A close friend from the upper midwest just buried his father. In going through the deceased's belongings, he found a bullet that had been surgically removed 60 years before in a Wehrmacht field hospital -- which close call my friend had heard his father refer to on a number of occasions as "...the bullet that saved my life."
The wound was serious enough that my friend's father never had to return to his battalion on the Russian front, and was in east Prussia with his family when the war ended.

My friend has a natural curiosity about the bullet and thought I might help him identify the caliber. I told him there were two possible scenarios I could think of: a cartridge fired from a Nagant rifle; or somewhat more likely a bullet from the standard issue automatic drum-fed infantry weapon whose Soviet inventor escapes me at the moment, and which by 1943 was ubiquitous along the entire Russian front. For all I know, however, both weapons (rifle and machine gun) could have been manufactured to fire the same caliber bullet.

In any event, the bullet has no detectable deformation which suggests to me its energy was largely spent in flight, else it likely would have passed through the body (having missed any bone).

My friend measured the bullet: it is 3.3mm long, and (here he uses the word "approximately") 0.8mm wide at its widest point. Please take a look at http://www1.minn.net/~grumpy/bullet/ and put your forensic minds to work. I realize this is a tough call...but then again the accurate reloading forum is a rather remarkable ballistic brain trust. I'm hoping for educated guesses, but maybe somebody out there is expert enough to be spot-on, as the Brits say, despite the limited evidence to work with.

Many thanks! Give the URL about 30 seconds to download.

Maybe the bullet is not Russian but rather a German one. Where was he hit with this bullet? Could it have been self-inflicted?

Must be 33 mm in length and 8mm in diameter. The values given were in centimeters.

When was the 7.62x39 introduced? I believe the true diameter of military ammo is very close to 8mm not 7.62 as indictated by its name.

Photo of the bullet eliminates that it was a submachinegun bullet, this is clearly a rifle or possibly more likely a machinegun bullet given the boattail. Most German 8mm ammo was loaded with a flatbased 150 or so grain spitzer bullet for rifle ammo and this isn't one of those.
The Russian Moisin Nagant and light and heavy machine guns fired the 7.62x54R round, and ammo for that was all over the charts, but the diameter would be smaller than 8mm.
It isnt' a 7.62 x 39 as it's too long and again too wide. It isn't a German 7.92x33 Kruz round as it is too long.
If the measurements are correct it could likely be an 8mm from one of the eastern European countries such as Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia or the like, some of those countries used boattail bullets prior to the war for rifle ammo and were used by partisans.
You could check the diameter very closely though and it is it indeed smaller than 7.92, it could indeed be a Russian 7.62 bullet from a 7.62x54R round.

regards,
Graycg

PLEASE NOTE; MY DIMENSIONS WERE WAY OFF. BULLET MEASUREMENTS SHOULD READ "CENTIMETERS;, AND NOT "MILLIMETERS."

My friend says his father was shot in the mid-chest area (he's seen the scar), and assures me it was NOT self-inflicted.

[ 08-17-2003, 23:29: Message edited by: Mouskie ]

Considering that both the Germans, and the Soviets, used the weapons of each other at different times, and that ammo from both conflicting sides came from a multiple of sources, this is a "dead horse being beat." IMHO.

Forensic science, using a vast resource of available means, may finally be able to determine the absolute source of the bullet in question. The question however, as it seems to me, is who shot the poor guy?

Regards,

Eric

I did a little research in Cartridges of the World. It would be very helpful to know the actual bullet weight in grains, and true diameter.
There was a 8mm solid bronze, spitzer boattail bullet 198 grain bullet made as well as a 190 grain spitzer boattail bullet with cupro-nickel clad steel jacket over a lead core. These are listed under the 8x50Rmm Lebel cartridge, but the same bullet could have been fired from some other cartridge. This is the only thing I could find to explain the lack of deformation to the bullet.

One very obvious point is that bullet was fired from a LONG way off. It's long and pointy, but did not exit and did not kill him. Impact velocity must have been below 1000 fps and might have been down around 500.

My bet would be on a medium machine gun doing area fire. It's common for such guns to be issued heavy bullet ammo in the standard infantry cartridge. Take someone who knows more about the WWII German military than me to say for sure, but that's where I would place my money.

Looks a lot like the Schweres Spitzgeschoss (heavy ponted bullet) from the 7.92X57mm Mauser cartridge, the 198-grain bullet that replaced the original 7.92X57mm "S" (.323") 150 grain bullet adopted in 1905, when all German Service rifles were changed to fire .323" rather than .318" bullets. However, it could also be the heavy 7.62X54R Soviet long range machinegun bullet, which is allmost the same as the German bullet, except for diameter (.310" vs .323"). If it is actually 8mm (.323"- MIKE IT)in diameter, then it's the German bullet.... I would have to be able to mike it to know for sure....

[ 08-21-2003, 16:36: Message edited by: eldeguello ]

My guess is a shot with a Mauser 98 using
7.92x57mm (also known as 7.9mm or 8mm Mauser)ammo.
the boattail shows it was intended for long range.

http://world.guns.ru/rifle/rfl02-e.htm