[Grassman]

I was watching Mythbusters tonight and they were testing to see if a bullet from a campfire was lethal. They first tried them in an oven, then in a campfire. They put every caliber from .22 to 50 cal. They concluded that it was NOT lethal, but you still wouldn't want to do it. They found out that the case was the most dangerous part and not the bullet. The case flew out very quick, as the bullet just kinda sat there. How many of you have thrown bullets in a fire when you were young or a teenager? Of course I never did......

[nekwah]

When he was a kid my moronic cousin stuck one in a fencepost and hit it with a hammer. Case almost hit him.

[Lonestar.45]

I wouldn't recommend it. When my aunt was a little girl, some kids threw a .22 bullet into a campfire. The bullet got hot and exploded, sending the bullet through my aunt's mouth. It went in one check, through her mouth, missed her teeth, and came out the other cheek. She still has the scares some 60 years later. She was very very lucky. I'm sure it would have been lethal if it had hit her in the temple or in her ear or something.

Her brother, my uncle, pissed on a sparkplug on a running lawnmower on a dare when he was a kid. That is another story entirely, and I don't think I'd recommend that either. Guess when you were a poor kid growing up in the oil field in West Texas back in the '50's there wasn't much to do for entertainment. :confused:

[Shytheed Dumas]

When I was a kid I cut a shotgun shell open, drained the powder out, and hit the primer with a hammer and nail on my dad's work bench. It hurt like hell, and 25 years later I have yet to be tempted to do anything that stupid again. The energy in a primer is amazing, and I don't have any interest in messing with a fully loaded cartridge.

[jcwit]

Once again the laws of physics are broken. But then again I wasn't there.

[CoRoMo]

I saw that show too.

I never recommend acting foolish.

[THe Dove]

I never thru a hot round in the fire but I threw what was left of a can of pork-nbeans in the coals one night. One time only!!

The Dove

[moooose102]

no, i always thought it was a dangerous and really dumb thing to do. after all, how many hospitals are next door to your campsite? on the outside chance someone should get hurt, you might be HOURS away from medical help. it isnt that important to me to find out for certain what will happen.

[brentn]

I used to throw in .22's the CB long's from CCI in the fire all the time. It's about as loud as a firecracker, does a pretty good job at scaring the crap out of people.
I have thrown probably over 100 of those little guys in the fire over time and I have never had a piece of shrapnel, or a bullet for that matter hit me ever.
I have no idea how one could go through one cheek and out the other unless the cartridge and bullet was in some kind of chamber to direct the pressures..

One thing I don't think I have the balls to do is throw in anything larger, like a 9mm or 45 or .223 etc.
I think if you used steel cartridges you could be in for some trouble, did they test those on mythbusters?

[Grassman]

They only used brass, no mention of steel cases. The 50 cal. was pretty interesting.

[DeathByCactus]

Artillery shells, fireworks, etc... no ammo. That is tarded, I don't care if it isn't lethal. With my luck it will go off and blind someone then I am screwed legally.

[Golden Hound]

"No throwing ammunition into campfires" is actually one of the official rules in the Hells Angels charter.

[MD_Willington]

only primed brass.. pop.. pop, nothing else...

[halfbreed808]

How many of you have thrown bullets in a fire when you were young or a teenager?



Hmmmm? Seems like a good experiment to test artificial STUPITY.:neener::evil:

[geronimo509]

spray paint cans when i was a teenager. they were really loud! and we saw a deer come running out and hop a 5 ft set of bushes. I didnt even think there were deer in those woods. it was a pretty small wooded area. needless to say but i grew up a lot since i was 14

[GlowinPontiac]

I've done it with some primed hulls that were damaged. Not much more than some pops. Now a small Coleman propane cylinder on the other hand will shoot an enormous jet of flame and do a decent imitation of a surface to air missle as it leaves the campfire.:evil:

[P90shooter]

All I can think to say is; just about everyone has one in there family that surprises us every day that they can still breathe on their own. With that said I would almost bet money that my little brother has done something like this.

[fatelk]

Two stories:

A friend's teenage son threw some .22 rounds into a campfire, then something cut his ear when they went off. The cut was cleaned and bandaged, but for days and days it wouldn't heal. Then one day as the family was eating breakfast, my friend saw a glint of something, reached over and pulled a sliver of brass out of his son's ear lobe.:what: The cut then healed up just fine.

