If a bodybuilder got shot in the stomach, would he live?

In the stomach or in the abdomen?

Edit: I’m sorry. Feel free to smack me.

Shot with what? So much depends on the type of weapon, ammunition, etc.

If your question is wondering if muscle stops bullets, the answer is no.

You can survive a heckuva lot with prompt medical attention.
Andrew Jackson, President and duelling aficionado, carried two bullets in him for years. Even now, if it’s safer to leave the thing than to extract it, the docs will leave it. Modern propellants being what they are, this doesn’t happen very often.

Probably. Stomach wounds are notorious long agonizing deaths so unless he was something like 2 days into a wilderness hike….help should arrive in time to let him live to see another day.

It’s not generally the bullet itself which kills, but the hydrostatic shockwave it creates. I don’t know for a certainty, but my guess is muscle under tension is probably less likely to propagate a shockwave than fat or other tissue.

I don’t think steroids block bullets, but I’m not 100% sure.

I think that would depend on where in his stomach he was shot.

Like @SmashTheState said, hydrostatic shock is often what causes the bulk of a bullet’s damage. This is particularly true for flatter nosed bullets and hollow-points, which expand after entry and slow down after the force has been dispersed. Rifle rounds normally to go right through and actually cause less damage (but hollow point and similar types of rounds exist for rifles). Shotguns tend to use a number of smaller projectiles, which are usually round and therefore disperse their force, causing a lot of damage (particularly when there’s a dozen or more of them).

And like @Nullo mentioned, most modern firearms propel projectiles with a lot of force, often enough to pass through (though it’s not actually because of the propellent’s inherent force, which is actually less than the black powder used in old firearms, but rather the fact that the force builds up more behind to bullet). However, if that force is spread throughout the body by the hydrostatic shock, it can do tons of damage.

So it depends on if it’s a round designed to pierce and cause bleeding, or one intended to cause a lot of internal damage. Basically, if it’s anything but small caliber rounds or full metal rifle rounds, I don’t give even a bodybuilder much chance, since most other rounds would probably obliterate several organs with any sort of abdominal shot.

There are a lot of factors you need to define here…

Caliber, range, ammunition type, part of the abdomen hit, access to medical care, etc.

To be more blunt, like @cockswain said, muscle isn’t going to do much to protect you from a gun shot, even if it’s dense. It might help (slightly) if you are hit with a full metal jacketed .22 or some other low-power round, but other than that, not really.

Unless he’s got Kevalar implants in those abs of steel somewhere, all things being equal, as other have mentioned, he’s got as good or as bad a chance as anyone.

BASING THIS ON A 9mm FIRED FROM A 1911 AT 15’ FROM THE SUBJECT:
It’s the opposite that would fair better if shot in the stomach. The muscle will not stop bullets of any kind.
Now if he was seriously fat then it is possible that the bullet would be less likely to hit anything internally causing stomach acid and blood to spew throughout his body.

@incendiary_dan I remember reading that black powder is explosive, whereas the modern stuff just burns very quickly, but I could have sworn that what we use now had more kick. That’s all in the projectile design?
Ya learn something new every day.

Yea, between the shape of it, the cartridge design holding the propellent firmley behind and focusing, and tighter barrels (old musket balls and muskets generally weren’t standardized, so there was quite a bit of space, hence the need for so much explosive), the designs make much better use of the accelerating gases.

So a modern black-powder rifle is a force to be reckoned with. Good to know.

That was supposed to be Kevlar™. I spelled it wrong, among other things. I just received a strongly worded letter from DuPont’s legal department; Trademarks and Copyrights division. They’re fast and they mean business.:-)

@snowice – but what if he did have Kevalar implants? I’ve heard they are better than the propitiatory ones from the French bridge related company that cannot be mentioned.

@Nullo In some cases. In others, it could actually have enough force to damage the barrel, since they’re usually made to withstand a certain range of pressure. I’ve heard of resistance fighters in some places using smaller amounts of black powder to reload rounds in an improvised fashion.

Of course, if I remember correctly, you can approximate “smokeless powder” with confectionary sugar and something else…

@incendiary_dan I thought that was a solid.