Awesome.

I believe the gelatin they use in that Mythbusters episode I mentioned was not your everyday jiggly store-bought-fun-for-kids Jello. It was the kind of stuff they use to calibrate ballistic gelatin, only (IIRC) it was mixed to much higher ratio than 90/10.

No. Bullets don't explode that thoroughly for a reason. The components that actually cause a lot of the damage from the anti-personnel type of explosive bullets (if you can call them that) are the little sharp bits that go shooting off all over the place when the bullet fragments. If a bullet exploded into a powdery, "dust" kind of substance, there wouldn't be much there to actually maximize damage effects (in other words, there's no point in making a bullet like that explode chemically when the sheer force of impact would have that effect anyway). Some of those little bits that do the damage are going to make up the exterior of the bullet, which has to be hard enough to hold the bullet together and be stable in flight, yet be soft enough as not to wear the barrel's rifling at an unecessary rate. And in order to maximize explosive capacity (something you definitely have to do in a small arms round), part of the exterior of that bullet is going to have to touch rifling. Those parts are going to be identifiable, even when they're blown into bits. The only real limiting factor is how much time the investigators intend to spend on ballistic forensics.

A non-jacketed, sintered frangible bullet (a bullet made of compressed, non-toxic powdered metals; like Delta, PMC Green, or Sinterfire) will break up rapidly on contact with the target. How much of that bullet would be identifiable, I'm not sure. I've never seen any forensics done on this kind of bullet as they're relatively new and mostly used for training purposes. At any rate, a mid-range shot to the head with a bullet like that would probably not make it very easy for the forensics crew to identify rifling marks.

Short of that, just get rid of the gun afterwards. It pays to have contacts. Anyway, shooting is not a good idea if you're trying to be discreet of mysterious about the whole thing.

I guess that depends on what you mean by "significantly fragmenting". Those jerk-offs that sniped people around DC used a .223 to do the work, all of it done under a distance of 100 meters. As you and I know, .223 bullets tend to significantly fragment in flesh at that distance. Forensic ballisticians identified each bullet and tied all of them to the same rifle. If you can piece together chunks like these in ballistics gelatin, you can certainly find them in a body, especially after an x-ray. Even after maximum fragmentation, you can clearly see a piece of jacket with rifling marks on it. That's identifiable.

Here's a site all about ballistic forensics for whoever is interested. There's some info on cold-pressed frangibles here as well.

Less-lethal is a more appropriate term.

No, that was pretty much sarcasm.

Out of perhaps a shotgun or "grenade" launcher a gel round might be useful. At short range. Out of a pistol or rifle, I don't believe something like a gel round would be feasible. The projectile would be too small to produce the intended effect. In pretty much any case, a taser would be a better idea.

Plus it has the added benefit of saving you from needing a second bullet to kill someone.

Neat idea, but impractical.

Well, I do, but I have to use most of it to equip the small first-world nation's military that I run.

I was thinking along the lines of what happens to the M193 behind the cannelure at close ranges. Although I shouldn't be surprised if they could do a ballistic trace on pieces that small, at least in the 2060s.

As for the gel rounds, what's the highest density you can get for a gel to be used for something like this? Like Raygun, I just can't see a bullet made out of a gel that weighs something like 6-20 grains/0.4-1.3 grams (ARs through HPs) being very effective.

In a book by Stephen Brookmyre called 'a big boy done it and ran away' (this man writes truly excellent comedy thrillers) a hitman uses a specially made (in that he made it specially, himself, not that there was someone doing a trade in these things) crossbow bolt made of ice. Shot his mark in the eye, by the time the police got there all that was left was a big pool of blood (slightly diluted, one careless owner).

No idea if it would work, but its cool, no?

They did have those plans. I seem to recall that the powers that be scrapped them because it was just about the stupidest idea ever, though, so I don't know whether it's a good arguement for ice bullets.

What the fuck would be the advantage to an ice ship?

Well, if you read the linked article you'd know that it's a LOT cooler than it sounds.

It's torpedo proof, and naturally buoyant so it can be pretty much any size. You really just can't sink it. It's also really cheap. It also takes almost no power to stop it from melting, and can be repaired in about no time flat with virtually no materials.

No pun intended.

If its PbP, sign me up!

The catalyst doesn't dissolve plasteel 7, it temporarily turns it into a gummy, mallable substance. So I suppose you could use it on the gun, wad it up, then stick it to the bottom of someone's chair.

An ice ship could be cool, except for one problem. Heat. Unless it relies on natural propulsion, you're going to have a hell of a time making sure that neither friction, exhaust, or any other signifigant heat sources melt the engine room. There will also be a temprature threshold at which the whole ship falls apart, so you need to stay south of that. Finally, even if the air is cool enough, warm water currents could really mess you up.

Referring back to the gel bullets discussions, y'know, I never really thought about the lack of size. Whenever I pictured someone taking a gel shot, the round had always turned into a big green bullet shaped thing by the time it hit something, so I'd forget that it was fired from a 9mm pistol.

Please read the linked story, Ice in the form that theyt are talking about really doesn't melt rapidly at all. A brick of it sant in a lake over a year unassisted before it melted.

Funny thing is after doing some research, as stupid as it sounds it's actually a very sound idea. It's attitudes like that that actually kill decent scientific investigation.

Remember murphy's laws of combat. If a stupid idea works, then it isn't a stupid idea.

[EDIT] and no, the people on the ship would notice no real difference. It ended up as much like an island than a ship with the structures built in and insulated.

But can you have se...oh, never mind.