Normal gun underwater.

[unbiased]

Most of you must have seen that scene from 'the good, the bad and the ugly', where the ugly one fires from inside the tub while uttering the famous " if you are gonna shoot, shoot, don't talk".

My take is that an ordinary gun , be it a pistol, rifle or shotgun, will not work underwater, because of the drag and the mass of the water in the barrel. Instead it would blow up the cartrigde chamber of the gun because the pressure will not be released fast enough.

Any comments?

 

[Heisenberg]

Glock 17's can be fired underwater with special spring cups and the right ammunition, so it is possible. However, I wouldn't try it unless the weapon is designed for it, as it very well may cause bad things to happen.

 

[Calin]

Now that gun wasn't fired from underwater, but from inside that bubbly soapy thingy that float over water. Shooting a gun from such soap foam is nothing different (from a ballistic point of view) than shooting it from water.

 

[IronWing]

Originally posted by: Calin
Now that gun wasn't fired from underwater, but from inside that bubbly soapy thingy that float over water. Shooting a gun from such soap foam is nothing different (from a ballistic point of view) than shooting it from water.

At least he got a clean shot.

 

[Juice Box]

Originally posted by: ironwing

Originally posted by: Calin
Now that gun wasn't fired from underwater, but from inside that bubbly soapy thingy that float over water. Shooting a gun from such soap foam is nothing different (from a ballistic point of view) than shooting it from water.

At least he got a clean shot.

*groan*

 

[tommywishbone]

I'll start by saying that the shooter in this case was named Tuco. He was my favorite. Sure he was the "ugly" but I kind of liked him. It takes a lot of backbone to get shot with a cannon (the scene where he found the graveyard) and to just get up and keep running.

Anywho.... I have shot many guns completely submerged in water. A Reminton 870 12 gauge shotgun, a .32 Baretta and a old Brand-X rusty .38. They all discharged/fired just fine. The problem occurs after the bullet leaves the muzzle. After leaving the confines of the barrel the water causes an immediate change in the bullets trajectory and it is almost impossible to hit anything. In the case of the bubble bath scene, I think distance the tip of the barrel was held from the surface of the water may have helped Tuco hit his man. Even if Tuco had missed, he still had 5 more shots to try. I'm glad Tuco got half of the money. The end.

 

[LeatherNeck]

It would not blow up the round inside the chamber but you are right about bullets and water generally. There is a lot of drag on bullets underwater and they slow bullets down very quickly. I have read that bullets (depending on the caliber) will only travel a few feet underwater before slowing dramatically. The movies were people are swimming underwater and the bullets are whizzing by them (like in The Italian Job) are fake.

 

[Farmer]

I'm not expert on the matter, but I would guess it would be quite difficult, considering the pressure the both the barrel and the chamber would have to endure underwater, like you said. Like Heisenberg said, the Glock 17 (and all fullsize Glocks, I would assume) can be fired underwater, though I'm sure the manual advises against it.

Hecklor and Koch (HK) does have an underwater pistol model, designed to be fired underwater, the P-11. I think, which is electrically powered, AFAIK.

 

[jspeicher]

Originally posted by: LeatherNeck
It would not blow up the round inside the chamber but you are right about bullets and water generally. There is a lot of drag on bullets underwater and they slow bullets down very quickly. I have read that bullets (depending on the caliber) will only travel a few feet underwater before slowing dramatically. The movies were people are swimming underwater and the bullets are whizzing by them (like in The Italian Job) are fake.

This is correct. They tested several guns/calibers in a pool and all were considered non-lethal after only foot or two after hitting the water. Most bullets shattered on contact. Even a 50-cal was non lethal after a few feet of water.

 

[Farmer]

jspeicher:

I guess you would have to try a solid-steel bullet.

 

[Atheus]

I was under the impression explosives reqired oxygen to burn, just like everything else... or is it some reaction completely seperate from normal combustion?

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: Atheus
I was under the impression explosives reqired oxygen to burn, just like everything else... or is it some reaction completely seperate from normal combustion?

Apparently, the propellant contains enough oxygen required for the combustion.

 

[canadageek]

the russians actually designed an underwater rifle during the cold war, ass well as a perfectly silent pistol...i'll look up the links

 

[canadageek]

http://world.guns.ru/assault/as69-e.htm <---underwater assault rifle
http://world.guns.ru/handguns/hg157-e.htm <-----Silent gun

 

[gbuskirk]

Mythbusters did an experiment on the safety of an individual a few feet underwater from a gun shot into the water from above at an oblique angle. In all cases the bullet disintegrated within a foot or two of entering the water. This is probably due to entering the water at high velocity. Would a regular round fired underwater stay intact? Are there rounds designed for firing underwater? What happens to a round that transitions from water to air? Any SEALs out there?

