Eli5: Why is ballistic gel used for human analogues on so many shows when it looks like you could just push your finger easily into it?

Question

Like, I couldn’t just push my finger in and easily pierce a person’s torso, so why is it deemed a good material for human analogue testing?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Remember when you see it wobble and jiggle like jello it’s just been hit by a baseball bat swinging hard enough to crush bone or been shot by a bullet that would cause the same effects in your body or had some other damage done to it in a way that would likely kill you.

If you watch a video of someone handling the stuff you’ll see that it’s super dense and handles more like rubber then like jello.