Shooting Through Water

[mudpyr8]

Mythbusters just confirmed the myth of water protecting you from bullets.

At 14" of vertical depth (about 2' at angle) a gun fired at a 23 degree angle was unable to harm a person. Even a .50 cal rifle. The rounds disintigrated before reaching the ballistics gel.

It would seem then that .6m of water provides 18 rPD vs. Bullets (and who knows what else).

They also tried 5.56 and .308, both of which disintigrated. Lower velocity rounds actually seemed to fair better... a 9mm was able to be lethal at 7'.

Interesting.

[yamamura]

That is why you need to shoot straight down and not at an angle;) Very interesting show especially when they fired the .50 caliber and its bullet met the same fate as all the other high velocity bullets.

[Lord Kilsco]

What is "Mythbusters" ?
Is it a US television show ?

[mudpyr8]

Yes on Discovery Channel. It's quite good. http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/mythbusters.html

they aren't as tight as they should be sometimes on controls for their experiments, but they do a very fine job. The test a lot of things with explosives, guns, electricity, etc. The goal of the show is to test urban legends and either confirm them, bust them, or label them as plausible (but they were unable to prove it conclusively).

This one was confirmed. It's a lot of fun to watch and very appropriate for games. They tested bulletproof glass, canons made from trees, all sorts of fun stuff.

[Lord Kilsco]

Thanks.
It seems a rather interesting show.

Why do French TV networks buy your worst shows and not these ones ? :winkgrin:

[JTesla]

It's all part of the master plan, but considering that we don't get the best from various European markets it might not be a good master plan.

[mudpyr8]

That and I have to say that Mythbusters hardly competes with the bread and butter audience of reality tv and Fox News. It definitely is a fringe show.

It apparently is one of the Disc. Ch. better rated shows - they get to host Shark Week (and bust a bunch of shark myths to boot).

[zornwil]

I wouldn't say "quite good", a lot of their stuff isn't very rigorous at all, including shaky approaches to recreating things faithfully. However, it does have value and simpler investigations, things more within their grasp (probably this one as an example) seem fine.

[Fox1]

It's a fun show.

If the firearm results are any indication, all the outcomes are actually simple to predict. But they're fun even so and they will pick legends on subjects that I don't know much about- and that's even more fun.

As a side note, the water test is an excellent (if extreme) example how increasing the energy of an attack can produce counter-productive results.

[Black Lotus]

I saw that episode. They failed to take one other thing into account, though.

At high relative velocities, water's surface tension can make it virtually as hard as a rock. (This is why belly-flops hurt, although not quite to the same level as the hardness of a rock). Therefore, if you shoot at water from an angle, a bullet can literally ricochet off of the surface (like skipping rocks in a river). Most of the time, when people shoot into the water, it's not straight down the way they did it on Mythbusters.

And also, since the bullet is coming in at a diagonal, and often fired from farther away than the distance they used, you don't have to be QUITE as far under the water as they predict, either.

Still, a good show.

[Blackberry]

Still, a good show.

I take it you missed the entire second half of the show, where they did exactly everything that you describe. :)

[Sociotard]

I don't watch much tv, but mythbusters is a favorite. I especially liked the one where they recreated the escape from alcatraz, making their own raft from raincoats.

[Black Lotus]

I take it you missed the entire second half of the show, where they did exactly everything that you describe. :)

ROFL... yes, we'd finished dessert and deserted the table (sorry for the pun) by then... wow. I was totally off in left field with this one. :)

[gewing]

Mythbusters just confirmed the myth of water protecting you from bullets.

At 14" of vertical depth (about 2' at angle) a gun fired at a 23 degree angle was unable to harm a person. Even a .50 cal rifle. The rounds disintigrated before reaching the ballistics gel.

It would seem then that .6m of water provides 18 rPD vs. Bullets (and who knows what else).

They also tried 5.56 and .308, both of which disintigrated. Lower velocity rounds actually seemed to fair better... a 9mm was able to be lethal at 7'.

Interesting.


That is completely logical. Though I suspect an AP .50 would go a little deeper. Cavitation and pressure issues would still imo tend to stop it, but it shouldn't break up.

[Brother Jim]

but did they try a .300 Whisper ???

[Black Lotus]

but did they try a .300 Whisper ???

I was hoping they'd try a Howitzer, myself. Someone probably would have died from a glass shard through the abdomen, though... man. Too bad.

Howitzers kick ass.

(What the hell is a .300 Whisper, by the way? Aside from a 300-caliber firearm... what caliber were the gatling guns on the A-10s at Barksdale AFB I worked on? I have to go check for comparison.)

[Black Lotus]

Oh, those are wussy little thingies. I checked.

BIG UNS! BOOM HA!

I guess .50 cal is good enough for their test. Man, that is a big bullet.

[Fox1]

That is completely logical. Though I suspect an AP .50 would go a little deeper. Cavitation and pressure issues would still imo tend to stop it, but it shouldn't break up.

They stated it was an AP round. It broke up.

Any pointed bullet moving at a high velocity (over 2000 fps) will 'flip' upon hitting water and then its own KE will rip the bullet apart.

[Fox1]

(What the hell is a .300 Whisper, by the way? Aside from a 300-caliber firearm... what caliber were the gatling guns on the A-10s at Barksdale AFB I worked on? I have to go check for comparison.)

A-10s are 30mm cannon rounds.

The .300 Whisper is a sub-sonic assault rifle round in the same general class as the 7.62x39 of the AK-47.