Pistols v rifles Q
 

Why do rifles the same calibre as pistols do more damage?

I can see rifles spewing out rounds quicker (RPM) and shooting more (30 in a mag verse 6). But on a round by round basis, why the difference?

Is it because rifle rounds have a bigger charge behind it (longer case???)???

Keyholing.

When a bullet strikes a target, it begins to tumble. Often, it will only rotate 180 degrees and exit the target base, rather than point, first. Since rifle bullets are longer than pistol bullets, this creates a wider wound channel.

Note also that hydrostatic shock is largely a myth, applying only to shots to the skull and (perhaps) the liver (which is a relatively rigid organ).

Velocity mostly.
Rifles often fire smaller rounds than pistols (5.56mm/.223" or 7.62mm/.308" opposed to 9mm, .38" or .45") but at much greater velocity.

Think of the difference as being hit by a ball peen hammer, or having a six inch nail driven into you by a big guy with a 7lb sledgehammer.

Jeez where do I begin?

Okay, in the case of rifles that fire EXACTLY the same rounds as pistols (in the days of the wild west there were many examples of this) O'Borg is right when he says velocity. Many pistol-type rounds fired from pistols do not travel along a long enough barrel for all the powder to burn and have the gasses expand to their maximum potential, but if you fire them from a pistol with a very long barel or from a carbine or rifle you maximise their potential.

Then there is the matter of energy transferred to the target. A pistol bullet may have less energy than a rifle bullet when it reaches its target (because its case contains much less propellant) but it will usually be quite short and fat with a fairly blunt nose so it is less likely to tear right through the target and even if it does, either way it still transfers a greater proportion of its energy into the target. Rifle bullets are all about range and penetration. Copeab is right about bullets tumbling, and rifle bullets are usually travelling a hell of a lot faster than pistol bullets. So even if a smaller proportion of a rifle bullet's energy is transferred to the target (both because the bullet tears right through the target and because it isn't as fat) it still has such a vast amount of energy to start with that the proportion of energy that is delivered into the target still exceeds a pistol bullet.

Lets look at an example of a pistol type bullet and a rifle type bullet which have the same width, the .22 calibre. A .22 calibre fired from a pistol never even reaches its potential and it never really had much potential to start with. It isn't a very fat round, it isn't very long either so it doesn't have much mass and the amount of powder behind it is, well, pathetic. About the only thing it has going for it is that it is fairly blunt nosed and it will probably stop inside the target so it will deliver all the energy it had upon leaving the barrel (minus a bit of air resistance) when it hits the target. Now 5.56mm is the same as .223 Remington so basically a .22 but it is a much longer projectile and it has WAY more powder behind it so it is moving seriously fast when it hits the target. Whammo. Even if it tears right through the target it has hit with so much more force that alot more energy will be transferred than the pissy little .22, and added to that if it tumbles on the way through it leaves a much bigger wound channel. So hopefully the target is DRT.

Most of this goes to creating a deeper wound channel than a bullet with lower energy. Most of the body is elastic enough to dissipate the shockwave from a rifle round.

<Tangent>
I have a vague recollection of hearing about US Special Forces in Vietnam shooting VC sentries with their silenced .22LR pistols, and a few cases where the VC slapped at the wound thinking they'd been bitten by a particularly large mosquito.
Possibly complete hogwash, as I do think it was one of the Cyberpunk2020 forums I heard the tale on :)
</Tangent>

Well. the .22 is one of the most deadliest calibers in the US causing the majority of fatalities.

Part of this is because it has enough power to enter the body cavities but not enough to exit. So, it just bounces around inside the cavity a bit. The end result is, it has one entry hole, but in the cavity that it entered, well there are several other little channels it made as its energy was disapated as it tried to get out.

As for a .22 with silencer, eh, simply nail the sucker in the back or side of the head, or a front or rear shot to the upper chest would do the trick. The end result scrambled brains, or the heart and lungs would have half a dozen holes in them.

In my anatomy class we actualy had a portion of such injuries, at least I think it was anatomy. Where the person was shot in the abdomen and the round came out after traveling along the femur <and devestated the femoral artery> or was it vice versa? A leg shot that traveled up the femur and into the abdominal cavity?

But, yeah, what they all said, energy, rifles and rifle calibers have more energy where as pistols and pistol calibers do not. And also velocity. Remember the design of the projectile as well. Pistol bullets tend to be run nosed allowing them to slow and disapate energy faster. Rifle bullets tend to be pointed with the tappered base <spitzer> so they by their design go faster and penetrate more.

BUT, also higher velocity rounds tend to fragment when they hit something too. Pistol rounds need to be specialy designed for that so they expand as in hollowpoints like Speer Gold Dots and Winchester Black Talons and others.

The biggest reason for that statistic is that .22 Long Rifle is the most common caliber in the country.

