Absolutely. I'm sure there's plenty more than what I'm stating, I just wanted to keep it to things I could support. Perhaps the propellant itself misfires, causing the bullet to drop out and explode at their feet. I'm just going with the slightly tenuous fact that it's resisted with ballistic, and thus it's probably shooting them.

I understand. And I am not trying to dispute you in any way. As I said, just speculation. Oddly enough this thread has me curious in how EX-Explosive rounds might work. Nothing wrong with some pointless speculation.

And here is the a fore mentioned pointless speculation......

I always considered the main difference with Impact vs Ballistic armor being the velocity of the attack. I believe the is the basic premise of real world armor. Ballistic armor may be more beneficial against certain types of explosions. In real world explosions more injuries come from secondary damage than something direct like shrapnel impact. (There are obliviously exceptions to this depending on the explosion.) A pressure wave is more likely to burst a blood vessel internally than a piece of shrapnel is likely to sever the same vessel. A lot of damage is also caused by secondary impacts. In which impact armor would probably be most beneficial.

So could an explosive bullet be designed to explode at close proximity to a target and provide a directed pressure wave? I am thinking of a similar result to firing a "blank" round into someones head. From extremely close range a "blank" can be very dangerous/deadly. Could this effect be accomplished with an explosive round? And which type of armor is likely to deal with it better?

I see Ex-Ex shotgun slugs as something like a 40k bolt shell though not as blow a fist sized hole though a 3foot wall.

I'd imagine some of the largest problems with that would be 1. That it would be difficult to fit the sensors to explode before impact into a bullet without making it way oversized, and 2. Fitting enough explosives in a bullet to allow the shock wave to actually be particularly damaging.

From my reading of the EX rounds, they use a very small amount of explosive to cause the bullet to fragment inside the wound, in other words getting the damage advantage of fragmentation rounds without the disadvantage of being easier for armor to stop.

I'm not sure that even something the size of a frag grenade would have enough concussive force to be deadly or even particularly damaging. There was an interesting Mythbusters not too long ago that delt with the Whatcha (sp?) and they put an explosive on the end, and it needed to be fairly large and well directed for the explosion to do any real damage (Though they weren't using high end explosives or anything). Still, it makes me think it would be really hard to deliver an effective explosion in something of bullet size.

What you're saying might be possible on the missile/rocket end of things, but it still might be difficult. Also might not be particularly effective. It only takes a few feet for the concussive wave from large scale explosives to not be deady, but the fragmentation could potentially go 100+ feet without much trouble.

Understandable, but as I mentioned above, take a look at stick and shock. To make it work, as it does in the game, it would require a very large bullet or some advanced (ie miniaturized) technology. So your two points could be overcome, although not currently.

Once again just speculation.

Well, an SnS round is just a capacitor really. It isn't that high tech. I admit it carries a fairly large charge for the size of the bullet, but it isn't that unimaginable.

You're right, a sensor could likely be developed to be small enough to go on a bullet, but the question is could it be done cheaply enough to make it a reasonable weapon? And given from the various other explosives in the game, I don't know that an explosive exists (Or even could exist within the realm of physical possibility) that could fit inside a bullet and create a concussive wave strong enough to damage someone. And honestly, if you could fit that much explosive power in a bullet, I'm not sure why you would go for the concussive wave instead of just planting it in them and having it explode. Even if they explosion doesn't do much, the concussive wave is still there. No real reason to fire it off before it hits the person.

Well in reference to SnS, the technological advancement that sticks in my mind the most is not what the bullet accomplishes, but that it is sturdy enough to survive impact and still work.

As for the rest, you raise some valid points. I was just trying to work the thought through. Oh well, I guess back to the drawing board.

If you want to just handwave it away, not provide any argument, not want to even try to come up with a reasonable explanation - fine. The only thing you've brought to the discussion in a long time is "I don't see it mentioned in the rules, I don't care even if it is glaringly obvious that you couldn't provide that much harm to the operator without damaging the gun."

And by glaringly obvious, you mean so obvious that no one else agrees with you?

