MythBusters Episode 38: MythBusters Revisited
Air Date: October 12, 2005
REVISITED: A body struck by a bullet will be propelled violently backwards. (From Episode 25)
re-busted
Even a .50 Caliber bullet does not have the momentum to knock a person backwards. If it were possible, the shooter would be knocked backwards as well – as per Newton’s Third Law.
REVISITED: Explosive decompression can occur when a bullet is fired through the fuselage of a pressurized airplane (From Episode 10)
re-busted
The Build Team tested the effect of air rushing past an open bullet hole, and surmised that the extra internal pressure caused by this would still not be enough to cause an explosive decompression.
REVISITED: You end up drier running in the rain than walking. (From Episode 1)
confirmed
When retrying the test in actual rain it was conclusively proven that the running test subject got less wet than the walking test subject. The use of artificial rain in the original test led to a false negative.
REVISITED: Holding a large sheet of plywood will slow a fall from a building enough to make it survivable. (From Episode 18)
re-busted
After testing the speed of updrafts with a special rig on Tory’s truck it was proven that you could not hold on to the piece of plywood if you were in free fall. A mere 45mph gust knocked it out of Tory’s hands; updrafts from skyscrapers reach upwards of 90mph.
SPINOFF: A black car heats up faster than an identical white car. (From Pilot 2)
confirmed
A fan wrote in and asked a follow up question: "Does the color of a car affect the way it heats up?". The MythBusters used two identical cars, one black the other white and left them both out in the summer heat with thermometers in both. By mid-afternoon the black car had heated up to a temperature of 135 °F while the white car topped off at 126 °F, almost 10 degrees cooler.
REVISITED: Running a car with air conditioning on is more fuel efficient than running with the windows down. (From Episode 22)
partly confirmed
The fundamental flaw in the MythBusters’ test was that the point where the drag becomes powerful enough to inhibit a car’s performance with windows down was inside their 45 – 55mph margin at 50mph. Going less than 50mph it is more efficient to leave your windows down, but going greater than 50mph it is more efficient to use your A/C.
REVISITED: A gas tank will explode when shot by a bullet. (From Episode 15)
busted
It has already been proven that when shot by a normal bullet a gasoline tank will not explode. However, if a gasoline tank is shot by a tracer round from a great enough distance so that the round can ignite with air friction, it will cause the gasoline to catch fire. By the time this happened the tank was so riddled with bullets (from previous tracers that were fired too close to ignite) that there was no contained pressure, but the MythBusters surmised that had the tank been properly enclosed, it may have exploded; but overall it remains extremely improbable.
If you ever revisit the bullet propelled body try a high energy low speed wide types of bullet. The idea is capacity to transfer energy to the body fast. I doubt they would propel a body back, but there is a difference. For example frecuently a 9mm bullet drills a hole thru tempered glass while a 380mm one can blow the glass away. There you have another myth to confirm. :). Try 380mm, .45 and different shotgun projectiles. Although I doubt they will propell backwards…..combine with body armor, or a big wide beltbuckle as means of getting energy transfer.
June 23, 2007 at 5:52 PMThe only difference the speed with which you tranfser the energy would make is how much time the target has to regain his balance or push back against something. As a best case, it’s easy to calculate how fast the target would go backward even if all energy were transferred instantly. I get something like half a foot per second at best.
And unless you can transfer the energy faster than you transferred it to the bullet in the first place, the shooter would be thrown back as violently as the target.
June 23, 2007 at 6:58 PMOne thing to consider with the argument that the shooter would be thrown back violently; with some weapons, the shooter would indeed be thrown back if not properly braced. However, I think this amounts to little more than losing their balance, not being pushed off of the ground.
For any bullet that would have enough momentum to do this, getting it all to impart on the victim would be difficult, especially without obliterating them.
June 24, 2007 at 3:35 AMI believe the test was flawed. The test targets were dead pigs. Some of the reaction that a living target would show would be an involuntary muscle reaction to the impact of the bullet, which could cause the body to fly backwards. The dead targets lacked this response.
