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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   14541 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026

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I am very much not a gun nut, but I would rather have a 5.56mm NATO go through my arm than a musket ball... but I imagine getting hit by one was gruesome.

That's actually one of the matters of dispute. An actual musket would have had similar kinetic energy and carved a much wider wound channel as the 5.56 NATO, which is definitely gruesome, and there's very few human organs that like having a three-quarter-inch (or inch: soft lead deforms) hole drilled through them. Even a lower-round, 'small' flintlock rifle reproduction from that era can be pretty unpleasant to see on a clean hit. But the cavitation effects are much lower and more evenly distributed on an imperfect shot. The 5.56 carves a smaller wound channel (even if it tumbles!), but in ballistic gel you get these massive and really traumatic-looking temporary distortions, caused by the rate of energy release.

Sounds like somebody needs to shoot Grosskreutz's other arm with a musket! (ah... for science, in minecraft -- don't actually shoot this guy again please!)

The Kenosha incident did convince me that close-range 223 makes very nasty wounds though -- there is a significant muzzleloader hunting community one could draw from here -- unfortunately that's not one of my personal hobbies so IDK, but I'd be kind of surprised if a .75 ball didn't mostly just pencil even at close range? (a really big pencil mind you; an inch sounds about right)

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