Mythbusters "magic" ice bullet

[Brian the brain]

Come on!! I just watched that show again...those guys haven't got a clue!!

Even though I haven't shot with ice myself I'm pretty sure all high powered pneumatic guns here could seriously mess someone up with a chunk of ice.They tried to fire ice from a high powered rifle...all they needed to prove the myth is a high powered pneumatic spudgun and a BIG chunk of ice..
Am I right here?

[dragon finder]

well they were testing the myth from some movie that a bullet could be fired from a norman gun, kill, and melt away leaving no evidence.

[sodman2k]

i think that the conclusion was completely correct. An ice slug was simpily too brittle to be able to fire out of a standard sniper rifle. the likely hood is that the ice would shatter before it left the shell and even if it didnt then the barrel would make short work of the frozen water.

[Brian the brain]

But they are supposed to duplicate the result aren't they??

[schmanman]

It would be almost imposible to duplicate the result

[spudshot]

the ice is too brittle to handle the PSI (5 figures) generated by a carcano, also if i remember right, they didnt adjust the powder for the (most likely) lower weight bullet, that may have contributed to the bullet being inneffective

[boilingleadbath]

Agreed. Appon veiwing that show, I was rather displeased... firing ice out of a weapon delivering possible (hard to estimate with such a light projectile) thousands of psi and having riffling that stick into the barrel is just about the worst thing I can think of doing to the ice.
I would have tried it with a shotgun... pressures are lower, although almost certainly still above the compressive strength of ice (~1200 psi), and thus it still wouldn't work.
(on further reveiw, you might be able to do it with a shotgun if you used a fairly small amount of a slow-burning powder.)

Not that ballistic fingerprinting is terribly reliable, or helps you find out who did it if they used a stolen or non-recorded firarm.

[SpudStuff]

I saw that one and my thought is that even if it leaves the barrel intact at any reasonable distance the bullet would melt while traveling through the air.

If you were to use a pnumatic cannon you wouldn't have the speed to send a projectile that small at a high velocity.

Also the powder inside the shotgun shell would have to be compressed to get ignition from the firing cap.

Ive tried ice out of my mini cannon and it dose no damage at the same velocity that a 3/4 inch wooden dowel goes through plywood.