Fire forming on flame fronts of pressure waves
August 19, 2015 8:15 AM   Subscribe

The Mythbusters record a bullet leaving a gun at 73,000 frames per second.

Shot with a Phantom V2010 from Vision Research who also have a slow motion gallery.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage (25 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Flames. Flames on the side of my bullet. Love the Phantom. Just going to stick my favorite example of a something shot with one of these amazing cameras here.
posted by longdaysjourney at 8:34 AM on August 19, 2015 [7 favorites]


At 180,000FPS you can see attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:40 AM on August 19, 2015 [7 favorites]


Mushroom cloud.
posted by aught at 8:41 AM on August 19, 2015


Well, you can bet what's going on my christmas wishlist this year. Buy Now!
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:51 AM on August 19, 2015


Quick google tells me that is a hundred thousand dollar camera. Ouch. I couldn't find one for rent.
posted by bukvich at 9:06 AM on August 19, 2015


Also this guy had a weird amount of fun making this video: The Glock Pistol Why So Popular?
posted by bukvich at 9:09 AM on August 19, 2015 [2 favorites]


What are the bits of grit that come last out of the barrel ? Grains/grit of the burned (or incompletely burned) powder ? Parts of the primer (like the little metal scaffolding) ? Barrel gunk (lube/dirt/small flecks from the copper jacket, etc) ?
posted by k5.user at 9:12 AM on August 19, 2015


Unburnt powder, k5.user.
posted by Punkey at 9:15 AM on August 19, 2015 [1 favorite]


Mod note: Couple comments removed; we have had and will continue to have lots of opportunities to talk about gun violence, the NRA, etc; maybe we can let this thread just be about physics and high-speed videography and let that stuff sit.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:26 AM on August 19, 2015 [12 favorites]


So it would appear that "muzzle flash" isn't just a Hollywood special effect.
posted by tommasz at 9:45 AM on August 19, 2015


The gun appears to be a Para M1911 pistol manufactured in North Carolina, USA. The muzzle velocity is 825 ft/s which is pretty slow relative to modern handguns. I guess this is why they selected it for this purpose. The muzzle velocity of a comparable Glock firing a smaller 9mm round is over 1200 ft/s.
posted by three blind mice at 10:03 AM on August 19, 2015 [2 favorites]


"It's just really cool. Yep, it's cool."
posted by SLC Mom at 10:32 AM on August 19, 2015


(If anyone is having trouble loading the video, turn off your ad blocker.)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:34 AM on August 19, 2015


(And if you are Canadian, eschew patriotism and chose the US feed.)
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:53 AM on August 19, 2015


Are there any similar videos of a nuclear bomb going off?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:57 AM on August 19, 2015


Three Blind Mice: "The muzzle velocity is 825 ft/s which is pretty slow relative to modern handguns. "

Dumb question: is muzzle velocity a function of the gun or the bullet? If I put the same 9mm bullet in two different guns, would the muzzle velocity be appreciably different from one another?
posted by MrGuilt at 11:57 AM on August 19, 2015


Dunno about video Brandon, but there's some pics of the first few milliseconds of some test detonations.
posted by quinndexter at 12:22 PM on August 19, 2015


Saw this the other day - so, so cool. Fire!
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:51 PM on August 19, 2015


(If anyone is having trouble loading the video, turn off your ad blocker.)

Or view it here.
posted by kisch mokusch at 1:19 PM on August 19, 2015


Dumb question: is muzzle velocity a function of the gun or the bullet?

Not dumb at all. Pretty complicated question. Weight of bullet, kind/amount of powder charge, length of barrel, shape of bullet, all things that affect muzzle velocity. Comparing a .45 vs a 9mm, I think the primary thing affecting muzzle velocity is probably the weight of the bullet, .45 generally being heavier.
posted by 2N2222 at 1:27 PM on August 19, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yay, vortex rings!

Vortex rings look just as awesome in water with dye dispersion experiments as they do in this video.
posted by oceanjesse at 1:56 PM on August 19, 2015


(If anyone is having trouble loading the video, turn off your ad blocker.)

I had to disable both ABP and Ghostery to get the adsvideo to play.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:40 PM on August 19, 2015


Here is a YouTube link if Ghostery is blocking you (like it was me).
Muzzle velocity has many variables: barrel length, gunpowder type (some burn fast, some slow) and action type all play into it. When you see a big muzzle flash that means gunpowder is burning up outside the barrel. It doesn't make the bullet go faster and it is obnoxiously loud. A longer barrel fixes this by giving the powder more time to burn before the bullet leaves. Faster burning powder will fix it too. A revolver has a gap between the cylinder and the barrel, with a semi auto the chamber and the barrel are one solid piece. The gap on a revolver lets high pressure gas escape and you lose velocity. It makes a big flash in photos too.
posted by Bee'sWing at 5:18 PM on August 19, 2015


Great. Not only did the video play at around 2fps (oh, the irony) on the original link, but the work-around - not 'turn off your adblocker/Ghostery', because I do that for MeFi and NOBODY ELSE, ok? - lands me on YouTube.

YouTube's algorithms already think I'm some kinda survivalist yuk, because my fondness for weird radio lands me firmly in the prepper bin, and now I'm looking at gun pron. I don't like robots thinking bad of me. And because I don't use MeFi in my anonymous environment (VM, fresh OS install, VPN - how much of this is cargo cult, how much sensible precaution, I can't answer) YouTube (and the rest of the Google) knows exactly who I am.

So I loved the video, and I lust after the camera, and I have a solid brorection for Mythbusters, and anything that gets beneath the skin of exciting physics is absolutely fine by me.

Yet still I feel like I've been caught smoking in church.

Complicated things, these intarwebs.
posted by Devonian at 5:33 PM on August 19, 2015


The gun appears to be a Para M1911 pistol manufactured in North Carolina, USA. The muzzle velocity is 825 ft/s which is pretty slow relative to modern handguns. I guess this is why they selected it for this purpose. The muzzle velocity of a comparable Glock firing a smaller 9mm round is over 1200 ft/s.

The text in the video (I used the CNN link above because the original link caused a scripting warning) said 1200 fps; I wonder which is the correct number?

Also this guy had a weird amount of fun making this video: The Glock Pistol Why So Popular?

I'm actually planning to buy a Glock either this weekend or next, whenever I have the time to swing by the store, so the gun porn links are well-timed. But good grief, the number of amateur gun review videos on youtube is astounding.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:01 PM on August 19, 2015


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