Long ago, another friend brought some noodle soup when we were camping, and had the bright idea of heating it up in the hot coals of the campfire, without opening the can first.:banghead: It sounded like a shotgun blast when it exploded, and noodles were hanging from the trees!

[laguna0seca]

When i was a kid in scouts (which is probably the most dangerous place for a young kid) we would throw everything that had the potential to be flammable into fires. The worst was several rocket engines..... left a good size dent in a scout leaders truck. Not that I ever encouraged such behavior......

[tpaw]

Ever thrown a bullet in a campfire?

No, and I never will..............

[S&Wfan]

Yeah, I'd much rather toss a loaded cartridge into a campfire . . . than piss on a sparkplug of a running engine.

I know a guy who pulled that trick on a 10 year old years ago. He'd pulled the plug wire off the side of his Honda 350 motorcycle ahead of time . . . then offered the kid, who was raking leaves to earn money, $5 if the kid would help him get his motorcycle to start by pissing on the engine as he cranked it.

When he told me the story, he started laughing. Said that stupid little kid was crying and rolling on the ground . . . holding his Johnson.

25,000 volts from the coil wire . . . at such low amperage won't kill ya . . . but I suspect it doesn't feel very good when it seeks a ground by traveling up a stream of piss . . . and out the base of one's tennis shoes!

OUCH!:eek:

[twoclones]

How many of you have thrown bullets in a fire when you were young or a teenager?

No bullets. But as a kid I was told [warned actually] that throwing batteries into a fire would cause an explosion. I've been trying to make flashlight batteries explode ever since :) No luck...

[ar10]

I never tried that, my old man was not the nicest person to be around when I pulled stupid tricks.
(I did get in just a little trouble when I was 15 though. During Christmas break I had to help the ranch hands clean the cow crap out of the shelter sheds. These things had at least a foot of frozen cow crap over a saw chip bedding. We had use a pick to break it up . I got the brilliant idea of using the 1/4" sticks of dynamite with a 2min slo-blow fuse and detonator to break up the cow cow crap. (the dynamite was used for blowing fence post holes) It worked fine for about 2' dia. it shot a 2' hole right through the shed roof. That really pissed off my dad.) :o

[jcwit]

Hey AR10 that was a good one. Never had the cow sheds but helped clean out chicken houses, that ain't good either. lol lol

[John828]

What a wonderful thread! It is Saturday night afterall.

I've done it with some primed hulls that were damaged. Not much more than some pops. Now a small Coleman propane cylinder on the other hand will shoot an enormous jet of flame and do a decent imitation of a surface to air missle as it leaves the campfire.

Yes, most aerosol propellants will shoot high in the sky (fifteen/twenty feet,) but the key is to make sure they are bottoms up; otherwise, if they are pointed towards anyone, they could inflict serious harm.

When i was a kid in scouts (which is probably the most dangerous place for a young kid) we would throw everything that had the potential to be flammable into fires.

Boys need to be boys. Some get hurt, hopefully most survive. I believe that it is still an important rite of passage to do some dumb things. We won't always be there to protect them.

All I can think to say is; just about everyone has one in there family that surprises us every day that they can still breathe on their own.

In my family, that is me.

A cartridge cooking off is pretty harmless unless, and there are so many possibilities that the unless is key, unless it happens to have a immovable surface behind it, e.g., rock or heavy backlog. In that case, the rock might act like a bolt face and the boolit could actually make some distance.

Newton's Law of "For every action, there is an equal an opposite reaction" applies here, that's why I can see why the case may actually pose more of a risk than the boolit since the boolit may weigh more than the brass in some situations and send the brass backwards.

Anyway, with the cost of ammo nowadays, why throw it in the fire?

[amd6547]

Yes, I have. On a backpack trip 20 years ago, my friend and I amused ourselves one evening tossing 22's into our campfire from behind nearby trees. There would be a low pop. some sparks, and I don't know about shrapnel, we were behind trees!
It was "safe", as we were alone miles from anyone.

[1.S.1.K]

Never live ammo but spending as mutch time on farms as I have. IV bin around many bon fires and where there's fiRe there's a" hay what yall think will happen if I chuck this in there" . Soon to b followed by the Loss of some eyebrows , smokeless powder bad . Glad I am a lil more grown up now

[Grassman]

We use to go camping just about every weekend in high school. Five buddies, a case of beer and a campfire at midnight......you think some stuff wasn't thrown in the fire? IT WAS GREAT!!!!!

