Terminal ballistics
Prior to the development of rifling, the majority of projectiles purpose-built for shooting consisted of fitted round balls, or multi-projectile shot loads.
Among other ways, it may be approached according to the shape, the mass, the dimensions of a projectile or cartridge, the customary charge of powder, velocity, intended purpose, and recommended applications.
For ultra-long-range precision target shooting with high-powered rifles and military sniping, radically designed very-low-drag (VLD) bullets are available that are generally produced out of rods of mono-metal alloys on CNC lathes.
Focusing the largest amount of kinetic energy and projectile mass on the smallest possible area of the target provides the greatest penetration.
While a bullet that penetrates through-and-through tends to cause more profuse bleeding, allowing a game animal to be blood trailed more easily, in some applications, preventing exit from the rear of the target is more desirable.
Flat points also increase drag during flight to various extent, which along with the type of material and muzzle velocity, tends to affect the degree of expansion at impact.
For such purposes, they are typically made of unusually hard alloys, and may be longer and heavier than normal for their caliber to decrease the chance of deflection, and even include exotic materials such as tungsten to increase their sectional density.
Light weight non-expanding projectiles pushed at a relatively high rate of speed are also utilized, generally for close ranged applications well inside 100 yards.
Therefore, with equal or greater mass retention, the bullet proves to exhibit a higher sectional density necessary for sufficient penetration throughout its intended range.
While flat pointed bullets are not immune to deflection or severe fragmentation off hard surfaces, they do tend to be resistant, and any tendency to bleed off a small amount of speed only helps to mitigate misjudgements pertaining to metallurgy, particularly if the design coincides with additional weight.
A properly proportioned flat pointed bullet can most assuredly leave a hole of sufficient diameter through the vital area, which is all that is necessary to end an animal's struggle with a difference of time appropriately measured in seconds from that of a higher velocity impact.
The hollow point peels back into several connected pieces (sometimes referred to as petals due to their appearance) causing the bullet to create a larger area of permanent damage.
This process is informally called mushrooming, as the ideal result is a shape that resembles a mushroom—a cylindrical base, topped with a wide surface where the tip of the bullet has peeled back to expose more area while traveling through a body.
Although several .45-caliber pistols are available with high-capacity magazines (Para Ordnance being one of the first in the late 1980s) many people find the wide grip required uncomfortable and difficult to use.
However, in larger games fragmenting ammunition provides inadequate penetration of vital organs to ensure a clean kill; instead, a "splash wound" may result.
On impact, the epoxy shatters, and the copper shell opens up, the individual lead balls then spread out in a wide pattern, and due to their low mass-to-surface area ratio, stop very quickly.
Many large caliber projectiles are filled with a high explosive which, when detonated, shatters the shell casing, producing thousands of high-velocity fragments and an accompanying sharply rising blast overpressure.
More rarely, others are used to release chemical or biological agents, either on impact or when over the target area; designing an appropriate fuse is a difficult task that lies outside the realm of terminal ballistics.
A negative factor in their use is that any bomblets that fail to function go on to litter the battlefield in a highly sensitive and lethal state, causing casualties long after the cessation of conflict.
A disadvantage of using ERA is that each plate can protect against a single strike, and the resulting explosion can be extremely dangerous to nearby personnel and lightly armoured structures.
[citation needed] Tank fired HEAT projectiles are slowly being replaced for the attack of heavy armour by so-called "kinetic energy" penetrators.
[citation needed] Malleable lead alloy or jacketed lead core projectiles conducive to expansion have been shown to be capable of exhibiting between 98 and 100% weight retention at velocities up to 2000 feet per second, however measures approaching an ideal weight retention in practice would generally be realized at lower velocities due to inconsistencies of impacted targets in the real world.
According to various experience and methodology, the limit at which expanding lead projectiles of appropriate alloy can be launched with minimal contamination upon impact may be contended more or less within the vicinity of mach 2 speeds.
These hard cast varieties may be more brittle than softer alloys, but within their limitations are capable of exhibiting greater weight retention at velocities up to around 2500 feet per second.
Bullets with an exposed lead tip which are designed to fire in excess of 2400 feet per second are typically made of a jacketed variety, encased in copper, brass, or iron/steel.
To mitigate significant material loss, the jacket of bullets may be bonded intricately to the lead core at a molecular level, typically by thermal adhesion or electrochemical processes.
Depending on experience and methodology exemplary bullets can be observed which are theoretically capable of optimal weight retention under the hydraulic forces of impact velocities roughly in the vicinity of 2300 to 2700 feet per second.
Above their optimal threshold, bonded bullets with resilient alloys and construction may perform diminishing yet remarkable returns for weight retention, where standard jacketed varieties circumstantially exhibit the risks brought by severe loss of integrity, which manifests to various effect.
[4] Additionally, the shape of the jacket material may be designed to mechanically retain a lead core to prevent the bullet from severely separating.
Such construction does not alter the limitations of a given alloy, but can allow for designs with highly reactive expansion characteristics in a given circumstance to retain sufficient mass for some length of penetration, even when significant loss of material is to be expected.
