Experimental cook-off, or science wins again

[rightisright]

Adding to what Mike said, what about a .50 cal can filled to the top with .22 LR? If the rounds are packed in tightly, the results might be different.

Even if there is no danger, I would suspect the firemen will retreat just because of the sound of the rounds igniting.

[Alcibiades]

Good ol' Mythbusters with their ".50 BMG in an oven" stunt.

(If only they had tried it with boxes and boxes of ammo...)

[Mud_Dog]

Ok, found and scanned the picture! A rocket hit our parked truck in the FOB, thankfully it was sitting inbetween the two walls of grain bins. It caught almost immediately since it landed close to the fuel tank. We had a couple of boxes of 7.62 NATO Linked for the use with the M240B that were in the fire.

When they cooked off, most of them burst through the steel can and sprayed the wall about 7 ft away:


Now that's pretty good chipping off that concrete wall, certainly deadly at that range.

[kparker]

Jeffro,

I've had .22s go off in the vacuum cleaner

Good grief, bro--is that a nuke-powered vacuum? Just how hot does it get in there? And doesn't it burn up all the lint in what you vacuum up? Enquiring minds, etc...

[Old Grafton]

It doesn't have to be hot in that vacuum cleaner--the Kirby unit we have sucks everything through a high-speed rotating impeller which makes a helluva racket with something as mundane as a paper clip. I can easily see how one o' those would be able to smack a .22 rim hard enough to set off the primer.

[Jeffro]

Good grief, bro--is that a nuke-powered vacuum? Just how hot does it get in there? And doesn't it burn up all the lint in what you vacuum up? Enquiring minds, etc...

Old Grafton has it - the impeller kicked it around a few times and spit it out on the floor after the bang. That's how I saw what the remains of the cartridge looked like - I didn't dig through the bag to find it.

[rightisright]

Nice pic, mud_dog.

I'm thinking that firemen wouldn't want to be anywhere near that kind of a cook-off.

[FelixEstrella]

Nice pic, mud_dog.

No it isn't! That's scary fuckin' shit!!! [Thanks for posting, though, Mud Dog]

[Windy Wilson]

Even if the cook-off only hurled the case around, I think that would have enough force to do damage or injury. I did some experiments in my Weber last summer with primed cases only, and they were hurled about with enough force to dent the sheet metal. Add powder and I think we're talking real force here.

[Combat Controller]

How did you explain it to the wife?!

LOL I think I want to do that for the hell of it. Some call it reckless, I call it... Art.