I just STATED why you would be injured. Read, please.

kzt agrees with me, and frankly he seems to be somewhat of an expert regarding firearms.





Karoline has given up with real arguments and is down to "I can't see it in the rules, end of discussion". As I said, if that's her position, fine. I think it is a bogus argument - it doesn't say that Actioneer Business Clothes can get holes in it when you get shot, yet in my world after a serious firefight that suit will look pretty much out of place in a board room. There are plenty of things not covered by the rules, but by common sense.

Then there's been some technology handwaving "explosive rounds in 2070 are so advanced they can blow up and severely damage something on the other side of a barrier, without doing damage to the barrier". I don't know if they're thinking of quantum tunneling or worm holes, they're not saying.

And then there's the "everybody thinks you're wrong" argument (which is a false statement as I pointed out above, but let's let that rest). Boohoo I'm in the minority. That doesn't make me wrong. If we polled "did people in the middle ages believe that the earth was flat", I bet most of you would say "yes they did", when in fact it is nothing but a myth. Popular opinion doesn't make something right.

If someone wants to continue this discussion, I'm all for it. Please come up with some sort of explanation of how you'd think it would work, that the operater takes a 7P hit without the gun getting destroyed in the process.

I thought you were being sarcastic. Seriously, the bullet drops out of the barrel, lands at their feet, and blows up and damages them?

But if you were serious:

A partial discharge would either mean the bullet is still lodged in the barrel, or it flies for at least some distance. The bore diameter is smaller than the bullet, so you need overpressure for it to move forward, and it takes too much pressure for it to do that that it would just drop out and land at their feet.

And the bullet exploding at their feet, I don't see anyway the fragmentation from a distance will cause the same damage as a direct hit from the bullet travelling at say 800 m/s and blowing up in direct contact with the target.

Wow, way to contradict your own arguments.



Sure, just as soon as you explain to me how the operator takes a 7P hit with the gun being destroyed in the process. I've already explained that physics indicates that the hit should be far less severe than actually being hit by the bullet.

Like I keep saying, either you follow the rules where you take a 7P hit (Despite it disagreeing with physics) or you follow real world where the gun is (maybe, but unlikely to be) destroyed, and the operator takes a much smaller hit.

is there really a point anymore?
havent you gotten an answer to your original post? or do you only read the post that you can twist enough to find something small to keep going with?

seriously, first off they all tried giving you some straight answers, real life experiences.
but please realize ONE thing, that it is YOU that have a problem with this particular little thing, then house rule it, why the heck even bother to keep going here if not only to heat up things or try to piss others off?
read through all the post you have caused and if you dont find anything then well I am really sorry for you and go do a house rule.
Problem solved

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12...ome-Office.html <- current S&S, since how they're made has been brought up in argument now. I imagine they get much better in y'know, 60 years.

Dude you can't have it both ways. In one post you contradict yourself. People in the middle ages were not able to imagine the current technology. And we have no idea what we will see by 2070. Heck in 1989 a pocket secretary seemed like a devise so far in the future that it would never exist. I have no doubt people would have argued that it was not possible, but darned if I do not have one (blackberry) sitting on my desk.

I suffer from a rare genetic disease that killed many of my descendants before they reached adulthood, as recent as a cousin. Yet here I am because a doctor from the Mayo clinic developed a breakthrough procedure that saved my life. His science was sound, though he had trouble convincing many of his peers that. Now, 23 years later, he is considered a visionary in his field, one the foremost experts, and I am still alive. All because he designed a simple tube that does the "impossible".

So if you want to pretend that you have any idea what sort of advances will happen in the next 60 years, go right ahead. But you might as well put on a tin-foil hat and scribble on walls, because you will not seem any more insane.

I was talking about this, which you ignored.

Man, imagine if you could grab one of the people that worked on the first computer (you know, those old building sized ones that did simple math) and bring them into present day and show them a blackberry or laptop or something and go "Okay, its just like you're computer, only 1000 times smaller, 1000 times cheaper, 1,000,000 times faster, and 1000 times easier to operate."

