The influence of a skin simulant on bullet trajectory deflection in ballistic gelatine.

This study explored the influence of a skin simulant on the trajectory deflection of bullets fired through gelatine blocks. Full metal jacket round nose (FMJ-RN) bullets in caliber 9 mm Luger were fired through gelatine blocks that were clad with a skin simulant at the front, at the back and both at the front and back. The angle between the bullet trajectories before and behind the blocks were calculated for each shot. This angle is a measure for bullet trajectory deflection. The ballistic resistance of the used skin simulant was defined as the threshold value in J/mm2 where 50 % of all fired projectiles are expected to perforate. This value varied between 0.22 and 0.29 J/mm2 for the skin simulant samples that were used. These values are higher than most values found in the literature for human skin, which vary between 0.12 J/mm2 and 0.26 J/mm2. The deflection results recorded with a skin simulant at the front, at the back and both at the front and back were compared to each other and to a dataset from similar bullets, fired through similar gelatine blocks without a skin simulant. Despite the fact that the ballistic resistance of the chosen skin simulant was relatively high, trajectory deflection was not influenced significantly by its presence for all tested conditions.