Source video: Kentucky Ballistics, "Over-Penetration (Internet Myth or Serious Risk ???)" — go watch it, it's a well-run test and he calls his own results honestly. My argument isn't that he got it wrong. It's that the test measures whether a round EXITS a body, and the comment section is arguing about whether a round STOPS one. Those are opposite requirements. The FBI's 12–18 inch penetration standard exists because in 1986 a 9mm stopped an inch short of Michael Platt's heart and he killed two agents afterward.

Timestamps:
0:45 the wrong half
4:15 why a moulded skeleton still isn't bone
7:30 he shot everyone square
9:45 the .500 nobody talked about
11:15 the shirt is not a safety feature
14:15 drywall
16:00 the verdict. I'm not telling anyone what to carry — not my lane.

Full 5.56 rifle breakdown is linked in the cards.

it’s leather jacket skin followed by pork steak pectorals, pork ribs, a bag of oranges to simulate lung tissue, more pork ribs on the back, four layers of t-shirt on the front, four layers of t-shirt on the back and the whole thing followed by the new and improved high-tech fleece bullet stop.

Paul Harrell used "the meat target" rather than ballistics gel.  His testing medium included actual ribs, either pork or beef depending upon intended example of use.  

People actively criticized him, saying it wasn't nearly as accurate as using ballistics gel for testing.  RIP, Paul.

it's a real pleasure coming across someone on youotube that actually knows what they're talking about and can clearly articulate it

Respect for making me work hard to understand what you're saying.  Like a full college course in 17 minutes.

Pistol rounds would obviously be the leader because pistol are used far more often.  Getting shot with a rifle requires you to make a lot of mistakes, back to back to back, because generally speaking, people aren't "carrying" with a rifle.

Paul Harrel's meat targets that used meat, bones, and orange lung tissue seems to be the more accurate medium for testing projectiles over gel blocks.

Thanks for the info. Makes a lot of sense. I really don't want to be shot with anything.

As a hunter that has scooped out the jelly of what once was lungs and hearts from several animals I can assure you that the energy transfer from rifle rounds very easily exceeds these organs elastic limits.

This is where the old adage "statistics don't lie, liars use statistics" shows its meat.

High velocity beats hand gun rounds every time.

8:05 Survivorship Bias, my old friend. Guessing most commenters are familiar with the idea, but the famous example that popularized the concept was a study done on aircraft armor in WW2. Statisticians came up with a chart based on data from hundreds of shot-up bombers seeing where bullets hit them, and figured "oh, that's where we need to armor". Then one of them had the insight: No, we need to armor the areas where there are NO bullet impacts. Because we're only capturing the data for bombers that MADE IT BACK. That implies that the areas with NO bullet impacts, given the highly variable distribution of bullet impacts across the airplane in combat, are the areas that will actually cause a plane to crash. I can't put images in a youtube comment but the distribution is very striking, because the areas with NO or very few impacts are places like the cockpit, the fuel tanks, the engines...

This reminds me of the famous air force study on planes surviving hits. I think we all know that one.

Big kudos for pointing out you only  have the data that made it to the emergency room.  That was in the back of my mind at the beginning of the video.

love your 'known' / 'likely' tags during the video

As a retired master LEO firearms instructor this presentation is the best description that is real world . Thank you for sharing.

What I learned in this video: don't get shot, especially not through the femur. Fortunately the odds of that happening are fairly small where I live.

Thank you for this great analysis. For the last 10 years, I’ve worked as a trauma nurse at multiple trauma centers in cities with very high rates of interpersonal violence, and have an extensive background as an active duty trauma nurse deployed in support of combat operations at forward Role-II EMFs. I am also an avid shooter. I’ve been watching “gun tube” videos since the dawn of YouTube- and I agree that there is a vast misunderstanding about the science behind penetrating injuries.  From my own experience based on the number of GSW injuries I have seen and treated, if someone were to ask me “what is the single biggest, or most important, factor related to lethality”, my answer would be shot placement. Hands down. The patients who arrive to the trauma bay but expire within the first few hours typically have either significant major vessel trauma, ventricular trauma, massive pelvic trauma, or CNS trauma. You also make an excellent point by highlighting the difference between in-hospital mortality and in-field mortality. Honestly, if you make it to my trauma bay with a pulse, your chances of survival are really good. But studies based on hospital mortality don’t account for the large percentage of victims that are killed and don’t even make the trip to the trauma hospital

My years as a paramedic totally corroborate your findings. Thank you for a very well structured and presented analysis.
What cannot be fully compared in vitro is stopping power. That is reliant primarily upon anecdotal evidence. This is so much of the arguments over calibers and ammunition. I can say I've seen a .22 to the head drop a guy while a .380 was removed from a heart and he walked out a week later. I've seen .22's kill more but they can take time. Two old friends got into an argument over checkers, shot his best friend point blank into the left frontal scalp line. It ran around like a ball in a roulette wheel stopping on the right parietal side. He was still playing checkers upon my arrival. He got up, turned and sat on my stretcher. He died 4hrs. later only when the cerebral edema couldn't be managed. A 12 ga. with birdshot through a car windshield was a guest in our morgue- one shot form 6 feet. A good friend in school was nicknames 'lead head' because he carried pellets from being shot across a dove hunt field. Punching clean holes in people pisses them off. Once kept charging, took the pistol from the shooter, pistol whipped him then sat and lit a cigarette. He was the one with .380 in his left atrium. You can score hits and they may deter the target from aggressive action, or you may have to keep doing it until he stops. Use what you have that  you can hit the target with and empty the gun into the target. A biker took a .357 into his right chest, went back into the bar and was drinking when we arrived. We had to wait for him to bleed out enough to handle him. A SC state trooper friend is in an infamous training video on a traffic stop where a guy pulled a .22 pistol on Mark. He shot the perp with 6 rds. of .357 into the toro. As Mark rolled across the hood to radio for help a single .22 entered under his arm missing the body armor blowing his heart. He died on the scene while the perp gained 200lbs in prison and is suing for a sex change at the state's expense. Hits to soft stuff make take a while for effect. Hits on bone generally stop that limb from contributing to his actions against you. A shot cracking his pelvis may slow him enough for repeat shots and will prove fatal eventually. It's the slow him down for follow up shots. In the excitement, nobody is going to be Clint Eastwood or Chris Kyle .

As  former US Army medic, it was airway and bleeding.