June 26, 2007 at 10:19 AMThe running/walking in rain myth perplexed me in both the original myth and when revisited.
In a drenching downpour that totally soaks either individual before they reach their destination, the point is moot. However, In a constant lesser rain, it would seem logical that a person who spent less time in that rain would be drier than a person who spent a lot more time in that rain. Conclusion: Over a fixed length course the runner should be drier than the walker, who should be drier than the crawler, who would be drier than the person sitting in a lawn chair at the starting line. etc.
The test should have been over a fixed time period, rather than a fixed length. Seems like the results would be close to equal.
Either way, the old phrase”not enough sense to get out of the rain” is brought to mind!
June 27, 2007 at 3:55 PMI’m curious if CyberGuy has anyone in mind to use as a test subject? Perhaps the study can be carried to a country that still utilizes firing squads?
July 17, 2007 at 6:19 PMWhat about that famous photo of the man that was shot in the head, maybe in Vietnam, back in the day? I don’t think he flew backwards at all, and that was point-blank energy transference. I’m pretty sure that people don’t fly backwards when hit with bullets.
July 29, 2007 at 3:40 AMNo, a person might not fly back when hit by a bullet…depending on what kind of bullet is used. In the case of the guy in Vietnam, he was shot point blank with a full metal jacketed bullet. Thats why he didn’tmove, because it just went straight through him. Mythbusters need to try different kinds of bullets such as hollowpoints, or softpoints.
August 15, 2007 at 2:40 PMWith the exploding gas tank, does the amount of fuel in the tank matter? For instance, a tank with mostly fumes are more likely to explode than a full tank. This is the basis for welding a metal gas tank that is full.
August 21, 2007 at 6:48 PMWhile a single projectile(bullet) may not knock a person off their feet. I do believe a shotgun would, especially at close range with a heavy load, such as buckshot
September 23, 2007 at 3:36 PMRunning in the rain: no, the fixed length course is appropriate, since the context is whether you’d get more or less wet by, say, running home from a local store if caught in a sudden rain. The gain from spending less time in the rain outweighed the loss from presenting a larger cross-section (if the rain were coming straight down).
Gun throwing body back: the type of bullet doesn’t matter as much as you think. So long as the bullet stops within the body (doesn’t exit), all of its momentum and energy is transferred. The energy (1/2 mv^2) and momentum (mv) at the target is always LESS that that at the sending end because some is lost to air friction between, so yes the shooter will experience more jerk than the receiver (albeit with less damage!). A softer bullet might stop more rapidly, but the difference is milliseconds and on the human timescale not significant.
Hypothetical muscle reactions to being shot is a completely different matter, tho. Not likely to be tested by MB tho, even with live animals.
November 28, 2007 at 2:14 PMHas anyone ever heard of a _muzzle brake_?
December 21, 2007 at 10:51 PMshooting a hole in the side of an airplane that has been pressurized to 8 lbs. per square inch in itself is not even close to an accurate rendition of what would happen in a real situation. I think you’re forgetting about the 500 mph wind blasting over the hole creating a huge low pressure area. It would suck the contents from the imediate area out at the very least. And probably do more damage than that. certainly more than the unfruitfull excuse for a proper experiment you guys claim to prove it busted. Not that you guys can properly simulate those kind of circumstnces on the ground effectively.Maybe you can. Other than that one, I mean two episodes where you incorrectly carried out your experiment all the other shows I have seen were satisfying.THAT I HAVE SEEN. Please email me back your thoughts sincerely a fan
February 24, 2008 at 7:26 PMEvangelos Dimas
Try using a sawed off (18″+) double barreled shotgun and see how a body flies back when hit with both barrels at close range with two 3″ magnum 00 buckshot. The force on the shooter is focused on a smaller area and they are braced for it, absorbing the kick in their arms, shoulders back and legs. Beside the fact that the weapon has a butt/kick pad. They will experience one hell of a jolt but will be able to withstand it. A person on the receiving end will be hit over a large area and would not be able to take it. While the amount of force would be measurably less than the “kick” due to it being spread out, the poor soul who just got shot would be knocked off their feet and thrown backwards several feet. I’ve seen it.
