That was very much a perfect camera shot there. The primer launched it, and the main charge went off when the round was at exactly 90' to the camera again. Very pretty. It's a shame it wasn't recorded using a true high speed camera, but them things can cost as much as a house, so not the sort of thing you'd want to be detonating unsecured rounds near. :D
Mythbusters did a similar experiment, and it turns out that the shell does more damage than the bullet. Since it is lighter, it shoots off with much faster velocity in the opposite direction, I would put some gel on both sides
As a firefighter I've actually been struck by bullets after the cartridge exploded while fighting house fires. I was in turnout gear, and I could feel them hitting me, but they didn't cause any real damage. Just to be on the safe side though we would retreat from the area, and change tactics for fighting the fire where ammo was located. It was usually in places where ammo, and reloading equipment was stored, and not ammo that was in a firearm, or magazine. It would give you a pretty good scare though.
Had a similar experience during an interior attack, we later determined (as best we could) that it was the brass striking us... but yes, back out and reassess the attack strategy. The crazy shit they never told you at the academy, and you have to learn the hard way, right?
The lethality of a bullet comes from the acceleration it gains inside the barrel as the gunpowder expands rapidly into a gas. Since the explosion happens behind the bullet and the path of least resistance for the gas to escape would be to simply said bullet out of the way. In the test cases provided, the gas initially started behind the bullet in a confined space, but as soon as the bullet lost contact with the casing, the gas had a much easier path to take to decompress and any accelerating force the bullet had was almost immediately lost. One other thing to consider is the gas doesn't care which part of the round is supposed to be the projectile. Using the 7.62x39 rifle cartridge as an example, you can see that the casing flies off screen at a much higher speed than the bullet does because the mass the gas had to push from the casing was much lower. Thanks to these 2 factors much of the killing potential from the bullet is gone. Broken skin, yeah. Fractured bone, maybe. Dead, if you're really really unlucky.
Although the .22 was proven non-lethal by Mythbusters a long time ago in a similar setting, you can see the force in which the other calibers shoot is strong enough to be deadly if they hit the wrong spot. Although the dynamics of bullets do require a barrel in the equation, and theoretically shooting one outside it takes away a lot of the energy, it would be really stupid to temp fate and try some dumb shit like this.
Oh absolutely. The ballistics gel is supposed to be comparable to human muscle density, and seeing how it didn't penetrate very far (if at all) i'd consider it "safe", but never would I ever give it the chance to prove me wrong.
shell being light weight and in this type of conditions sometimes jagged and Sharp can do major damage on its own .. I personally experience that .. had a delay shell jumped out of breach load rifle . Bit me hard
@@dand8538 looks like since it didn't have a bolt to hold the pressure it shot out the least path of resistance...I wish he would done like 3 of them so see if they all had the same effect.
Maybe Eastern European, but these same tests have been done here in the states for a fire safety research paper to discuss the nonlethality of bulk ammo in a structure fire.
I had a friend who used to think it was hilarious to throw bullets into a bonfire and watch everyone freak out when they went off. Mainly 22lr's and 45 ACP. Of course this was when ammo was more affordable... While I saw this many times and nothing bad ever happened, I would still not recommend it especially after now seeing this video. It isn't enough to kill you unless you got really unlucky somehow, but definitely enough to blind you or take out one of your nuts or something. Sometimes I wonder how I made it this far in life.
@@andrew6464 didn't the Mythbusters do a similar thing? It was called (I think) "Frog-Gigging"... it's where an unfired bullet is used as a replacement for a car fuse.
You're actually pointing the safest end towards the gel. When a cartridge isn't inside a chamber, the bullet is the heaviest component and will be the portion that moves the slowest after the explosion. This is all assuming the cartridges don't go the way of that 7.62x39 and turn their primer hole into the ass end of a rocket.
@@Marco-gx7ok naah, it's because smokeless powder only burns fast inside a closed chamber where pressure can build up. Out in the free, it burns much slower than blackpowder.
@@suprlite that is not correct as far as i know and there are also different versions of nitrocellulose. I translatet a text out of a chemical tutorial for you: "NC powders are the standard powder for firearms today. Only smokeless powder is used for military purposes, since, in addition to being less polluted, it has the advantage that the position of the shooter is not revealed by clouds of smoke. The powders used in firearms require an initial spark. This is taken over by the primer in firearms. However, the powder only burns off relatively slowly if you light it with a lighter, for example, and only unfolds its full effect from a certain ignition temperature." So, it is not the same as it is with black powder, where coompression decides over deflagration or "explosion", but it is like other explosives, which burn (some slowly) and do only explode with a minimum of activation energy (in form of temperature or pressure) from a primer. This are two videos of NC, and how fast they can react outside of compression: slow: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qMxjm6LXjOg.html fast: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-EX3ELa-gJmA.html
I believe the shell casing shrapnel would be more dangerous. The 7.62x39 must have been steel "brass". You could try that with crimped blanks but take cover.
