _and_ fragmentation to have maximum effect.

Any rifle class bullet will create a cavity around itself as it passes through the target. This is why shooting a non-compressible medium like water makes the water bottle explode. Living tissue is _highly_ compressible, so typically this cavity just snaps back into place around the path of the bullet.

The point of tumbling with light FMJ rounds is that going through a target sideways puts _much_ more force on the round, so much that it usually breaks into pieces after impact above a certain speed. This magic velocity is different for every bullet/gun combo.

So, now you have this area of stretched tissue (temporary wound cavity) with perhaps a half-dozen sharp fragments passing through it. The effect is sort of like sticking a pin in a blown up balloon versus a deflated one.

Now this is a best case scenario for rifles like the 5.56mm or 5.45mm. You don't always get this.

THe current M16 round, for example, has a steel insert in the bullet, to help penetrate armor. This insert reinforces the round, so that it has to hit at a higher velocity to reliably fragment. The current trend for short barrel rifles means the round is starting at a lower velocity. This means the point where the bullet stops fragmenting gets closer and closer as the barrel gets shorter and shorter.

A faster spin on the bullet can also impede tumbling, and thus fragmentation. It is a trade off between maximum accuracy and maximum tissue damage. Ideally, you want the round just barely stable enough to reach your target point first, then go nuts inside the target.

[YuriPup]

But the key thing is that all pistols suck. You use a pistol because it's handy when you are attacked without warning, or because you only have one hand free, not because it's almost as good as a rifle or shotgun. If your rules don't have rifles and shotguns being hugely more effective there is no relationship to reality and there is no reason to try to talk about caliber.

You miss a point in pistols favor, illustrated in today's politics and very important to the Shadow Runner.

Carrying a licensed hand gun (concealed or not) is a lot more cop and law friendly than walking down the street with a Mini-14, AK-97 or the latest in troll portable artillery. One of them is likely to get the SWAT teams called out on you.

[Method]

I'm wondering about this pneumothorax. Is that common from GSWs, as opposed to the air escaping the chest from the wound?

Well to be specific, any time you have air in the pleural space you have a pneumothorax so any GSW to the chest will likely result in a pneumothorax. If there is good communication between the atmosphere and the pleural space, you basically just get a collapsed lung. But a *tension pneumothorax* is a special scenario that results when air can enter the pleural space but cannot escape. The more air that enters into the pleural space, the greater the pressure on the heart. You need a functional "one-way valve" for this to happen. This can be internal (rupture of the lung tissue that allows air to enter on inspiration but cannot escape on expiration because the lung deflates) or external (a tissue flap on the chest wall). Either case can occur with a GSW, but my sense is that internal disruption is more likely. The tissue flap scenario is kind of a random event that may or may not happen, whereas the internal leak is based on a physiological mechanism, but thats just a guess. In either case, a tension pneumothorax isn't as fast as cardiac tamponade, but can be faster than blood loss in many cases.

On temporary wound cavity causing neurological damage: HERE is an interesting study that involved shooting live pigs to see if pressure waves can induce CNS damage. I haven't read it in long time, but IIRC they did show that shooting pigs in the chest or extremities could cause adverse neurological effects. To be honest, tho, the evidence is kinda weak, and I'm not sure I buy it.

[Red_Cap]

I find this turn in the discussion interesting because in the current US Army Combat Lifesave Course, the focus is on two things: proper use and application of a tourniquet, and how to relieve tension pneumothorax. The docs finally wisened up to the fact that Private Snuffy didn't need to know how to stick someone for an IV, although they're still included in the CLS bags. Each soldier's personal medkit, however, consists of two things: them big-gauge needles to relieve pneuomothorax and a nifty little tourniquet that can be applied one-handed to prevent death via bleed-out (or, as mentioned above, unconsciousness from bleed out due to lack of oxygen flow).

[Medicineman]

Shadowrun has studiously avoided calibers for firearms.

And you did Well with it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Hough!
Medicineman