March 26, 2008 at 10:46 PMhi i think that the preasure inside of the plane needs to be matched as the crusing altitude of a plane.
May 12, 2008 at 2:52 AMwith the shooting the gas tank if the engine was running there would have been a diffrent result. also if you shot at an engine there would have been a diffrent conclusion.
August 16, 2008 at 6:45 AMHow come Adam puts the verdict in the exploding gas tank myth “CONFIRMED”? The higher the octane, the more the dangerous they are when shot by tracer rounds.
August 19, 2008 at 5:12 PMIn the Plywood Builder myth the revist showed that there was lift. The reason Tory couldnt hold on to the plywood is that he was anchored to the ute, wheras the wood continued to rise.
August 31, 2008 at 10:39 PMI dont think that the myth will be confirmed even with this change as a person wont be able to effectively steer the plywood while in the air or slow enough to land without dieing, but is still a slight flaw in the testing.
A gas tank will explode when shot by a bullet: confirmed. its been done in iraq with one round APIT from an M2 .50 cal. ya’ll realy need an on hand weapons guru for accurate testing on such myths
October 5, 2008 at 8:30 PMIts a living bodies involuntary muscular and nervous reactions to being hit by a bullet that causes it to move not the force imparted by the bullet so it wouldn’t work with a dead pig, try sticking a pin in someones butt unexpectedly, it causes them to move quickly but its not the force imparted by the pin involved that does it.
October 19, 2008 at 10:24 AMSo a bullet wont explode it. But what about the rag stuffed in the gas tank opening set on fire? Will that blow the car up?
You see it all the time on the movies.. but will it really work?
October 24, 2008 at 10:05 PMI think the mythbusters were right with the gas tank and if someone doesnt like that then make your own show or video and show us all
March 20, 2009 at 11:31 PMOn Hollywood style back-flip when shot by a bullet: There is a point in space, called mass center. The point is placed at a distance inverse proportional to the mass of each body, so the mass center will be very close to the human body even when the bullet just leaves the gun’s barrel. That point will carry on it’s movement no matter if the collision between the two bodies is elastic, plastic or anything in between. When the bullet stays in the body, both of them will travel with the speed of the mass center, and that speed will be extremely low, due to the huge difference in mass.
Another way to look at the problem is computing the impulse of the bullet and of the bullet-body assemble (assuming the body was static, so it had zero impulse). In a collision, the total impulse is constant. Then, all the impulse of the bullet is passed to the body; but impulse being speed times mass, and the impulse being the same, the speed after collision will be the speed of the bullet times the rapport between the mass of the bullet and the mass of the body. That rapport is about the same if not of greater order of magnitude than the speed of the bullet and therefore the final speed will be extremely low, practically zero.
The best approach to this problem is, actually, energetic. The kinetic energy of the bullet is the same with the total energy of the bullet-body assemble. The body has huge potential energy (inertial mass) and not all energy of the bullet is passed to the body (a lot is used to heat the area of contact, and a small part is used in deforming the shell), therefore the body will not move.
The theory of jumping out of sheer shock, or due to an involuntary muscular reaction, is just as unbelievable as the back-jump itself: if a human being is capable of such jumps, we will have 20-30 meters of long-jump olympic records instead of merely 9 meters… No matter whether a muscle is contracted voluntarily or not, the same maximum amount of force will be produced. The human physiology is not capable of those movements, as seen in Hollywood action movies.
A general comment on you, guys (and I am referring to Adam and Jamie): please, PLEASE, bring some physicists on the show that will explain plainly and correctly why some myths could not possibly happen… or at least to correct your explanations (I have seen explanations that were basically true, but had wrong “components”).
