Teen Injures Self with .22 Cartridge

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>Odd story, but not entirely impossible. I do however think it was shot from a gun and the guy who got shot doesn't want to get the other guy in trouble.<
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Or maybe the responsible adult who owns the gun, and has told Junior to stick to the story.
 
An unsupported cartridge won't fire a bullet into a guys foot.
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~~ S&WIowegan.



One of my cousins, as a young and rather naive kid, got a hold of some .22 ammo and proceeded to lay the rounds on the garage floor to their house and hit it with a hammer. One round went off and entered his lower abdomen.
The doctors that treated him believed it would be more dangerous to remove the bullet than to leave it where it was, so to this day, some 50 years later, he still has a .22 bullet inside him.
It can happen.
 
I never tried a RF round but I once (age 14) set off a shotgun primer. I emptied the shot and powder from the round and secured the brass in a bench vise. I then used a finishing nail and a ball peen hammer to complete the process.
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I'd *thought* of doing the same with a cartridge and a vice on a workbench, but decided I should start small: .270 primers and a six-pound sledge on the concrete pad behind my folks' house. It sure seemed fun smacking a primer and letting it throw the sledge back up into the air... never did try the live cartidge thing (whew).

Yep, most likely a "friend" shot him in the foot. Thankfully, it wasn't fatal, and maybe all involved will learn from this relatively inexpensive lesson.
 
I can think of 3 reasons why an unsupported cartridge doesn't usually propel the bullet at any significant speed.
1- If the cartridge pressure is high enough, the brass will rupture, venting the pressure to the atmosphere. I don't know that 22 LR will rupture in this scenario; I doubt it.
2- If the brass and the bullet are both free to move, they will move in opposite directions, with roughly the same force acting on both of them. Since F=ma and the bullet is usually heavier than the brass, it accelerates less.
3- Even if the brass doesn't rupture, and isn't free to move, once the bullet leaves the brass the pressure is vented to the atmosphere. From that point on, there should be no more acceleration.
I don't think reasons #1 & #2 apply here, but #3 does. I have doubts about this story, but not enough to be absolutely convinced it's false.
I like GregL's simple and elegant solution to determining the truth.
 
re:

Tim...You'd be surprised at how hard a bullet will accelerate by just being fired from supported brass without a barrel to spike the pressure. Enough to drive a 1911 slide to near full travel and bury a 230-grain lead bullet out of sight into dry Carolina clay.
 
A 19 year old is usually described as a man in the papers. I guess I must be paranoid to think there's an agenda here.
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In any other scenario, he would be considered a man. However, if there's anything to do with guns in the article, someone under 21 automatically becomes a "child".
 
When I was 10 or so I watched my cousin (~ same age) wack 22 shorts placed between a couple cinder blocks with a hammer..........:what:

Pretty uneventful as I remember. They popped like a cap, the bullet stayed between the bricks, the case didn`t even split, two or three rds and we tired of it.

The NRA did a test some time back on ammo in a fire and found ammo when unconfined went off with out enough force to penatrate a cardboard box placed over them. This was centerfire rifle and handgun ammo. My bro in law is a retired fireman who claims he has been in fires where ammo was heard popping off and never saw it damage or harm anything. I doubt a pair of vice grips will contain pressure to any point that would cause the pressures to rise and the bullet to expell with any more force then a fire or shell under a brick hit by a hammer.
I think the kid is BS`ing and the cops know it.
 
My brother put a .22 in a vice one time for stupid reason that I cant remember he still has the scare on his arm from the shell exploding and shrapnel going into his arm. But the bullet never actually fired from the shell, if it would have it would have gone through the sheetrock and hit me, making a very sh**ty Christmas.:what:
 
Concerning the usage of the word "teenager" to describe the injured party - I've no doubt that the reporter who wrote the story, or perhaps the editor who proofed it, was wanting an anti-gun message to be sent. If the 19-year-old is merely a teenager, and not a man, then he lacks the powers of adult reasoning that would've kept him away from the inherently evil and dangerous gun. Remember, the *only* thing that guns do is harm innocent children or bystanders... :barf:
 
The story brings back some painful memories for me. Didn't get hurt. . . . by the round. Got a serious case of negative behavior correction from my father when he caught me with a pair of pliers and a hammer working on a .45ACP. Never tried it again.
 
One thing we have to take into account. This article was written by a reporter. This"bullet wound" was more likely a piece of brass from the case.
1959 was a bad year for kids with hammers and access to 22 ammo. I was visiting an older friend (13), and he wanted to show me a neat trick. He placed a 22 round on an anvil, and hit it with a hammer. It made a satisfying pop. About the third or fourth time, he said OUCH!! and grabbed his upper thigh. There was blood showing through his jeans.
Both his folks were at work, so we went to a neighbor. She happened to be a nurse at the local hospital. She removed a piece of brass from his leg, and after much pleading from him, agreed not to tell his folks.
I think it far more likely a piece of the partially supported case penetrated his foot. Youngsters ALL do stupid things, just some do not get caught. :banghead:
 
Quote:
"My take on it is he ND'd into his foot with his illegally-acquired pistol."
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Hmmmm?:scrutiny:
 
I'd doubt the bullet went too far.

