Bullets HITTING Bullets in Slow Motion - THE IMPOSSIBLE SHOT - Smarter Every Day 287 

Well.... the specifics of how to accomplish this have been in my head since 2017. I'm very excited to finally share it with you. I'm grateful to everyone who supports Smarter Every Day on Patreon. You make long-term planning things like this and the baseball cannon possible! Here's the link if you'd like to join our sticker team: www.patreon.com/smartereveryday Also, as promised, here's the link too the email list! www.smartereveryday.com/email-list I don't spam you. I just send out an email every time I upload. Thanks for your consideration!

When the two bullets perfectly hit each other it looks like your shot a single bullet into the worlds strongest mirror. Insane.

16:24 first colision between them (not perfectly hit) 18:51 perfect shot 26:36 another great shot

A buddy of mine who used to go metal detecting for Civil War Artifacts, once dug up a perfect specimen of two mini-balls that had hit HEAD ON and fused together. The artifact itself was amazing, but even more amazing was to realize that because both bullets had hit each other perfectly, the two soldiers had LIVED!!! After that fateful shot, it was probably not a good outcome, but at least for that moment in time, they both lived to fight another day!

The fact that the sponsorship was the end of the story of this video is so great. That is such an amazing way to incorporate a sponsorship. Since I have RU-vid premium it tried to automatically skip it and I feel like there should be some way for RU-vid to make a distinction between actual content and just mindless sponsorships. If you have RU-vid premium rewind it to the point till before the sponsorship started and to make sure to watch it. It is so cool and you don't want to miss it.

21:54 - The money shot... honestly this is a one in a million type capture. Amazing.

Seeing those two bullets frozen in time in the middle of the air at 21:39 (22:00) was so amazing... It's literally forces cancelling each others out perfectly. I'm so blown away by this.

Amazing content on all of your videos, and you are really breaking out the big guns with Mr. Fielding. The thing that makes you two great is your ability to not only teach people how to do things, you teach us how to think. Thank You!

Destin, as the safety specialist at work, I would be absolutely thrilled to see a video of some of the planning and safety procedures before during and after one of these experiments!

The shot at 21:55 is arguably one of the coolest things that's ever been produced on the internet. I know you said you weren't trying to win the internet but that shot is in contention for it. I really appreciate you bringing all of us with you on this journey, Destin

22:00 is the most incredible slow motion footage i've ever seen and that is not an exaggeration

I am a traffic accident reconstructionist, so I tend to think it terms of momentum, velocity, Vectors, etc. I never dreamed you'd get a complete mutual momentum transfer, particularly with the FMJ. Absolutely incredible work, gentlemen.

you would think there would be some consistency in this! Thank you very day every day Steve!

I notice that both your barrels have right hand twist, so when they are facing each other, the bullets are spinning in opposite directions. If you had one barrel with a left hand twist, both bullets would spin in the same direction. With the rotational energy cancelled out, it seems that it would be much easier for the bullets to fuse on impact.

I work in OT&E and the safety procedure evaluation towards the beginning was an unexpected but absolutely crucial component of your process. Really incredible work Destin.

This video has to be hands down one of the most well explain shown video, i have ever seen in a while...❤

The Union and Confederate soldiers who did it on their first try without even trying: 🗿🗿

12:47 15:00 15:47 18:40 19:50 20:30 All of these are what you came for 21:54 24:32 part of bulket sticks together 26:44 Final good shots 27:41 Video ends

That perfect collision where they just froze in the middle might be the single greatest piece of slow motion footage I have ever seen in my life... It was so still it didn't even look real, that was absolutely amazing... The one at the end with the aluminum wallet was pretty cool too...

I wonder if you could make two bullets hit inside a block of ballistic gel so it catches all the fragments and everything and you could see this little pause of time and see how it all expands outward, I think that'd be pretty cool if possible but maybe it wouldn't be able to catch it I'm not sure

Really enjoyed watching this, great job!! My mind however just cannot dismiss the thought that two young soldiers managed to do this using a couple rifles braced against their shoulders without any rests, without thousands of hours of preparation and planning, just raised their rifles and shot two bullets that perfectly met each other in the air melting into each other, and by the way saving two lives simultaneously! Oh the glorious synchronicity of it all! Did they survive the war? Are their descendants out there in the world living among us because of this one happening?

If you're ever passing through Nebraska, stop by the Edgerton museum (for those who don't know, Doc Edgerton played a key role in developing the camera tech which made it possible to photograph bullets in flight). Congrats on getting two bullets to hit, though. Even Doc Edgerton didn't figure that one out!