Good show, tho! :)
April 21, 2009 at 10:25 AMThis is a response to Cyberguy..
June 11, 2009 at 5:45 PMWhen the “involuntary” response to the bullet hitting you, makes you jump backwards.. this is still proving the myth busted because the actuall force of the bullet isn’t causing you to fly backwards, it’s your body’s response to the bullet hitting you.
So the test were right and the myth still busted.
General statement..
To have a fire/explosion -fuel, oxygen & an ignition source/heat- the fire triangle must be completed to specific values/ratio. I believe at the start of the test the gas tank did not contain sufficient oxygen in the gas tank to complete a fire triangle, however after putting that much holes into the tank sufficient oxygen eventually entered the tank to complete the triangle.
PS: Love the show, my 5yr old son can’t get gnough of the show also…
October 9, 2009 at 5:01 AMWow, they didn’t know anything about tracers. Air friction?
October 11, 2009 at 6:34 PMThat is NOT how tracers work,Jamie and Adam. I can’t believe they even had an “expert” on the show. Makes me want to question some of the other “science” on the show.
October 30, 2009 at 9:42 PMI understand you have visted and “re-visited” the exploding gas tank. You went to great pains to actually try to make it work. Unfortunately, you forgot one thing. In Hollywood, and in real life the difference between your test and the actual event is that you did not include a hot exhaust in your test. … In the movies, we see a shooter shoot the back of a car and it explodes. I think this is extremely plasuible. It is not the bullet that ignites or casues the fuel. It is the hole left by the round. Gas tanks and the rear exhaust are “almost” always within inches of each other. (Seperated by heat shields of course).
It’s simple. Bullet penetrates fuel tank creating hole in the tank. Fuel exits the fuel tank directly onto a hot exhaust system. Boom.
Another interesting example of this has historically been proven by faulty fuel lines leading into a carbeurtor. Whether it’s a rubber line or a hard line, in older cars this line can rust or break causing spillage directly onto a hot exhaust manifold. I’ve unfortuately had that happen to myself. (It kinda sucked driving down the road at 45mph)
November 4, 2009 at 2:54 PMAirplane decompression: you guys forgot about the outside lack of air at 10,000,20,000 or 30,000 ft. with an airplane compressed to what the airpressure at sea level is then crusing at 30,000 ft with lack of airpressure outside of the airplane. a small hole will cause the air to flow outof the airplane because everything flows a greater to a lesser, which would cause a massive flow of air out of the Airplane since the pressure outside is lesser than the pressure inside the airplane. You forgot the outside pressure at altitude. YOU GUYS BLEW THAT ONE???? DEL
November 18, 2009 at 12:48 AMi think if a person is shot with a 100cm gun, they would defiently fly backwards. I think this should be tested :D
November 25, 2009 at 11:29 PMThe Bogdan comments on the results of the episodes 25 and 38, are probably more accurate than anyone else, since I can tell you from personal experience if you use low velocity bullets, you will get the results you are looking for. I have been hunting for small animals with both hypervelocity and low velocity .22 rifle bullets. The HV .22 Long Rifle bullets would pass through so fast that almost no movement of the animal would be observed. The low velocity .22 CB bullet, would literally cause the small animal to do a complete flip. Almost the equivalent of me running up and kicking it. The rifle weight cancels out most of the recoil kick of the rifle bullet for the same reason. Speed is so sudden when the gun is fired, the energy is cancelled out by the weight of the weapon, the same as the small animal barely moving when hit by the HV .22.I doubt you will revisit this topic, but if you do, and you decide to further explore the comments of Bogdan, combined with my theory to use heavy low velocity bullets, targets large or small should show more obvious signs of impact. I really enjoy the show whether the myths are accurately busted or not, since it looks like you have a lot of fun. I’m actually jealous. Keep up the good and fun work.
