Every person, at least somewhat interested in weapons, should have heard from childhood about the mysterious and formidable bullets with a displaced center of gravity. But finding specific information about such ammunition is often not easy, and most of the data about them is transmitted orally. All of them are united by the common message that, they say, a bullet with a displaced center of gravity can hit a person in the leg, and leave the body somewhere in the head area. What kind of ammunition is this?
Special bullets with a displaced center of gravity, designed specifically to tumble in the body of the victim, inflicting the most even greater damage and prohibited by all international conventions - this is one of the biggest weapon myths of the XX century. In the familiar to the layman, according to the stories of friends and comrades, the concept of bullets with a displaced center of gravity never existed.
The concept of shifting or transferring the center of gravity of the ammunition does exist, but in practice it does not work at all the way it is told in numerous stories. Shifting the center of gravity by changing the form factor of the bullet is practiced to this day. However, this is done only to improve the ballistic properties of the ammunition. At the same time, the ammunition does not receive any additional "wonderful" or, on the contrary, "terrible" damaging properties.
Bullets of different ammunition of handguns behave differently when they enter the human body, leaving one or another type of wound channel. So, heavy bullets of large caliber leave a deep wound channel and well transfer the energy of the shot to the body of the victim, for which they are preferred primarily by hunters. Light and low-velocity ammunition works like an awl: it often pierces the body and leaves a narrow wound channel. High-velocity bullets in intermediate calibers such as 5.45 or 5.56 mm tend to "tumble" in the victim's flesh when hit in the human body.
They form a gradually expanding wound channel. In addition, such bullets are much more likely to split in the body than others and can even burst, thereby causing even greater damage to the victim. All this stems from the form, the speed of movement and the materials from which the damaging elements are made. Bullets do not need any miraculous properties like a displaced center of gravity or an explosive charge.
Ordinary bullets of intermediate cartridges, not prohibited by anyone, and without any frills, leave terrible wounds on the human body, often incompatible with later life. So where did the myth of the shifted center of gravity come from? Who first came up with this bike is hard to say today. However, this fable goes back to the first decades of the Cold War between the USSR and the USA. There is a non-zero probability that the fable about the shift in the center of gravity was invented by American journalists, after the first pictures of injuries from hits from the M16 rifle appeared under the new at that time cartridge 5.56 mm. It happened during the Vietnam War. The monstrous wounds made an indelible impression on people far from military affairs, and then journalistic work of fantasy and exaggeration went into action.
In continuation of the topic, read about how mankind made the worst machine gun in history, and then fought with him for a century.
A source: https://novate.ru/blogs/100921/60482/
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