When bullet meets bullet

[Aguila Blanca]

The video channel Smarter Every Day decided to see if they could make it happen. They did:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcQVrD7RnNI

The couldn't get the two bullets to just fuse together without self-destructing, though. My guess is that it's because they weren't using pure lead for the bullets.

In any case, it's a very cool video.

[DaleA]

Cool stuff. Thanks for posting.

That said, I felt the need to check with my friend Gunspurt to see if he was involved...their safety elements had a faint whiff of his 'expertise' but no, he was in no way shape or form involved.

Just picking nits here, I'm glad they did it, I watched it, I was impressed, the results were amazing but for all the elaborate safety precautions these guys took they still said they had bullet fragments 'whizzing by them' and the main guy, IMhO, with all his talk about safety, he should have been wearing safety glasses each and every shot right from the beginning.

But watch it, enjoy it, my $.02 shouldn't keep anyone from giving these guys credit for doing something pretty incredible.

[ballardw]

In addition to the alloy of the bullet I think that construction, Minie ball vs what appeared to be a modern bullet design could have significant, dare I say impact, on the way the metal behaves. I could also believe that barrel twist might have an effect as well. A faster twist imparting more spin would, I think, tend to want to fragment radially more.

Didn't watch the whole video for a number of reasons so if that was addressed somewhere in the plan I wouldn't know.

[Jim Watson]

This one crops up every now and then:

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qim...0ca9bb018cb8f8

[rickyrick]

Although I skipped through lots of the video, I’m impressed with the effort and attention to detail.
Very interesting

[44 AMP]

watched it through the first several bullet strikes, intesting stuff, but I think missing some vital points attempting to recreate the Civil War bullet strike fusion.

One of the things I didn't see taken into account, is the speed which those two Civil War bullets were actually moving when they struck each other. We have, of course, no way of knowing, or finding out, but I think there are few assumptions we can safely make.

First one being, it didn't happen at point blank range. So I think its safe to assume that those bullets were not moving at their top speeds when they hit. Its not impossible to consider that that freak Civil war strike might have happened after each bullet traveled some distance, possibly even a few hundred yards.

Admittedly I only watched for about 14 minutes and not the entire thing, so I may have missed something later on will watch the entire thing when I have more time for that.

What I think would be needed to recreate the Civil War bullets is FIRST determine what speed each one needs to move at in order to fuse, and not shatter. THEN once that is known, you work on a mechanism to ensure they meet, "head on".

I used to enjoy watching Mythbusters, but eventually got fed up with them "busting myths" using tests that did not take all factors into account, and especially when they decided a myth was "busted" simply because THEY could not do it with the test they devised.

One in particular that bugged me was they "busted" the "myth" of a sniper shooting another sniper through his scope. They couldn't manage to do it, despite it being a documented fact it has happened.

[ernie8]

In a local swat team attack on a house here a few years back they came in from several directions with full auto 9mm's . Besides blue on blue hits there were 2 9mm's fused together from a front to front hit . They did repeat the scope shooting test with the correct type scope and it did work then .

[Kreyzhorse]

Great video. My thought was the bullet and the velocity.

[Sevens]

Neat video. When they were discussing using shorter cases to keep the powder from affecting the performance, my thought was "use a different powder." Later in the video there is just a very quick flash of them handloading the round and you actually get to see the powder they used... definitely looks like Trail Boss to me.

Trail Boss does what is needed -- it eats up more space without raising pressure/velocity.

Neat video.

[Scorch]

My first thought when I say the bullets shatter was the alloy used and velocity. Most likely, the Civil War bullets were pure lead, and they came to the same conclusion pretty quickly. Pretty cool stuff!!