January 2, 2010 at 1:07 AMMYTH BUSTED again several of those watching the show hit it on the head; dead pigs don’t feel the sting of a hot little piece of metal entering their body so they don’t react with involuntary muscle contractions! Check out some of the videos from our returning troops or talk to big game hunters. Shots that don’t generate a clean kill may cause the subject’s body to react violently when shot, throwing through the air.
OH yes bullets are hot! Unless made of ice and that myth was messed up too because it was fired with hot gasses. Strange when they did the ICE Bullet show and I suggested they flip a coin, use cold compressed gas to fire an ice bullet at the looser of the coin toss, they never give that myth another try!
I’m actually jealous too, though I would like to see the show get it right more!
January 8, 2010 at 1:17 AMPlywood builder
DOH!!! as said above Tory was anchored so could not hold on ( not to mention all the uneven wind forces caused by the truck ), but that isn’t how updraft works, and it’s not freefall.
The myth said the builder was blown off the roof and landed several floors below.
nothing about flying
all the builder has to do is support his own weight by holding on, most of us can do this.
all you need then is the updraft, as someone who does a lot of model glider flying from slopes i can tell you it works like this.
if the winds going up faster than your going down, your supported, if not, your going down, how fast depends on the difference.
they know from the first tests with buster how fast he fell, so all you need is a matching updraft and the builder would loose no height assuming he could balance under the board ( and as they carry them already balanced thats sorted )
as he fell a few floors we can guess he either didn’t perfect the mk1 plywood glider, or the updraft wasn’t strong enough.
you want to test the myth?
stick a willing ( strong ) mythbuster in a skydiving simulator, you know, the ground based vertical wind tunnels.
give him a sheet of wood and slowly turn up the wind.
remember he doesn’t need to gain height as the myth said he went down several floors.
but nearly flying will do, anything thats not loosing control of it totally, flying would be great.
Aircraft decompression, the only way your going to test this on the ground is the same way they test for real.
seal an aircraft, and then pressurise to to the difference! between internal and external at 30,000′, thats not sea level internally btw else your ears wouldn’t pop on take off.
what your lacking in tests is the amount of air inside an aircraft, a small volume test isn’t going to release enough quick enough to show up anything.
the skins so thin that any tear and that much air ( and debris ) could widen the gap and cause an airframe failure.
tiny cracks around the Comet’s square windows caused them to explode in midair
finally read this http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A20460782
even in the small cockpit the door had been sucked off it’s hinges, and the pilot sucked out of the window that failed, and thats air blowing into! the window, not across.
thats enough for now i think.
February 22, 2010 at 4:14 PMTracers have the compound in the hollow base of the bullet typically covered by a bit of foil and are ignited by the rounds propellant. The orange tips are simply paint to identify the type of round.
March 20, 2010 at 1:40 PMFunny, when testing the rain theory for 8th grade science class, we had different results. We took two tarps, cut a hole in both middle and fed it into a bucket. Then, one test group stood in the middle of the school parking lot while one group rigged a vertical rain catching device to the ladder rack of a pickup and drove around the school. Both groups collected rain for the same amounts of time, but the bucket in the truck filled up much faster than the stationary bucket. We reasoned that the moving tarp encountered more raindrops than a stationary one.
May 9, 2010 at 3:17 AMWith reference to bullets, it depends where it strikes. If it hits a nerve cluster in the skull or the spine, then the target will drop cleanly. If you hit a fleshy region, then the target may react with a great deal of animation. I’ve seen people practically jump out of their skin when they so norhing more than step on a bottle cap on the beach, or prick themselves on a bush. Multiply that one thousand times and imagine how a person would react. Further, much depends on how the energy is imparted. I have seen someone hit in the SAPI by a 00 buckshot at close range and be knocked back several meters. The backwards energy of a forward propelled bullet is only imparted on the shooter while the bullet is in the barrel. When it hits the target, all that energy is imparted on the target… unless it goes through.
