Rossignol said:
My question here pertains more to the possibility of each pellet creating its own wound tract and temporary cavity rather than every pellet hitting one area.
Beyond what is to be gained by having the pattern open up somewhat pertaing to targt acquisition, what can potentially be gained or lost in a loads abilty to stop a threat. Does each pellet creating its own wound, " let air in, let blood out" stand valid here?
Sorry it took so long to answer, but I wanted to get the best info I could. I contacted a longtime friend, now retired, who is the professor emeritus of the forensic pathology program here at I.U. School of Medicine. I attended a lot of autopsies with him over the years.
He told me it is very difficult for a well-equipped, well-appointed ER trauma team to effectively handle more than about two separate gunshot wounds (GSW) in the same torso at the same time. Additional separate gunshot wounds, he told me, make it difficult for even the most skilled medical personnel...but if the additional gunshots are also in the patient's torso then the prognosis isn't good. But...you weren't talking about making things hard for the ER doctors.
The effectiveness of the buckshot-loaded shotgun centers on the multiple wounds tracks it causes through the vital area of the mid-to-upper chest. There is about a 95% plus certainty that one or more of those wound tracks will end up in the heart, or the other major blood bearing vessels of the upper body, and/or strike the upper spine. The heart goes into overdrive under stress, which (once it...or nearby major vessels...have been perforated by a GSW) only serves to accelerate the loss of blood and a fatal drop in blood pressure. That's what causes the target to collapse in short order, and even more quickly if the upper spine is struck.
The challenge, as ever, is to get as many deep-penetrating pellets from the buckshot column into the vital area of the mid-to-upper chest as possible so the vital area is thoroughly saturated. It isn't a matter of "letting in air", or "letting out blood" in the form of external bleeding. Those factors have little, if anything to do over the few seconds of time that decide who wins, and who loses, the gunfight. Most often is it high-volume internal blood loss that does the job.
Seems like it would behoove each of us to take the time needed to learn how our individual shotguns pattern at various distances, and learn the limitations of each weapon.