Experimental blowgun injuries, ballistic aspects of modern blowguns

Slender thin arrows blown through modern blowguns can cause serious injuries. In this paper we present some data regarding the terminal ballistics of such an arrow when blown by a young male who had no previous experience with the weapon. The penetration depth into wood was similar to that of an arrow fired from a pistol–crossbow. Further, the blowgun arrow could pass through more than 7 mm of porcine bone. The velocities at a distance of 2 m from the blowgun of three different types of arrows having weights of 1–1.6 g and diameters between 1 and 5 mm were between 22 and 32 m/s, giving an energy of 0.3 to 0.6 J. When blown from a blowgun, these slender modern arrows can thus penetrate human skin and even the cranial bone of a child and cause serious injury.