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Rafe wrote: ↑Mon Feb 20, 2023 1:58 pm Speaking of ignorance of firearms in fiction and movies, this thread reminds me of why, about halfway into the first episode of NBC's series La Brea, I changed the channel and never watched it again. There were CGI dire wolf-looking critters that stood about 4 feet at the shoulder; at that size, had to be pushing 400+ pounds. One takes a running leap at one of the human castaways. While it's flying through the air, another castaway shoots what looks to be a .38 from a revolver at the creature, broadside, perpendicular to its jump. Naturally, the .38 round not only felled the massive creature with one shot, DRT, but stopped it on a dime, hurling it instantaneously sideways off it's flight path.

Now that right there is one heckuva .38 Detective Special. Maybe that's what we should be using to shoot down unknown balloons instead of $400K missiles.

The Annoyed Man wrote: ↑Sun Feb 19, 2023 11:34 pm I’ve seen people shot with most of the common calibers, from .22 to .45 ACP, and the three magnums in handguns (.357, .41, and .44); .22, .223, and .308 in rifles; and 20 and 12 gauge in shotguns…including 2 patients that were shotgunned at contact distance. With the exception of the 2 contact shotgun wounds, and the guy who took a .308 to the head, the other entrance wounds all appeared to not be any larger than the caliber that made them.

1. A 20 gauge contact wound to the leg immediately above the ankle, nearly (but not quite) severing the foot.
2. A 12 Gauge contact wound to the base of the neck, the entrance hole being approximately an inch in diameter with deep burning and stippling around the edges.
3. A .308 to the head with pieces of the skull missing and a large amount of brain matter missing. He lived, incidentally, curled up in the fetal position in a vegetative state for 2 more years before finally exiting this dimension.

In the case of the two shotgun wounds, the entrance holes were larger than caliber because of the destructiveness of the muzzle blast. In the case of the .308 wound, enough skin, bone, and brain tissue was missing to make it hard to tell where the bullet entered and exited.

Otherwise, entrance wounds, even from pretty powerful cartridges, are fairly unremarkable in size.

LDB415 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 18, 2023 11:55 am I'm reading a novel with victims shot with a 9mm. The detective looks at "the quarter-sized entry wounds". Does a much smaller than dime-sized bullet produce quarter-sized entry wounds?