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Originally Posted by Ripper 2.0
Vega is correct, the shot came from behind. Here is an experiment youi can try if you shoot. Put a cantelope on a post and shoot it with a high powered rifle. It will fall towards you. Just a quirk of physics. The bullet does not tranfer much momentum to the melon, but it does cause the pulp to be forcebly ejected from the far side. The "Up and back" that Oliver Stone's movie repeted like a mantra was just a Holywood thing.
I will say this though, the invenstgation was very poorly handled. I doubt we will ever have any closure on it.
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What happens is that the greatest force occurs by moving the melon material sideways as the bullet passes through. The second thing is that the shock wave fractures out the back, in an expanding cone, doing much damage but imparting little momentum. The third thing is that the melon material pushed to the side follows along the unfractured walls of this expanding cone and is thus redirected out the back, thereby transferring momentum of the melon towards where the gunshot was fired.
This is a fairly well-known phenomena among target shooters. It hold up significant less among the flesh and blood melons than the ones we swiped from Farmer Jones, and in many cases may even work in reverse.
So, either way you call it - it's a crap shoot.