Air Date: February 13, 2008
It is possible to cut down a tree with a machine gun.
confirmed
The build team obtained large pine tree trunks and set them up in the Mojave Desert. The trees were shot at using a Thompson submachine gun and a M249 SAW, but they remained standing. The .45 bullets were too slow and inaccurate, and the 5.56mm NATO rounds didn’t cause enough damage to fell the tree. However, when Kari used a M134D minigun that fired 7.62mm NATO at 50 rounds per second, the pine trunk fell down within a minute. A much denser mesquite tree was also cut in short order.
The reason baseball players wear black markings under their eyes is to help reduce glare from the sun.
plausible
Adam and Jamie put black eye paint under their eyes and took an eye exam, then repeated it with lighter, peach colored eye paint. Their scores were the same each time. Adam then set up a light meter in a dummy’s eye and recorded the lux reading in the eye with and without the paint, but the results weren’t significantly different. Adam then put a baseball cap on the dummy and repeated the experiment, and noticed that with the black eye paint on, the lux reading significantly dropped.
It is possible to escape a ski lift by sliding down the cable using one’s pants to create a zip line.
busted
The build team went to a circus training center and tried to slide down a wire similar to the ones used in ski lifts while hanging onto pants. Tori barely moved, and the pants began to rip apart. Later, the build team tried it on a real ski lift and the friction was still too great. Buster gained no momentum at all and the pants eventually ripped.
A black powder fire can follow a trail of powder from a leaking barrel and travel up into the barrel, much like a cartoon.
plausible
Adam and Jamie first confirmed that a black powder trail will burn fully if ignited at one end. Later, they set up a robot to carried a leaking barrel, but when the ignited trail reached the robot it did not continue up the falling powder and into the barrel. It was only when they increased the size of the hole and had the barrel shaking that the ignition followed into the barrel.
One can unlock a car door by having its remote unlocker frequency transmitted though a cell phone call.
busted
All attempts to unlock the car door via a cell phone call failed. In addition, Grant explained that car unlockers and cell phones operate on completely different frequencies.
i know they confirmed the myth on cutting down a tree with a machine gun. but you can use a smaller machine gun to cut a tree down. Myself and a friend used and SKS and a mini 14. we shot at the tree for a while we realized that we had shot a line across the tree and the tree had not fallen. so we switched the firing angle (horizontally). a few rounds later the tree fell. so i think that the SAW will cut down a tree also. i think that more rounds are needed and 2 separate firing angles will do the trick.
February 18, 2008 at 11:25 PMWhat was the result of the arrowhead/sharpened stick ?? They went went to commercial and never came back to it, or I missed it.
February 19, 2008 at 10:38 AMAlso agree with last comment I cut a tree down with an AK47 and it took a while to figure out the right angle but it fell
February 19, 2008 at 1:13 PMYeh! What did happen arrowhead/sharpend stick!
February 19, 2008 at 1:35 PMThe arrow head went further then the sharpend stick, even though they just tested it with the bulistic gel. When they tested it with a skin covering the gel they had the same results with depth but the arrow head left more damage to the skin.
February 21, 2008 at 12:49 AMTree cutting with machineguns:
February 24, 2008 at 10:53 PMThat was a total waste of time and ammo to try to cut down anything bigger than a sapling with a M1928-A1 Thompson. Those are PISTOL bullets.
Also, you people were holding it wrong. You do NOT grip the forward pistol grip. You rest it in the palm of your hand to allow the gun to drop back down to point of aim after recoil (the real reason for the buffer is to slow the rate of fire down so you can do this). This is also why the fancy pistol grip was replaced with a straight stock with later manufacture.
The best way to shoot down trees (like I did) is with a M-2 Browning Heavy Barrel .50 caliber Machinegun.
Now, THAT’S a Machinegun.
Arrowheads:
February 24, 2008 at 10:58 PMWhy do everybody, including college degreed archeologists think that arrowheads, spearheads, axes and knives were made by striking the stones against each other?
A rancher up in Beatty, Oregon showed me how the Klammath Indians did it with obsidian (and flint).
You strap a deer antler down to some rocks, pick up the obisdian or flint with a piece of rawhide (to prevent cutting fingers) and press the stone against the antler to chip-shape it any way you want.
