mythbusters episode last night ... shooting locks ... and full-auto through the floor

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this may have been a re-run, but last night on the discovery channel the m.b. guys were doing some very interesting tests on "movie-type" scenes.

the two gun-related myths being tested was shooting through padlocks/deadbolts and giving yourself an avenue of escape by shooting a circle through the floor around you with a full auto.

the lock tests were interesting.

9mm and .357's didn't do too much to padlocks and deadbolts. in fact, the locks kept their functionality after 3 rounds of each.

of course, they got blown to smithereens with 12 ga shotgun slugs and .30-06 rounds. lol.

was pleased to see professional and safe gun handling by all involved.

didn't stay awake long enough to see the full-auto circle through the floor ... anybody catch that part?
 
I've seen that episode before. As always they are entertaining. I believe they went through over a hundred rounds of 9mm without breaking through the floor.

David
 
260 9mm rounds. The only way it would work is if the floor joists were far enough apart that you could fall between them.
 
It was 360 rounds. Watched it last night also. The locks portion of the episode followed the Box O Truths findings fairly closely.
 
Several years after Master Lock had that commercial where they shot the lock one of the annual gun publications decided to see if they were telling the truth or not. They did this something like 20 or so years back, so some memories are now faded but they blasted a bunch of locks and found that Master did not lie or fake the results.
 
True, but they always shot the lock right in the middle... in between both bolt halves and the latches that hold them.
 
"Hard Bolt Hacking" anyone? :rolleyes:

Don't use those cheap cable locks with the "in-line combination lock" om yer guns... I could pick one of them open in a few seconds when I was a kid. At school I would find 2 or more bikes with the same color and model locks, pick them, SWAP them and then sit back and watch the fun at then end of class. :neener:

Myth Busters is usually pretty good, I try to catch every episode, but thew do make some pretty obvious (to some) mistakes every now and then. I see there is a new show on discovery that skips all the working up to blowing stuff up and just goes straight to it... I forget the name. :confused: I'm old... gimme a break.
 
They film a lot of their shooting scens at the range up around the corner from where i live in Castro Valley. of course they get to use it during the week wen its closed.
 
I like mythbusters but why is it almost every one of their gun related myths isn't performed by a real professional but by them? The only myth that actually comes to mind that they let someone who knew how to shoot(and acknowledged that they were less skilled) was the sniper myth about shooting through the lenses. Now shooting a padlock off with a handgun... if you can't hit a 2'' target at 4" with a gun you don't need to shoot a gun EVER AGAIN, so they didn't need a pro to shoot for them. However, it does make me wonder how many takes it took for them to hit it.

I will take a high road approach and say that they do a decent job with what they do.

If I wanted to see someone shoot through a floor I've get someone that handles and shoots full auto to come out and shoot. a few hours and getting to shoot for free (possibly plug some sponsor while at it), i'm sure there's tons of people out there more skilled than them. The poor LEO that they always get to come out when they need guns... give him the gun and tell him go for it.

goin from the myth about shooting through the floor.... If a vampire were to train all the time to shoot, I'm pretty sure the vampire would be able to shoot better than a guy that uses a guide ring, heavy trigger finger, no gun control, and just learned to operate the gun a few minutes ago.

Sorry had to be able to say vampire and it not be a SHTF or end of the world thread.
 
This is off topic but it might be useful to someone, today they reran their program about poppie seeds that cause fake positives for drug tests. There is something about poppie seeds that can trigger a fake positive in those home test kits that some businesses use.
 
That's because Poppy seeds are what opium is derived from. Eating an excessive amount of poppy seeds could cause you to fail a drug test by giving a "false" positive for opiates in your bloodstream. But as you said, that is a little off topic.

As far as firing into a floor. I believe one of the other things that was messed up about the whole firing a hole in the floor myth is that in the movie "Underworld", Seline (the vampire) was shooting through what appeared to be marble floor. Correct me if I'm wrong here but wouldn't most bullets, even armor piercing ones, just make a small chip in a marble floor instead of punching through that plus all the other materials?
 
I'm pretty sure the building in underworld was nowhere near nice enough to have marble flooring. Looked like Vinyl to me.
 
My preferred method of getting around locks quickly and quietly is called a bolt cutter.:D

As for shooting a lock, shooting the body of the lock is like trying to tip over a glass by pushing the bottom. Its clearly the strongest part of the lock and designed to take impact. I'd be curious to see ways of defeating padlocked things by shooting other parts of it. Such as shooting the top plate, or the looped part. Sure, its more dangerous, but lets pretend we're being chased by 6billion zombies or something, who gives a crap about shrapnel.

Or remember the padlock is part of a system. Its joining two things, so attack one of those things and leave the lock intact. Lots of times padlocks are attached to those steel plates that are just screwed in place. I've had to pry a plate or two off a garage before, so I'd assume just blowing that away would let the door swing open.

Brains first, bullets second!
 
They have not figured out how to actually open a lock with a gun.
You fire at the top of the body aiming between the shackle entry points.
All the force is now pushing the body off the shackle.
Sometimes the hasp mounting will even fail when you do this.

All but the largest locks open.
 
That's because Poppy seeds are what opium is derived from. Eating an excessive amount of poppy seeds could cause you to fail a drug test by giving a "false" positive for opiates in your bloodstream. But as you said, that is a little off topic.
Click to expand...

To expand upon that, the amount of straight poppy seeds required to set off a drug test is astronomical.
 
I never saw it as I don't have cable, but a good friend told me that around 1995 or so, there was an ad on some outdoors channel where they seemed to duplicate the Master Lock video.

You see a guy, aiming carefully from a bench, a shot is fired and the lock virtually explodes! The announcer says, "Sorry boys, it's a Weatherby."

I would like to see THAT on YouTube.
 
I think it's rather unfortunate that they concluded locks "CAN'T" be opened with a handgun simply because the 158 grain .357 couldn't do it. I would like to have seen what a .45 or .44 magnum would do....

I think most of what they do is 90% entertainment and 10% science. They rarely use enough samples of anything to positively conclude one way or the other...
 
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