May 9, 2010 at 3:26 AMplz try it: what happen when a tyre of moving car is fired by pistol
June 8, 2010 at 3:03 PMI’m quite certain that a low velocity, heavy round will in fact move a target. If you were to kick someone in the chest, you may have a force applied to you, but being properly braced for it that force may seem insignificant. Meanwhile, the person on the receiving end may move a few feet, depending on balance and preparation, as well as placement of the kick. Now amplify that by the amount of force a shotgun at point blank with buckshot will cause, use common sense, and then still attempt to ramble about how a gunshot won’t move a living target. Dead targets are “dead weight” and essentially a few hundred pounds of inanimate matter. Why not shoot blocks of wood or oversized marshmallows for that matter? Living tissue reacts differently. Ask a big game hunter who has used different rounds if any of them have been able to physically move a target. I’ve seen animals knocked over from the blast of a heavy round. If the round isn’t too fast, with good shot placement, the force will generally knock it over. I don’t know about moving it a few feet, but I know for a fact that I’ve seen hits on living things that looked like the target was kicked over.
June 15, 2010 at 9:16 AMI am unable to understand how everyone can loudly tout Newton’s Third Law as a catch-all for bodies being propelled by bullets yet fail so spectacularly to understand how a firearm actually works.
When a gun is fired, it doesn’t teleport the bullet to the target; it doesn’t magically give the bullet 100% of all the energy it has at impact instantaneously; both of these would be required for the mass-energy equation you’re talking about here to be accurate.
When you “mythbusted” this, did you happen to note that the bullets went all the way through the target?
Right, do you understand the physics of how that happened?
It happened because the bullet arrived with so much more physical force than the target was structurally able to withstand that the bullet blasted right through it, thus retaining much of its kinetic energy – which means the target didn’t fly backwards because the bullet kept going, not because it arrived with too little force.
Seriously, this isn’t complex. In order for both the shooter and the target to go flying, the energy imparted to the bullet during the process of firing would have to be imparted instantaneously. I hate to break it to you, but even if your perception of time is such that firing a gun takes such a brief span of time that you PERCEIVE it as a single, instantaneous event, it isn’t.
What really happens when you fire a gun is that you ignite a charge of gunpowder, which burns very, very fast. As it does, it creates an expanding cloud of gas, which propels the bullet ahead of it. The longer the bullet spends in the barrel – a closed space, in which the expanding gas continues the acceleration of the bullet – the more energy the bullet has when it leaves the barrel.
That doesn’t happen instantaneously, and to the shooter it isn’t an impact; it’s a very brief sustained PUSH.
When the bullet arrives at the target, though, it impacts – and imparts its kinetic energy instantaneously.
In the event that the target is either sufficiently hardened to withstand or at least seriously resist the bullet, or the bullet has enough force to impact but not fully penetrate the target, all the kinetic force imparted to the bullet by the firing process, minus the loss to air friction during travel, is delivered to the target instantaneously, which in fact WILL cause a target to go flying, though not to the ridiculous degree that Hollywood exaggerates it.
This is why a rifle hits harder – and at longer range – than a pistol, by the way; the barrel length is greater, and thus the distance over which the bullet accelerates is as well. Even given an identical cartridge fired from a pistol and from a rifle, the rifle will fire the bullet with far more force and muzzle velocity thanks to barrel length.
If you’d like to actually test this like scientists would – the ones who passed high school physics and can therefore comprehend an acceleration curve – get a pistol and rifle, each firing .22 LR ammo – that way you can use the same ammunition in each weapon – and fire them at ballistic gelatin from different ranges. What you will find is that the pistol, at more than a few feet away, will cause much more target movement, but the rifle will blast all the way through it.
Structuring your experiment incorrectly to test your hypothesis does not disprove your hypothesis.
June 15, 2010 at 2:37 PMAnd while I’m at it, it has nothing to do with involuntary muscle contractions. Earlier commenters are right; try hollowpoints instead of jacketed bullets; they are far more likely to remain within the body of the target, thus imparting all their energy and causing the target to go flying.
