50 cal incident-Kansas City / not good!

[71Commander]

It was a nightmare come true for first responders on Monday afternoon in Kansas City, Missouri. Firefighters responded to a fully involved house fire about 4pm. While they were pulling hose and getting ready to attack the fire, bullets started hitting the four pieces of apparatus, blowing out tires and punching big holes in the pumpers. Automatic weapons fire was coming through the smoke from across the street. The firefighters took cover but not before a 37-year old paramedic Mary Seymour, a 15-year veteran, took one in the chest and went down.

I call this BS. I repeat , BS. For the most part, unless a round is chambered, harnessing the energy, a cooked off round is harmless. It will just go PFFFFFT, splitting the case. If, and this is a big if a round was able to cause a projectile to move, it would just seperate, losing all its energy, and just lay there in 2 sections.

Something ain't right here.

 

[50 Shooter]

What issue of Readers Digest is this in? Is it on the news stand now?

 

[outofbattery]

And as far as the .50BMG being 'anti-tank'. I really wish that somebody would discredit that meme.

To be pedantic , that is the reason it was developed in the first place . Of course advances in armor quickly outstripped it of that role but none the less , it's why JMB designed it .

 

[unixguy]

What issue of Readers Digest is this in? Is it on the news stand now?

I would expect it to be on the news stands-- it came to my mailbox a couple of weeks back. It's the March 2005 issue, and the article is titled (not quite so imaginitively) "Shootout!" or something like that.

 

[M99M12]

Does anybody remember the tests Hatcher did? Cooking rounds off on a hot plate and/or a soldering iron?

 

[50 Shooter]

I found the copy of RD, it has a pic of JFK on the cover.

 

[VARifleman]

Bwana John, since "Work" (W) is the change in energy, in this case the change in Kinetic Energy, and since KE=0 initially, and KE[f]=KE+W -> KE[f]=W

 

[BluesBear]

Double Naught Spy accurately stated;
There is nothing magical about the .50.

Unfortunately, way too many people fall for lies and misrepresentations like this.

For many people, who don't always trust the drivel spewed forth from the glossy magazines, Readers Digest has managed to maintain it's dignity and reputation for honest journalism.

It's sad how the mighty have fallen.

 

[kidcoltoutlaw]

At or range they throw

Any left behind or misfired rounds into the fire barrel. Never has been a problem they don't even make a hole in the old barrels.

 

[AZ Jeff]

M99M12 posted: "Does anybody remember the tests Hatcher did? Cooking rounds off on a hot plate and/or a soldering iron?"

Back in the 1930's Major Hatcher ran two sets of experiments on the effects of rounds that "cooked off" outside a gun barrel.

His first set was done with small arms rounds placed on a hotplate, and heated until ignition.

The second set was done with electrically ignition of the primers with the cartridge contained inside a trousers pocket, and the pocket against a bar of soft soap to simulate flesh.

The results were less than spectacular. Most rounds did NOTHING but rupture the brass wall and emit gas. The one notable exception was .22 rimfire rounds, were the brass casing often disintegrated into short range shards of brass that would cut into flesh pretty well.

In general small arms rounds in a fire are not a significant hazard, as long as they are not inside the barrel of a gun when exposed to heat.

All of the details of Hatcher's experiments is in his book "Hatcher's Notebook", which is a fascinating read for any serious student of small arms.