# How many bullets can a person survive being hit by? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 9, 2003, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-bullets-can-a-person-survive-being-hit-by/194093 "2003-08-09T22:08:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-bullets-can-a-person-survive-being-hit-by/194093/41 "2012-04-01T05:00:07Z")
> [@Incubus](#): > > I’ve never heard of someone _surviving_ 10+ bullet wounds at once- perhaps they survived getting hit by 3 or 4, but usually when someone uses the adjetive ‘bullet-riddled’ they immediately follow it with the noun ‘copse’ It all depends how much sap it loses. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-bullets-can-a-person-survive-being-hit-by/194093/42 "2012-04-01T20:17:04Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > No they are not! For god’s sake, stop spreading that misinformation! Correct- the US never did sign the 1899 Hague Declaration concerning expanding bullets. However as a matter of practicality, FMJ bullets feed into modern-day weapons much more reliably and consistently, so they’re used almost exclusively, except for certain super-accurate sniper rounds that have a non-expanding hollow-point due to the manufacturing process, not for terminal effects. Back to the OP… I guess it would depend on where you were hit and with what. I imagine a person couldn’t sustain very many .50 BMG hits anywhere, but I suspect someone could probably withstand getting hit with quite a few .17 HM2 rounds, assuming they didn’t hit any major arteries, organs or the central nervous system. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-bullets-can-a-person-survive-being-hit-by/194093/43 "2012-04-01T20:30:03Z")
> [@Roundup](#): > > In their last bank robbery in Northfield, MN, the Younger brothers were shot up pretty badly and survived. Cole took 11 rounds, but I don’t know where. Northfield, wasn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-bullets-can-a-person-survive-being-hit-by/194093/44 "2012-04-02T03:18:54Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Correct- the US never did sign the 1899 Hague Declaration concerning expanding bullets. Correct. But we did sign on to the next Hague convention in 1907 which banned bullets “calculated to cause unnecessary suffering”. However, what I take issue with is the fact that **Kevbo** , like so many others, seems to think this has something to do with the Geneva conventions. This has nothing at all to do with the Geneva conventions. (Why does everyone always think it’s one of the Geneva Conventions that started some ridiculous law?) Second, there have been several rulings by military judges declaring hollow points legal for the US Military. > [@](#): > > However as a matter of practicality, FMJ bullets feed into modern-day weapons much more reliably and consistently, so they’re used almost exclusively, except for certain super-accurate sniper rounds that have a non-expanding hollow-point due to the manufacturing process, not for terminal effects. You forgot .45 ACP JHP, a pistol round. While we’re at it. Let me take this oppurtunity to just go ahead and point out that it is not illegal to shoot people with a 50 CAL. We don’t have to “shoot at their equipment.” ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-bullets-can-a-person-survive-being-hit-by/194093/45 "2012-04-02T04:47:33Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > While we’re at it. Let me take this oppurtunity to just go ahead and point out that it is not illegal to shoot people with a 50 CAL. We don’t have to “shoot at their equipment.” I’m sure you’re right, but at Ft. Benning in 1981, the Range NCO said to “_Aim at their canteens_”. I’m quite certain your trainees will get a more educated response. Thank You for your service. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-bullets-can-a-person-survive-being-hit-by/194093/46 "2012-04-02T07:14:35Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > It all depends how much sap it loses. Slowest zinger _ever_. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-bullets-can-a-person-survive-being-hit-by/194093/47 "2012-04-02T07:22:33Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > This question is bound to have some answers from all over the map of possibilities. Guinness type stuff would be the place to check for maximum number of wounds sustained that were not lethal. Surely there’s somebody walking around today who got shot more than anybody else. Not necessarily: the way Guinness works, you have to put yourself forward for it, they follow very specific definitions which don’t necessarily match the definitions of other places (“notary” doesn’t mean the same thing in every country) and they don’t check that there isn’t anybody who’s done it “more”. The person they listed as “youngest king” a few years ago became a king at 14yo; the youngest one I know of [became a king retroactively at -4mo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_XIII_of_Spain), and there’s been many other who became kings in childhood. José Javier Uranga, director of Diario de Navarra, survived 29 bullets (9mm parabellum). It took him one year to recover completely. The bullets went mainly to his torso but didn’t affect any major arteries. ---
**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:** [April 2, 2012, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-bullets-can-a-person-survive-being-hit-by/194093/48 "2012-04-02T17:01:44Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > Slowest zinger _ever_. 😛 Hey, it takes a long time for a tree to bleed out. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-bullets-can-a-person-survive-being-hit-by/194093/49 "2012-04-02T17:11:19Z")
> [@John\_Harrison](#): > > Wow! I wonder why it works so differently on humans than other animals, like deer. In many states it is illegal to hunt deer with .223, because the round tends to have a higher risk of wounding (no magical instant kill) than larger calibers like 30-06 or .308. In many of these states it is legal to hunt with 38 special. Of the states that ban .223 as a dear round in most it is banned because they chose an arbitrary diameter of the bullet as the qualifying criteria. Well not that arbitrary I think they were trying to ban hunting with 22 rim fire. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2012, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-bullets-can-a-person-survive-being-hit-by/194093/50 "2012-04-05T03:23:41Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > You forgot .45 ACP JHP, a pistol round. The military uses JHP pistol rounds? I thought it was FMJ in the US military all the way except for some of the Sierra Match-King hollowpoint sniper rifle rounds, where the hollowpoint is an artifact of the manufacturing process, and not intended to expand. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-bullets-can-a-person-survive-being-hit-by/194093.md?page=2)