Fackler immediately contacted me to provide him with engineering input on a few wound ballistics issues, and I have been more or less involved with professional wound ballistics ever since. Bullet Penetration summarizes most of what is known about wound ballistics that relates to incapacitation from handgun bullet trauma, and more importantly, gives a model of bullet penetration in soft tissue. This bullet penetration model is a true technical advance in that it provides new analytical capabilities and insights, and is already being used by at least some ammunition manufacturers in ammunition development. In some instances, these writers appear to have ties to the manufacturers of the ammunition they tout. The IWBA has a many members who are law enforcement officers, and aids and encourages them in understanding wound ballistics and in doing their own ammunition testing rather than relying on the opinions of others.
Bullet placement is most important in either case, but there are complications.
On the other hand, wounds that are unavoidably fatal will not necessarily cause rapid incapacitation. A bullet must penetrate deep enough to reach vital structures in the body to cause either death or physiological incapacitation. No, and no. The movement of a body due to bullet momentum cannot be greater than the movement of the same body if it was holding the gun that fired the bullet. This is a result of elementary physics and is not disputed by anyone who understands physics.