Can any gun fire underwater?

[Taipei Personality]

Further proof that their is nothing new under the sun: http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?threadid=73054

 

[RockyMtnTactical]

Basically, it's not something you want to do for fun, only if you have no other choice... plus, bullets aren't terribly effective in water either.

Also, I'm willing to bet that the use of JHP would be a very bad idea when doing that as well thinking it may expand in the barrel and destroy the firearm...

 

[Geronimo45]

"Just a drop of oil in your barrel is enough to cause damage when fired." You mind explaining how that could be?

 

[RockyMtnTactical]

Any obstruction in the barrel can cause serious damage to your firearm.

 

[Ivy Mike]

Rockymtntactical,
If any obstruction in the barrel can seriously damage a firearm, why can you shoot Glocks underwater without them blowing up?

(assuming FMJ ammo of course)

 

[nearthebeach]

underwater

Anybody remember the GYROJET handgun? Ballistic equivilent to .45 even underwater.

 

[50 Freak]

The question is:

Can you fire a Hollow Point under water or does it have to be FMJ?

 

[Geronimo45]

Assuming your gun won't blow up firing underwater, either... but hollow points begin to lose energy to expansion after leaving the muzzle.
Look at ballistic gelatin. FMJ goes further than hollow points - why? Hollow points expand upon hitting something. FMJ doesn't tend to expand much/at all. You lose energy when expanding... and it takes energy to keep going forwards (which is one reason hollow points are nice - reduces chances of overpenetration). You've got a constant drag on a constant shape. A shape that is mushrooming (expanding hollow point) has an increasing drag, and reduced speed accordingly, which leads to reduced distance of penetration in water/gelatin.

 

[Wes Janson]

I bought a video at a gun show a few months back titled Underwater Shooting. They rigged up a modest setup in a backyard pool somewhere out in California, and shot a couple Glocks, a 1911, several revolvers, and I think a couple other semi-autos. Net result was that everything fired at least once, some of the semis (especially the Glocks, IIRC) had trouble cycling consistently, and nothing was damaged. There were signs of overpressure in one of the Glock .40 S&Ws, I believe, but they were using hot JHP self-defence loads (Gold Dots, or something similar). I don't think hollowpoints are a good idea, but they definitely DID shoot them repeatedly without going kaboom.

Oh, yeah, and the 1911 performed pretty much flawlessly. Of course.

 

[Bwana John]

Sure, I got a couple of spearguns that work just fine

 

[RockyMtnTactical]

Rockymtntactical,
If any obstruction in the barrel can seriously damage a firearm, why can you shoot Glocks underwater without them blowing up?

(assuming FMJ ammo of course)

Good question, but the key word is "can".