Secondary Explosions in Ballistic Gelatin

https://hackaday.com/2016/10/13/watch-the-diesel-effect-in-ballistic-gelatin/

I wish I had the time and place to really play with such awesome pewlatin.

 

Damn!

 

Interesting.

 

Why, and how does that happen?

 

I'm going to guess that the bullet opens a large cavity in the gelatin or the clear gel substitute. When the cavity collapses, it compresses the gas in the cavity and the increase in pressure causes combustibles to ignite, similar to a fire piston. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_piston

 

You can read explanations ranging from aliens to nuclear hollow points. . . but it's simple dieseling.

The gelatin (bone broth jello) is flammable once you atomize it. The vacuum formed as the cavity expands behind the shockwave does that, drawing jello vapor into a cool mist of fuel. As the cavity springs shut you get adiabatic compression, compression happening fast enough that negligible heat escapes and most stays as increased temperature. If pressure and temperature (nearly the same thing at this level of analysis) increase enough to autoignite. . . boom, and that pushes the cavity back open.

I think it was one of Jerry Miculek's videos with a .460S&W. . . the block of gelatin dieseled twice. A similar thing can happen in tires if abused just right, and is it quite exciting when it does.

 

Ah, well in that case...DAMN!

 

The article said this is because the clear jell is oil based, where the ones with a color are water based. A mindless cut and paste.

Water-based blocks made with natural gelatin can be easily made at home, but end up with a yellow-brown color and have a limited shelf life due to evaporation. Clear blocks exist that are oil-based and don’t dry out like the water-based ones. It’s one of these that is in the embedded animation below.

I never knew they are oil based, learn something everyday. With any kind of oil there is the ability to "burn" it. That is what happens here.

We are told that this stuff is basically a "meat" target without the bones. Ok, humans do have oils in them, and anyone that ever cooked over a grill knows fats burn real well. I wonder if this is a possibility in humans....or animals for that matter....personally I don't think so. Humans have been killing all kinds of things with guns for a very long time, I would think if it was even something that happens once in a blue moon I would like to think I would have caught wind of it by now. If you could make this happen with a "normal" bullet I doubt we would have seen the germans and soviets shooting at eachother with rifle rounds that explode. Using those round had the desired results that are better over whatever you could do with any "normal" bullet. Fun side note the germans only used it on communists, where as the soviets also used it against the japanese after the war was already over.....but hay north korea looked nice right.

Personally I see this as VERY DANGEROUS. The wrong group of people get wind of this and who knows where it would go.

 

Huh? Getting shot is dangerous or the possibility of a dieseling effect occurring in a shooting victim is dangerous? I’m confused.

Stay safe.

 

*** licking chops ***

Mmm

 

I never have seen this talked about, new to me. Dieseling effect on getting shot I am shocked I have not. Not much difference in the "meat" between man and beast, I would think I would have known about it, read about it....perhaps it is something that I just missed.

Can you shoot me a few articles on this, I am pretty interested.

 

The same effect (dieseling) can be replicated in a pellet gun, if you get the mix right. If you put just a dab of Vaseline in the cup of a standard .177 pellet, the compression created when firing it will ignite the Vaseline (petroleum jelly). You can get enough extra velocity in a rifle that the pellet will be supersonic. I've yet to come upon a formula for getting the amount of Vaseline just right for consistent performance, but when it happens, it's pretty surprising and cool. Sounds almost like a .22, and the piece of tin sheet I shoot at gets penetrated, instead of just dented.

 

I like to analyze where the dieseling happens. LuckyGunner has so many different rounds tested and it's easy to compare on their site.

 

I

it is known to happen just about anytime a cavity rapidly collapses and/or compression causes enough heat to ignite something flammable. Oxygen will diesel, oil vapors (diesel fuel) will, etc.( And thats your semi-truck engine right there. No spark, all compression.)

Even IF, and that is a HUGE if, it were to occur in a body a) no one could see it because we cant see in slow-mo and people aren’t clear like this gel block, and b) that bit of heat created for literally an instant would add practically zero additional trauma to a gunshot wound and would be completely undetectable anyway. Especially if it is caused by a bullet with the impact fast and hard enough to cause the effect within a body in the first place.

You are waaaaay overthinking this well known natural phenomenon being a threat to gun ownership.

Stay safe.

 

Well, sort of. It's a viscoelastic fluid meat analog, but chemically it's more like bone broth jello.

And more to the point, the vapor is flammable, a combination of sufficient fuel concentration, oxidizer, and a low concentration of inflammable mass (read: water) to absorb thermal energy and buffer temperature increase.

The same bullet is not going to do the same thing in meat, because meat isn't bone broth jello. . . meat is water filled muscle-fiber-reinforced matrix with soft rocks (bones) and a bit of oleaginous goo mixed in. The concentration of water vapor would be enormous.

 

That is also caused by lubricant oil affected by the heat of the compression of a spring-air pellet gun.

My Webley Vulcan .177 will diesel if oil gets in the compression chamber. It is bad for the seals and will ruin them quickly.

You know it occurs when you crack it open right after firing and there is a wisp of smoke is in the barrel.

Stay safe.

 

You would not have to see it, you could see the burn of the flesh inside, if there anything flammable and a burn there will be evidence of that, on the inside of the body more so as that is such soft tissue. Oxygen will burn sure just ask Gus Grissom or any of the other apollo 1 people when we see them after this life. But the "air" that we are surrounded with is not just oxygen. Diesel does burn by pure compression and the heat by that, this is also where pre-ignition comes from in a gas car generally a carbon hot spot but not really a "spark".

I am not aware of this happening in a body of a living thing. This is what I tried in my weak google fu to find out and I came up blank. I was wanting to read more on this. What makes it happen, what are the factors, big bullet moving slow like a 45-70, small bullet moving fast 223, something a bit in the middle 6.5 of your choice.

I have never read of this before and want to learn more of when this happens in living tissue, that is what I am hunting and I came up blank. I am wondering if this is unique to the gel that is used, and the oil base the article talked about. Living things have a water base not oil like the gel, and the article said the water based ones evaporate and are not clear, the oil versions are clear....so the oil ones travel better but are not quite "meat like".

I don't know this is why I am fishing so hard for answers.

 

I should have read this before my long reply, so this is something that is unique to the gel used.

With that in hand, boy am I the only one that can see this going a very wrong way in the press and non shooting public.

 

Yes. It is a non issue.

Stay safe.

 

"Double Action Bullets!"

Pokes holes in you, and causes your vital organs to explode!!!

 

I've heard from a reliable source it can happen with 9mm, sometimes lungs get blown right out of a body.

 

Porcelain guns (Die Hard), silcone - coated bullets (a staple of Frank Lupo's shows), ice bullets (think it was on Murder, She Wrote)...

So '80s.

 

Hyperbole R' Us.

 

I’d guess if you shot into an animal with a lot of concentrated fat you could get an oil dieseling situation. So maybe it’s an issue with whale blubber. This makes me feel better knowing if I get jumped by a pod of beluga gangsters that I’ve got a little extra kapow in my bullets. Before, I was just planning on doing what they said and giving them all the fish so no one got hurt.