From: lwcamp@gmail.com   
      
   Typical rifle bullets are unstable when going through a dense medium like   
   flesh.  The spin that stabilizes them in air is insufficient for the job once   
   they hit meat and sinew and bone.  They also have their center of pressure in   
   front of their center of    
   gravity, meaning any small deviations from pointing perfectly straightforward   
   will get amplified and result in the bullet tumbling (yawing is the technical   
   term) exactly once to go from forward pointing to backward pointing.  During   
   the time it is going    
   sideways is when it is causing the most tissue damage.  It is also where the   
   bullet is experiencing the highest pressure - many modern bullets disintegrate   
   at this point before they complete their half-turn tumble, and the fragments   
   from a high speed    
   bullet in meat make a messy, shredded cavity of ruined tissue (about the size   
   of a grapefruit for the 5.56mm NATO bullets).   
      
   You could imagine engineering bullets that can take the stress of impact   
   end-on, but readily break apart when going sideways.  Make it out of stacked   
   tungsten cones only weakly sintered together (and covered in a copper jacket,   
   of course).  On impact    
   with armor, the cones just push into each other and help push the bullet   
   through the armor.  Once it starts to yaw, though, the pressure easily   
   separates the cones into multiple projectiles that leave a gaping, blasted   
   void of shredded tissue.   
      
   Luke   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)