# bullets **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 28, 2010, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullets/534137 "2010-03-28T19:56:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![vanotd21](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/82dd89/32.png) [@vanotd21](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanotd21)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullets/534137/1 "2010-03-28T19:56:54Z")
with some of these novels i read, they mention about different bullet heads. In one case, the novel had the antagonist using bullets with explosive heads to accomplish two things: dealing as much damage as possible to the victim. 2. destroying the bullet so forensics couldn’t analyze it. I was curious to know how much is this the author’s creative license. ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullets/534137/2 "2010-03-28T21:55:36Z")
Depends on the caliber. Smallest caliber with explosive bullets in US Army inventory is .50 cal. First purchased (now manufactured) for the Barret sniper rifle, the rounds now come linked for machine gun use as well. Smallest Soviet/Warsaw Pact/Russian caliber was 7.62mm (.30 cal) ISTR. So they exist for rifle rounds. An expert machinist with some chemical background could make some one-off rounds. To eliminate forensics, you could use a frangible bullets (existing in US Army for shooting at buttoned up armored vehicles) or saboted bullets. The saboted bullets would show no striations from barrel lands/groove. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullets/534137/3 "2010-03-28T22:12:49Z")
It is almost all “creative license.” A good hollow-point round will do all the damage needed. There is no need for explosives if you are just shooting a person. In addition, I doubt very much whether an explosive round would detonate in flesh. Too soft to set it off. Then you have the problem of packing enough explosive into a very, very small space to do any damage to begin with. As for forensics, a sabot won’t work, because the sabot can be recovered. Easier just to use a clean weapon and discard it after one use. ---
**Author:** ![Stealth\_Potato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Stealth\_Potato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stealth_Potato)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullets/534137/4 "2010-03-29T01:47:25Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Easier just to use a clean weapon and discard it after one use. This is what I was going to suggest. If this hypothetical criminal mastermind is wasting his time making custom explosive or frangible bullets just to cover his tracks, he is trying to solve the wrong problem. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullets/534137/5 "2010-03-29T03:43:56Z")
When you say “explosive”, what do you mean? Do you mean “detonated by a charge”, or do you mean it as in “I dropped a dish and it exploded”? ---
**Author:** ![LiveOnAPlane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@LiveOnAPlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveOnAPlane)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullets/534137/6 "2010-03-29T12:36:37Z")
You’ve got some really good answers above, **vanotd21**. I’d just like to add a general rule: Most writers don’t know squat about firearms / ballistics / weapons use in the real world, so take anything you read with a very large grain of salt. Hell, use the whole shaker. There are a few authors who don’t follow this rule, but they are rare. Oh, one more thing. We’re talking about novels here, as per your OP. If we include movies, take what I said above and raise it a few powers. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullets/534137/7 "2010-03-29T12:52:17Z")
There was a Doc Savage bad-guy who shot people with bullets made of ice. The would melt in the body and viola! No clue. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullets/534137/8 "2010-03-29T12:52:20Z")
> [@smithsb](#): > > Depends on the caliber. Smallest caliber with explosive bullets in US Army inventory is .50 cal. First purchased (now manufactured) for the Barret sniper rifle, the rounds now come linked for machine gun use as well. Actually, the .50 BMG rounds used in the Barrett were first designed for machine-gun use in the WWII vintage Browning M2 HMG, AKA the “Ma Deuce” or “The Fifty Cal” (The “BMG” in “.50 BMG” means “Browning Machine Gun”, FWIW) > [@](#): > > Smallest Soviet/Warsaw Pact/Russian caliber was 7.62mm (.30 cal) ISTR. All Soviet small arms (with the exception of anti-tank rifles) during WWII were used a 7.62mm projectile, interestingly- it was easier to manufacture barrel blanks in one calibre and then sort out the specific applications (TT-33, M91/30, Degtyarev, PPSh-41, etc) as they were needed. > [@BMalion](#): > > There was a Doc Savage bad-guy who shot people with bullets made of ice. The would melt in the body and viola! No clue. _Mythbusters_ established that This Didn’t Work, FWIW- but **Silenus** is right, most of the firearm-related stuff in fiction is either completely wrong or suffers heavily from either artistic licence or the “rule of cool” for storytelling purposes. ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullets/534137/9 "2010-03-30T00:29:24Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > When you say “explosive”, what do you mean? Do you mean “detonated by a charge”, or do you mean it as in “I dropped a dish and it exploded”? The .50 cal round is a high explosive, incendiary, armor piercing bullet. The HE portion is Composition A5; there is an incendiary composition; and a hardened tungsten slug at the base of the round. The explosive portion gets crushed into the incendiary composition by the slug at impact. This crushing between the slug and front of the projectile sets off the HE. No fuze. From Wiki, “The **Raufoss Mk.211 -** is a [.50 caliber BMG](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.50_BMG) (12.7x99mm NATO) multipurpose anti-[materiel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mat%C3%A9riel) projectile originally developed by the [Norwegian](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway) company [NAMMO Raufoss AS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nammo) under the model name _NM140 MP_. It is commonly referred to as simply _multipurpose_ or _Raufoss_. The “Mk.211” name comes from the nomenclature “Mk.211 Mod 0” used by the [U.S. military](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_the_United_States) for this round.” Note that this round is not an anti-personnel round. One of those “nice” conventions bars shooting Armor Piercing/explosive rounds at individual soldiers. Of course, if you are aiming at a rock face “near” where the bad guy is standing, climbing, crawling and he gets caught up in the explosion - well, it wasn’t planned;)😉 ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullets/534137/10 "2010-03-30T00:45:03Z")