Gives me a renewed appreciation of the dangers of hang fire rounds. I’ve made a couple of mistakes over the years of pulling the trigger, nothing happening and pulling the bolt back only for a live round to fall out (once assuming I’d miscounted, and once because I’m a muppet).
some weird black dude who might be anti-fa or blm did this at my local mall. he put a shotgun shell on a platform and put a candle underneath it near the sink facing the door, then when i went in the bathroom, it exploded right behind me because i didn't notice it at first. the pellets went everywhere, it had no way of killing anyone but my ears were ringing for the next few days
What's wrong with that? Once the round is removed from the chamber it's not an issue/threat. A hang fire round is a threat when it's stuck in the chamber and you should leave the weapon pointing down range for a period of time (SOP I was taught was 30 mins) to allow for cook off before attempting extraction.
@@cagneybillingsley2165 I hate Antifa! Remember when they paid all those white people to go to Trumps rally and attack police and politicians on Jan6? At least those Antifa terrorists are going to prison now.
I saw im a dif video that the shotgun cartridges aren't dangerous. The arent sealed the same way a normal bullet is so all the pressure leaves and the shot inside has the force of someone tossing some bbs in your direction lol
@@josephschultz4097 of the admitly way tomany cars , trucks I have e owned this is my sight aS far as American made Chevy .. randomly ..click looks like I'm walking home Ford .. click .. not leaving for work again Dodge.. click .. "where to boss" every dodge I have ever owned ..100s of thousands of miles ..they seem to crave abuse .. (however my sample of market ends at 1999 .. not need for any more test after I got my 1999 dodge
Thanks for doing this. I keep a few thousand rounds in my house for target practice (I buy in bulk to save $) and I've always worried about a house fire and the risk posed to any firefighters by my ammo. Glad to know what while its still potentially dangerous, its not as powerful as I feared. Your results make sense from a physics view since the cartridge is not confined inside a barrel.
@@RdozeTV It creates the same pressure, the pressure just can escape in all direction instead of being restricted. Problem is if you have a whole bunch of ammo, it can still up killing you.
22lr: I can’t penetrate this jelly 9x18: I managed to penetrate that gel 7.62x39: Primer activated before i even fire and hit the candle instead 12 Gauge: YEET
When I was in the US Army I remember looking through some wrecked APCs that had been hit with an anti tank missile. Inside where tons of large caliber cartridges (14.5mm most likely, but it was a ling time ago) and every one of them had been burned in the vehicle. Also, every one had split like a hotdog in a microwave with the actual bullet still attached. It probably wouldn't be the safest thing to be around but also not the most dangerous.
wow, that's interesting! I guess the heavier the bullet and the longer the cartridge, the more likely that the bullet won't even separate. However, I wouldn't want to be around when a 120mm sabot round cooks off :)
@@SimSimon87 with that round, you won’t be around very long anyways. Just the powder charge has enough boom to kill. It’d be like just a bomb going off, much less any projectile hitting you.
As I was told as a child, where we found German or WW2 ammunition in the forest (I lived near the Maginot fortifications), the most dangerous part of an old cartridge that explode is not the top of the bullet but the case that expand and go way faster that the tip It would be interesting to see this with something behind the cartridge to see what’s happening
The safest thing is probably the bullet but in my youth, I watched my mother tending a yard cleaning fire and she got a nice sized chunk of brass casing inserted just under the skin of her leg.
I've been in a house fire with rounds cooking off. Same thing, the propellant just blew the brass casings apart, didnt even come close to pentrating fire fighting bunker gear. Really the only ones you have to worry about are the ones kept loaded in a chamber. Then it's the same as if it were intentionally fired as it is able to concentrate and build the pressure down the bore.
I saw it go thru the gel, bounce off of the bench, and said "any bigger were gonna get dangerous up in here" there was no way in hell I thought the next one was going to be on the same table. Bravo. 👍
It's actually been my job for the past 6 years to blow up ammo. I work at an Ammo Supply Point (ASP) as a contractor, and my job is certifying all munitions are inert before scrapping/disposing. I run millions of pounds of brass hulls through a "Certification" machine; basically a furnace attached to a deformer. I burn them all at 630 - 900 degrees for 2 minutes, slowly traveling on a conveyor before dumping into the deformer. The deformer is just a set of thick gears that slightly crush the brass so it can't be reloaded. I've been hit by dozens of bullets, and hundreds of brass shrapnel over the years. I even took a .50 cal bullet to the chest at about 40 feet. It scared me, and left a burn hole in my shirt where the back side hit me ( it was about 500F when it hit me), but it didn't hurt me. If it would of hit me in the face, or at closer range, it would of been a different story. But I've had 50's blow up a foot away from my face several times, as some are damp when I run them, so the powder takes longer to ignite. I don't even flinch unless one pops off unexpectedly when I have my earplugs out lol.
