lbmii said:
Interesting, by any chance did you get photos of the deer?
I now keep a disposable camera in my glove box just for those Kodak moments.
Yes, we've got photographs. They were posted to a Glocktalk thread of similar title. I am willing to post them here, but was concerned that the moderators may not approve.
lbmii said:
Did the bullet impact a rib or did it go between the ribs?
We don't believe it is possible to determine with objective certainty whether or not a bullet has impacted a rib when entering a ruminant animal from the side. Post-mortem examination can only infer whether or not ribs are fractured and what kind(s) of fractures were sustained, but we do not believe that every bullet that hits a rib results in clear evidence of a fracture, nor do we believe that every fracture gives evidence of a rib hit.
Low velocity projectiles can sometimes glance off of a rib without creating a fracture. Bullets which create very large pressure waves can sometimes break ribs without impacting them directly. (We've observed cases with as many as three adjacent broken ribs with high pressure wave bullets, the bullet did not hit all three.)
In this case, the ribs were not fractured by the bullet on entrance. Given the bullet velocity, this probably means the bullet did not hit the ribs, but we would not conclude that with certainty.
lbmii said:
I once worked at a deer check in station and the wounds were somewhat greater when the bullet had struck a bone.
This effect is more pronounced when the bullet hits hip, leg, or spine bones than with ribs. There are actually different schools of thought on whether hitting a rib is beneficial or detrimental to bullet performance. On the one hand, I think whether or not hitting a rib is beneficial depends on the bullet design and the velocity. On the other hand, I don't think the question can be reliably answered, because of the afore-mentioned difficulties in being certain whether or not a bullet hit a rib.
The Strasbourg Goat Tests attempted to address this question, but I think they lacked a truly objective criteria for determining whether or not a rib had been hit. I regard the Strasbourg Tests as an accurate measurement of incapacitation times, because their criteria for incapacitation was objective. However, I do not regard the Strasbourg Tests as a valid indicator of the benefit/detriment of hitting a rib, because they lacked an objective criteria for determining whether or not a rib had been hit.
Michael Courtney