Guns & Ammo TV Show

[Sevens]

Anyone catch one of these recent episodes? I click 'em up on TiVo, so I can't tell you when it aired... but it was likely within the last week. (I already deleted it)

Anyway, if you are familiar with the show, the last segment is always two guys in white coats that do different torture tests to modern, new firearms. Sometimes they put it through mud, drop it from a given height or drag it behind a truck... something different each time. They beat the hell or otherwise try to compromise firearms to see how well they hold up under pressure.

Well, in this episode, they did one just for us: They took a brand new Thompson/Center Encore rifle in .300 Win Mag (stainless steel) and built some bad handloads for it.

They basically filled the case with Bullseye powder. The guys doing the "test" said the case held around 76 grains of the original powder charge (they didn't say what powder that might be), but they had these rounds loaded with the same volume of Bullseye powder, resulting in a 51-grain charge of the "hot pistol powder."

Then they ran a string to the trigger after strapping the rifle in to a rest, and yanked it. It blew the barrel/chamber apart, sent it flying, released the case and sent it flying as well. Tore the side of the rifle half off, broke the rear of the forend off.

It was pretty scary. Quick flash, large chunks of flying metal and a torn up scrap of brass that really didn't even look like a cartridge case. And this was most likely a box-fresh, brand new rifle. It had no sights and no scope mounted on it.

Not a double-charge-- 51 grains of Bullseye in a rifle round that had a factory charge of 76 grains of powder.

They put a little cardboard cutout behind the rifle that's supposed to take damage as a "shooter", and they noted that because the parts went flying off the the side and up in the air, the cardboard rifleman was untouched.

Pretty graphic... offers a little more meat & potatoes beyond our typical "I heard of a guy at the range who..." Not that I don't appreciate these stories, but you could watch this one happen.

[Scorch]

I guess that is why there are no 300WM loads using Bullseye powder.

[Hunter0924]

I do watch that show but the "tests" if you can call it that seem to me as very unscientific at best.
So far I have not been close to impressed with that segment.

[Sevens]

I agree that there's not a whole lot of real-world testing in that segment. In that vein, I *think* they do it for the entertainment value. The last episode I caught, the put a S&W M&P pistol in to an empty cement mixer and tossed a few scoops of rocks, then a couple scoops of fine grit in there.

What does this teach us? Nothing. There's no real value there beyond entertainment. Whether it works or doesn't work after this "test" doesn't really help us much either way.

In fact, I don't get much out of the show beyond entertainment. You don't learn a whole lot about any of the arms in a short, 3-minute segment. You see a few large pieces of fruit explode, you hear them gloss over a new product, they rarely (if ever) give you the MRSP, then it's on to the next one. Beyond 22 minutes of light entertainment, there's not much to be expected out of one of these shows.

But I posted about the .300 Win Mag Encore because it's pretty relative to what we do in this forum -- put smokeless powder in to brass and shoot 'em. I thought this was a pretty good and graphic example of what might happen with an incredibly poor powder choice.

[snuffy]

Yeah only mildly interesting.

Last night they wanted to see what would happen if they fired a TC contender 45 colt/ .410 shotshell barrel with the shotshell choke left in while shooting a 45 colt shell. They used a machine rest to hold the pistol, then fired it behind a "barricade",(the barricade was a shooting window in an ipsc range), using a long string.

It fired without incident. The choke was undamaged, so was the pistol. The empty shell extracted easily, obviously no over pressure. I thought DUH, you don't think TC would think about that happening? They even said that AFTER the experiment was over.

[klcmschlesinger]

Don't be too hard on the show. I like watching because they talk about guns, talk about shooting, show me some new stuff and it is better than all the other reality crap that is on TV. It's not very informative, not very educational, mildly entertaining, but at least it is on a subject that matters to me. Every now and then I hear something that I didn't think of or maybe forgot and that is good enough for me.
My TIVO list: Guns and Ammo TV, Personal Defense TV, American Rifleman, Shooting Gallery, Cowboys.

All are about as informative as the last but still better than American Idiot, I mean Idol....

[Sevens]

Oh I agree-- and that's also why I TiVo it. I click 'em up, and they'll sit there... sometimes they'll sit there for three weeks before I'll watch one. I don't have to sit down in front of the TV at a certain day/time, I just click one on when I've got 20 minutes to kill and it's entertaining.

[Marlin.357]

For a minute there I thought they were going to do something useful this time.

Wrong! Just another worthless gun destruction. All of the "tests" I've seen them do were totally worthless. Just taking a brand new gun and finding some way of trashing it and calling it a test.

Canceled my subscription to G&A because of those "tests" Told them why too.

[rogn]

Hey take it a bit easy, youre not the only viewer out there. Some folks might just not be a s advanced gunowners as you. Some of this stuff might just impress someone not to do some of the things they might think about. Anyone on the forum do anything STOOOPID in days past? Id guess so. I have. I do find some of their testing informational, although I cringe at the destruction of some good arms. If one of these "tests helps prevent someones injuring themselves or another with a firearm, then Im all for 'em.

[snuffy]

Hey, we like to be armchair quarterbacks. If we weren't criticizing this show, we'd find something else to whine about! I just wish they'd say something about just why they do that. If that just plain don't give a damn about guns, then say so.

I feel the same way about the mythbusters. They've destroyed some guns on that show, makes me almost cry when they're doing that to an old was horse like a M-1 or old springfield.

Maybe it might stop someone from being stupid with a gun. But then again someone may get the idea to try that crap themselves!?¿

[Sevens]

Meh, I don't really see why the crying over the destruction of new guns. It's like crying over the destruction of trees for the production of paper.

It's not a classic, collectible, scarce firearm here... it's a new production chunk of steel and plastic, maybe a little wood if you are lucky. If some big publishing company drops 8 bills on one and melts it, why does it matter in the grand scheme?

Much like paper... paper producers farm trees specifically for the production of paper. If you want to see more trees-- use up more paper. They grow them to harvest them. Why should new guns be any different? XYZ corp limited buys a new Glickstone 26 cal. and crushes it under a backhoe. No worries... Glickstone will make eight thousand more of them. If you want to see a .26 cal Glickstone that isn't run over by a backhoe... buy one for yourself and rub it with a diaper.

Just don't see where the emotion comes from. This is entertainment... they aren't gathering up your grandaddy's Colt collection and dipping them in a vat of volcanic lava.