Jacketed rounds are jacketed specifically to PREVENT them remaining within the body, and they are far more likely to plow all the way through the body without stopping, thus taking the majority of their kinetic energy with them when they leave. These bullets cause injury mostly due to hydrostatic shock; as the water in the body cannot be compressed, when the bullet passes through the body, it pushes the water around, causing your tissues to rupture and your organs to be crushed.
Hollowpoints, on the other hand, simply blow great gaping holes in you.
June 15, 2010 at 2:44 PMIt’s always funny to read these arguements, physics “experts” who talk about acceleration in the gun barrel (though accrurate) but ignore the deceleration as the body absorbs impact (yes, no matter how you dream it the body will have a acceleration curve). Bodys aren’t throw, anyone who has ever hunted will tell you that. And as for the jerk reaction theory, nervous system reactions are normally symetrical to shock impacts (watch a taser video) it’s extremely unlikely that the body would react in a way that would propel it in any direction other then down.
Car exaust is no where near hot enough at the tail pipe to ignite gas, (that’s why they safely put the gas tank there), and using a APIT round (designed to ignite flammable materials on impact) is not a reasonable test. rpgs will also make a gas tank explode by that logic.
holding a sheet of plywood while airborne is possible I believe but having worked with the stuff for years leads me to doubt a gust of wind strong enough to support your body weight (or close to it) wouldn’t take it from you.
I can’t recall the details but I believe they pressurized the plane to simulate the lower pressure outside at cruising alt, also they did do some tests to see the effects of air movement. This one is a little tricky to test becuase of the variables but I think they thought it through and got as close to reality as can be expected.
keep in mind everyone that they tests myths, Given hypotical situations with no restrictions and exactly the right variables anything can be assumed to be true. Staying within reasonable intent of the myth being tested they have proven time and time again most things we see out of hollywood are false, I don’t know why someone would be foolish enough to argue otherwise.
June 15, 2010 at 8:07 PMThere are videos on youtube of Richard Davis shooting Alex Jason (I don’t have a clue who they are). 7.62x51mm to the chest, stopped by armour. He doesn’t get knocked over. The body armour means that all of the kinetic energy of the bullet would be instantly transferred to the man, and he still doesn’t move.
June 16, 2010 at 1:52 AMDon’t be talkin all yer fancy book lernin physics and stuff. I done seen a shotgun blast knock a man clean off’n his feet. Y’all need Larry The Cable Guy as a consultant or somethin
June 23, 2010 at 11:55 AMIt’s so wonderful to see all the people in these threads who learned everythign they know about guns from movies, and have never fired a gun so much as shot anything. A bullet of any kind will not knock a person back. Why? Because bullets penetrate. They enter the body, jsut like when the guys could not knock a hat of with a bullet, for something to be pushed off it’s feet. It indeed has to be pushed. Bullets don’t push, they stab, well the forceably enter the body at high speeds, As some one who shoots regularly I’ve seen all this several times, bullets will go through a paper target they will not push it away, glass or plastic bottles, they can go through them and leave them standing. The closest I have ever seen to a bullet pushing something, was a hanging cast iron cooking wok, and that was only with either .22′s or twenty gauge shotgun rounds, and only because they did not have the force to peirce the wok. Any rounds larger than that 9mm .45 .308 .306 7X54 and twelve gauge slugs were more than capable of going right through the wok without having it move at all. Seriously, have you ever seen a deer get shot and go flying? No bullets go through things, they don’t push them. If you’ve never so much as fired a gun at anything, try not to argue about things you don’t know.
June 24, 2010 at 3:43 AMOhh pefore someone makes a hollow point argument, yes they do burst in the body, sometimes. And the shrapnel tends to go flying out the back which is why they kill, because it turns from acurate bullet, into shot gun fired from inside your body.
June 24, 2010 at 3:46 AMJust a note or two on the bullet in the fuselage comments. Airliners and other high-flying jets ALREADY have a hole in the fuselage. Cabin pressure is maintained by conditioned bleed air from the engines pumped into the aircraft at a fixed pressure, and a controlled leak from the fuselage through what’s called an “outflow valve.”