When you shot those 2 together at 22:02 and they just froze in the air on the high speed, my jaw literally hung open for the duration of the shot. One of the most stunning pieces of film I've seen in a long time. Congratulations for capturing that after all the effort you put in. It's truly amazing!

Every shot was amazing! It is magnificent to watch something so fast to hit in slow motion and see how it behaves. Such a cool video. Thank you!

Considering how hard this is to recreate, it is literally miraculous that these civil war bullets not only melted together perfectly, but that they ever lined up in the first place..then, to add to the miracle, some guy like me with a metal detector found it 150 years later!!

What a great video and narrative! As an 80 year old physicist with a lifelong interest in ballistics, I have a couple of comments; The muzzle loading rifles of civil war era used a much different rifling twist than modern ammunition. The use of hollow base or "mini Ball" bullets rammed down a bore require a much different idea for stabilization. The lead composition is very, very soft so that the hollow base can expand to fit the bore tightly and engage the rifling without causing so much loading drag. Many of the muskets used in civil war time were smooth bore, without any rifling. Stabilizing the bullets in a smooth bore required a round ball , or in later years a Mini Ball with a hollow base or skirt. Modern air rifles also achieve stabilization partly through the skirt stabilization. If you compute the total energy of a bullet, it is not just "1/2 mv squared" of linear energy, but has a rather large rotational energy due to the rifling twist. In a head on collision, this rotational energy is in opposition for the two bullets, To achieve true linear energy transfer, you would either have to have the two bullets rotating in opposite vector direction, or not rotating at all. For reference, a 45 colt is commonly rifled at a 1 turn every 16 inches, wheras the muzzle loading rifles ranged from smooth bore (no twist) to 1 turn every 5 to 10 feet. My suggestion is to change the rifling to very long twist, in opposition, and use a pure lead bullet if you really want to see a fused bullet. The other factor is velocity. Black powder muskets had a typical velocity of 900 to 1000 feet per second, with a low ballistic coefficient, so they would slow down rapidly. If there were something like 400 yards between the opposing battle lines, the bullets would have been traveling less than half the muzzle velocity at center path collision. You might try to fire a pure lead bullet at a steel plate and determine the amount of deformation of that bullet then take half the linear energy backed out to velocity as a starting point for your powder charge and velocity starting point. Modern large bore pneumatic or air rifles might be an easier and more controllable medium to base your configuration on. Again i want to emphasize what a marvelous presentation you have made!!!

Those bullets stopping mid air is one of the coolest things I've ever seen, and definitely the most awesome demonstration of conservation of momentum I've ever seen. Wow.

I didn't stay around to watch the whole 35 minutes, but jumped forward to the exact moment. Well done to make this!

I’m so happy with the end result of everything you did to show us how 2 bullets crash against each other, I’m saving this video for later watch again

I mean, the hit around 22:19 is ... probably one of the most amazing things I've seen on YT. Bonkers how something so destructive can turn into something that beautiful. Stunning. Destin and team, you win.

The fact that you didn't just stop after the first time because it "worked" and you had viral footage and just kept doing it over and over to pin down all the variables and learn exactly what was going on is what puts this project on such a high level not to mention the many many hours of prep and planning that went into this. Really love what you do, your passion and excitement shine through and build upon the work you clearly take seriously, thank you.

Congratulations to Allan involved. Super nice video! Thank you!

Hey destin just dropping some love. Thanks for your videos, your exitement upon creating them, and also, the great music! Keep up the great learning experiences!

Any other channel doing these kinds of videos, I normally just skip right to the money shot. But something about your editing style, the pacing, the information you share, the process of designing and building your experiments, it really is enthralling. Gotta watch the whole video!

One of the most interesting videos I have seen

The distance between the ogee(the spot on the projectile that touches the lands) and the Lands( the very beginning of the rifling) effects the accuracy greatly.

The shot at 22:00 is probably one of the moments in physics history where you can see something so rare that it looks as if it belongs in a Matrix movie.

Love the engineering that went into this! The fact that so much thought went into replicating what happened in real life speaks to the massive improbability of it happening at all. I imagine each of the soldiers would have been astounded that neither got hit after quite literally shooting the barrel of their gun directly down the barrel of the other. I wonder if the temperature of the bullets at contact have anything to do with it. I can imagine the two soldiers who fired at each other may have been firing a lot already by the time they engaged each other. Perhaps their barrels were already hot, adding some heat to the rounds before they were fired, and maybe that helped them fuse together easier?

This is the first video of yours that I have watched, and I absolutely loved it! I wish you had fully played out your hypotheses about metal composition and speed, though, to see if you could actually replicate the fusion.

