The contaminating potential of bullets fired through intermediate targets.

Bullets and shrapnel fragments lodging in benign locations are frequently left in place due to their relatively quiescent metallic nature. While the propensity for large shrapnel to carry clothing and other foreign matter into a wound is known, few realize that new bullet designs and even simply constructed bullets and pellets may surreptitiously do the same. Autopsies of civilian shooting deaths serve to illustrate why this may occur and when to expect it.