can you tell if a bullet forensically was 38 special vs 357 mag

[roval]

was catching a rerun of My Cousin Vinny and the victim was supposedly killed by a 357 mag. bullet. the weapon was not found.

assuming it's not a bullet that is only available in 357 mag offering . can you tell forensically if it came from 357 mag vs 38 special without a weapon to match it with and unknown shooting distance( so one can't say well based on the tissue damage it must have come from 357 loading)

just found myself thinking about it during the funny courtroom climax.

 

[25-20 WCF]

Based on your stated limitations, probably not. Add the fact that a .38 Special cartridge can be fired in a .357 Magnum revolver and even having the pistol would not prove which case the bullet came out of.

 

[mavracer]

No

 

[MTMilitiaman]

Most of the reports I've read indicate that there is so little difference in the power of most common defensive handgun rounds that trained pathologists have a hard time telling the difference between a .380 and a .45 unless they recover the bullet with the base intact enough to get some calipers around. For all the time we spend debating calibers in this place, handguns really are handguns, and they all do pretty much exactly the same thing.

Handguns operate at too slow a velocity too inflict a lot of cavitation damage. You usually end up with a relatively uncomplicated wound that looks a lot like someone was stabbed with a piece of rebar. And because tissue is elastic, it returns to original shape, leaving a hole usually only 80% of the diameter of the round that penetrated it. There's not a lot of difference between a .30-something caliber hole and a .40-something caliber hole, esp when you consider the size of the hole relative to the size of the target.

 

[Rudolph31]

That’s a good question. I never thought of it though I’ve enjoyed that movie many times.

At first I thought they might be able to tell from the rifling twist, but it seems different manufacturers use different rates. But I’d bet that there are discernible differences in wounds between subsonic and and supersonic bullets.

 

[mgresh]

They didn't need bullet forensics, the tire tracks set them free...

 

[roval]

i know. i waited the whole movie for that scene. but remember, the sherrif found the 2 look alike boys and they found a 357 mag revolver on them. vinny then asked what bullet was used in the killing ....357 magnum. aaah hollywood!!!

 

[crestoncowboy]

It's a good movie. Herman Munster made a fine judge. The scene where he gives away the answer to the "how many fingers am I holding up" was laughable as was the scenes between pesci and tomei about deer hunting apparel and her biological clock. But the entire movie was pretty much to make southern america look like ignorant incompetent hicks.
But no, even if the bullet were only available in 357 one couldn't say 100% sure it wasn't pulled/ and reloaded.

In this case the bullet was recovered so the hole makes little difference. But yeah the hole, in my experience hunting with handguns would be impossible to tell. Even with rifles. Ive shot deer with 257 and left a pinhole then caught a bone on the next one and cause a huge exit.

The worst part of the movie trial imo was the fact that the car make model and year was acquited simply by the tires and lack of positive traction/ limited slip. Two items easily changed in a car at any time. The independent vs live axle seemed irrelevant anyway. Anyone knows a Rope drive tempest under full power hopping a curb would have still been setting at the scene with a broken rear axle. Lol

 

[Mn Fats]

They look

 

[ontarget]

I always wondered how the heck the detectives could take one look at an ejected 9mm case and declare the exact make and model that fired it! Yup TV is awesome. No wonder why so many people are scared to death of guns. Way too many of those darn 9mm Glock sniper pistols floating around out there.

 

[HighRoadRover]

The .38 Special and the .357 Magnum use the same size bullet - .357 inches (or a tad larger for lead bullets). I don't know if there are unique bullets that are discernible by design and loaded only in one or the other, but I suspect there are not many.

As to determining whether a wound was made by a .38 Special or a .357 Magnum - I agree a good forensics person might be able to take an educated guess, based on the wound track, but it would be a tough call.

The only thing that might be definitive would be to determine what powder was used from residue on the bullet base or powder deposited around a wound made at close distance. .357 Magnum rounds are generally loaded with "slower" burning powders that in some cases are different from powders that are used generally in .38 Special rounds. I suspect they could be identified in some cases.

 

[Z1D2]

I shot 38+P officer
Not 357mag. ;-)

 

[Labguy47]

You can match lands and grooves left on the bullet as it leaves the barrel, to the gun that was used.
You can do metallurgical analysis, to determine the brand of bullet.
You can even look for colored flakes in the gunpowder to determine year made and brand.
That’s pretty much the lab process.

 

[.308 Norma]

Way too many of those darn 9mm Glock sniper pistols floating around out there.

 

[Speedo66]

It's Hollywood, it's a movie. You know, leave reality and logic at the door.

