disco stu wrote:Thanks for taking the time to post the whole story. Really interesting
It is an unusual case, and I'm glad you mentioned it in that thread.
I still struggle to believe that the bullet hit the water, then traveled over 1000m, and was still intact enough for examination. If it hit the water at relatively close range (as would be when shooting sharks) it would've been badly deformed.
Interestingly there is no mention of the bullet being ballistically matched to the specific rifle. It appears to be entirely circumstantial. The bullet was found to be a two-groove, Lee Enfield (very few other rifles have left-hand twist). A guy was out on the water with such a type of rifle, and was shooting toward the land, a long way off, at the time the girl was killed.
Circumstantially, it seems entirely unlikely the bullet could have come from anywhere else. But the only evidence that could've linked the recovered bullet to the specific rifle was never offered in the case, as far as I can see. And as it didn't exit the girl's head it must've been travelling at pistol velocity at impact. A 180gn hunting soft-point at 2600fps will be subsonic by 800m, probably even below .38 Special velocities by 1500m, and probably well below expansion threshold for a hunting rifle bullet. This is for an undeformed bullet.
For it to have happened as the guy said, I reckon he would have to have been much, much closer to the coastline, for a bullet to bounce off the water and still have retained velocity around 600-800fps at the victim. I think he simply told them he was much further away to minimise his degree of negligence.
I would love to see pictures of the recovered bullet though.