Couple of years ago I was fooling around in the woods with my old Tec-9 with some friends. You know the Tec-9 drill - Rack, bang, bang, jam, curse, rack, bang, jam, curse again, rack, bang, jam...

Suffice to say about 40% of my ammo was getting mangled on the feed ramp and I didn't want to try to feed most of it again. So I didn't.

Cut to a few minutes later and I find that one of the dimmer members of the party has set up a round on top of a pyle a little ways away and is taking aim at the primer with his air rifle. "What the eff do you think you're doing?" I demand of him, "Even if you do hit that thing - which you won't, because I know your aim - the casing's probably going to hit you right between the eyes. So don't effing do it, I'm warning you."

Famous last words: "I know what I'm doing."

Couldn't talk him out of it, so I got 'round the opposite side of a rather beefy tree and put my earmuffs bacn on while he lets it fly. Miss, miss, bang! Stray piece of fragmented brass catches him in the left hand.

He wasn't hurt very badly at all. We picked the sliver of brass out with the pliers on my multi-tool and he bled for a couple of minutes and that was it. But it learned him real good, I'm sure.

The other end of this story (perhaps literally...) was that we shortly thereafter found the bullet from this round. It was lying in the dirt about five feet away from the pyle and its shiny copper jacket gave it away. I don't know how far it really went because the pyle was maybe three feet tall to begin with. But it didn't go far, and if the bullet had actually hit somebody it wouldn't have done a thing to 'em.
 
Unsupported .22's can kill you !

My son was sitting around a campfire. My nephew had just swept out a pile of sawdust from his cellar workshop, and unknown to him there was a .22 round in the sawdust.

Unknowingly, into the campfire it went. BANG ! My son had raised a coke can to his lips and screamed in pain. The round hit his right index finger that was holding the can to his mouth, tearing a big chunk out of the side of it and a hunk of bone. If his hand wasn't there it would have gone into his eye.

He went to the hospital where the Dr told him there wasn't enough skin in the area to pull together and that scar tissue would have to cover it. He still has metal embedded in what's left of his finger bone...He has the xrays.

Don't believe the unsupported rounds will do nothing BS you hear. I wish people would stop passing on old wives tales. :banghead:
 
I just find it a shame that when someone shows themselves to be as much of an evolutionary dead-end as this kid...that the bullet doesn't hit them somewhere more useful.

Like in the crotch. Before they have a chance to produce more morons.
 
When my little brother was much younger, he did something similar that resulted in some fragments of casing in his shoulder. Apparently, as soon as he realized that he had a chunk of metal that was where it shouldn't be, he grabbed a pair of tweezers, hopped into a shower so as not to bleed all over everything and rooted it out himself. No one found out about it until he was swimming one day and someone asked him where he got the big scar.

An unsupported cartridge going off can throw fragments. Those fragments can do some damage. That said, I can't help but think that if my brother could fix himself up and keep his mouth shut when he was eleven or twelve, this 19 year old probably should have done the same. Considering the circumstances and location of my brother's injury, it is hard to imagine a foot wound from the same type of situation being so horrible that it would require professional medical attention.

I can't really criticize my little brother's stupidity too much. One time I was behaving irresponsibly and somehow managed to burn my right shin to the point that the skin was dripping off of it. I took good care of it on my own and it healed wonderfully without infection.

So I guess that is what bugs me the most about this "teen". I can understand male stupidity (although, I'd hope that he wouldn't be so dumb at his age). What I can't understand is not just gritting his teeth and fixing it up himself. If the wound were more than he could reasonably handle himself, then I would tend to doubt his story about how he received it.
 
I did it!

Year was 1953, I was 13. I found a .22 in the street and decided to make a really neet firecracker out of it.

I pulled the bullet -- I'm not STUUPID you know!. (It takes 2 pair of gas pliers. One holds the bulled casing, one the bullet, twist and yank. Of course, you are grunting and squeezing, and bent over to get better leverage, so at least one hand is pressed between your thighs as you do this work.)

Pour some of the powder out, fold the tip over with teh pliers and "WALLA" -- firecracker.

Now to lay it on the concrete and whang it with a hammer!

Some of the brass ricocheted off my forehead, creasing my eyebrow.
Bled like a slaughtered hog for over an hour.

Mom freaked.
Dad wanted to know only one thing --- where did I get the cartridge?

If'n I'd a gotten it from the in-house stash, I would have been in really deep dung, but seeing as I hadn't, he simply figured I might have learned a lesson and let me do my own first aid.

Did I learn anything from the experience?
Well, I never made that particular mistake again.

Fud.
 
Im pretty sceptical about this, however I think it *might* be possible that the vise-grips provided just enough support to the casing to allow for a little pressure buildup (maybe). The bullet didnt have to be going very fast to simply break the skin and wedge itself into his foot. I still dont reall buy the story though.

Ive seen two guys who managed to get shot in the foot and both of them were the result of idiots fooling around with guns in their pocket.
 
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