19:00 19:57 20:28 Bullet Hitting Bullet. 21:57 best one

The collision at 20:31 is so perfect that words cannot describe it. Great job. For science!

I really didn't think i was going to watch this entire video but man you kept me intrigued...great job, fantastic video.

I'm impressed with the amount of detailed work you guys did in advance. That is a lot of detailed work!

Regarding the straight lead bullets, it may be worth trying to remove the oxide layer. When the original fusion occurred in the civil war the bullets may have been freshly cast and easier to fuse at lower temperatures. I see this akin to soldering PCBAs where older solder is resistant to melt initially from oxides and a touch of new solder/flux enables it to melt much easier.

I cannot express the moment I had/felt when watching the bullet stop at the 22:00 mark. Thank you so much for making this content. It's truly inspiring and I appreciate every second of it!

Great planning, safety precautions and execution but excellent enthusiasm!

I never thought I would watch this video all the way upto the end. But, wow. I experienced sheer joy seeing you so happy at acheiving every next milestone in this process. It was beautiful. I could feel your happiness.

Just wanna say how wonderful the subtitles are. Not only correctly subtitling but also adding information for tone or silences. It's always a pleasure to see them be as high-quality as they are here

This should be shown in every physics, Dynamics, engineering class. That perfect stop shot is amazing. (Start around 21:30) Us fellow engineers are loving this stuff.

24:40 - I love that you puzzled the delaminated metal scraps back together!

Great job to all involved! And to your education and work ethic!!

I don't think I've ever gotten to say something was literally jaw dropping, but those bullets stopped in mid air was totally jaw dropping. Fantastic shot, and fantastic work!

This brought back so many memories from mythbusters. Those are the best high speed shots I've seen in ten years. Absolutely fantastic job from start to finish.

Loved your colliding bullet video. A roommate and I were at his home while in college in the mid 1960 s shooting apples out of a tree with over a mile of open field behind it on a solid overcast day with a 22 rimfire rifle and I could see the bullet as it was going up. Of course in those days my eyes were like telescopes and microscopes.

Brilliant. Thourgherly absorbing. Thank you.

22:03 the way they came to an absolute dead freeze for a moment is absolutely insane… possible since they have almost exactly the same energy… wow it’s like the middle pauses while the rest is still in play

This is a cool video. Much appreciated for the time and hard work put in.

This was so cool. Thank you for making this happen

The Safety procedures is great to see. We often get a lot of "don't try this at home" which is valid, but modelling good, conscientious development of safety procedures is something i don't think we get enough of. especially because it can go a long way to demonstrate why it's not something that can be tried at home.

Destin, have you thought about contacting a material specialist to figure out the conditions needed to get the bullets to mushroom and fuse instead of crystalizing and shattering?

Well thought out guys Thx

All the safety procedures were just as interesting almost. Great vid

I love how humble Destin is when he's describing the video and his accomplishments. I also enjoy how he always takes the time to explain everything fully and simply. Truly appreciate everything that he does and can't wait to see where this goes next.

Because of seeing all those safety procedures, this video is so educational. Normally you tend to make shortcuts and just skip them, but they are important.

Its always fun to listen to your amazing analysis ! Thank you It would have looked visually more pleasing if the two bullets were painted in Red and Blue, and as the 2 lead merges we could see some interesting pattern and confluence of those 2 lead

ok so that's a great video, but my biggest takeaway is Destin's genuine & passionate excitement glowing throughout the entire video. this is just plain fun to watch

Not sure if you thought about it, but the rotation due to rifling causes the 2 bullets to spin in opposite directions. Maybe the old bullets didn't have rifling, or rifling wasn't standardized and they both ended up spinning the same direction. This would be much more conducive to bonding.

My dad doesn't talk much. So when he sits straight up and yells "WOW" when the bullets perfectly hit each other and froze, you know something truly amazing just happened. Awesome job Destin & team. Keep up the good work! Love all your videos.

Um, I'm really surprised you didn't speak about this: The reason the Civil War bullets fused was because they were undoubtedly farther away from each other, but more importantly, they used black powder, which has a much slower burn and lower velocity than the gunpowder used today in cartridges. Good job! Thanks for showing everything involved.

Stopping/pausing in mid-air, that was amazing!

Sometimes I see the 30+ minute video length and doubt I’ll make it through, but then the next thing I know it’s over and I want more, every time. Great stuff Destin!

This was awesome! I’ve always wanted to see this!

Im not sure what else you do or what your channel has on it but im subscribing for this video alone. Awesome stuff, not mention the presentation.