Same weight bullet, same diameter, maybe same gun. Who knows which one? Except in a movie.

 

[Zaydok Allen]

I seriously doubt anyone could tell the difference.

But in Hollywood 6 shot revolvers shoot more than 6 shots without a reload, and Jason Bourne can kill you with a pen. So what do we know?

 

[243winxb]

The 38 may be a softer alloy, then a mag 357 lead bullet.

Bullet alloy may be matched to a box of ammo. If the ammo is still in possession of the bad guy.

Compositional bullet lead comparisons are possible because each melt of lead has its own characteristic composition.

FBI https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/a...cience-communications/fsc/july2002/peters.htm

Example
metal wt. %
______________________________________

Copper 0.038
Arsenic 0.16
Antimony3.0
Tin 0.25
Zinc 0.0001
Cadmium 0.0001
Nickel <.0001
Bismuth 0.018
Silver 0.0038
Tellurium 0.0015
Sulfur 0.0005
Iron <.0001
Lead Balance

 

[Random 8]

That's one of my pet peeves on forensic Hollywood in general. "The bullet was fired from a 7.62 NATO caliber rifle from a distance of 300 yards" , then they magically find the sniper's nest and some trace forensic evidence linking it to a specific person. With the wide range of velocities available to launch a 7.62 diameter match bullet, they would have absolutely no idea, other than perhaps identifying a specific barrel maker, rate of twist and impact velocity and vector approximation.

.38/.357 comes up a lot also, as does "9mm" without any accounting for 9x21m 9x23, .38 super, carbines in 9x19, reduced velocity handloads or some goofy wildcat.

Pretty sure NCIS used to consult on SR.com. We got some forensic based questions on foreign military rifles and handguns/ammunition over there that showed up on episodes. No, we were not credited or paid LOL.

 

[Englishmn]

And .355 slugs work good in 38/357 if you got them cheap.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

Chalk it up to artistic licenses and ignorance.

 

[tipoc]

assuming it's not a bullet that is only available in 357 mag offering . can you tell forensically if it came from 357 mag vs 38 special without a weapon to match it with and unknown shooting distance( so one can't say well based on the tissue damage it must have come from 357 loading)

No. Even in real life they can't always reliably tell the difference of one 38 caliber/9mm bullet from the other without a case or a gun.

They can't tell much from a wound track through a body. Was it a .357 Mag? .38 Super, 357 Sig, 9mm? or 40 S&W? or 38 Spl. They can't tell. They can guess and often do. If it's a lead bullet then sometimes they have enough to form a good opinion. Or if the lands and grooves are distinctive (polygonal rifling and a case with a rectangular firing pin impression can give ya a hint of the type gun).

 

[SwampWolf]

It's Hollywood, it's a movie. You know, leave reality and logic at the door.

Even made for television crime "documentaries" are full of firearms/ballistics inaccuracies and falsehoods. The latest one I watched claimed that the firearm expert could determine that pellets removed from a murder victim came from a twenty gauge shotgun. Next thing, they'll tell us what choke was used and if the shotgun that fired the shot(s) was an o/u or s/s.

 

[Riomouse911]

Unless one has:

Recovered bullet inside victim in good enough shape to analyze.

Recovered casings from scene. (Or still in gun like a revolver)

Recovered gun (to fire and give a specific rifling/ microscopic “fingerprint” of rifling patterns, breech face, etc) to match to the bullet and casing... it’s pretty tough to nail down an “exact.”

Now, without all of those in hand and easily comparable, an expert can speak of consistencies, as in: “The injury track through the victim’s chest appears consistent with my previous autopsy examinations of those shot with a .380 Auto firing 95 gr fmj ammunition. This is a match for the weight and diameter of the recovered bullet” etc. You can’t say for 100% certainty that it is what it is, but you believe it is what it is based on what you know and see.

( Listening to a forensic pathologist describe autopsy findings is almost on par with the second level of Courtroom Hell. The first level of Courtroom Hell belongs to forensic accountants in a white collar crime case.)

It’s not always absolutes, it can be an accumulation of evidence in circumstantial cases that makes or breaks it. The expertise and experiences of the various experts and examiners plays a good part in this process.

Hollywood doesn’t like boredom, so they’ll add drama and fantasy to the courtroom drudgery to liven it up.

Stay safe!

 

[WheelGunMan]

That was actually pretty easy for a forensic team to surmise. The actual bullet of a .38 Special and a .357 Magnum has a diameter of.357.

 

[roval]

aha but that is the issue. you can't say without the gun and the casing that it was a 357 magnum that killed the victim. as Z1D2 said it may even be 38 +p ha ha ha. the replies are very interesting.