Please open a Lock and Loaded section!

[Grognaurd]

Hollow Point. Essentially, it is hollow. A brand name is Black Talon, because when it hits, outsides of the bullet cone flare open like a birds talons.

Try to draw something like this

Full Metal Jacket
Fire!..........Penetration....Wound....Over-penetration
=>....[ ]...... } =>]......... } }.............=>

Full Metal Jacket
Fire!..........Penetration...Larger Wound......Stopping Power
=>...[ ].........=}< ]..............0 =|]................00=|]

This creates a much larger wound. It also slows the bullet significantly. This results in more of the kinetic energy of the round being put into the body. Full metal jacket does not deform much. So the wound is neater and often results in what people call over-penetration. The bullet will fly right through the body and keep moving. All of the energy retained by the bullet once it has passed through the body is "wasted".

Gotta run, I will help some more later if someone else hasn't already

[Cabbage Patch]

Great explanation of hollow points!

Two added points. First, it's rare to find hollow point ammunition for military type rifles. That's because they are banned from military use by the Geneva Convention. Miitary bullets are typically composed of lead cores, surrounded by a thin coating of copper or steel, commonly refered to as a "full metal jacket".

Second, civilians and law enforcement are not limited in their use of hollow point ammunition. This is the type of round that cops are most likely to be carrying, they are very popular for home defense. Most hollow point ammo is intended for use in pistols, and they work equally well in military pistols (the Berettas Michael and company are using) as in civilian pistols.

[Grognaurd]

SPOILER 

Oh, and before someone gets all worked up about cops using hollow points and doing nastier wounds. Yes, it is true. The wound is the most important consideration. But, it is the wound of bystanders. Hollow points are much less likely to over penetrate and hit a second person.

That is why Burt (and I) think the round in Saul's shoulder went through Tommy first. I think it was a FMJ.

[Grognaurd]

SPOILER 

Ok, enough with Saul's wounds. How about the helicopter wounds. Helicopters are pretty fragile. This coast guard copter is not going to be armored in any way. It will be optimized for lift capacity and transport as well as loiter time if needed for search and rescue. So basically any handgun, carbine or rifle can do it within typical "zombie-range". The mp5 by the copter is certainly capable of doing it. There is no evidence of a hard landing so my guess is they were loading or unloading people and they ambushed. Shooter may have fired accidentally when he got bite. Or, could be an example of the over penetration described above.

I do not believe the helicopter was brought down by gunfire.

[nikvoodoo]

Spoiler tags have been added, and this thread is now closed. We already gave our recommendation to start firearm/weapon threads in Everything else section and if they gain enough traction, we'll create a section for them.

This is a spoiler free area of the forum and We're Alive discussion is best not had here. If you want to continue assessing wounds characters have suffered, please do so in either Episode Discussions or the Characters area. If you want to continue having general firearms conversations, that can be done in the Everything Else Section.