[wep45]

sounds like alot of fun:rolleyes:

[1.S.1.K]

Repeat post my bad off to the yard to light a fire who's got ammo to burn

[Maxx409]

+1 on the paint can. They sound like grenades and I was scared to death of the rattle ball! :what:

Wouldn't think of throwing a bullet in the fire. As a kid, I did happen to hit a .22 cartridge with a brick on a dare. My ears still ring when the weather gets cold.:scrutiny: That I can write this story is indesputable Proof that Guardian Angels do exist! Guess I'm that retarded brother mentioned above.:o

[WTBguns10kOK]

no, but judging by the way this guy lights his fires, i bet he has

http://www.break.com/index/fire-in-the-hole.html

[solareclipse]

no but ive always wanted to

[Dirty Dawg]

Never tried ammo but I did throw a damaged magnesium sidecase from a Penton 400 into a fire once. It took forever to ignite, but when it did it pretty much ruined the fire. It was so bright, we had to turn our backs to the fire for the longest time. The upside was we could wander a good long ways from the fire without a flashlight.

Then there was the time some buddies fired bottle rockets at a friend who was relieving himself in the woods. But that's another story...

[rondog]

No, but I know a guy that thought it would be a good idea to rake up all the dog poop in the backyard into a big pile, and then toss some kerosene on it and burn it. NOT such a good idea.

[ChemicalArts]

I'm so glad that the general consensus is that this is a really bad idea. The Mythbusters said it was not a good idea, but not lethal. I would say that anything that start's with "let take these bullets and try..." has the potential to be lethal.

Stupidity always has the potential to be lethal.

[gdcpony]

Been there done that. Tried to set off centerfire rounds with .22's too from 100yds. Only succeeded once and couldn't figure whether the round went off or the explosion was from the impact.

[TxState101]

I was out by the campfire enjoying a tasty beverage once when somebody decided to throw a can of bug spray in.

Curled up in a ball when I heard the hissing and then there was a loud pop and a larger fire than before with some holes in the tent about ten yards away.

[BenReal]

No.

And if I was around anyone that stupid,I would leave.

[qajaq59]

I've always wondered what would happen if you tossed a coconut, still in the casing, into a fire. Never had the nerve to try it though, since it's filled with liquid, I figured it would turn into steam and go off like a super popcorn kernal with shrapnel. If anyone tries it and lives let me know how it went. :neener:

Just kidding. Don't try it............

[expvideo]

It was really irresponsible of them to air that show.

[76shuvlinoff]

uh....
I used to pull the slugs from 22 cartridges set them pointed upward and light em like a roman candle. When it got the the primer it made a pretty good pop, kinda smoked up my bedroom too. That and various other adventures led me to tossing a Campbell soup can full of gas on a trash fire in 1971 ..and an immediate 6 week stay in the hospital complete with skin grafts. I was 11 then and I don't just "toss" stuff in fires anymore, it was kind of a buzz kill.

[Sato Ord]

When I was younger and lived in the country I used to throw my miss fires in the fire. Just .22s, nothing big, though I still have a scar on my finger from setting off a large rifle primer up close.

I threw a can of WD40 into a fire in a 55 gal drum on the job one time. Everyone scattered and waited for the explosion. Don't you know the boss would drive up and get out of his car just as the WD40 sent a fire ball forty feet into the air. He was a Viet Nam vet. I didn't know a 5'9" two hundred and sixty pound man could fit under a Plymouth Reliant K-car.:what:

[JohnBT]

I honestly don't remember if we threw ammo in a fire or not, it's been 40 or 50 years since our folks would drop us off at the base of the mountain for a weekend or so of camping and general foolishness. Look out, 10-year-olds with guns and no supervision.

I would guess we did it at some point with a .22 or a shotgun shell, but ammo was expensive and we had spent the rest of our money on good stuff - cherry bombs, m-80s and strings of firecrackers.

Blasting tin cans into the air with cherry bombs and shooting them with .22s is fun. Remember, we had a mountain for a backstop.

No wonder my ears ring. No, we didn't know about ear and eye protection back then.

