Damage from a gunshot wound

MartyG

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Let me preface this by saying that this is a fantasy world, so no model names are possible.

I am in the middle of planning out a scene. In it four characters are hiding while two others are meeting. During it one the hidden characters comes out and hits one of them with a bolt of electricity, knocking him out. Afterwards the other character is shot in the head. The electric realizes he was shot in the lower leg, slightly below the midpoint, as well and passes out.

The gun itself is a military-grade sniper rifle and the shooter(s) is on a submarine (I am unsure if, with enough training, someone could take two shots.). What I want to know is the kind of damage can occur. Now, the character is wearing pants and has fur surrounding the wound site, thicker than a hairy mans, but short and thin.
 

MaeZe

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You can write it anyway you want, have the bullet graze, pass through, hit no bones, or, shatters bones, hit major nerves and arteries.

There is no one gunshot injury, it all depends where the bullet goes.
 

Alsikepike

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I'd say the first thing to worry about is your character bleeding out, especially if he collapses almost immediately. The leg has a lot of large veins and arteries running through it. Long term things to worry about include infection, and fur and other foreign matter getting in the wound. A military sniper rifle typically uses .338 caliber bullets. The absolute best case scenario has the man relatively immobile for a few days and making a full recovery in a month. (Assuming he gets immediate treatment) And that's assuming the wound is a through-and-through. Here's a good picture of the wound pattern you should expect with most 338. caliber rifles:
338_caliber_plot_1.jpg

Worst case scenario has your character bleeding out in around 10 minutes tops without any treatment, and since he's been in a fight his elevated heart rate will probably make him bleed out faster. The first course of action would be to tie a tourniquet around his leg immediately and then try to locate the source of the bleeding. Apply pressure and get him out ASAP. That's about as far as my expertise goes. Hope that helps.
 
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MaeZe

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Bufty

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If it's fantasy, the bullet(?) damage can be whatever you want it to be unless the characters are of human physiology, in which case the bullet and weapon will matter. Are they human or fantasy weapons?
 
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Alsikepike

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Sorry, I misread the location of the wound. I thought he said,"Upper leg", not, "lower leg". I've edited my post to fix this.
 
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JNG01

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A military grade sniper rifle would likely be using .30-06, or .300 Win Mag, or .338 Lapua, or .50 BMG.

Any rifle round in that class is delivering MASSIVE amounts of kinetic force to the target. Like, something on the order of a 2000 to 3000 foot-lbs (or more, in the case of the .50) depending on the range.

A big part of the terminal effect of the round will depend on the type of bullet. A round designed for penetration (like a solid copper round) might punch a neat, clean hole of near-caliber diameter and keep right on chugging, dumping most of its energy into the ground somewhere behind the target. A round designed for expansion (like a soft-point round) may, depending on the bullet construction, expand radically, using all or most of that energy in the target and creating a wound channel far larger than caliber by the point of exit.

Here's a real-world example. I was hunting antelope with a buddy. He pulled his shot a few inches low with a .30-06 at about 200 yards. The bullet--a round-nose soft point--hit the femur just below the shoulder joint. The bullet mushroomed the way its supposed to, and it blew both legs off. As in, no longer attached, except the near leg by a strap of skin.

With rifles in this class, the energy of the round is so high that any hit, almost anywhere, has the potential to be fatal. Because of that, you have the flexibility to have the wound be whatever your story requires. Need a non-fatal wound? Have your shooter using non-expanding ammo and get a marginal hit on one of the extremities. Need a lower leg hit to be fatal? Have your shooter use ammo constructed for expansion and hit just below the knee, blowing the leg nearly off, then have your victim pass out and bleed out.
 
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neandermagnon

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Shooting guns in a submarine carries the possiblity of damaging the hull of the submarine and killing everyone on board. Also, I just googled to see how well submarines would withstand gunshots from the inside, and apparently the noise of the gun is also a thing, i.e. because the sound just bounces back off all the walls, it would be deafeningly loud and possibly damage people's eardrums. Going back to the bullet and the hull, it would depend on the kind of bullet. Bullets that are able to pierce armour apparentlywould be able to damage the hull enough to cause a leak. Less powerful bullets would ricochet around the sub. I'm not sure I'd want to be in a submarine with deafening gunshot blasts and bullets ricocheting around it. If I was the kind of person who would shoot someone, a gun therefore might not be my choice of weapon.

Note: the above is from gut instinct (bullet on submarine sounds like a very bad idea) plus google searching. I have no practical experience of any of this, but I think it does need to be considered. Even if I'm wrong, then somehow you need to show that this isn't what would happen.
 

