Smarter Everyday: Bullets Hitting Bullets In Slow Motion
If you haven’t been checking Destin at Smarter Everyday on YouTube then you missed his latest video. He was trying to replicate a historic event where two minié balls collided mid-air and fused together. Well, Destin tried to recreate bullets hitting bullets and film it in slow motion. He was partially successful. What was more interesting is following along with the setup and safety procedures he created for this recreation.
More Slow Motion @ TFB
Bullets Hitting Bullets
If you recall, The Mythbusters attempted to test this myth back in 2006, 17 years ago. They were able to get fused minié balls but had to fudge the test to get the result. They held a bullet in place while they shot it with a gun.
Destin was inspired by this display at the Smithsonian Natural Museum of American History.
In fact, the Smithsonian has a better image of the fused bullets online.
It took a couple years but Destin and three friends came up with a way to perform this experiment safely. The obvious problem is having two guns shooting at each other.
Destin broke down bullets hitting bullets into four problems. Problem 1 is self-explanatory. You have two guns firing at each other. Then you have the issue of the triggers. The lock time is not identical so setting off the cartridges is complicated. Timing becomes an issue then because the high-speed camera can only look at a small area and you want the collision to be in the frame of the camera sensor. The other problem is the fact the guns are pointed at each other. How do you avoid one gun from hitting the other in case of a hang fire, failure to fire or bullets missing each other?
Destin decided to go with .45LC for the simplicity and one of his friends could help load them for consistency.
To simplify the gun aspect, they built the simplest of guns. This reminds me of those EOD PAN Disruptors. It is a simple barrel with a threaded breach that is electronically fired. This helps eliminate the mechanical lock time of a traditional firearm.
The guns are bolted to a giant I-BEAM and the mounts are adjustable to elevation and windage. With regard to safety, another friend and Destin collaborated to design and build these ballistic shields. They have one in front of each gun. The shield has a hole cut into it and is placed at an angle. They can remotely raise and lower each shield. By lowering the shield, the hole is blocked, and if the gun fires, the shield will deflect the round and prevent it from striking the gun or anyone “down range”.
Destin even made a safety checklist and had some other friends come out and critique it. There were some events he did not account for so they added it to the checklist.
Once it was all set up, they fired the two guns and got a result! Bullets hitting bullets in the air.
After their initial success, they had some issues with consistency and they realized it had to do with their loads. Destin did not want too much powder in the cartridges so it could better simulate the velocities of a Civil War Minié which was around 975 FPS.
Destin and his friend decided to use shorter cases, seen above, to help reduce the case capacity. They were concerned that with the cartridge laying parallel to the ground, the powder would lay flat and with the gap inside, they might have inconsistent powder burn. By using a shorter casing they are at full case capacity. However, another problem arose. Look at the image below.
The shorter case is filled to capacity but the bullet is further back. It is not seated against the rifling. So when the bullet fires, it jumps the gap causing variables and accuracy issues. Destin could confirm this from the high-speed video he shot of bullets hitting bullets. There would occasionally be a ball of fire and gasses that escape ahead of the bullet which confirms there is a gap. So not only is the bullet jumping the gap, it is losing some of the pressure to push it out of the barrel. They also noticed one of the elevation screws would twist during the shot due to vibration. So they tightened that up and went back to the longer casings and that solved their accuracy issue. One thing Destin learned, due to the inaccurate tests, was that when the bullets collided in mid-air, they would explode at an angle perpendicular to the tangent that they hit each other. So you get this sort of Saturn rings-looking effect.
All Dialed-In
Now that they got their Bullets Hitting Bullets rig all dialed in, they can “play”. Destin repositioned the camera to observe what happens to the back of the bullet when they collide.
Then they switched to using FMJ projectiles and almost got the result they were looking for. They achieved partial fusion. Watching this scene was awesome. And Destin’s reaction is exactly what I was feeling. The bullets hitting bullets fuse and hang in mid-air.
Destin was able to retrieve the two bullet fragments. As well as the copper disc that fits between them.
However, they have not been able to replicate the fused bullets like the fused Minié balls. So Destin decided to shoot some Ridge Wallets that he received for his sponsorship. He planned to “shoot” them a cool promotion by shooting the wallets between the two bullets.
The Damascus steel and titanium wallets are bulletproof to these low-power projectiles.
It was when he shot his own old aluminum wallet that they were able to get bullets hitting bullets fusion.
The wallet seems to have slowed and absorbed some of the energy from the two bullets.
Here are the fused bullets with some wallet material mixed in.
Here is the video from YouTube.
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I suppose with enough bullets flying around, the probability of a mutual strike rises, so it could happen...
The Union side were issued weapons in at least four different calibers that could have been present in this battle. The Confederate side's TOE was even more of a mixed bag, including personal weapons, and records aren't complete.
My question has always been if any research has been done on this artifact to determine what firearms types may have fired the two bullets, along with the records of the battle to find which units may have been the sources based upon issued weapons.
saddest thing was that two guys (may have) fired their guns, when they probably never felt real animosity towards eachother.