John

[John828]

It's the "general foolishness" that I miss. Too many safety warnings and unengaged dads in this country. Let a darn boy be a boy. Set him loose at dawn and hose him off and bandage him before supper.

One of my favorite quotes is from C.S. Lewis, "We castrate and then bid the geldings to be fruitful."

[MikeJackmin]

If you have a pair of pliers handy, it's easy to pull the slug off a .22 rimfire round - hold the slug (NOT the case!) in the pliers, and just bend the case over with your thumb.

Place the powder-filled case on a flat surface and light the powder (a burning toothpick is perfect for this). You'll get a nice jet of flame for about a second, a loud pop, and the hot casing will go flying off to god knows where.

Centerfire rounds are more dangerous to play with. I've seen primers ejected with great force, and the brass necks can shatter, throwing hot metal fragments everywhere, just the sort of thing that can make a mess of your eyes.

Plastic cigarette lighters will liven a campfire, though... :)

[leathermanwave]

When I was a kid I cut a shotgun shell open, drained the powder out, and hit the primer with a hammer and nail on my dad's work bench.

I did the exact same thing. Wow, a 209 primer has some serious power. My ears rung for a week. I had already hammered on a .22 primer and it wasn't very loud so I figured all primers are about the same so I grabbed a 12 ga shell, stupid me. I will never try that again.

[Gaffer]

A long time ago, perhaps 5-6 years, I saw a report by Underwriters Labs regarding fire and ammo. They burned a case of ammo in a fire with the perimeter screened in to prevent escaping fragments. They to found that only the brass fragments had any velocity and determined that ammo itself would not be dangerous to firefighters who were in their protective clothing. I have since been unable to find that study and UL denies having it.

[Lightninstrike]

Never thrown ammo, but I do remember a scout outing where we were trying to see how high a can of hair pray would fly if we could get it to explode. Problem was the bottoms didn't always blow.....

[Lightninstrike]

fire in the hole
no, but judging by the way this guy lights his fires, i bet he has

There's a thin line between red ass and dumb ass. I think that guy crossed it.....:what:

[John828]

lightninstrike,

The key is fire preparation and proper can placement. I have done it many times successfully--at least enough to consider myself no mere amateur of the art.

You need a proper "missile tower." It can be constructed on a nice bed of coals using three decently sized backlogs placed in a triangle. They need to be placed so that the middle of the triangle is approximately half again as big as the diameter of the can. Now you got yourself a proper missile tower. You can be assured (for the most part) that your missile will not fly at any angle less than 70-80 degrees and if there is just an explosion, most of the shrapnel will fly upwards or be blocked by the sides of the backlogs. BUT, it never hurts to watch from under a camper shell bunker.

[Lightninstrike]

John

ROFLMAO :D:D:D:D

[svtruth]

but read (here maybe) about a guy who put a 12ga shell in an appropriate sized knot hole and then shot at it with a pellet gun. After many shots, he hiot the primer and the hull hit him painfully hard.

[ZeBool]

I can't say I've ever intentionally thrown rounds into the fire, but it has happened. I was helping my buddy clean out his Grandmother's attic, when we found a box of stuff that she told us to just burn. Little did we know that there was at least one box of .22 rounds hiding in there. Nothing happened, but it got mighty exciting for a second or two standing beside that fire! Now, on the other hand, we probably blow up anywhere from 75-100 two pound coleman propane cans each summer, with the grand finale being a 20 lb grill tank at the end of summer. THAT'S a good time lol

[Carl N. Brown]

A coupla years ago I got a good bed of hot coals going in a 55 gallon drum and tossed in junk ammo (and moved to a safe distance). While there were some interesting fireworks, nothing penetrated the side of the drum, although a few casings exited the top and fell down.

I embedded some 12ga black powder blanks in a clay bank with the primers exposed and shot at the primers with a .22: when I got a solid hit they would go off. The cases didn't go far.

Years ago, when I was younger and dumber, I held a .22 in a candle flame by pliers: the bullet popped off but the case flew across the room.

All in all, I would say don't try this at home.

[theotherwaldo]

No, but I have been present when we were burning the trash at the firing range and some idiot had tossed some misfires in the trash. Annoying, but not very dangerous.

Also, I went down to a surplus store after a fire. There was brass shrapnel all over the place, some of which had flown far enough to break windows across the street. I didn't see any bullets in the road, just brass.

