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What can you shoot out of a shotgun? It turns out that there are a surprising variety of things… Let’s say you are going to use a shotgun for hunting. A typical shotgun shell shoots a small handful of pellets. You pick the size of the pellets based on the size of what you are [...]
Blast from the Past – The M3 Grease Gun vs. the M1A1 Tommy gun
by Marshall Brain | February 17, 2011
If you’ve watched gangster films, you’ve seen a “Tommy gun”. A Tommy gun is officially known as the M1A1 Thompson submachine gun. It is called a submachine gun because it fires pistol cartridges rather than rifle cartridges. In most cases, a Tommy gun fired .45 caliber bullets, but could also handle 9mm bullets by changing [...]
The world’s easiest-to-build potato cannon (spud gun) – now combustion free!
by Marshall Brain | December 30, 2010
This is a classic HowStuffWorks article that describes the construction and operation of the traditional potato cannon: How Spud Guns Work The traditional potato cannon is a combustion device – it uses hairspray as its fuel and the spark unit from an outdoor grill to ignite it. This works fine but it is a little [...]
This would appear to be one of the best homemade coil guns in the world right now. And the creator is nice enough to give you a complete tour of the guts so you can see exactly how it works…
A bullet is one of the simplest things there is. Here is a rare video where a bullet is shot from a transparent gun to demonstrate just how simple a bullet can be…
Ever since WWI and WWII, tracer bullets have been a common part of warfare. On an airplane’s or helicopter’s machine gun, tracer bullets make it much easier for the pilot to hit the target – the tracers light up the stream of bullets so they look something like a laser blast. Tracer bullets also make it more likely for the target to explode. In WWI, tracer bullets ignited hydrogen-filled zeppelins, for example. Tracers also ignite fuel.
In the following video you can see how tracer bullets help a helicopter gunner hit his targets…
When we hear about “blanks” in a gun, the word that comes to mind is “harmless”. Yes a blank makes a loud bang, but no bullet comes out so blanks are harmless.
But people have actually been killed by blanks, as described in this video about the death of John Erik Hexum
You asked: How is gunpowder made? — Nick, Swansboro, N.C. Marshall Brain Answers: People have been making gunpowder for many centuries. The basic recipe is therefore well-known and looks like this: 75% Potassium nitrate, 15% Charcoal, 10% Sulfur What you are trying to create with gunpowder is a fast-burning solid fuel. So you need a [...]
There is one big problem with having a gun around the house: as reported in this post, there is a good chance that it will kill loved ones. Police officers also face a problem when their guns get taken and then used against them. To solve these problems, manufacturers have been trying to create a [...]
At first thought, weaponry seems like a bad addition to the Olympics (unless we’re talking marksmanship, archery or, if you want to go ancient, javelin and shot-put). However, there’s a role for weapons in the Olympics that doesn’t culminate in competition or a swift arrest — it just involves a quick, compulsory melting.
London’s Metropolitan Police force recently announced that 58 tons of confiscated guns and knives — plus some keys thrown in for good measure — will be recycled into girders for the 2012 Olympic Games site in Stratford, East London.
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