Or if you could grab someone who worked on 'special effects' back in the early days of movies and then show them something like LotR.

Technology increases exponentially, and even in my short life span, I've seen absurd jumps in technology. It's hard to really try and grasp what will come about in the next 62 years. They're already printing heart tissue, to work on the possibility of literally printing people a new heart or other vital organs. They are already constructing electronics on the atomic scale. There is, right now, a DNA sequencing kit that is the size of a credit card.

Hmm, I must have missed that list (or it was in the middle area that I skipped over a bit). It's very good logic, and might be most reasonable. Only oddity is: why does the ammo dictate that you always shoot yourself in the foot? No reason for special ruling on EX ammo if that is what happens. Still, I do like it, and is likely the best explanation you'll manage within the rules.

Very cool. Also, if you notice in the article, it says that it delivers a 20 second shock. SnS rounds seem to last about .75-3 seconds or so at most, so if you can manage the same power with about 1/10th the lifespan in about 1/10th the size, then you more or less have a pistol round. I'm sure there are added complexities, but it should be quite workable in 60 years.

When I get a critical glitch with ex ex ammo my head just explodes spontaneously at the shock of such a poor roll. Luckily I have a thick skull so I get some ballastic armor when I resist the damage.

Next time I need to get a bit more of a negative modifier so I only roll one die, which would mean I would be less likely to get a critical glitch.

Remember, gun threads in RPG forums can explode.

Nah you just make a long shot test any how.

There have been plenty of reasonable explanations that you've ignored. I myself came up with two in the first page of this "discussion". It's obvious that you aren't willing to see reason and you're just looking for evidence that says you're right. I'll wager this came up during a game session and you were outnumbered in that "discussion" as well so you went to Dumpshock hoping to be validated.

Unlucky for you, Dumpshock might be at the bottom of the list of all internet pages when it comes to that purpose.

You are so wrong that it is humurous...

Do you actually know anything about ballistics, or handloading your own ammunition? Not casual experience in the military, but real, practical experience?

Because that statement above would indicate that you have no real clue... The bore diameter of the Ruger Super Blackhawk is .429 at the Grooves... the Bullet Diameter of the round used is only .429... as you can see, there is no Difference (and is definitely not greater than the bore diameter). The is required to make the firearm actually functional, as putting a cartridge into a gun that has a larger bullet diameter than the bore will generally end in a catastrophic failure, as the chamber explodes... you might get lucky and only be maimed a bit...

What you are advocating is using a 7.62 mm round (0.30 Caliber) in a rifle chambered for 7mm (.284 Caliber)... good luck... hope that you did not spend to much on the weapon when you bought it... assuming that you could even chamber the round in the first place...

You really should provide a caveat when talking about subjects that you have only vague ideas about... or at least do more research before you advise using incompatible ammunition in a weapon...

Keep the Faith

The...the bore diameter is smaller than the bullet?

What?

It's kinda like getting the square block through the circle hole. You use the hammer and make it work

Can't believe I didn't notice him say that. Bullet is larger than the barrel... yeah, that totally works.

I always thought that the ex-ex and explosive ammo were FMJ rounds with a small explosive charge to cause the bullet to fragment after penetrating the body. It is better than soft point ammo (that is ammo with a lead tip rather than copper) as soft point ammo will just flattenitself against the cermic plates, while it has the advantage over FMJ in that the bullet will more than likely fragment before exiting the body.

How I think it works is a either a fixed time delay fuse (Perhaps .25 or .5 seconds) or iif you have a smartlink the bullet coud be time set to explode at the desired distance +1 foot. An added advantage being that it would prevent the missed bullets from hitting some poor bystander unless they were very close to the target.


Glitches: Well I look at glitches as bad luck and/or bad skill.

Example of bad luck:time delay fuse was manufactured wrong and explodes in the barrel or right way, destroying the gun and injuring the user.

Example of poor skill: User never cleans his gun, and it gets so fould up it causes a jam wich results in the bullet going off after it is extracted.

