MutinousDoug said,
When a cylindrical projectile is turned into a platter shaped projectile in a very short moment of time, a lot of heat is generated. In dim light, that occurrence can be seen as a pink sort of glow.
Breaking granite can produce sparks.
So, Yeah. Possible.
True.
You hit
anything with
anything else and heat will be produced.
Sometimes enough heat that enough light is produced to see it.
If the "anything" that contacts the other "anything else" is at high enough velocity, you will definitely see light, regardless of the materials.
Examples:
Copper hitting ice producing light:
The impact (especially see the movies):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Impact_(spacecraft)#Impact_phase
Backstory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Impact_(spacecraft)
Another (impactor probably rock/ice hitting rocky surface):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqrJ4cW6Z4c
In the atmosphere, it's also possible for the ejecta to be hot enough to ignite, producing light.
But if you smack even a lead target with a lead projectile at a high enough velocity, you
will see a flash.
So the perennial question of "do bullets create sparks?" is in general only answerable in terms of the tensile strengths of the materials involved and the relative velocities, but with the complicating factor of whether the resultant impact particles can burn in air, like steel can.
(Another complication is in terms of the relative masses of the two objects --in other words, hitting a grain of sand with a .22LR bullet is unlikely to produce light, whereas hitting concrete with a .220 Swift will probably produce a light flash.)
There's a lot of flint rocks on the National Grasslands, and I used to enjoy shooting at them near dusk with a "mere" .357 to see the occasional flashes.
So the "BS" flashes that you see in the movies are not impossible, merely unlikely. But they can happen.
What's improbable is that they seem to happen with
every shot.
Terry, 230RN
