OT...wounds inflicted

[donw]

in the thread about John Wesley Hardin, exit and entrance wounds are mentioned.

i remember seeing program on TV about a battle in the French-Indian Wars or the American Revolution, where some of the casualties were dug up and examined.

one was identified as a French soldier (identifiable by the remnants of his uniform) of about 20 years of age who had been struck by, what was believed to be, a cannonball. it had inflected massive damage to his left side, chest, all major ribs were broken inward in the front and broken outward in the back, and the projectile(?) evidently did NOT penetrate thru the body, but amazing enough, they believed it did not kill him immediately as there were indications the wounds had been attended to.

dang...how could an impact like that not crush the heart and lung? if it was a cannonball, maybe it was not under full power as if the cannoneers were under pressure and did not stoke the gun with a full charge of powder. or who knows why?

even fifty years ago...propellants and bullet design were not what they are now...had JWH been shot by a current 44/45, I'm certain there would have been much more damage upon exiting none the less, the results would have been the same.

[awp101]

dang...how could an impact like that not crush the heart and lung? if it was a cannonball, maybe it was not under full power as if the cannoneers were under pressure and did not stoke the gun with a full charge of powder. or who knows why?

Roundball had a nasty habit of bouncing and rolling along after it's flight if it didn't land in soft ground.

There are accounts from the Napoleonic Wars of roundball smashing through formations and bouncing across the ground to strike another formation further back.

[J Miller]

in the thread about John Wesley Hardin, exit and entrance wounds are mentioned.

i remember seeing program on TV about a battle in the French-Indian Wars or the American Revolution, where some of the casualties were dug up and examined.

one was identified as a French soldier (identifiable by the remnants of his uniform) of about 20 years of age who had been struck by, what was believed to be, a cannonball. it had inflected massive damage to his left side, chest, all major ribs were broken inward in the front and broken outward in the back, and the projectile(?) evidently did NOT penetrate thru the body, but amazing enough, they believed it did not kill him immediately as there were indications the wounds had been attended to.

dang...how could an impact like that not crush the heart and lung? if it was a cannonball, maybe it was not under full power as if the cannoneers were under pressure and did not stoke the gun with a full charge of powder. or who knows why?

even fifty years ago...propellants and bullet design were not what they are now...had JWH been shot by a current 44/45, I'm certain there would have been much more damage upon exiting none the less, the results would have been the same.

It appears the wound was caused by a .45 Colt 250gr bullet. If so, then the current standard factory loads are simply a smokeless duplicate of the old black powder loads. Same bullets, same softish alloy, same velocities.

I have in my collection .45 Colt ammo from 1874 to date. If you line it up the priming changed, powder changed, cases changed, but ... the velocity and the bullet never changed.

End result; 1880s or 2010, one dead dude

Joe

[Gun Smith]

My great uncle was a CSA private in 1863. He was sleeping on a brush pile to keep out of the mud, and a Union musket ball fell on him. He had his left arm over his chest and his hand on his throat. The round went through his hand, but was deflected just enough to just damage the right neck muscles and not cut the artery. My dad, as a kid, always wanted to look at his uncle's hand to see the damage caused by the ball. He survived, but walked with a stiff neck for the rest of his days. He died in 1924.
The local citizens in town, who didn't know him, always thought he was ignoring them, and not tipping his hat when he passed by, but he couldn't turn his head after the war because of the wound.

[Rusty]

My dad was a doctor and when I was a kid I used to look at some of his old books. He had one that I remember had different kinds of death in it. some fellow had been shot in the eye with a .25 ACP. The eye glass was shattered on that side where the bullet entered the eye. Other than that he looked like he just lay down and went to sleep.

[Doc Hudson]

dang...how could an impact like that not crush the heart and lung? if it was a cannonball, maybe it was not under full power as if the cannoneers were under pressure and did not stoke the gun with a full charge of powder. or who knows why?

Roundball had a nasty habit of bouncing and rolling along after it's flight if it didn't land in soft ground.

There are accounts from the Napoleonic Wars of roundball smashing through formations and bouncing across the ground to strike another formation further back.

As a matter of fact that was the old time artilleryman's dream shot. The ones that hit hard ground and then bounced along creating chaos in their path. On good hard ground a grazing shot could skip several times, like a stone skimmed over a lake, and inflict a huge number of casualties.

Another way cannonballs produced pretty bad injuries was when it appeared to be almost spent and was rolling along the ground. There was usually some dirt dumb recruit who thought he'd stop the rolling cannonball with his foot. He was generally called Peg-Leg thereafter.

[Old Ironsights]

dang...how could an impact like that not crush the heart and lung? if it was a cannonball, maybe it was not under full power as if the cannoneers were under pressure and did not stoke the gun with a full charge of powder. or who knows why?

Roundball had a nasty habit of bouncing and rolling along after it's flight if it didn't land in soft ground.

There are accounts from the Napoleonic Wars of roundball smashing through formations and bouncing across the ground to strike another formation further back.

As a matter of fact that was the old time artilleryman's dream shot. The ones that hit hard ground and then bounced along creating chaos in their path. On good hard ground a grazing shot could skip several times, like a stone skimmed over a lake, and inflict a huge number of casualties....

Don't remember which relatively recent/CGA movie it was - Patriot or a Civil War film, but they showed a "skip shot" really well.

