Bullet Fragmentation

Last night a crime program was about a murder that happened in St. Charles, across the Missouri River from here, in 1983. A singer named Walter Scott (not to be confused with the man who was killed by a policeman recently) was shot in the back and his body dumped in a cistern. The program said that the bullet was from a high velocity handgun and fragmented so much that it was impossible to determine the caliber. They showed a picture with fragments all over his upper torso. I find that hard to believe. A rifle might accomplish that but it doesn't seem that even a .357 or one of the super powered specials could do it.

Bill

Fake news is way out of control these days.

This ammo might not have available in 1983 but it is now.
One example:
DRT Ammo | Dynamic Research Technologies > Home

ever herd of Lee Jurras and Super Vel?

or the Glaser Safety Slug?

(if you have ever dropped the hammer [or striker] on one of these, you know it's different!)

None of those fragment before impact. The OP described "fragments all over his upper torso".

Half jacket 357s fragment if shot thru glass.....i think a lot of police labs used to give up on anything outside the box in those days.......I know 22 rimfires fragment pretty easily.

tdmidget said:

None of those fragment before impact. The OP described "fragments all over his upper torso".

Click to expand...

Rat shot ?

one hole going in multiple exits
357 or 44 mag both could do that at close range with the right bullet

tdmidget said:

None of those fragment before impact. The OP described "fragments all over his upper torso".

Click to expand...

The picture showed a revolver with the muzzle about even with the top of his shoulders and pointed down at about 30 or 40 degrees from vertical. The locations of fragments implied a wide angle dispersion. Of course, if the first thing hit was vertebrae, that could disperse them. I couldn't freeze frame and get a better look, so don't take that as gospel. The operative point here is that the bullet fragmented to the point that they were unable to determine the caliber. If it had a jacket, it should have been possible to at least estimate caliber. Unjacketed sintered metal might work, but it seems likely that some would break up on entry to the back of the barrel of a revolver, although there is no proof that it was a revolver. I had not heard of the fragmenting bullets referenced here. I did know about some that amounted to a capsule full of small shot that would do a lot of damage without bouncing if they hit anything. I also remember some .22 shooting gallery ammunition that powdered, called, I think, Kantsplat.

Bill

High enough velocity and thin enough jacket will pretty much disintegrate on impact; SuperVel might have been enough.

Over the years some bullet designs have been prefragmented to separate into several projectiles on impact.

There's also frangible bullets used primarily to eliminate ricochets. Those disintegrate into mostly powder on impact against steel but may hold together some on impact with tissue. Glasers are of that type but geared more toward defensive use.

A good friend works in the crime lab as a ballistics examiner. He stated that there is no standard handgun round that would fragment a bullet like that, they just don't produce that much velocity. They have even tried things like cutting slits into exposed lead tips, they never totally fragment. He did bring up the Glaser Safety slug as a possibility, as well as the shot capsule loads that may have been loaded with things like bits of solder wire.
He also brought up the possibility of a rifle caliber handgun, or even a rifle itself.