I've been curious as to what happens if you drop a cartridge or burn it in a fire. Can it go off with enough force to injure you? To me it seems that there would be very little power because the burning gasses can escape too soon. Does anyone know for sure what happens?
You would be hard pressed to get a cartridge to go off by dropping it. If exposed to high enough heat, they will go off. When this happens, the brass casing ruptures instead of the projectile being ejected. Most of the time, the brass shards lack the energy to cause serious energy unless they stuck you in the eye. I have been in numerous house fires where ammunition was cooking off and have been close enough once to be able to feel the brass pieces hitting and bouncing off of my turnout gear. They did an episode of Mythbusters where they tested ammo in a camp fire where they discovered that the exploding ammunition lacked enough energy to cause serious injuries.
It can go off with just as much force as if it were fired correctly. Range and aim would certainly be poor but if you were in the wrong place you could certainly get hurt.
Planning on dropping shells in the fire anytime soon?
dont answer questions unless you have a freakin clue!!!! anyone who knows anything knows shells dont "shoot" if dropped or incinerated. the brass blows up. omg what a retard!
One of my favorite books has a chapter on this, "Hatcher's Notebook". Check that out. Since the cartridge is not contained inside a firearms chamber the relatively weak case bursts before any real pressure builds up inside it. The casing does get splattered all over the place so there is a danger in that but not from the bullet. Minimal risk of injury.
I have heard them go off at our club when we burn trash. It sounds like a dull firecracker. As for dropping them, I've done that hundreds of times with rimfire ammo and have yet to ever have one go off on me.
You can lose an eye if you are near a cartridge tossed into a fire and it goes off. Now, 1 time out of about 10,000 times (and that is a very loose estimate) and if the cartridge has a high primer and if the cartridge hits just right when dropped, it will go "pop." Most of the time nobody gets seriously hurt. You might get a bruise from a bullet flying away from a dropped cartridge but it is very doubtful that it will penetrate skin or seriously injure an organ.
I've thrown .22 rimfire cartridges against concrete walls dozens of times trying to get one to go off. No luck.
Centerfire would be even more difficult to hit, the primer is protected from all but one point.
I've also had a .22 go off in my fingertips, holding the bullet. The brass ruptured and scattered wax all over, including some in my face. The bullet stayed stationary.
Don't believe the alarmists.
The only time the ammo is tryuly dangerous in a fire is if its chambered and the whole gun gets hot enough to ignite the ammo.
seabee in nam shot himself while clearing a shotgun,racked the shell out onto the gravel and it landed on the primer and injured the anchor clanker.
air force security, back when they had the big motorola radios and the AF cops were still wearing combat magnum revolvers with cartriges in the belt.he tried to put the radio in the belt holder and the charger contacts went across a cartridge and shorted and he got hit by the shell fragments.
My neighbor (the one who hates me) put a 44 magnum shell in my burn barrel last year.
I didn't find out what it was until the fire was out and I could go through the ashes and found the busted casing.
I was standing about 4 feet away when it went off.
I can tell you it was LOUD AS HELL and scared the crap out of me (almost literally).
The case was confined in the barrel so I may be wrong, but it didn't do much other than make a loud noise. I wouldn't hold it in my hand but overall I don't think it would be much different than a firecracker.
Mythbusters episode. All parts can be dangerous when placed in a fire, but the radius is under 8'. Depending on how the case ruptures it can take off backwards like a rocket, frag in tiny peices or launch the bullet about 5-4 feet.
what they said.
without a chamber, it's a simple matter of physics. the slug is the heaviest part...it's staying in one place while the lightweight brass expands and fractures to release the gases. Like mbarry201 says...that brass could catch you in the eye, so why play around?
I knew a guy that dropped a 7MM mag cartridge on the floor and it landed primer down and it went off, the bullet hit the tile ceiling and never penetrated, scared the s**t out of him but he wasn't injured.
I don't see how that would possibly happen. I would have to call Shenanigans on that one. As stated by everyone else, the casing will go flying before the bullet ever will.
This is what happens when you drop a cartridge with a soft primer
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That is a 10mm that fell off a shelf during an earthquake.
the primer hit another bullet tip and popped.
The bullet itself was found a few feet away.
All of the pieces were within a foot or two.
The same would happen in a fire.
The case being weak brass ruptures and the bullet moves very little.
It would be a stretch, like a one in a million thing if anyone go hurt badly.
In the mythbusters episode there were some holes in the plywood around the firepit where a couple of bullets keyholed though the 1/2" ply. Most all of the rest of the holes were cases and fragments. They threw about two boxes full of various sized rounds in.
I've had the dropped bullet go pop twice. Once on a civilian range and once on a police range. It can happen. It is not your run-of-the-mill every day event so it rarely occurs.
I had not thought about a soft primer allowing a dropped bullet to pop off like that. I do know that we once got a batch of reloaded ammo with some high primers in them. When one of the guys dropped the cartridge 4 of us were standing around gabbing when it went off and the bullet came out of the case, flew up hit a tin roof on a range shelter and bounced off. Not much to it at all. Just a pop and a small clang. Nobody got hurt. That's when we started checking the cartridges and found 4 of them that had high primers on them.
I would question what Herd recollects as well, more than likely a piece of stone or a piece of the brass was the culprit.
It is very simple science, the casing weighs < the bullet, which means that the bullet will not move before the casing does when not restricted in a chamber.
When I drop ammo I find that it bounces then rolls under whatever piece of furniture is the most difficult to get it out from under.
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