I don't think there is a need for explosives inside the bullet, perhaps some kind of "FMJ-teflon coated" SCIENCE!™ ammo with fragments of metal inside of it that spread inside the body after piercing the armor.
I mean, I think it is easier to develop a bullet like this than one with les than 1 ounce of explosives.

I don't know. Would be really hard to make something that would pierce through armor and then break up. Much easier to make something that will pierce through armor, then activate a very small charge to cause a bit of extra damage.

Maybe it is something as simpel as using a tried and true design... The Brenneke Slug is an awesome Shotgun Slug Round... it could be something as simple as that... on a scale for Pistols and Rifles...

Keep the Faith

I have found this thread to be (mostly) educational, because I had completely forgotten about the special rules for EX-EX ammo. I have gotten lots of ideas to use for Crits rolled with other ammo types, but in the 2+ years I have been running my game, it has never come up. No one ever crit glitches with a gun!

I try to not get hung up too much on "reality", because Shadowrun to me is not a simulator, it is the kewlest movie me and my friends can be in. Having a gun blow up in one of my PC's face is comedy gold, and the players would think so as well!

My players are addicted to APDS ammo as well, and spend large amounts of nuyen buying it and maintaining the pipeline. Of course, it makes me laugh when that LMG with a belt of APDS ammo is used for suppression fire!

I wonder why you're posting like that when you not only do you not have any knowledge on the subject, but also without even researching it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62_mm_caliber
7.62 mm refers to the internal diameter of the barrel at the lands (the raised helical ridges in rifled gun barrels). The actual bullet caliber is normally .308 in (7.82 mm), although Soviet weapons commonly use a .311 in (7.91 mm) bullet

The 7.62mm NATO ammunition has a bullet wider than 7.62mm - the 7.62mm is a measurement that refers to the bore it is made for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62x51mm_NATO
Bullet diameter 7.80 mm (0.307 in)

Ok, I'll explain it again.

A 6.8mm bullet weighs 8g. Assume there is 1.8g of high explosives in an explosive round. This is about 1/100th of the amount of high explosives in the US standard M67 hand grenade. This goes off very near to your body, with plenty of metal around it to produce shrapnel. Unlike the propellant, which is a low explosive and won't shatter metal, high explosives have high brisance and has a much different effect.

You also have to take into account that the operator takes a 7P hit per the rules. Something has to produce this effect. The only conceivable way that this could happen if that the gun blows apart. What other way of the operator taking damage do you see? Supertech that generates wormholes to let the the explosive go around the gun parts and then hit the user?

There is my explanation. Please provide yours.

I got some solid feedback from kzt, which was the same conclusion as I've reached.

Maybe something comes up that will influence my take on the rules and who would use explosive ammo, but this thread continues because people keep presenting "counterarguments" based on flawed understanding, I correct it, repeat.

You are free to post any sort of scifi explanation you like.

Here is the situation: You have a bullet exploding. There are gun parts between the bullet and the operator. The operater takes a 7P hit.

How does the operator take damage without the gun getting damaged? Wormholes? Quantum tunneling? The gun is made of nanites that auto-reassemble afterwards?

We might be in 2070, but basic laws of physics still hold, and any explanation that allows an effect to hurt someone on the other side of barrier doesn't fit with the tech in the SR setting.

You inspect the barrel like a idiot and its a delayed discharge and you take a round to your face? Thats crit glitch worthy.

You don't inspect the barrel with a round still in the chamber.

Ok, I'll explain it again.

I don't give a damn how much the bullet weighs, what kind of explosives it has in it, what the comparison is to a hand grenade (BTW, you have 1/100th the amount of high explosive doing over 1/2 the damage, that totally makes sense). The bullet is going to do less damage blowing up in the gun and causing it to fragment....

You know, I'm tired of repeating myself to you. If you haven't grasped the exceedingly simple things I've said so far by now, you're obviously never going to get it.

A fragmentation grenade does 7P at 5 meters. An AR explosive ammo does 7P at 5 centimers. Same damage at 1/100th of the distance. The numbers actually fit surprisingly well.