The outflow valve full-open is about 1 sq ft, it’s big, and can be seen on the aft rear lower fuselage on Boeing aircraft. It will be open much less in-flight, obviously, but it is the only mechanism that regulates the cabin pressure, so it opens and closes as needed all the time, even at 42,000 ft. It has backup controllers if the primary fails. It is a very important device. Differential pressure is controlled to approx 8 psi, which keeps the cabin at about 8000 ft MSL when the aircraft is flying at 40,000 ft. (Different manufacturers and aircraft have different specs).
Also, sometimes doors or windows (the cockpit windows that crank open) leak air. They “squeal” like a pinched balloon throat and we write them up and the maintenance guys come adjust the seals.
There is 500mph air flowing over all these leaks. Makes no difference.
The point is there are already leaks in the fuselage, and there has to be outflow or the constant inflow of bleed air would over-pressurize the cabin.
An additional .45 caliber hole, or even a fist-sized hole, wouldn’t bother the cabin pressure one bit. The outflow valve would just close a bit more to make up for it, automatically.
BTW, if you were ever to run into an off-duty Federal Air Marshal, they would tell you they’re not concerned with holes in the fuselage. They’ve been trained that a bullet puncturing the aircraft is not a safety issue. They will gladly blast a terrorist into Swiss cheese at any altitude. (Puncturing passengers or crew is a concern, though).
So here’s the next question. There’s a .45 caliber hole in the cabin wall next to your seat at seat 23A. You’re cruising at 42,000 feet, the bad guys are dead, and you’ve already seen the in-flight movie and read all your magazines. The hole is making a hissing noise. Should you; A) Leave the hole alone, B) Make like a Dutch boy and stick your finger in the hole, C) Put your magazine over the hole, D) Feed peanuts to the hole, E) stick your tongue in the hole.
Cheers
June 27, 2010 at 11:22 PMAn airline pilot person
In response to CV
There is another difference between the Hollywood gas tank stunt and a real life gas tank. The fact that the car is rigged with explosives timed to make it look like the car is exploding when shot at.
Why? Because its really cool to watch. That’s all.
June 28, 2010 at 9:08 AMTry a .50BMG api round on a half filled gas tank. Also, mikeg, 380mm is a battleship cannon. a .380 pistol is .38 inches, about 9mm. A .38 is the same diameter but much more powder. They showed that even a .50 BMG will not knock a body back. Any gun that has enough energy to do that cannot be fired by a human or it will have the same result on the shooter.
June 30, 2010 at 2:41 PMAnd “john”, you’re just a flat out liar. You have never seen anyoen knocked back several meters by buckshot. Liar.
June 30, 2010 at 2:45 PMThe Mythbusters cannot satisfy everyone with the bullet-knockback because too many people are too stupid to understand Newton’s third law. A bullet hits a target with the same amoutn of force it hits a shooter. The difference is surface area, The butt or pistol grip spreads the impact over a wider area than the half-an-inch or less area the bullet hits. That is how body armor works. It spreads th bullet impact out over a wider area. Even a .50 BMG, the largest round with the most power of any round a human can fire standing up does nto have the force to throw you back,either as the shooter or the target. The energy focuses on a small area and penetrates. A hollow point doe snot gain extra energy as it spreads, it divides that energy up over a wider area. Same with Shotguns, which have much less energy than rifles.
June 30, 2010 at 2:50 PMman id hate to have a black car in summer where i am: Australia, 42 degrees celcius.
July 7, 2010 at 8:49 AMThere’s a reason why a car won’t explode via a bullet to the fuel line. Car companies aren’t going to sell cars that explode by the most lightest impacts. If they did, every car crash will look like the 4th of July, and every pileup will look like a Micheal Bay movie. If they sold cars like that, there would no doubt be enough lawsuits to stretch from New Mexico to Kentucky if not more.
August 9, 2010 at 9:53 PM