@@DarthGTB Ballistic gelatin is easily made from common household items, such us water and, em... gelatin? Ammo should be in more homes than it is, I'll give you that.
When I was a air-gun enthusiast, I played with the .22 lr by putting it in a vice & setting it off with my air-rifle discharging onto the .22 base. It went off but only split the case & the projectile remained in the .22 case.
This is largely due to the firing chamber and barrel that gives a bullets it's speed and velocity. Not saying this isn't dangerous, but it's more likely going to hurt than kill you
I'd say it depends on what happens all are dangerous when they explode outside a chamber but from this video the 9mm round would have definitely injured / killed if it hit you and depending on where it hit like soft facial tissues or bones being in the way , also the 7.62 was more energetic but did less damage as it left a little dent in plywood and the 9mm went through or past the ballistic gel and hit a steel beam dented the lead and jacket and chipped the paint off the beem I would conclude the 9mm is the most dangerous out of all of them 22 had similar results but no power just my thoughts
The firing chamber only contains the explosion, the increasing pressure in the barrel is what propels the round. The longer the barrel, the longer the pressure has an effect, which equates to increased speed.
The reason a bullet can be used as a weapon is that energy content increases with the velocity squared, while momentum change is shared equally and momentum is a first power thing - proportional to the mass. The more dangerous end of an explosive weapon is the one with lower mass.
To answer the questions yes! When I was about 7 we were out back burning paper boxes some how a box of 22lr. Ended up having a few rounds in it. I heard the popping and was curious and got close, a shell came out of the fire and hit me in the elbow and cut my elbow in a few places(no stitches needed, still have the scare). But if I would have hit me in the eye I'd be blind
@@pinkestlasagna Absolutely not, the eye does not lead directly to the brain, there are several bones separating the two, along with very small holes that the ocular nerves travel through. Even if these bones did not exist the fragmentation would not have enough velocity to penetrate past the eye, and even if it did, it would not cause enough damage to cause death in most cases.
@@pinkestlasagna the cartridge needs to be paired with a gun to have the effect you are talking about. A 22.lr bullet fired out of a gun, yes. But a piece of exploding ammo, no. You can even see in this video just how little energy the exploding 22. cartridge had. So no, it wouldnt have killed.. even if the piece of shrapnel/bullet hit the eye.. unless it got infected or something.
Nice experiment, however the propelant was ignited by the heat and did a gradual burn. Try igniting the primer so you have a spontanius ignition of the propellant. You can direct the heat toward the primer or use 12v heter element like on the vapes or a soldering iron tip. Cheers
This is a very instructive training film from the land of weapons specialists. Times are getting tougher. That is why it is necessary to have such a deep knowledge.
As a retired firefighter I can tell you yes they are but a lot of times in a real fire the lead will melt fairly quickly and sometimes before the round goes off, but yes they are dangerous.
I was wondering about that when storing ammo in plastic cans one day. Also, what if car fire with ammo in trunk or loaded firearm up front. I know what happens when a semi full of unopened pop cans is fully involved.
@@nikkijack911 its a real toss up, sometimes they can go off and the bullet it still in tact, and sometimes not. So I say yes bullets in a fire are dangerous.
Just the primer can be lethal. They have been seen to go through corrugated iron. In my town there was a shed fire and a box of shot shell primers went off like a string of firecrackers. Peppered the wall of the shed with holes. The firies had to run for it and wait till the coast was clear.
I did this as a kid. I found a random bullet outside and tried to put burn marks on it with a lighter to make it look "cool." The bullet exploded, and i wasn't touched by it. I was standing in the same spot you were when you lit the candle. There were no holes in the wall, thankfully. I told my mom i lit a firecracker outside my window. I didnt find the bullet or the shell casing. Thanks for this demonstration!
@@norbiesison9257 not really, a specific slowmo cam will record at very high frame rate (at the very least, above 120 frames per second), capturing each detail in mere milliseconds. slowing the playback speed on a video that was recorded on normal cam (like below 60 fps) will miss quite a few frames, especially on high speed events like this, happening less than a split second
There is nothing forcing the energy of the explosion in one direction so it disipates evenly in every direction creating less force to propell the bullet. Its so cool to watch.
