.223 stopping power

[SKS Ray]

I'm thinking its been covered here before but I'm watching the Columbine special on National Geographic Channel and they're showing people that were shot multiple times such as one guy that took 8 rounds, another that was shot twice in the head and these people not only lived but escaped.
Makes you wonder about the stopping/killing power of .223.

 

[Jose]

The hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, Iraqis, Somalis, and various other peoples put six feet under by the 5.56X45 do not seem too concerned.

 

[LORD of WAR]

ray...from what i remember of the accounts of the shooting the 2 shooters were shooting wildly...bouncing rounds of the walls and floor...did the show say whether they were shot point blank in the head or just grazed???

 

[Mass-diver]

They were hit with .223s? I thought these guys had tec - 9s (9mms). One thing I'm not worried about is the stopping power of a .223 in close. Real world police data shows that this thing is a show stopper at close quarter range.

 

[Ripach]

The hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, Iraqis, Somalis, and various other peoples put six feet under by the 5.56X45 do not seem too concerned.

The hundreds of thousands of people killed by .22LR won't be chiming in on it either, but I don't own any .22's for their stopping power.

 

[SKS Ray]

Aw Jeez.. Not that picture again.
Actually watching the show a little further it showed what guns they entered the school with. Looked like a Hi Point carbine, a couple of shotguns, and what looked like a Tec 9 type. I thought from the videos they showed over and over in the past that one had a Mini 14 but that was just footage of them shooting in the woods with friends.
Still though, even with 9mm rounds... 2 shots in the head and a guy crawls to a window, dives out to police and lives.
I didn't figure anyone could take 2 rounds of .223 to the head and survive. Hence my original title wondering about stopping power.

 

[SKS Ray]

ray...from what i remember of the accounts of the shooting the 2 shooters were shooting wildly...bouncing rounds of the walls and floor...did the show say whether they were shot point blank in the head or just grazed???

Some of the people who were shot more than once must have been directly aimed at. The show mentioned about how did the shooters learn to shoot with such precision with the answer being that they practiced at a make shift shooting range in the woods.
It was an interesting show. Creepy to see video footage that hadn't been aired thousands of times on the news reprots after it happened. There was no mention of gun laws being too soft or anything like that. Instead they said how the kids couldn't buy guns at a gun show because of their age and that they obtained them by someone buying for them.

 

[Mass-diver]

Aw Jeez.. Not that picture again.
Actually watching the show a little further it showed what guns they entered the school with. Looked like a Hi Point carbine, a couple of shotguns, and what looked like a Tec 9 type. I thought from the videos they showed over and over in the past that one had a Mini 14 but that was just footage of them shooting in the woods with friends.
Still though, even with 9mm rounds... 2 shots in the head and a guy crawls to a window, dives out to police and lives.
I didn't figure anyone could take 2 rounds of .223 to the head and survive. Hence my original title wondering about stopping power.

I also belive they were using FMJs. For a comparison to what HPs (in the same pmm caliber) can do, see the recent VA shooting.

As a nurse, I've taken care of many gun shoot victims, certainly (with hanguns) you'll see people survive some crazy stuff (head shots, multiple torso shoots). I don't think you'll find the same thing with combat rifles, the round is just going so fast that it deadly.

 

[ReplicaX]

Just remember a 5.56X45MM round has a Muzzle Velocity is 3,200 ft/sec and unlike a 7.62MM tumbles on impact do to its ballistics.

In the Iraq war the Army/Air Force/Marines with M-16s and M-4s equipped with Aimpoints or Eotechs were getting thousands of headshots out to 300m. Due too most Iraqs only exposing their heads.

Combat experience of a Gun or round is probably the best ballistics test you can get, not a bunch of punks with little experience. I have seen first hand how well the 5.56 can stop an enemy soldier in their tracks and if I were to go into a war again, hands down I'll take my M4A1 back.

 

[BoB13]

I took a raccoon at 50 yards with an 20" Bushy & XM193 and blew it in half.

Looked like stopping power to me.

 

[Joe R.]

You need to expand the parameters on " tumble " to understand the 5.56x45mm. Most of the rifle rounds try to go base over nose once they hit flesh. What makes the 5.56 alittle more interesting is what the projectile does as it's trying to tumble. Out of a 20" barrel, the muzzle velocity is 3150 to 3250 FPS ( depending on M193 or M855 ) and that velocity + rilfing twist will get the projectile to split at the cannalure and fragment. That is the stopping power of the 5.56mm - not the tumbling. Drop the velocity too low and you have M855 that might not give consistent results out of the M-4 carbines. There's plenty of info to check on this subject... ( I missed the first one I guess...)

Joe R.