Another thing the old solid ball did really well was create secondary frag. You may not get hit with the ball, but end up with hunks of gravel in your gut...

[Otto]

Don't remember which relatively recent/CGA movie it was - Patriot or a Civil War film, but they showed a "skip shot" really well.

Another thing the old solid ball did really well was create secondary frag. You may not get hit with the ball, but end up with hunks of gravel in your gut...

There is such a scene in "The Patriot". I have only seen bits and pieces of that movie, but distinctly remember that scene.

[Hobie]

My great-great-grandfather was shot at Gettysburg (I know the great-great-grandson of one of the men in the unit opposite at the time that he was shot). The rifled musket bullet entered 2" above the right nipple and exited just below the right shoulder blade. This happened on July 1st, 1863 and he lay on the battlefield through to the 5th when he was finally treated. After recuperating in one of the D.C. area hospitals he returned to his unit and was at the battle of Lookout Mountain. He also died in the 1920s.

HOWEVER, he was invalided out in 1864 and milked his wound all his life. He'd been a wagon maker before the war (in business with his father who was also crippled by a combat wound) and opened a store. However, it was said that he did little more than sit on the porch or by the stove and tell others what to do NOT because he couldn't, but because he wouldn't!

[Doc Hudson]

i don not know if it is true or not, due to the source being a fictional work, but I've heard of people being kileed by the near passage of a large bore cannonball.

Allegedly this occurred during sea battle and the person was killed by the near passing of an 18- or 24-pdr shot. Not a mark on the body. It was presumed that the pressure wave of the passing shot caused the death.

Anyone else ever hear of this happening?

[Otto]

i don not know if it is true or not, due to the source being a fictional work, but I've heard of people being kileed by the near passage of a large bore cannonball.

Allegedly this occurred during sea battle and the person was killed by the near passing of an 18- or 24-pdr shot. Not a mark on the body. It was presumed that the pressure wave of the passing shot caused the death.

Anyone else ever hear of this happening?

I have heard it falsely claimed that a .50BMG round will do substantial damage to one's arm, for example, if it passes very close. I don't know whether the cannonball thing is true, but I am very skeptical.

[awp101]

i don not know if it is true or not, due to the source being a fictional work, but I've heard of people being kileed by the near passage of a large bore cannonball.

Allegedly this occurred during sea battle and the person was killed by the near passing of an 18- or 24-pdr shot. Not a mark on the body. It was presumed that the pressure wave of the passing shot caused the death.

Anyone else ever hear of this happening?

While I was still in school I distinctly remember reading an account similar to that during the Revolution, only it was on land. I don't recall if it was in one of our books or if it was in a history book I checked out from the library but it was NOT a fictional account.

As best as I can recall, the account came from a man who was engaged in either building earthen breastworks or trenches and at some point they came under artillery fire. A roundball passed through his group and while it stuck none of them, one man went down dead. IIRC the skull was crushed.

[BigSky56]

Saw what a VC 51 did to a buddy, he was 4th man back in a straight line triple canopy trail the first 3 died he was hit in the shoulder broke the clavicle took out his shoulder blade he has a depression the size of a dinner plate on his back maybe 25% use of arm cant turn a steering wheel with that arm. Iam still in touch with him yearly. danny

[FWiedner]

i don not know if it is true or not, due to the source being a fictional work, but I've heard of people being kileed by the near passage of a large bore cannonball.

Allegedly this occurred during sea battle and the person was killed by the near passing of an 18- or 24-pdr shot. Not a mark on the body. It was presumed that the pressure wave of the passing shot caused the death.

Anyone else ever hear of this happening?

Isn't this the theory behind "barking" squirrels?

[Doc Hudson]

Isn't this the theory behind "barking" squirrels?

Maybe but I don't think it is.

Barking involves hitting the tree limb directly under the squirrel's head. The impact would throw bark and splinters, and maybe bullet fragments in to the squirrel, knocking it out of the tree. I don't think the barking killed as much as stunned and the hunter or his dog finished the squirrel when it hit the ground.

[Old Ironsights]

Head or gut. The "barking" targets I have for ML competitions have the 10x under the chest/abdomen...

[Remington40x]

I think the idea behind "barking" a squirrel is to put a relatively heavy bullet (like a muzzle-loader's round ball in .32, .36 or .45) into the branch directly under the chest, creating enough of a blow to cause the heart to stop. I don't pretend to have any experience with it, but that's what I recall from reading about the technique.

[BAGTIC]

I think the idea behind "barking" a squirrel is to put a relatively heavy bullet (like a muzzle-loader's round ball in .32, .36 or .45) into the branch directly under the chest, creating enough of a blow to cause the heart to stop. I don't pretend to have any experience with it, but that's what I recall from reading about the technique.

I don't see the point in that. Lead was relatively expensive in those days, something to be conserved and if possible reused. Using a big ball to do waht could be accomplished with a small ball, killing a small animal seems counterproductive. I have never seen a squirrel 'carry' much lead and I have shot them with .360 diameter round balls at subsonic velocities.

It seems the ideal load would have been one that stayed in the squirrel so the ball couild be recycled.

[Remington40x]

I think the technique was intended to minimize meat damage on the squirrel. Barking it didn't ruin any of the edible parts, like shooting into the body did. There aren't many muzzleloading rifle bullets that will stay in a squirrel's body, even a .32.