This is a worthwhile experiment video. I thought of doing this years ago but never did. It appears bullets are indeed still dangerous exploding outside the chamber. The another shotgun shell could still be more of an explosion and dangerous. Another experiment you could do is to find a piece of accommodating pipe and put the bullet in the pipe put the primer end against a wall or block then put the candle on it. It'll represent cook-off firing the round almost normally.
Yeah as far as I can tell, the biggest issue here is unpredictability. With a gun, you know which end is dangerous. With a loose cartridge you're looking at at least one, if not two, fast moving pieces of metal with no clear direction. Maybe not as inherently deadly as a loaded gun, but definitely something you want eye protection around at least.
It seems like the small explosion is more dangerous than the bullet, which apparently flies with such little force that it bounces off ballistic gel. I assume getting hit by a bullet this way might feel similar to the bullet being thrown by hand -- an eye hazard more than anything else.
The rather disappointing fizzle of the shotgun cartridge was caused by the propellant being ignited by the heat of the flame, not by the explosion of the detonator. If the detonator exploded first, the result would have been much more satisfying - still probably not particularly dangerous.
The shell itself and sometimes fragments of the bullet are dangerous - not necessarily or unlikely to be lethal - but I can speak from experience that hundreds of small pieces can lodge and embed into the skin, through clothing, leaving small traces of blood and holes that looks like a bird shot shotgun blast. Very scary. Larger pieces can be removed but most need time, as in months to slowly work their way out of the skin.
Idea for next time: What about stacking several cartridges (of same type) after each other in a row, so that the point of the last one is pointing (as in direct contact) directly to the trigger point on the next one - so you get a kind of series reaction, that would be cool (but stay at safe distance).
It's a hard thing to do considering that bullets would lose their direction along the line of action after hitting. But theoretically, it would be possible IF you could make each bullet rigidly intact in their position once they hit each other along the line of action.
Asked a fireman about ammo storage, and he said just don't have any rounds chambered and their bunker coats will keep them safe. Took a load off for sure! Thanks for the video!
Incorrect, and he's a fool. He's a fireman for a reason and not a physicist. F=ma is all you need to know, and if a round is against something unlikely to move, a wall, 10 boxes of rifle ammo, another gun, etc and explodes, it is going to have enough velocity to kill someone. You keep ammo in the most resilient container (en masse) that you can afford. If you have an "ammo closet", put a layer of concrete board in the inside, top, bottom and door. If you have a basement, keep it there. The more dense material surrounding, the better. If you ever have a house fire, and you mention there is a lot of ammo in your house, they will let your house burn down completely to the ground. Be sure to increase your home insurance accordingly.
@@m4rvinmartian How does F=ma actually prove lethality here? Also, keeping your ammo in a basement is generally a bad idea if you want your ammo to last long term. Basements are damp & will ruin your ammo.
I did my own experiments back in about 1967-68. Inside a wooden cabinet. The most damage was caused by the primers blowing out of the case. They made the deepest indentions in the wood.
The ignition of a cartridge in a chamber allows the expanding gases to push the projectile (bullet) forward out of the barrel. Part of what the chamber of a firearm does is keep the case from deforming and providing the expanding gases one way out. Without a chamber, the ignition of a cartridge is an explosion which separates the case from the projectile. In most cartridges, the bullet is heavier than the case, so the case will either explode (lack of chamber to prevent this) or it will go flying away, often leaving the heavier bullet behind.
As a firefighter I’ve encountered these incidents many times. If known, either by hearing rounds go off, or by being told, we would make a plan to deal with these areas separately. When they have exploded, individual rounds don’t do much. The casing is lighter so travels faster. No big deal. Storage of reloading powder and such is a bigger concern. I’ve fought fires in military base training areas and had rounds (by the hundreds) going off in the weeds and brush. Like before, no big deal. However the 20mm. Those get your attention. (I’ve been asked why there are so many live rounds out there. Answer from 2 Gunnery Sgt’s is that for a time, personnel had to inventory every round when they got back, so they would empty magazines. Or they had to carry heavy cases back. In both cases they would just leave extras out there.)
I think it would be interesting to see what dage the actual cartridge would do to ballistic gel, since that seemed to fly off faster than the actual bullet on the smaller calibers. Since the video was asking and answering how dangerous is an exploding bullet...let's see exactly what kind of damage it's doing in all aspects of the event.