> [@smithsb](#): > > The .50 cal round is a high explosive, incendiary, armor piercing bullet. The HE portion is Composition A5; there is an incendiary composition; and a hardened tungsten slug at the base of the round. The explosive portion gets crushed into the incendiary composition by the slug at impact. This crushing between the slug and front of the projectile sets off the HE. No fuze. Now if only we could do this with something that can go critical mass at bullet volume by having a hollow bullet crush into a ball that then creates a small nuclear explosion. I believe I saw it opined that you could do this with something like califonium with a large enough bullet and the ability to get enough of it since right now the world produces less than a gram a year. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullets/534137/11 "2010-03-30T02:00:54Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > It is almost all “creative license.” A good hollow-point round will do all the damage needed. There is no need for explosives if you are just shooting a person. In addition, I doubt very much whether an explosive round would detonate in flesh. Too soft to set it off. Then you have the problem of packing enough explosive into a very, very small space to do any damage to begin with. > > As for forensics, a sabot won’t work, because the sabot can be recovered. Easier just to use a clean weapon and discard it after one use. There were the Devastator bullets manufactured back in the 70’s down to .22 caliber, but from what I’ve seen in ballistics testing, they really aren’t that effective. As you mention, get a good hollowpoint instead. ---
**Author:** ![Bobalude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5fc32e/32.png) [@Bobalude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobalude)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullets/534137/12 "2010-03-30T03:38:14Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Easier just to use a clean weapon and discard it after one use. Could one discard/destroy just the barrel? How much of a gun can be used to track down a bullet shot? ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullets/534137/13 "2010-03-30T03:47:44Z")
> [@Bobalude](#): > > Could one discard/destroy just the barrel? How much of a gun can be used to track down a bullet shot? A gun’s firing pin makes a unique impact on the primers of cartridges fired from that gun- so you could take two consecutively numbered and for all intents and purposes completely identical Colt M1911A1 handguns (for example), put a box of .45ACP through them, and be able to work out which cartridges were fired from which gun based on the firing pin imprints in the cartridge primers. They’ve been able to track individual guns around battlefields (including Little Bighorn) using this technique, FWIW. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullets/534137/14 "2010-03-30T04:12:46Z")
IIRC, Pres. Reagan was shot w/ “explosive” .22 rimfire (it didn’t explode), and the toxicity of the “explosive” was a bigger medical issue than the bullet in the lung. That’s just a several-decade-old recollection, so don’t quote me on it. **silenus** : “As for forensics, a sabot won’t work, because the sabot can be recovered.” Idea I came up with a few years ago was to use a sabot made of some hydroscopic (sucks up water from the humidity in the air) material. It will deform too much, within a few hours, to get any useful forensic data. Just a sicko idea of mine. Didn’t try it, might not work. **BMalion** :There was a Doc Savage bad-guy who shot people with bullets made of ice. The would melt in the body and viola! No clue. **Martini Enfield** :_Mythbusters_ established that This Didn’t Work… This one was actually busted by people with too much time on their hands _ **decades** _ before the “Mythbusters” guys were born. The shock of firing shatters the ice. You just get a cloud of ice crystals mixed in with the gunsmoke. **drachillix** :Now if only we could do this with something that can go critical mass…small nuclear explosion… Yeah, it’s californium. Purely theoretical calculation, because there ain’t enough in existence at any one time to actually _ **try** _ it, for the reason you said. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullets/534137/15 "2010-03-30T04:17:09Z")
> [@Cheshire\_Human](#): > > **Martini Enfield** :_Mythbusters_ established that This Didn’t Work… > > This one was actually busted by people with too much time on their hands _ **decades** _ before the “Mythbusters” guys were born. The shock of firing shatters the ice. You just get a cloud of ice crystals mixed in with the gunsmoke. I’m well aware that Mythbusters weren’t the first people to try the “Ice-bullet” thing. They’re just the best known point of reference for the “Average” person. Anyone who knows anything about guns could have told you it wouldn’t work, but Adam & Jamie have a lot more public credibility than some random guy on a messageboard, I’m sure you’ll agree. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bullets/534137/16 "2010-03-30T04:20:20Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > …Adam & Jamie have a lot more public credibility than some random guy on a messageboard… Especially me:D