It’s a lot faster, less waste of stone if struck wrong, can make finer shapes and there are lots of deer antlers around. You don’t even have to kill the deer as the shed them in winter anyway.
I just had a thought about trying to escape a ski lift by sliding down the wire. Would there not be a certain amount of ice on said wire? Not trying to say it would work, and as I did not watch this episode I do not truly know if that point was addressed.
March 10, 2008 at 11:29 PMTodd, there wouldn’t be ice on the cable as it is continuously running through or over pullies and guides, clearing any ice that may (doubtfully) form on the greased cable.
April 8, 2008 at 10:42 PMHey !!! I am Valentyn from Ukraine and I like youre show !!! I think it is great !!!
April 16, 2008 at 11:26 AMYou can unlock your car with remote even though they are difrent frequencies. I’ve done it . So your Busted is not acceptable.
April 30, 2008 at 9:56 AMTo all the people cutting down trees with guns it is a complete waste of amo USE A CHAINESAW ps mythbusters rox
May 3, 2008 at 9:09 PMI know this has nothing yo do with these miths but how in the world do u subbmit a myth i have tried but i cant find out how to so i am just going to ask hear even though u probably wont read it ok i would like u to see if it is possible to drop from 8,000 feet with out your parisoot deploying and hit a cement path face first and still live i am arsking this because i heard it on the radio once the person had realy bad injeries but did not die.
May 3, 2008 at 10:39 PMHey guys, love the show, but on Braniac Test Tube Baby (Sky One), to my amazement, they successfully unlocked a car remotely using a mobile phone held next to the car lock. I have not seen this episode on MythBusters yet but maybe there was something interfering with the signal or something like that.
-Luke
May 5, 2008 at 9:39 AMArrowheads:
Did they think to test distance with the sticks versus arrowheads? I know they tested lethality and accuracy but what about over all distance, such as an arching shot? They tested the arrows using a compound bow and not a recurve. In my experience with shooting recurve, I’ve had to always aim a bit above my intended target at distance because of a little thing called gravity. Longer shots required a bit more arc. Any thoughts? Point/counter-points?
May 21, 2008 at 8:42 PMFor the myth “It is possible to escape a ski lift by sliding down the cable using one’s pants to create a zip line.” What if you used cold wet jeans or ski pants for it. Because it is extreamly un likely that their pants would be a pair of jeans or that they would be dry, which with snow would almost be impossible.
May 21, 2008 at 9:09 PMYou came close to figuring out the reason for the arrowhead but you missed it in your summary.
The real purpose of the arrowhead is to make it hard for the arrow to come out. An animal hit in a large area of the chest might well have hit a vital organ and bleed to death with either arrow but the longer ir takes to die the more likely you might not capture or find it. A wounded deer(etc) might go some distance.
By using an arrowhead it makes for a stronger hold but a straight arrow can pull out as the animal is running or if they reach around and grab it with their mouth and pull it out. If they try to pull out an arrowhead it will cut/chew up a lot of flesh on it’s way out causing more rapid blood loss and shorter distance from being hit.
Blood loss is the key. Also you missed the cost of making the arrowhead when you compared the time of one to another. The arrowhead can be used over & over. This means the start up cost is higher but flattens out some over reuse. These were not like rim shot shells but more like reloadable casings so to speak.
Retest and compare to see how much blood is lost.
May 22, 2008 at 12:59 AMCell Phone. I’VE DONE IT SEVERAL TIMES. When family members want to use my car, I just press the unlock button through the car.
June 24, 2008 at 11:37 PMI also have to tell you that the car unlocking down the phone works. I’ve done it many times - you know, when you split up in the shopping mall and head back to car, but get back before whoever had the key… I call them up, *blip* down the phone, car open, music on :)
June 26, 2008 at 2:25 AMYeah Brainiac did the car unlocking with the phone, and a friend and I tried it and we got it to work as well. On the show, they had people sending in messages with some saying it worked and some saying it didnt, plus a few people saying it worked once but never again. This is not a busted as I have tried it myself so I know it works.
June 26, 2008 at 7:21 AMI’m still getting email about that car lock myth, upholding it as a real thing.
July 2, 2008 at 8:17 AM