In your last post, http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...mp;#entry922788, you said you'd come up with some sort of explanation of how you'd think it would work, that the operater takes a 7P hit without the gun getting destroyed in the process, if I explained how I thought it would work with the gun getting destroyed.

I held up my part of the deal. Please hold up yours, instead of dodging with "I'm tired of repeating myself".

Fine, since you're pushing for a response.

You get hit by that amount of damage by small parts of the bullet flying out of the (Is it called the breech?) and hitting you. That's how you get hit without destroy the gun. Now before you cry and say 'well that won't do 7P damage' let me say again: neither would your explanation.

1/100th of the distance for 1/100th the explosive charge does not equal the same amount of damage. Having just been to a bomb squad demo, and being a forensic chemist, I know this very well. Also, you continue to completely ignore the fact that the tiny little charge used with the EX rounds to cause fragmentation (not blow a person's body into tiny pieces) isn't going to do anywhere near as much damage as being hit by that bullet and then have that bullet explode inside their body. Even pretending that all the damage of an EX bullet came from the explosion of the bullet (as opposed to 1/7th of the damage as is the case), you still ignore the fact that it takes energy to fragment the gun and that not all of the gun shrapnel would hit the shooter, only about 1/3rd would, which means you're looking at maybe 1/4th the force of the bullet exploding in someone would hit a shooter.

Lets see, if it is 1/100th the charge of a frag grenade, and a frag grenade does 7P damage at 5 meters, then 1/100th a charge at 0m should do infinite damage, right?

Face it, you're arguments don't work. If you want to bring real world physics into it, then do so, but don't say "But then the damage is the same because that's what the rules say." because I can (and did) provide equally valid ways that you could physically get injured that would be less than the amount the book says, and then amend it with "But then the damage is the same because that's what the rules say."

So yes, in the real world, bits of the bullet flying out of the breech would do less damage than getting hit by the bullet, but in the real world, the gun blowing up from the bullet going off would also do less damage than getting hit by the bullet. Both use the real world as a basis for how the damage reaches the user, and then both use the rules to provide that the damage remains high.

So, like I keep saying, you can either accept what the rules say, which is that you get hit for weapon damage (Which is impossible in any case) and the weapon has no mention of being damaged in any way, or you can make a house rule in which you follow along the lines of the real world, and the misfire does far less damage, but likely still won't damage the gun.

If you refer to the part where the brass casing gets ejected, that is the ejection port. Unless you're using a right-handed weapon on the left side or holding it in some weird way, stuff can't fly out from there and hit you.

Try looking at this picture of an M4, there's just no way something coming from within could hit the operator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:M4Firing...CasingInAir.jpg

Weapons firing caseless ammunition don't have a regular ejection port. Probably they'll have some some sort of ejection port to cycle rounds through the weapon, but where that is located, and if it is even accessible during the regular firing cycle, is anybody's guess. Locating it so an explosive misfire hurts the operator more than necessary seems very unlikely though.

The ejection port just won't work. It obviously isn't the barrel. That leaves us with the magazine well, but here there's the clip in the way - and from an "it isn't mentioned specifically in the rules, so it doesn't happen" point of view, the clip/remaining ammo getting destroyed, or even the clip simply getting ejected, wouldn't be satisfactory, would it?


I honestly can't see how you can disagree on this. The gun parts are simply in the way, there's no way to damage the user without going through the gun parts.

Yet normal bullets misfire and hurt you without the gun being damaged. Is it so hard to say that they do it in that manner (I don't know, as I've never had it happen to me) only more damaging?

I honestly can't see how you can disagree on this. The gun parts are simply in the way, there's no way to damage the user with a misfire as much as getting hit by the bullet. Like I've said a dozen times. Use they rules or don't. If you really want to fix one thing that can't happen by having two things that can't happen happen, then go for it.

I don't know where you're getting this. The weapon getting severely damaged with nothing happening to the operator, yes. The operator taking damage, no.