[mgkdrgn]

Nope.

Never jabbed a sharp stick in my eye either.

[Mike J]

Ya'all made me think about a kid I grew up with. He was always the kinda crazy mean one. Anyway we found a bunch of loads for a Ramset or Hilti type powder acuated tool. He proceeded to run up & down the street setting them off by hitting them with a chunk of concrete block. Think he was having a great time till a piece of that block blew off & grazed his forehead.

[Duelist]

Nope, but I have tossed in Bic lighters, bottle rockets, cans of beer etc.

[mike724]

"no, but judging by the way this guy lights his fires, i bet he has"
I figured there would be some beer in that video!

On a hunting trip once, I always put my snack wrapper trash in my pocket, then emptied it all into the wood burnining stove back at the cabin in the evening. One evening, something happened to break my unloading routine, and i stuck 5 rifle rounds in the trash pocket. Yup, they wound up in the hot stove. I cleared the cabin, and wore glasses while I shoveled out the fire. Not long after, the smoke had cleared, and the cabin had rewarmed. I can't go back to that camp, even 11 years later, without hearing jokes about "hot loads".

[saltydog452]

Yessir, I have.

Learned it from Gene Autry hisself.

Seems Gene needed to distract the bad guys, so he tosses some ammo into their campfire, (or down the chimney/stovepipe of the cabin, depending on which version was showing that Saturday morning), the black hats get all distracted and Gene rushes in and whups them all.

I got whupped as well.

More recently, I learned that chert/flint does not play nice in a fire either.

salty

[Marcus5aurelius]

My troop had stories from a long time ago where some scouts thought it would be a fun idea to make a game of, throw a propane tank into the fire and fish it out before it explodes. After a few rounds it fell into a part of the fire where they couldn't fish it out from, so they ran for their lives and when it exploded they found shrapnel stuck in a few trees. Good times.

[paul]

Yep...
I'm an anti's wet dream...

Thousands of fires and thousands of rounds with nary a scratch (so far)...
The Ol' Lady wasn't too pleased with the condition of her chiminea (sp?)
following a coupla .308's though...
:neener:
But then again, I'm stupid and have no friends.
p

[Friendly, Don't Fire!]

No, I haven't.

[woodybrighton]

years ago my brother took a clip of .303 off a cadet who had stolen it from the range best way to dispose of it chucked it on fire :eek:
brief pause as everybody realised what he'd done then legged it for the horizon in all directions sounds of rounds cooking off dumb and potentialy dangerous anyone for russian hopscotch?

[Lightninstrike]

Russian hopscotch??? LOL

[rcmodel]

See this link for info on what happens:

http://www.thehighroad.org/showpost.php?p=4735515&postcount=20

It's not the bullets you have to worry about.
It's center-fire primers, and .22 RF & handgun cases, with occasional pistol round case shrapnel.

rc

[CWL]

When I was 6 and living in Washington State, our house had an exposed furnace with a front gate. I remember throwing a bunch of .22lrs into it one night and hearing them cook-off with enough force to hit the furnace walls like a hammer blow. Wouldn't want to be hit by the flying brass.

Yeah, I was a stupid kid.

[Lightninstrike]

Nope, but I have tossed in Bic lighters, bottle rockets, cans of beer etc.

Sacrilege !!

[Klusterbuck]

Shytheed Dumas



Todd???? That You?

[damien]

Her brother, my uncle, pissed on a sparkplug on a running lawnmower on a dare when he was a kid. That is another story entirely, and I don't think I'd recommend that either. Guess when you were a poor kid growing up in the oil field in West Texas back in the '50's there wasn't much to do for entertainment

I accidentally touched the sparkplug on a mower once that was running. It gives a pretty good shock and burnt my finger due to it being very, very, hot, but I don't expect it could be lethal. (I'm still here, just sayin...)

[CoRoMo]

Many years ago, a couple young boys in my neighborhood took to shooting at .22lr cartridges with their BB guns. The bullets seem to be harmless without the benefit of a chamber, but the cases were violent. A case hit me in the knee and it scared me, but I was okay. Little boys shouldn't be doing such things, therefore I cannot confirm nor deny my involvement.:scrutiny:

[Justin]

While this action isn't demonstrably harmful, I do believe that it is in contradiction of THR's mission of advancing safe and responsible firearms use.