JJFitch
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Interesting! I'm reading "The big Burn" right now about the (Political) events leading up to the 1910 fires that burned thousands of acres in the pan handle including the town of Wallace.
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Can a bullet start a fire?
- Thread starter Trey Veston
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Interesting! I'm reading "The big Burn" right now about the (Political) events leading up to the 1910 fires that burned thousands of acres in the pan handle including the town of Wallace.
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Father Goose
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I can't recall seeing a spark although I've shot thousands of steel-cored ammo at rocks when I used to plink at a closed rock quarry.
I did start a small brush fire once with a tracer round at said rock quarry. It was winter with snow on the ground but one started sure enough! My friend and I put it out even though it was in the rock quarry and there was snow on the ground (i.e. no chance of it becoming a problem).
I did start a small brush fire once with a tracer round at said rock quarry. It was winter with snow on the ground but one started sure enough! My friend and I put it out even though it was in the rock quarry and there was snow on the ground (i.e. no chance of it becoming a problem).
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Yes, given enough dry tinder, it's very possible.
watch impacts on steel with night vision. you'll see a spark every time. in fact, you can stand 500 yards away with a decent pvs14 and see the spark, no magnification or anything.
also, i haven't done the math, but i wonder how much of the fire danger is from the sort of flint-striker kind of spark, versus the actual temperature of the bullet itself as a) the burning gas heats it up, b) the friction as it obturates and slides down the barrel, and c) the pressure of the compression as it hits its target and deforms.
i wonder if you took the bullet right out of the barrel and just dropped it in dry grass, if it would start a fire
also, i haven't done the math, but i wonder how much of the fire danger is from the sort of flint-striker kind of spark, versus the actual temperature of the bullet itself as a) the burning gas heats it up, b) the friction as it obturates and slides down the barrel, and c) the pressure of the compression as it hits its target and deforms.
i wonder if you took the bullet right out of the barrel and just dropped it in dry grass, if it would start a fire
230RN
2A was "political" when it was first adopted.
Well, here's sort of a start on that, taliv. Internal Ballistics, Hatcher, Notebook, page 399:
Heat distribution of one round in a Browning Machine Rifle, Calories with a capital C, 1 Calorie = 3.085960 ft-lb
Cartridge case, 131.0
Kinetic energy of bullet, 885.3
Kinetic energy of gases, 569.1
Heat to barrel, 679.9
Heat in gases, 598.6
Total, 2864.0
Heat generated by friction, 212.0
(See that entire section 13 for more information.)
For what it's worth. I do know, as many of us do, that the ejected cases get hot enough to cause the "Case Down Your Shirt" Tarantella.
Terry, 230RN
Heat distribution of one round in a Browning Machine Rifle, Calories with a capital C, 1 Calorie = 3.085960 ft-lb
Cartridge case, 131.0
Kinetic energy of bullet, 885.3
Kinetic energy of gases, 569.1
Heat to barrel, 679.9
Heat in gases, 598.6
Total, 2864.0
Heat generated by friction, 212.0
(See that entire section 13 for more information.)
For what it's worth. I do know, as many of us do, that the ejected cases get hot enough to cause the "Case Down Your Shirt" Tarantella.
Terry, 230RN
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Basura Blanca
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Scroll back to post #27 and follow that link.
In the experiment, it wasn't sparks that ignited the test medium, it was the bullet fragments themselves heating up post-impact. They ruled out pieces of the steel deflector plate being the ignition source by the depth of bullet fragments and where ignition occurred in the dried material and by way of a control piece which was a slab of granite substituted for the steel. The high speed pics are pretty cool. Worth looking at.
1976B.L.Johns.
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