Tymeaus mentioned some "very, very small" pieces of casing being embedded in his hand and forehead. You're not talking damage here, and it certainly wasn't fragmentation directly from the explosion - most likely stuff ricocheting off the casing deflector as the casing is ejected. He also had two accounts of the receivers breaking from misfires that only caused very minor injury. His point was that the user didn't get badly hurt from regular ammo discharges, not the other way around.




You have a really round about way of saying "Yes, I can't see any way the operator could be damaged by an explosive misfire without damage to the gun".

Which is my freaking point as well. Misfires don't cause the large amount of damage that the book says.


You're right, given that I'm not a firearms expert, and have never even fired a gun before, I really don't know how it could happen, but I do know that it does happen, and I know that the damage is minimal, and as I keep explaining to you, physics dictates that the misfiring bullet will do less damage than a bullet actually hitting you regardless of all other circumstances.

So, last time I'm going to say it. Either use the real world, and accept that a misfiring bullet (even an EX one) will do less damage with a misfire than actually hitting you, or use the rules, which say (despite physics) that you somehow get hit with the full damage of the bullet on an EX misfire, but say nothing about the gun being damaged.

You have no idea how much I know about firearms, friend. You're the one saying that the projectile is larger than the barrel through which it is fired. At the time, you weren't referring to the methods by which calibers and barrels are measured and designated, but rather you were discussing the physics of how a firearm works, and why an explosion is required to move a bullet down a barrel.


A nonsensical statement like that doesn't tell anyone that I'm the one without firearm knowledge, okay? It's true that a misfire isn't going to make a bullet just idly tumble out the end of the barrel, but the reason you give -- that the bore is smaller than the bullet -- is ridiculous. If the barrel is smaller than the bullet, the bullet's not going any where any time soon. The barrel is smaller than the entire cartridge, yes, but not smaller than the bullet itself.

You can't shoot a .45 out of a .22 for a reason, and it's not just because the magazine won't fit.

The most important fact to keep in mind is that metal fatigues with the rapid heating and cooling of firing a round. This is one of the primary reasons for the US Senate approving US Army swapping their current inventory of direct-gas system rifles (aka, AR-series variants) to the cooler-running short-stroke piston systems (a la the HK416 and a few other companies). You have to figure that a receiver has to survive a minimum lifetime of at 10K rounds, that the receiver is going to be designed to be as light as possible while still being strong enough to meet this requirement, and that it is designed to maintain it's integrity during a normal firing cycle through massive volumes of fire (as a side note, many of the long-term fighting failures in Afghanistan have been linked to the barrel not being thick enough, not due to the gas system failing as has been often mistaken).

The above being said, a receiver in a firearm can obviously function with a slight overpressure due to it being dirty, using a +P (or +P+) cartridge, or other random niggling events (I once went over 5K rounds without cleaning my Glock 17 just to see how reliable it really is). It's when you see double-charge cartridges, complete blockages of the barrel, and other massive "things really ain't right here, folks" situations that cause the catastrophic failures as seen on YouTube, probably the most (in)famous being the "Glock KaBoom!" The minuscule explosive capacity of an infantry weapon projectile should almost certainly be added to the list of "ain't gonna blow up my gun or my face" category.

It's a dumb rule, folks. You can play that way, but it's obviously written by a fan geek gamer tired of people bitching at him rather than by someone with even a passing knowledge of firearms.

I'm entirely okay with people choosing to houserule EX ammo misfires into disabling the weapon rather than hitting the user. I haven't bothered to change the rule because a) nobody at my table cares and b) I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen an EX round explode in someone's face since SR4 came out; twice it happened to NPCs and became a non-issue, and the other two times it happened to PCs... who promptly spent a point of Edge to avoid it.

I'd like to take a shot at the original question. Who would use explosive and ex-ex in Shadowrun, given that the rounds are known to misfire and damage the user?

Well, suppose that people know about this characteristic of the ammunition (it sometimes explodes in the gun) , and also suppose that people know the problem happens less when the users are well trained (less chance of critical glitch, better chance of edge or group edge saving you).