JNG01

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Shooting guns in a submarine carries the possiblity of damaging the hull of the submarine and killing everyone on board. Also, I just googled to see how well submarines would withstand gunshots from the inside, and apparently the noise of the gun is also a thing, i.e. because the sound just bounces back off all the walls, it would be deafeningly loud and possibly damage people's eardrums. Going back to the bullet and the hull, it would depend on the kind of bullet. Bullets that are able to pierce armour apparentlywould be able to damage the hull enough to cause a leak. Less powerful bullets would ricochet around the sub. I'm not sure I'd want to be in a submarine with deafening gunshot blasts and bullets ricocheting around it. If I was the kind of person who would shoot someone, a gun therefore might not be my choice of weapon.

Note: the above is from gut instinct (bullet on submarine sounds like a very bad idea) plus google searching. I have no practical experience of any of this, but I think it does need to be considered. Even if I'm wrong, then somehow you need to show that this isn't what would happen.

Neandermagnon is right. Fire one of those rifles in an enclosed space without hearing protection, and temporary deafness is a certainty and permanent hearing damage a high likelihood. Also, all those thousands of foot-pounds of force have to go somewhere--if not your target, then somewhere. A well constructed round would be richoeting around like a pinball in that setting.
 

MartyG

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So a bullet designed for penetration. But, I had forgotten to mention this, the characters are on shore when everything goes down, so the shooter is at a distance and has to deal with the sub moving. How much is this going to effect things?
 

JNG01

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So a bullet designed for penetration. But, I had forgotten to mention this, the characters are on shore when everything goes down, so the shooter is at a distance and has to deal with the sub moving. How much is this going to effect things?

Depends on the skill of the shooter and the distance and the quality of the rifle and the predictability of the movement. A "good" hunting rifle has mechanical accuracy of about 1 minute of angle. At 100 yards, 1 minute of angle is just about an inch. So if you put a "good" rifle in a vise and shoot it at exactly the same point of aim, the bullets will group in a circle of about an inch in diameter at 100 yards, or 5 inches in diameter at 500 yards. A really dialed-in, high-end rifle might cut that in half.

Next, consider that for pinpoint accuracy, a rifle shooter will take a supported position. Prone if possible, with the rifle on a bipod on slung out across a backpack. Sitting also feasible. Either way, the rifle will be supported against something that's anchored to the "ground" (in this case, your submarine). A very skilled shooter might be able to shoot darn close to perfect out of a prone rest (which means variance of half an inch or an inch for every hundred yards, depending on the rifle), but those groups will probably widen by AT LEAST a factor of four, and probably more, if the shooter is in an unsupported position.

Now, we put those two things together. Your submarine is probably going to be pitching or moving entire degrees of angle, and not just minutes--that means for every hundred yards of distance, the variance caused by the submarine's movement will be measured in tens of feet. If your shooter is in a supported position, the rifle sight or crosshairs will be drifting tens of feet with the movement of the submarine. A very, very, very skilled shooter might--if the movement is predictable and the distance moderate (say 300 yards or less)--be able to time the break of the trigger to get the shot within, say, a 5 or 6 inch circle per hundred yards of distance, at best. If the movement is unpredictable or the shooter is not exceptional, the variance would be even larger. (Depending on what your story needs, this could explain a skilled shooter hitting someone in the lower leg).

Short answer--the movement of the sub would matter quite a bit at any distance over 100 yards.

Now if you your range is inside of 100 yards (and especially inside of 50 yards), making unsuppported shots with accuracy becomes very feasible, even on a moving platform, for a skilled shooter.
 

MartyG

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Okay, I think I know how to write the scene. Thanks everyone.
 

WeaselFire

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Thge trick to bullet wounds is to write the scene for the effects of the wound and either let the reader surmise what the bullet hit or damaged, or write the effects and let a medical expert in the story explain why it happened that way. Never start with:

John was shot straight on, right between the eyes with a .44 Magnum from a Colt Python, held by his younger brother and...

Start with:

John, despite being shot in the head, survived the wound and made it to his wedding on time. Apparently, the small caliber handgun had been loaded with low power target rounds and the bullet had hit his forehead obliquely as he turned, skipping off the heavy parietal bone and barely nicking his ear as it passed. Though it looked bad with lots of blood pouring from an apparent bullet wound between the eyes, the actual damage was a jagged scar and a wicked headache.

Unless you want John dead from a shot by his brother... :)

Jeff