Hydrostatic Shock As A Factor in Selection of Ammunition
Various terms are used to refer to the potential for hydrostatic shock effects: energy transfer, temporary cavitation, shock wave, hydrodynamic shock, ballistic pressure wave, etc. A number of ammunition designers and suppliers mention ideas related to hydrostatic shock in their patents and marketing literature: Charlie Kelsey (radially dynamic bullets), David Harris, Tom Burczynski (Quik-Shok, Hydra Shok), Bruce McArthur, Federal Cartridge (Hydra Shok), American Ammunition (Quik-Shok), the THV bullet, Hornady (Super Shock Tip, SST), Barnes Bullets (Triple Shock), TC Arms (Shock Wave), and Elite Ammunition. One handgun manufacturer has a video showing exploding watermelon heads.
A number of bullet companies appeal to ideas related to hydraulic shock in their marketing materials. For example, Berger Bullets advertises that hydraulic shock is enhanced by penetrating several inches prior to expanding and fragmenting.
The VLD design is different, penetration before expansion, and as it expands fragments to enhance the wound cavity for massive tissue damage. The VLD will penetrate several inches of hide, muscle, and bone before expanding and fragmenting, causing tremendous hydraulic shock and fragments that wreck the vitals and drops the animal in its tracks.
— Berger Bullets
Barnes bullets advertises that their triple shock bullet has superior incapacitation because it expands quickly and produces hydraulic shock.
Hydraulic shock disrupts vital organs, short-circuiting the nervous system for clean, quick kills.
— Barnes Catalog
The importance of hydraulic shock in the performance of their bullet designs is reiterated in their "Performance vs. Deformance" video.
The bullet expands immediately on impact, immense hydraulic pressure swells the deer's chest, forcing the front legs apart ... death is instantaneous ... The bullet has expended almost all its energy inside the animal.
— Barnes Bullets
In their "Bullet Myths Busted Choosing the Right Bullet: II" DVD, Chuck Yeager explains how hydrostatic shock improves the performance of Barnes Bullets.
The triple shock bullet ... When it hits an animal a hydrostatic shock wave ... it's a shaped charge...
— Chuck Yeager
Hornady Manufacturing discusses the advantages of remote neurological effects of their law enforcement line of ammunition in their "Hornady Tactical Application Police Ammunition Test Report and Application Guide."
Possibly even more significant is that a study conducted in North Carolina involving shooting large goats in the lungs with high velocity high energy frangible projectiles indicates that the large temporary cavity created by such a projectile can cause a severe blood pressure spike to the animal's brain causing instant incapacitation. In effect it is an artificially induced massive stroke. The test animals had special blood pressure monitoring probes surgically inserted into one of the animal's major neck arteries to the brain well prior to the shooting. When the projectile had a large and violent enough temporary cavity to cause a severe blood pressure spike, the animal was instantly incapacitated. The Hornady TAP rounds have energies and temporary cavity sizes well beyond those shown to cause instant incapacitation in the tests.
— Chuck Karwan
Read more about this topic: Hydrostatic Shock
Famous quotes containing the words shock, factor and/or selection:
“Many readers judge of the power of a book by the shock it gives their feelings—as some savage tribes determine the power of muskets by their recoil; that being considered best which fairly prostrates the purchaser.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)
“In his very rejection of art Walt Whitman is an artist. He tried to produce a certain effect by certain means and he succeeded.... He stands apart, and the chief value of his work is in its prophecy, not in its performance. He has begun a prelude to larger themes. He is the herald to a new era. As a man he is the precursor of a fresh type. He is a factor in the heroic and spiritual evolution of the human being. If Poetry has passed him by, Philosophy will take note of him.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Every writer is necessarily a critic—that is, each sentence is a skeleton accompanied by enormous activity of rejection; and each selection is governed by general principles concerning truth, force, beauty, and so on.... The critic that is in every fabulist is like the iceberg—nine-tenths of him is under water.”
—Thornton Wilder (1897–1975)