Help Against All Odds: Lives Saved After an Intraoral .44 Magnum Gunshot

[DoomCry]

Your question is pointlessly hyper-specific. The study is only useless to people who can't put 2+2 together and figure out that you don't need 100 studies of a hyper-specific case when you can just use basic deduction and assume that total energy doesn't matter if that energy completely misses it's mark. You can be the first documented case and answer your question that way, or you can just separate the brain stem and enjoy oblivion. Otherwise, you will just be mulling over the vertexes and parabolas of something you're not going to do.

This entire line of inquiry is like assuming that crashing in a pickup truck would not kill somebody, because all the cases of car crashes were from sedans. There are so many cases of people dying from smaller rounds, and people surviving larger rounds. It's the aim that matters, just ask survivors of SIGSWs who used 12 gauges (2 of which are in that study), and look at the cases like Christine Chubbuck's, where she got it done with a mere .38 aimed behind the ear. All your yapping is not getting you any closer to this unicorn of a "documented case".

Your reply, while stylistically lively, contains serious flaws in logic and methodology. I'll proceed point by point, with clinical clarity.


---

1. "The question is unnecessarily overspecific"
No, it's necessarily specific. In forensic medicine and clinical ballistics, precision is essential.
My question focuses on a clearly defined case: intraoral gunshot, with a .44 Magnum revolver with a 6-inch barrel or longer, barrel inserted into the mouth, shot directed at the cranial vault or brainstem.
Each variable — caliber, angle, barrel length, bullet type — dramatically affects the outcome.
Reducing this to "a gunshot to the head" is simply incorrect: these are independent variables, not interchangeable ones.


---

2. "The study is only useless for those who can't do 2+2"
False. The study you cited (PMC5175460) does not clearly define trajectories. The term "intraoral" is used without anatomical or ballistic precision, and it does not clarify whether the barrel was inserted into the mouth, nor does it detail the direction of fire, caliber, muzzle energy, or which structures were damaged.
Without these details, the study cannot answer the question posed.
Using a vague, generalized source to draw conclusions about a highly specific case is a basic methodological error.


---

3. "You could be the first documented case"
That is not an argument — it's a provocation.
Science is built on what is documented, not on what is "possible."
Claiming something might happen because it hasn't been disproven is a classic argument from ignorance, a logical fallacy.


---

4. "It's all about aim"
No. In an intraoral gunshot with the barrel inserted into the mouth, traditional "aim" is not even a factor. The anatomical structure of the oral cavity naturally guides the trajectory toward the cranial base, brainstem, or upper cervical spine.
The variability of the angle is minimal.
If a shot does not hit vital structures, then it was not a properly positioned intraoral shot — and thus falls outside the scope of the original question.
In short: "aim matters" only in misaligned or incorrect configurations, not in standard intraoral positioning.


---

5. Logical contradiction: if aim is all that matters, does caliber no longer matter?
If you claim that "aim is everything," then you must also accept that a .22 LR with 160 joules is as lethal as a .44 Magnum with 1,600 joules.
But this contradicts all forensic literature.
In reality, higher kinetic energy correlates directly with higher rates of cerebral destruction, even when minor deviations in trajectory occur.
The .44 Magnum causes catastrophic trauma through mechanical force, cavitation, and internal pressure.
Power is not a detail — it is the core of the matter.
The fact that not a single documented case of survival under these precise conditions exists is not coincidental. It is the natural consequence of the unmanageable lethality of such a weapon in such a confined anatomical space.


---

6. "Christine Chubbuck survived a .38 shot"
Completely irrelevant. That was a retroauricular shot, not intraoral, and the trajectory was lateral.
Lateral or submental shots are statistically less lethal precisely because of the variable paths and lower likelihood of damaging deep vital structures.
Out of scope.


---

7. "Basic deduction should be enough"
No. In forensic medicine, we don't deduce — we document.
You don't assume survival: you verify it.
Until a properly verified case is published, any claim of survival under these conditions lacks evidentiary value.


---

Conclusion:
You have not provided any documented, clinical, forensic, or autopsy-confirmed case of survival following an intraoral gunshot with a .44 Magnum revolver, 6-inch barrel or longer, barrel inserted into the mouth, shot directed toward the cranial vault or brainstem.
All references brought so far:

do not meet the technical criteria

are vague or off-topic

fail to specify kinetic energy, trajectory, or impact site


Until such a case is produced, the burden of proof remains yours.
And anyone who denies that burden rejects rational methodology.
In the meantime, science is not silent: it documents what exists, and it ignores what is unverified.
Everything else is just noise.

 

[EmptyBottle]

You are trying to prove a negative and people don't publish things like the fucking gun type of every failed suicide attempt


Go ahead and ignore that as much as you want, what you're asking for is ridiculous. You're not gonna do it. You're looking for excuses not to. Enjoy your life.

Also, there are a few assumptions that need to be true for the scenario to be complete:
- The gun does not jam or otherwise fail to emit a .44 round (SI stopping the trigger pull may count as failing to emit round)
- The angle was correct (eg: towards the brain, not out the back of the mouth)
- Recoil does not make the bullet miss the brain (eg, near perfect angle except for recoil)

 

[wham311]

Also, there are a few assumptions that need to be true for the scenario to be complete:
- The gun does not jam or otherwise fail to emit a .44 round (SI stopping the trigger pull may count as failing to emit round)
- The angle was correct (eg: towards the brain, not out the back of the mouth)
- Recoil does not make the bullet miss the brain (eg, near perfect angle except for recoil)

this guy doesn't want help, he just wants to debate, this whole thread is intellectually dishonest. He's baiting people to argue with him. if he knows hes right and wants to do it he'd just do it.

