How is it that a bullet that is 12.7 mm in diameter can kill somebody with so much more bodily damage than a 20mm rebar rod that is impaled through the body? I see stories of people surviving impalement all the time, but a shot with a .50 cal to the same area almost always results in instant death. Shouldnt the bullet just go through its target because it travels so fast?
In: 546
Survivability is mostly a function of kinetic energy (KE) transfer.
KE=0.5*mv^2. So a fast-moving .50 cal bullet has much more energy than a slow-moving piece of rebar. Also the bullet is designed to transfer more of that energy (by air cavitation, mushrooming or fragmenting) to whatever it hits than a sharp stick can (it just passes through).
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