Morphology of experimental assault rifle skin wounds

Abstract

Finnish forensic experts who had performed investigations of victims of alleged political violence in Kosovo, in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, under the mandate of the European Union, carried out experimental shooting in Finland to confirm observations made during the earlier forensic investigation. Experimental shooting can be of benefit for autopsy conclusions, because the wounding potential of military weapons differs from that of non-military weapons. Assault rifle gunshot wounds were inflicted upon anaesthetised swine from various distances and angles and with variable shielding of the skin. The morphology of the skin wounds was studied and postmortem changes were documented while the wounds were being observed in cool and room temperature conditions for 13 days. Large variation was found in the size, form, and regularity, and in the presence and width of the abrasion zone of entrance and exit wounds, in addition to secondary wounds. The maximum diameter of entrance wounds varied between 4 and 40 mm and that of exit wounds between 10 and 110 mm. The width of the abrasion zone surrounding entrance wounds ranged from 2 to 11 mm. Extreme care and caution are needed when drawing conclusions with regard to cases of multiple gunshot injuries, and especially when post-mortem changes are considerable.

Ballistic impacts on an anatomically correct synthetic skull with a surrogate skin/soft tissue layer

“…1 , A] is generally smaller than that of the bullet as, after being extended, the skin recovers elastically following the bullet perforation. Even allowing for this, and the reported bullet hole variation in experimental cases [ 23 ], our entry wound defects are smaller than real injuries. (around 2 to 3 mm diameter skin defect).…”

“…The aim of this current work was to assess the effect of synthetic facial skin and tissue on the fracture development in our model and assess the overall realism of the entry wounds, exit wounds, wound tract, fractures and tissue characteristics using both modern CT scanning and formal ‘autopsy’, building on the approach of Thali and colleagues. Assessment of entry and exit wound characteristics was felt to be a key observation given the reported variation of wound appearances in both forensic [ 22 ] and experimental [ 23 ] cases.…”

Self‐inflicted Firearm Discharge from Heating Using a Gas Burner

“…The entrance wound in the left orbit showed an irregular border with margin rupture and was judged to be caused by a contact shot . The absence of the formation of charring and soot stains around the gunshot wound was attributable to the fact that the deceased had pulled a blanket over his head and had placed the muzzle on his face.…”

Forensic reconstruction of two military combat related shooting incidents using an anatomically correct synthetic skull with a surrogate skin/soft tissue layer

“…Reconstructions of ballistic events on humans have been undertaken with a range of models as described in Humphrey and Kumaratilake’s recent (2016) review [ 5 ]; this includes cadavers, animal models, simulated bone and tissue and computer models. Raino et al [ 6 ] used anaesthetised pigs to study the morphology of assault rifle gunshot wounds and subsequent post-mortem changes as part of their investigation into shootings in Kosovo. They commented that the work was helpful for clarifying injury mechanism but that ‘ the reproducibility of ballistic experiments using live animals is extremely difficult’ [ 6 ] .…”

“…Raino et al [ 6 ] used anaesthetised pigs to study the morphology of assault rifle gunshot wounds and subsequent post-mortem changes as part of their investigation into shootings in Kosovo. They commented that the work was helpful for clarifying injury mechanism but that ‘ the reproducibility of ballistic experiments using live animals is extremely difficult’ [ 6 ] . Issues included both variability in the appearance of different wounds, despite being inflicted by the same weapons and ammunition, and the effect of post-mortem changes on the wounds as the experiment progressed.…”