[QUOTE=robby]
My ignorance here has been fought. And I actually knew that smokeless powder burns rather than exploding, so you’d think I would have known better.
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To be accurate, there are some double base powders that can detonate rather than deflagrate, but they have to be pretty tightly confined to do so. In a handgun or rifle cartridge there just isn’t enough constraint to cause detonation.
[QUOTE=Projammer]
This may be true of plastic and paper shotgun shells where the casing is destroyed before the powder cooks off, it is decidedly untrue of pistol and rifle rounds where the shell and projectile are of solid metal construction…Ammunition + open fire = potential for death.
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Without disputing your story (which I find plausible, though at the edge of likelyhood) the fact is that cases weigh much less and demonstrate far more drag than a bullet. It’s possible that someone standing very close to an “exploding” cartridge might be struck by a flying cartridge that could penetrate an inch or two into bare flesh, but it’s not going to punch through anything significant like walls or even thick fabric, and they won’t go more than a few feet before drag from the shape and spinning motion reduces their speed to a nuisance level. A common way of disposing of unreliable or corrosive ammunition is to dump rounds loosely, a box at a time, into a fire burning in a 55 gallon barrel. Even though most pistol and all centerfire rifle rounds will easily puncture the thin, low grade steel of such containers when fired through a barrel, when burned loose you just hear a loud popping sound as the primer and powder charge cook off and the bullet pops out of the cartridge. It wouldn’t be wise to stand over a box of ammunition with a blowtorch–if for no other reason than that the primers detonating will damage your hearing–but tales of the hazards of cooked-off ammunition, fed by Hollywood effects showing them exploding like fireworks, are vastly overstated.
[QUOTE=AskNott]
The hubbub over the “Cop Killer Bullet” deprived an old friend of mine of a patent. He had designed a very accurate target bullet (yes, the bullet, not the whole round.) He had the misfortune of taking it to a patent attorney when the raving over armor-piercing rounds was in the news. The patent attorney told him his chances of getting a patent for a new, pointy bullet had just vanished. :smack:
At this late date, I can tell you that my late friend’s bullet was machined, not cast. That way, the exact shape and size were precisely the same, bullet after bullet after bullet. In competition shooting, where millimeters on the target make a difference, his design would have been the one to have.
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I find this highly unlikely. Swaging (the multi-step process by which modern bullets are formed) will produce a finish and balance comperable to anything readily achiveable by standard lathe machining; to get a more accurate result you’d have to go the type of multi-axis milling machine used to manufacture high quality optics, and while such machines are now relatively inexpensive, in the early 'Eighties these started in the six figure range. Accuracy is more than just the shape and consistency of the bullet, too, as any hobbyist marksman will tell you; also involved is the quality and consistency of the case (rim deburring, crimp, shoulder dimension, wall thickness, primer pocket, chamber fit); getting the correct combination of twist, bullet weight, and powder type and charge; and barrel bedding and compensating for barrel vibe. Someone spending dollars a shot on bullets alone is wasting their money.
Stranger
