Automatic's

[petro]

>At 05:11 PM 6/10/01 -0700, petro wrote:
>>
>>	Secondly, if you think *ANY* firearm you can fire standing up
>>will "Knock them on their behind", take a high school physics class.
>>
>
>Well said, but:
>In _The Irish War_ there's a description of IRA improvised recoilless
>'rifles' which, like their .mil-industrial analogues, toss an equal
>mass out the back end.  The reacting countermass is a bunch of flakes
>which dissipate the KE against the atmosphere.

	Sure, but that isn't a cartridge based pistol, which is what 
we were talking about.

	There are also "gyro-jet" type munitions, which aren't all 
that accurate, but can pack a greater punch because they do some or 
all of their accelerating post-barrel.

>[Ie, consider a barrel open at both ends.  Put missile, charge, countermass
>flakes in that order.  Point missile at thing you don't like, and keep
>friendlies a few meters away from the countermass ejection end of the barrel.]

	Given that your average pistol fight takes place inside 3 or 
4 meters, that could prove tough.

>That said, an (e.g.) hip or knee shot on a biped will cause it to fall
>approximately
>back if the posture is right.  That also is just the physics of actively
>balanced inverted pendula, biomechanics.

	Knee shots, yes. But if you are that good, might as well go 
for the triangle formed by the top center of the lip and the eyebrow 
ridges.

	That *WILL* cause the target to collapse with anything over a 
.22LR, and if you get an eye will 100% guarenteed stop the fight 
(with that individual) now. Only one person has survived a shot (by a 
firearm) to the eye, and she's been on life support since she was hit 
by a .22.

	As for the hip, it's a large and relatively porus bone. There 
have been a few cases where hip shots have failed to drop an attacker 
because the bullet just punched a hole, failing to fracture the hip.

	Heart/lung shots and brain shots tend to be your best bet 
with a pistol.
-- 
--
http://www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp7761121.html
It is one of the essential features of such incompetence that the person so
afflicted is incapable of knowing that he is incompetent. To have such
knowledge would already be to remedy a good portion of the offense.