What happens if you are struck by lightning with a .38 snubnose in your pocket?

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afrederick

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1) Sorry, I didn't know where to put this post.

2) I was walking back to my apartment just now and thunder and lightning started up. Here's my question:

- If I were struck by lightning just a few minutes ago, while I had my S&W 642 in my front left shorts pocket, would all 5 rounds of +p .38 spl 110g SJHP simultaneously detonate?

- If yes, given the design of the J-frame and the nature of the cartridges, would the explosion shoot the front half of the gun off down my leg into the ground or do you think it would be more of a hand grenade effect with the four cartridges that were not lined up with the bore at the time of detonation turning the cylinder into a bunch of shrapnel?
 
I have been struck. About 10 years ago. Its nothing like being shocked. I was holding a catspaw bar and it got spot welded to the side of the barn. I suppose that the heat might light off a few or all of the rounds. That will be the least of your worries. A strike does things to you right now and other things you find out about later. You will most likely survive. There is no way to predict what it will do to you from not much to way too much. I am not the same man as I was before it happened but I survive. just different now.

Use some sense and get in shelter when lightning is around. This is Mother Nature's mean side and she can be a cruel bitch.

Interesting factoid-I have an ancestor who was struck and killed while riding on a hay wagon 2 miles from where I was stuck. About a 100 years apart on the same road.
 
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1. The lightening would kill you, so there is no need to worry about the gun.

2. The all metal .38 Spl revolver is a perfect conductor / Faraday cage / heat sink for the ammo.

3. So somebody would have to unload your loaded gun before they cart off your body to the morgue for the autopsy.

rc
 
The electrical charge would detonate all the primers which are contained in the chamber thus maximizing the pressure, it would probably be a near equal amount of destruction both frontal and radial. The man parts would probably be lost.
 
If the lightning struck your weapon, I could see the rounds cooking off instantaneously. If the bolt struck a nearby object, which is far more likely; or you, if you were unlucky enough to be caught in the open, then the same principle that conducts the charge through you and into the ground would bypass your weapon.

In other words, you are a highly conductive fleshy, water-laden meat sack with a direct path to the ground.
 
It all depends on the path of the current. The rounds may or may not go off, depnds upon lots of factors too numerous to predict prior to the strike. You may not even be injured.

I remember seeing a news story about a park ranger that had been struck by lightning something like 7 times and was still alive, relatively unscathed. When there was a lightning storm he sent his family to another room and remained by himself until the storm passed.
 
You may or may not die. If the gun is part of the electrical path you may end up with severe burns where the lightning arcs between your body and the gun. I agree with RC that the cartridges won't fire. A high enough current to heat the gun up that much would likely render your flesh and break the circuit to the gun before the cartriges would fire.
 
Contrary to popular belief, getting hit by lightning isn't guaranteed death -- quite the opposite in fact: 90% of all lightning strike victims survive.
 
Maybe so.

Of my own personal acquaintances who were hit by lightening in my 68 years?

Seven people I knew very well got hit by lightening.
One plowing on a tractor, one fishing near a farm pond, and five solders at Ft. Jackson South Carolina during field training.

All were killed instantly.

Thats more like 100% DRT in my own circle of friends.

Maybe the other 90% / 49 people I know that got hit by lightening didn't tell me??

rc
 
Maybe the other 90% / 49 people I know that got hit by lightening didn't tell me??
Click to expand...

Surviving a direct lightning strike has a lot to do with luck. The lightning strike will almost always stop the victim's heart; if the victim doesn't spasm, jump or fall hard enough to kick the heart back into beating, yep, dead right there.


As for the gun, the electricity is highly likely to utilize the gun as a path of least resistance and travel through it, heating it instantly to the point of cooking off the rounds in the chambers and badly burning whatever flesh to which it is nearest. But as has been echoed by others, the rounds in your sidearm cooking off will be the least of your worries at that moment.
 
What a shocking scenario. I have to agree with those who say it doesn't matter, what happens with the gun will be the least of your problems.
 
Ohm My God! No reason to get all amped up on the subject. While some of the responses have a spark of intellectual merit most are grounded in sarcasm and humor and others represent alternating points of view and even some direct experience in the current subject.

Watt the hey... It's getting late.

Oh, the pistol? I don't see the rounds igniting doesn't everyone use kydex these days?
 
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