 

[Snooper]

Originally posted by: Howard
Apparently, the propellant contains enough oxygen required for the combustion.

Almost by definition, gun powder has everything it needs to combust. External O2 is NOT required.

Just for something to think about, exactly WHERE would that outside O2 come from when the round is fired in the air? The bullet is tightly plugging the nose of the cartridge and the primer is sealing the base of it. When it is set off, the internal pressure QUICKLY rises so high that even after the bullet has been pushed out of the cartridge, there is no way in Hades that any external O2 is going to make it's way in and contribute to the combustion.

 

[dkozloski]

Ballistics technicians use a length of large pipe full of water, closed at one end, and sitting at a downward angle to catch bullets from a weapon under test. The weapon is fired into the open end of the pipe. A screen like a french fry basket is kept at the bottom for retrieval. The projectiles are retrieved totally undamaged and unmarked ready for matching the striations. A cleaning patch left in the barrel of a high powered rifle will split the barrel from muzzle to breach. A lining of heavy grease will do the same. Under ordinary circumstances gun powder burns progressively and smoothly in a controlled manner to propel the bullet out the end of the barrel. Any increased resistance causes the pressure to increase to the point where the remaining powder in the cartridge will detonate. The pressures can spike from a normal 20,000 to 60,000 PSI to well over 100,000PSI with the resulting assured destruction of the firearm. If you want to fire a rifle under water you put a little vaseline on the cartridge case to keep water from leaking into the barrel from the breach end. Don't get any down the barrel. Put tape over the muzzle to keep water out of that end and you are good to go. With a revolver you're faced with sealing the cylinder to barrel joint. Even a low powered, rimfire weapon like a .22 will bulge the barrel if there is water in it. Multiple firings will make it look like a snake swallowing eggs. An inch of mud in a shotgun barrel will make the muzzle split and curl back like a three stooges movie.

An interesting exception to the above was the model 50 Winchester shotgun which had a barrel made of thin stainless steel reinforced with wound fiberglass filaments and resin. The barrel could be packed with wet newspaper and then fired undamaged. The extreme pressure would creat a pinhole in the barrel that would relieve the pressure below that which caused detonation. The hole would plug with a bit of wadding on a subsequent shot and the weapon was as good as new.

 

[kristersaurus]

^winner.

 

[Velk]

Originally posted by: jspeicher

Originally posted by: LeatherNeck
It would not blow up the round inside the chamber but you are right about bullets and water generally. There is a lot of drag on bullets underwater and they slow bullets down very quickly. I have read that bullets (depending on the caliber) will only travel a few feet underwater before slowing dramatically. The movies were people are swimming underwater and the bullets are whizzing by them (like in The Italian Job) are fake.

This is correct. They tested several guns/calibers in a pool and all were considered non-lethal after only foot or two after hitting the water. Most bullets shattered on contact. Even a 50-cal was non lethal after a few feet of water.

Who is "they" in this case ? Sounds like an interesting experiment - are the results available on the web anywhere ?

 

[EightySix Four]

Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel

 

[Vegitto]

Originally posted by: gbuskirk
Mythbusters did an experiment on the safety of an individual a few feet underwater from a gun shot into the water from above at an oblique angle. In all cases the bullet disintegrated within a foot or two of entering the water. This is probably due to entering the water at high velocity. Would a regular round fired underwater stay intact? Are there rounds designed for firing underwater? What happens to a round that transitions from water to air? Any SEALs out there?

There are rounds designed for firing under water. The bullets disintegrate on the water because at such a high velocity, water is just as hard as armed concrete. Bullets can pierce it, for an inch or two, and then they go *poof*.

 

[KalTorak]

You guys must've all come in at the end of that episode of Mythbusters...

Supersonic rounds disintegrated within a foot or two of the surface. Subsonic rounds, as I recall, made it 5 or 10 feet.

 

[Jmmsbnd007]

Originally posted by: KalTorak
You guys must've all come in at the end of that episode of Mythbusters...

Supersonic rounds disintegrated within a foot or two of the surface. Subsonic rounds, as I recall, made it 5 or 10 feet.

The 9mm and the shotgun slug are both supersonic. It has nothing to do with surface tension; rather, bullet design. The 5.56 is designed to fragment after a little penetration, and evidently the 7.62 and the .50BMG did the same. The shotgun slug, would have it been fired in the pool, would have made it to the bottom minimum.

 

[dkozloski]

The water trap I described earlier works fine for projectiles at handgun velocities. High velocity rifle projectiles are fired into cotton wadding, wet newspaper, or plastic pellets.