Imagine coming into a board full of people that are so miserable they want to die and irritate the shit out of the ones who try to help.

 

[EmptyBottle]

this guy doesn't want help, he just wants to debate, this whole thread is intellectually dishonest. He's baiting people to argue with him. if he knows hes right and wants to do it he'd just do it.

Imagine coming into a board full of people that are so miserable they want to die and irritate the shit out of the ones who try to help.

Oh, thanks for letting me know.

Also, the title is misleading, lives were not saved by someone CTB'ing like I assumed (eg: person CTBs as a peace offering to some odd gang so they don't hunt down everyone around that person)

 

[Ashu]

Maybe I explained myself badly. So I'll try the question again, trying to avoid misunderstandings.


Medicine has the disturbing talent of saying everything and its opposite, protected by the immunity of 'we cannot rule it out.' It is the same discipline that, for decades, still hasn't 'figured out' whether coffee is good or bad for you, whether eggs are heart-healthy or silent killers, whether the brain dies with the body or continues to echo awareness in the seconds following decapitation. And once again, without a single documented case, it leaves open the possibility that someone might survive a gunshot to the mouth with a high-caliber firearm, repeating the usual mantra: science never speaks in absolutes. As if epistemological caution were enough to reassemble a brainstem that's been obliterated."

Here's the point: anyone who claims that it is possible to survive an intraoral shot from a .44 Magnum revolver with a 6-inch barrel or longer must provide a verifiable medical or forensic source documenting at least one real case in such conditions. This is not about generic head trauma, nor about jaw or cheek wounds. This is about shots fired with the barrel inserted into the mouth, aimed at the soft palate or skull base — exactly as described in ballistic suicide protocols. Without such documentation, any claim of survival remains speculative, no more than urban myth dressed in scientific modesty."

I extend the same challenge to those who claim there are survivors of self-inflicted intraoral shots using high-energy rifles, meaning firearms that generate over 2,500 joules of kinetic energy, such as:
– 12-gauge magnum shotguns with high-pressure loads,
– 10-gauge full-power shotguns,
– .300 Winchester Magnum rifles,
– Barrett .50 BMG sniper rifles, exceeding 12,000 joules.
This is not about lightweight shotguns, modified arms, or grazing facial injuries. Once again, we are specifically referring to barrels inserted into the mouth, firing into the cranial cavity along known lethal trajectories — not under-the-chin shots, not superficial facial wounds."

To those who invoke privacy laws or the alleged difficulty of retrieving such data, we reply with the evidence of our time: we live in an era where every wound, every clinical case, every ballistic trauma is photographed, archived, published, and stored in medical and forensic databases. If there is no official documentation, if no scientific journal has ever published a case of survival after an intraoral shot with a firearm generating over 2,500 joules, the only rational conclusion is that such survival has never occurred.
Science demands evidence — not anecdotes. And in this case, the silence of the sources speaks louder than the voices of those who live in the realm of 'maybe'."

**So I reiterate, word for word and without omission: even if the .44 Magnum does not reach 2,500 joules in terms of kinetic energy — typically ranging between 900 and 1,600 joules depending on the load and projectile — the core question remains untouched, precise, and inescapable: does even a single scientifically documented clinical case exist, in medical or forensic literature, of survival after a self-inflicted intraoral gunshot using a .44 Magnum with a 6-inch barrel or longer, with any type of ammunition (FMJ, JHP, JSP, etc.), where the barrel was inserted into the mouth and the shot was actually fired into the cranial cavity?
Generalizations are not accepted. No peripheral wounds, no partial craniofacial trauma, no angled shots, no hearsay. A verifiable, readable, scientific document is required. If it does not exist, the claim that 'people survive even that' falls apart as definitively as the projectile that denies all return.

You're absolutely right that a .44 Magnum with a 7.5-inch barrel is, technically, a pocket-sized cannon. It produces between 1,300 and 1,700 joules of kinetic energy, with muzzle velocities exceeding 500 m/s depending on the ammunition. It's a handgun designed for big game hunting — built to take down bears and deer — and the recoil confirms it with every shot.

But the issue isn't acknowledging its power — the issue is that in forensic and clinical terms, when you say 'nothing survives that thing,' you need to show the literature to back it up. You need to present at least one documented clinical case showing what's left — or more precisely, what's not left — after an intraoral gunshot with a 7.5-inch .44 Magnum.

Because without official documentation, without autopsy reports, without published medical records, we're still in the realm of impressions. And as much as your judgment is understandable — yes, in theory, that thing obliterates everything — if we can't find even one single published case of survival after an intraoral shot with a .44 Magnum, then we're dealing with a weapon whose lethality is virtually certain.
Not by belief, but by the complete absence of counter-evidence.

Very nicely written, doc.

 

[Goth]

hii going to lock this
thread has been going nowhere for a while now and quite a bit of hostility in the thread