I've already done that. And I can tell you it is dangerous! I used a 7,62mm "blank cartridge" (used for practicing at the army) where I removed the gun powder first. And I placed it above a candle light too. In order to test the damage, I put a 4cm thick steak, at a distance of 5m as target, and aimed the cartridge in it's direction. Surprisingly I hit the steak and the little capsule went right through it and hit the metal pole of a bed behind it and made a dimple in it. I assume it would intrude into a body approximately 10cm deep. So it's potentially lethal. Depending on the distance and where you get hit. The guy who made the video shouldn't stand in front AND behind the cartridge. He should have left the room immediately lol
@@sigisalmen2399 I can imagine, would just like to see the damage for my self. I just wish the UK didn't have such strict zero tolerance on guns so I could do it myself 😂
Hard to believe these are the games we boys played as nine year olds who found bullets on the floor of a metal scrap yard, then we'd bring them home and try to make them blow up in an ant hole. Lucky for us they never went off. Ah, the '60s. No time like it.
That was super interesting and informative. You could try some of those again and I bet get different results. Maybe get more gel around it too to see how much damage the casing does. .
I thought I remembered a MythBusters episode where they put ammo into an oven. They determined that the bullet stays in place as the casing flies away because the casing is lighter. Do you have that coil wrapped really tight around the casing? I was just fully expecting the bullet to fall and the casing to go flying away from the gel.
Yup, and in myth busters trial, the only part of the bullet that demonstrated any real injury potential were a couple of casings with the mouth have dug into the plywood safety surrounding
Even the greatest force is weak if it has no direction, that's what the chamber amd barrel is for, it directs all that force, without that you've just got brass firecrackers
Isnt this the idea behind the bow-mag arrow? You shoot the arrow at a pig, the arrow goes into the pig, then the Magnum round inside the arrow explodes with Magnum force - and its the shrapnel coming from the brass that does the real damage to the pig rather than the actual Magnum bullet....
I feel this experiment would have different results with the primer directly above the candle and pointed straight up, offering the most chance for the brisance off the primer to punch the gunpowder. Perhaps more of a traditional shot might be achieved over a cartridge explosion. Still fun to watch. Hi speed camera anything destructive is always fun.
The cartridge is the dangerous projectile not the bullet. I have seen an eye taken out by an exploding round in a burning waste dump. It was the cartridge.
@spatialinterpretations449 Indeed once again physics at work. The power of the explosion, or deflagration probably more likely, has a lot of resistance to overcome the inertia of the projectile whereas the brass is very light and possibly in fragments.
There is a flaw in your test. The wire you used, essentially covered the casing. Preventing it from opening. Try doing that without the wire, and it will end differently
the wire isn't that heavy, and in some cases there was still clearly bursting. but you're absolutely right, the lead is basically the safest part of a loose...bursting round... Dad had to have a chunk of 22 casing taken out of his arm because it was in the car he'd torn down to make into a stock car. Licked it with the torch and set it off. it's sharp metal being hurled at modest velocity. If human beings can throw sharp metal at lethal velocities then burst casings are still a pretty serious threat at close range.
Great and interesting video. But apparently, you must have had some kind of audio malfunction at the end. An awful and annoying racket began to take place.
The way that shotgun cartridge failed was unexpected to me and took a while to accept as 'possible'. Just gas out the front and the ammo is shot out near the base... Probably cuz that's where the cartridge itself melted. The bounce on the first bullet was pretty hilarious too, didn't even have enough oomph to get through the ballistic gel's "skin".
If you do not apply enough energy in a short amount of time the Main charge might not go off or burn instead of explode, which depends on the used chemicals. A candle is a total different form and amount of energy per time as if the primer is hit exactly and with fast speed and lots of power... It looked as if only the primer deflagrated instead of exploding and igniting the Main charge.
I did similar as an inquisitive Air Force brat (teen) back in the early 1970's. Used a candle and wire stand too. We also had a surplus of parade rounds (blanks), so if you reverse them with the cap in front and the exhaust end to the rear, and the candle beneath the cap, the shell casing will take off and fly like a small rocket.
I blew up a 9mm in my press when the primer seater broke and got lodged under the bullet when I was bringing the press down and I had a large chunk of brass stuck in the inside base of my ring finger that almost completely severed the nerve and lodged in the bone, a piece in my palm about a half inch below my pointer finger that was deep in the muscle and eventually worked it’s way completely out of my hand over the course of 2 months, and a quarter by quarter inch piece of brass in the inside of my thumb right at the knuckle that I was able to pull out with pliers after a couple of weeks, the bullet ricocheted off the press and hit my thigh leaving a nice bruise but not breaking skin, and a hole in my tv with a piece of brass stuck in the screen about 10 feet away from me so it’s safe to say it will absolutely do some damage lol
