Sorry if this is a grisly question, but I’m writing a work of fiction and I need to know: When a sniper shoots a target in the head, and the bullet is able to penetrate one side of the head but not exit out the other side, does it ricochet within the skull? How many times does it bounce back and forth within?
Or is the human brain enough to bring the bullet to a stop alone by itself by its gel-like qualities?
Obviously, the victim is going to be dead either way, but this is a ballistics and firearms fact to be mentioned in the work of fiction.
I suspect a .22 short, maybe even a .25, might not exit and might bounce around a bit. It would lose most of its energy penetrating the skull on its entry. I doubt brain matter would offer much resistance to a moving bullet. But those would be pistol rounds, and I don’t generally think of “snipers” shooting pistols.
Agree with Ranger Jeff. A .22 short or LR might enter the cranium and bounce around inside a bit. Those could be fired from .22 rifles, but most shooters wouldn’t attempt such a shot beyond 100 yards, as the trajectory falls rapidly after 75 yards or so. Does that count as a “sniper” in your story? When I think of a sniper, I think of longer distances with more powerful, flatter-shooting rounds, all of which would likely easily exit a skull. Make sure not to confuse more powerful, center-fire .22 calibers like .222, .223 and .22-250 with rimfire calibers such as .22LR.
Maybe someone else will chime in regarding the newer rimfire rounds such as the various .17 caliber ones. They certainly shoot faster and flatter than a .22LR, and people use them at reasonably long distances on prairie dogs and groundhogs. I have no idea what they would do to a human skull at 150 or 200 yards, but the bullets are very low weight and might not exit, using up all of their limited energy within the cranium.
I’ve read Special Ops organizations (the Israeli Mossad for example) prefer using .22 caliber pistols for assassinations for this very reason. Two shots at point blank range to the head will do just that, bounce around and scramble your brains either killing you or turning you into a piece of broccoli. Plus with a silencer they are nearly completely inaudible and since there’s no exit wound very little blood.
Even given the specifics the above poster asks, you’re unlikely to be able to look up a singular definitive answer.
Consider a sniper round fired at point blank range into a head: clearly it goes in one side and out the other, making a considerable mess while inside the skull.
Consider the very same round fired at the very same skull but at such a great range that it hits the skull with almost zero velocity & merely raises a welt.
Somewhere in between those two limit cases is the OP’s situation. Given his limitation that the bullet at least enter the skull we can say a little more, but not much.
At the max, the bullet fractures the skull on the far side & bulges the skull outwards but the bullet doesn’t break through the skin. At the min, the bullet fractures the skull on the close side and stops having just barely penetrated and deformed the inner surface of the skull.
And literally any intermediate result is possible, all depending on the range and therefore velocity at which the bullet arrives. And exactly how thick the target’s skull is and exactly where the impact occurs and in what orientation. And the orientation of the bullet at impact. etc., etc.
Maybe the bullet comes to rest halfway through the brain. Maybe only 2% of the way through the brain. Or 99.5% of the way through the brain. Maybe it hits the inner surface of the far side of the skull & rattles around in there a bit.
Damn near anything can happen in there. If you’re writing gun porn, you want the most amazing violent goopy outcome possible. If you’re writing action adventure, just assume the round exits making a large hole and dragging most of the brain tissue with it. Nobody is going to criticize the work over such a minor and indeterminable point.
What you do want to do is get the basics right. Don’t have the sniper using a standard .223 round (or the above mentioned .22LR!!) to get somebody at 1500 yards, that sort of stuff. Stick to the center of shot paramters you can look up on wiki and you’ll be fine.
Sure, close-up a .22 can be suppressed/silenced to a reasonable level, and causes relatively little mess, especially if there is no exit wound. But that is close-up with, as you say, a pistol. The OP was asking about sniping, which equates to long distance with a rifle. Of course, a .22 bullet doesn’t care if it was fired from a rifle or pistol, and though the velocity will be higher from a rifle at the muzzle, it slows down and will be similar to being fired from a pistol at some distance. The problem is trajectory with a .22LR.
Read up a bit on terminal ballistics. This is not a question for which there is a single answer or a simple answer. Velocity, bullet type, point of impact, and variation in human skulls, among other things, are all going to influence the outcome.
WRT silenced .22’s as assassination weapons…a large amount of what you hear is hooey. The .22 is not a reliable skull penetrator. It has a reputation, in fact, for glancing off the skull and sliding under the scalp where it causes little more than annoying flesh wounds. When it is used as an assassination weapon, it is used at contact range i.e. the muzzle is pressed to the target and multiple rounds are fired.
This guyclaims to be a bullet specialist for fiction writers, but I’m sure you’ve got him beat already, just by asking here; he covers the most elementary errors, though.
Plus your work has more sex in it, I’m guessing, so if you mess up on ballistics who cares.
If you’re writing a story, there are two ways you could be going about this: Either you’ve already decided on the weapon and you want to know the effects, or you’ve already decided on the effects and want to know the weapon. Which is it?
Use poison & they will think a woman did it. … What??
Get a normal caliber, normal distance, and add convenient* objects in the trajectory to slow & blunt the bullet to just the right speed to cause the effect you want.
There will always be an argument if you try to make the weapon fit the scene, just make the scene fit the outcome. Drywall at X distance which fell from a cargo plane and just happened to cross paths with the bullet going down range… ? Too “iffy?” Have a slight breeze move a limb of a small tree of the right thickness as to slow but not defect the bullet.
This way you can get the desired effect you want & leave the gun nuts out in the rain talking to themselves because the variable is much harder to argue about because there are a lot off different small trees or bushes. Who can say what can or can not happen… Use your imagination because serendipity can’t be pined down.
( Winchester bolt action in 308 with glass bedding, & a scope of correct power for the range, and then check the numbers & Bob’s your uncle. )