I agree with Smokeskin that the product is not going to see WIDE deployment. The risk of damage to the user makes ex and ex-ex contraindicated for the unarmored shooter as well as the shooter of merely casual skill. So... NOT a personal defense round or general law enforcement round unless you're some brand of idiot. Likewise, it won't see much use in military situations, as their targets are generally going to require APDS (which, being the military, they have ready access to, of course).

Where I think you WILL see a market for explosive and ex-ex rounds is in SWAT and HRT type of situations. SWAT and HRT are trained well enough that critical glitches will be unlikely, their high professional rating insures some group edge in case of mishap, and if that fails, they are generally wearing full body armor, further reducing the chances of injury.

HRT and SWAT opponents often require more firepower than standard ammunition can readily deal with, unlike your average beat cop or security guard. Add to this requirement [fluff]the fact that ex-ex and explosive ammunition is less prone to overpenetration than APDS,[/fluff] the general poor availability of APDS, and the increased knockdown potential that explosive rounds create, and I can certainly see a market in elite security and law enforcement settings.

I don't know that the critical glitch mechanic would translate very well into the SR IC world though. I'm not sure that it would be recognized that the bullets blow up less in the hands of able marksman, because in honesty it doesn't make much sense that the odds of the bullet blowing up inside the gun are directly related to how well aimed the gun is (remember, a laser sight will decrease the odds of a bullet blowing up in the barrel, and it being dark out will increase the odds).

So the real question is, IC, what kind of figure do they have for how often an EX bullet blows up inside the gun? If you take the way the critical glitch mechanic works, people with high skill glitch less (and are more likely to have edge to negate it with), and are also the kind that fire the bullets the most. The people that it blows up on are the types that only fire a handful of bullets in their lifetime. Given that, I think that you would, IC, see very low percentages of EX rounds blowing up in the gun (And of course the producing companies are going to adjust the figures in their favor as much as possible "Oh, it wasn't the fault of our bullet, it is because he didn't clean his gun properly, doesn't count.")

So, I think that nearly anyone that could get their hands on them would use them. They provide about the best boost you can get for your weapon without resorting to the prohibitively expensive (For NPCS) and hard to get APDS, and in fact, APDS is only marginally better. Remember, people have a very strong 'It'll never happen to me' sense. Sure, one in a thousand, or one in ten thousand, or one in a hundred thousand EX bullets blow up and injure (not kill) their user, but everyone is going to be quite certain they won't be that one, and even if they are, it isn't deadly and that extra firepower could be the difference between life and death for security guards, police, soldiers, and anyone else that might fire a gun.

I mean think about it, what are the odds of being in a car crash every year? Like one in a few thousand? Do people still drive? Heck yeah, both because there is hardly any option at this point, and because people are quite certain that, because they are such awesome drivers while eating a doughnut and texting and shaving, they won't be the one that gets in an accident, and even if they are, it certainly won't be the fatal kind. And that isn't even getting into the odds of being hurt while doing all kinds of recreational things (You know, like sports, don't even have to get into the 'dangerous' activities) which are purely for enjoyment, compared to a small chance of being injured using something that could save your life.

Fair enough. I think that general liability issues will stop Lone Star and corpsec from issuing EX ammo to their basic employees, but I doubt they'd have a problem with you packing your own (maybe require you to qualify on the range to use it)

There might be a bit of PR backlash as well, since "shooting to wound" with explosive ammo is something of an oxymoron. Much less of an issue with Red Samurai, or SWAT, etc. Their targets all "deserve whatever they get" as far as PR is concerned.

As for the "Assume they know" issue... it's at least an interesting way to look at it, and you can make a decent argument that the level of data-mining for statistics like this will only be greater in the SR timeline.

Hell, stealing other companies statistics could well be the cause of some shadowruns. "Our accounting department wants you to extract their actuarial tables..." Hm. Working for the real cold-blooded bottom-liners.

I didn't mention before, but Shadowrunners are practically the target customer demographic for the EX rounds... elite operatives that need to take down varied, possibly heavily armored targets on a budget? Yes, please. I'm sure that in runner lore, misfiring EX rounds are kind of a joke. Like cigarettes... "You know, those things will kill ya." "Yeah, gotta die of something."