Educational TV... Kinda

July 22, 2005

I recently rediscovered MythBusters on the Discovery Channel. These guys are basically the TV version of Snopes.

One of their recent experiments was the idea that if you dive just a few feet underwater you can survive being shot at. They rigged up a device at a local pool and started taking target practice.

A Civil War-era rifle managed to penetrate ballistics gel at a distance of three feet. Beyond that, the bullet wandered too far to hit its target. It was the most lethal gun fired.

Afterwards they brought out a .223 (I don't think they said who it was built by) and an M1 Garand rifle. Both rounds shattered upon entry into the pool; a piece of the M1 round's jacket managed to generate a flesh wound at a distance of three feet. As a capper they brought out a giant .50-caliber and let fly with a round that could qualify as an ICBM. It suffered a similar fate, not even scratching the ballistics gel as it completely shattered upon entering the water.

It turns out that the metal, even on a full-metal-jacket round, can't handle the deceleration from supersonic and just disintegrate. Smaller, subsonic rounds like those fired from a handgun or a shotgun are actually more lethal since the rounds/shot aren't stressed as much.

Now I want to play some Counter Strike to see if there are any levels that take that into account. I'd love to see an AWP completely nullified by an overgrown ditch.

July 21, 2005July 25, 2005