Was für ein kreativer Ansatz! Dieses Video hebt sich definitiv von den anderen ab

I immediately love the term "intellectual humility". I usually think of it as being dispassionate about knowledge, but I think your term describes it better.

"Get smart people in your life who love you enough to smile and tell you you're wrong." Great comment! Great video! Thanks, Destin. You do a great job of educating in an engaging and delightful way.

I love this channel!!! Never EVER a dull moment.

Amazing!! Very thorough job. You can negate the slumping powder in the longer cartridge by putting some dacron stuffing in front of the powder. A small amount gets consumed in the firing. If you can find hollow base wadcutters they are usually very soft because like Minie Ball, they expand to fit the barrel tightly. And I'm SURE somebody in Alabama does bullet casting.

I audibly "Wow!"ed at 22:02. Getting to see how physics works through slow motion is awe inspiring. Thank you for your incredible work in getting this footage and sharing it with us!

Slow Motion of the Bullets Hitting starts at 21:54 Cheers!

This is genuinely the coolest thing ever

The alignment of the flight paths is so amazing. I can’t believe the view. The explosion was a bit of a surprise since I was expecting glancing shots and I know what not. The. The several shots like two ships passing in the late afternoon. All the footage is exciting to watch for anyone interested in flight paths and contact, marksmanship, reloading used brass for accuracy, even barrel fouling. So many things that we consider when we want to make accurate shots repeatable. Oh, yeah, seeing the shock wave ripple through the bullet as they impact was one of the coolest things Calculate the joules expended. Now scale it up to larger objects like the idea of asteroid interception or when the smaller moon struck the earth ejecting our moon. This leads to so many thoughts.

Modern cast lead projectiles typically have antimony in them, which increases the "hardness" of the bullet (this makes for a better hunting bullet). You can make 100% lead projectiles using a bullet casting tool, check with some of your reloading buddies and find out who is rolling their own (so to speak). They can probably easily hook you up.

I love that you have the forethought to film yourself doing things like reviewing the footage for the first time. Your giddy laughs when something impossible happens bring me immense joy and is half the reason I love watching your stuff. You're very smart, Destin! David also cracks me up.. "so is that the tip?" when it's quite obviously the tip lol. Most humble person ever. Protect him at all costs.

incredible work guys!!

So this is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object

amazing video, i love destin's excitment and daves dry combacks lol

This deserves an award. Science, cinematography, creativity… it’s so fun watching someone do something really well, and from the engineering to the safety, really seems like no corner was cut, and that is very commendable. 👏👏👏👏👏

It is beautiful. It is like Particle and Anti-Particle collision and resulting in all sizes of energy...

Just amazing, good work guys, the bullet fusion counts in my book...

The image that I have always found incredible is that of the two rifle bullets from the Battle of Gallipoli. One hit the other at 90 degrees: if the probability of two bullets hitting each other face to face is infinitesimal, hitting each other with perpendicular trajectories is really bordering on nothing. PS: maybe the next project for SmarterEveryDay?

26:32 You're welcome!

Professionally done, enjoy the show

There is, or was, some 40 odd years ago a WW1 British Army rifle in the Imperial War Museum on London, England which had had a bullet enter the barrel and fuse with the bullet fired by the rifle in the bore. Alongside the gun was an X Ray photograph showing the barrel with the bullets clearly visible. Loved the experiment and the thought that went into it. It did occur to me through the yid that, perhaps, setting a bullet on a plate in front of one gun and firing the other at it, you may effectively double the distance of the travel and halving the velocity, rather like the distance travelled by the original bullets. It may even be possible to increase the effective distance travelled because the variables are reduced,

Destin, the first thing I thought was that civil war era bullets were almost pure lead, which has a brinell hardness of around 5. Most bullet manufacturers are producing rounds with a brinell hardness of around 18-22. This makes them much more brittle. I have some pure lead laying around and could cast you some bullets with varying hardness if you would like to test that out.

I would like to see infrared footage of this to see the heat generation and dissipation of the collision. Very cool stuff guys, keep it up.

As a BSME and a "gun nut" who reloads .45 LC (and other calibers) I was smashing the thumbs up icon wishing I could give 1000 thumbs up. Great job Destin.

For someone who doesn't like guns, I love guns. This video is great because it shows interest & safety. Whenever I watch a movie, I end up screaming "muzzle control!" at my screen, but this here is so good. Communicating "clear" & having the safety in place is really important to me.

This has been the first video to literally make my jaw drop in years, the bullets hitting and stopping midair looked like real magic

Destin, the equal momentum transfer shot was absolutely beautiful. Thank you for making such interesting content!