I was using the word smash to convey not drilling, but the whole large nasty non-precise damage inflicted thing. Sounds like everyone is almost in agreement.

Secret message to beathen, although, really, anyone can look if they want to:

Don't worry about it. Reading will just slow down the typing. I should have both 3 and 4 for you this weekend. Sorry I'm so slow!

Yeah, I think we're all in agreement and just not seeing it very well. I know I have perhaps not expressed myself as well as I'd have liked.

I originally entered this discussion to quibble with Nutty's characterization that switching from a design that caused a small, tidy wound to one that causes a large, messy wound was going from more to less lethal, but I also suspect I may have misunderstood the point she was trying to make.

Thanks for all your help libkitty!

Aack! There is a difference between the spin of the bullet imparted by rifling and the tumble of a bullet within the target.

From post #3677, Nutty:

this is the same reason why bullets are designed to spin sloppily

and post #3680, Nutty:

Most modern guns pon't back the bullet tightly into the barrel, so when it comes out its spin is as messy as a kindergartener throwing a football.

and post #3684, DXMachina:

The M-16, for one. The bullets tumble in the same manner a knife tumbles when you throw one at a target

and post #3698, Sean K:

Back when military rifles were rifled, very few soldiers could shoot well enough to kill with one shot. The rifling was removed to make them more lethal, not less.

No. Military rifles are still rifled. The bullets come out spinning, not tumbling. High-velocity low-calibre bullets like those from an M-16 tumble and often fragment after penetrating the body of the target, but they don't tumble on the way to the target. That would make for accuracy worse than a BB-gun.

IIRC the rifling on the current models of the M-16 is 1 rev. in 7 inches and some earlier models had 1-in-9 and 1-in-12 rifling.

From an ICRC article [link] :

"Wounds from projectiles that strike the body at more than about 800 metres per second differ both in degree and in kind from wounds caused by lower-velocity projectiles. Because of the tendency of high-velocity projectiles to tumble and become deformed in the body, and to set up especially intense hydrodynamic shock-waves, the wounds which they cause may resemble those of dumdum bullets".[10]

and

According to Sellier and Kneubuehl, a bullet which is fully enclosed in a metal jacket, as are virtually all military rifle bullets today, will start to turn around a lateral axis at some distance after entering the body. Once it starts to turn, the rate of turning increases rapidly; the angle of incidence reaches 90 degrees and the bullet continues turning until it is travelling nearly tail first. After that, it can partly turn several more times before entering the last phase, when it will again be travelling tail first. Depending on its construction, a full-metal-jacketed bullet can deform or break up because of the stresses placed on it during turning, but deformation or break-up of a full-metal-jacketed bullet is a by-product of turning and not an independent process, although, once it happens, the deformation or break-up adds to the wounding effect because of the increase in the surface area of bullet material pressing against the tissues.[20]

The turning, or "tumbling", of a bullet is thus the critical mechanism resulting in severe injury, and the likelihood of causing a severe wound will depend on how far a bullet penetrates the body before turning. An ammunition designer who is intent on inflicting the greatest possible damage will want to have the bullet turn as soon as possible, thus achieving the same effect (rapid transfer of most or all of the bullet's kinetic energy) as with the outlawed dumdum bullet.

So, what makes a bullet tumble?

According to Sellier and Kneubuehl, the tendency of a bullet to tumble early on entering the body is dependent on the angle of incidence on impact, the shape of the bullet nose, and the gyroscopic stability of the bullet.[24] Gyroscopic stability, in turn, is dependent on such factors as the rate of spin, the moments of inertia, and the geometry of the bullet. In general, the greater the gyroscopic stability of a bullet (for example, because of a higher spin rate), the further it will go in the body before starting to tumble; and the shorter a bullet is in relation to its diameter, the less likely it is to tumble.

t stuffs arguments back up heinie from whence they came

(And I thought M16s were still rifiled, but didn't say anything, because it was making my brain hurt trying to reconcile it with the rest of my arguments)

"Psycho" doesn't necessarily mean "liar." Also, we don't know that Ethan is a psycho.

Well, he is a liar presented himself as one of them for three weeks, and he didn't exactly look normal at the end of the previous ep, starign at C&C.

We know that he kidnapped people by force and hung one of them, but we don't know what his motives are. We don't even know what he is, except that he's unusually fast, strong enough to overpower two people, knows how to fight, and has some connection to The Others.

Unless he ran to get the Others hiding nearby when Charlie thought he was going to get Jack, so that when Charlie and Claire came back down the trail, the group could ambush them from behind. Hence Charlie not hearing nor seeing anythign after that.

stuffs arguments back up heinie from whence they came

Actually, I think that this is consistent with the shared part what all of you were saying. There is a trade off between the accuracy (associated with the most "gyroscopic stability") and the damage caused by the bullet (associated with less stability), and that for the last 100 years munitions designers have tinkered with finding the best balance of those two factors.

Nora,

why do you say this?

yeah, but it bugs me that Jack is seen as like this paragon of leadership, is all. Though, that seems to be unraveling. yay.

I never ever thought he was a paragon of leadership. He resisted the role of leader early on and Kate pretty well thrust it on him - as did Locke. I have never seen Jack in this role during the series. It's like people assuming Locke is a master hunter. Well, he isn't really, but he read a helluva lot of books and he is doing his best.

What the people on the island are assuming about their comrades should be different than how we viewers see them because we actually know their backstories, psychoses, and weaknesses.

So I equate seeing Jack as the paragon of leadership the way I would seeing Sawyer as a medicine hoarding asshole. The folks on the island may see them each that way but we know better.

I particularly liked the scene between Jack and his dad in his dad's office. Thought Matthew Fox was really good in that scene.

So if the spooky island dwelling other types brought down the plane to get their mitts on Claire or her unborn kid, d'you think Crazy French Woman was pregnant and they wrecked her boat to get their paws on her kid?