Almost anything can be a deadly weapon. If I jam one of those Bic pens you can buy at a dollar store for 20 per package in the right spot, I can kill a person with it. And, at least in the US, the number one cause of non-disease death is still the automobile. That's part of why those morons who sue firearms manufacturers make me crazy.

I've heard that Mafia hit men prefer .22 pistols to execute people, using head shots for this reason. The round will penetrate the skull but not exit it, and bounces around. This also means a cleaner kill as the exiting bullet doesn't remove half the skull, useful if you have to put the body in a car trunk and dump it somewhere else.

Also, consider this an exit wound tends to be bigger thus it allows more leakage which can also be called "EVIDENCE."

And also, the report of a .22 is less than other calibers so the chances of it going unnoticed are greater.

However,

If you want an assiination tool, I would think a low power subsonic tracer round. subsonic so the report isn't that great nor the sonic crack, a silencer to further silence it. Because if you use supersonic rounds with a silencer you still have that "crack" from the round which makes a silencer useless. And as I said a reduced caliber round, .32 or .380 and a tracer. Thus you don't have a pool of blood anywhere to make people wonder where did that pool of blood come from? And where is our sentry? Hmmm, no sentry, and blood, I think I'll sound the alarm!

But why a tracer round?

The tracer will stand a decent chance of cautorizing the wound, so it doesn't bleed all over the sentry post. Yes, this eliminates the leathality of the round by not allowing the effect of the round to bleed out. But, how long would it take for him to bleed out? He may thrash and scream and alert others before he does expire. So just be sure your shot is fatal to begin with destorying the nervous system, brain or heart.

I mean what would you think if you were a Sgt checking on your troops and you find one missing with a pool of blood all over the place?

Or you see your sentry sitting in his box and see dark liquid dripping on the ground?

Now, if you happen upon your sentrys post and just find him missing but no blood, well maybe he went to check something out, or go into the bushes to releive himself.

Or if you monitor your sentry in either a guardtower or sentry box and see him sitting there <where the assasins propped him him> all is well, but, you see him sitting threre and see blood dripping from the tower, or on the ground near the sentry checkpoint well then you sound the alarm.

Its a little thing but its usualy the little things that do add up.

Another example, ships and docks, if you are worried about being boarder of infiltratred, one key thing is to look for wet footprints.

Alot of prison camps have a ring of sand around the perimeter. It is kept clean and raked, that way if anyone crosses it they leave footprints. Same as people infiltrating on a beach or snow or a mudflat. Thus for me, some of the best time for sentry durring training was when the tide had just gone out, or after a new snow.

Makes perfect sense to me, but I didn't know a tracer burned hot enough to cauterize. Come to think of it, I don't know the temp needed to cauterize a wound anyway.

Well I do not know the temp of tracers, but they are hot enough to cause wood and brush to smoke, smolder and burn, so I am going to assume it is going to cauterize, or at least the initial entry wound which really is all you need. If there is internal bleeding that remains in the bodies cavities, I forget the term but good, because it is nstill blood loss, whats worse it will impact the the other bodies systems. Imagine you are bleeding into your abdominal cavity or chest cavity, it will then make it harder to breath as you are now having to fight the internal pressure from the blood to just expand your lungs.

I personaly would say a low velocity pistol caliber would be the best with a heavy slug so it does not turn into a through and through wound. As stated, an exit wound is usualy larger, more blood and sometimes bits and pieces. Again something that is unusual enough to be noticed. Imagine the victim is leaning forward on the trench wall. You shot him, but he is being held up on the wall, and everyone just thinks he's asleep, so they do not bother him. That is your open door to going through that position. As people will think it is manned there is a body there.

Now, imagine the same scenario, but! Half his head has been blown apartm or there is a fist sized ooozing hole in his shoulder with blood splatter and bits of flesh against the back of the wall, that person will be removed and a replacement will be brought in, and all you have is one less enemy, but you don't have an open door to move through unchallenged.

Like, oh, .45 ACP? :)

A .45 ACP with 230 grain would do nicely. And there is a more than one reason why the Silenced M3 Greasegun is in my Arctic Raiders game :D

As well as my mentioning the .380 or .32 calibers. Further a automatic would be it, the gap in a revolver would allow the gas and noise to escape easier.

Heavy projectiles going slow are always good!

An example,

The .38 S&W or the .38 Webley used into the 1940s. They were a good round but some idiot in ordinance changed things and made them junk.

Those calibers origianly had a heavy 200 grain projectile and they took men down. <these are not to be confused with the .38 Special round, their cases resembles the 9mm more than anything> Their velocity was on par with a .45, they went about 600 feet per second, but they pushed a 200 grain bullet, so large wad of lead at a more or less slow velocity took folks down, it wasn't until the lead was damn near cut in hald to get higher velocities but then they lost the stopping power.

Oh how cool would it be to have a Silenced .45 Greasegun!