It is only necessary here to consider the effects of modern small-bore
rifle or machine-gun bullets.
The trajectory is practically flat up to 675 yards. In destructive
effect there is not much difference between the various high velocity
bullets used in different armies; they will kill up to a distance of two
miles. The hard covering is employed to enable the bullet to take the
grooves in the rifle, and to prevent it stripping as it passes through
the barrel. It also increases the penetrating power of the missile, but
diminishes its "stopping" power, unless a vital part or a long bone is
struck. By removing the covering from the point of the bullet, as is
done in the Dum-Dum bullet, or by splitting the end, the bullet is made
to expand or "mushroom" when it strikes the body, and its stopping power
is thereby greatly increased, the resulting wound being much more
severe. These "soft-nosed" expanding bullets are to be distinguished
from "explosive" bullets which contain substances which detonate on
impact. High velocity bullets are unlikely to lodge in the body unless
spent, or pulled up by a sandbag, or metal buckle on a belt, or a book
in the pocket, or the core and the case separating--"stripping" of the
bullet. Spent shot may merely cause bruising of the surface, or they may
pass through the skin and lodge in the subcutaneous tissue, or may even
damage some deeper structure such as a nerve trunk.
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