Why do we treat bullets outside a gun as safe, wouldn’t big caliber bullets be a mini grenade?
In: Physics
In order to detonate a cartridge you need to impact the primer on the bottom of the cartridge with enough force to deform it enough that it detonates. This is very dificult to do unless you load it into a gun that is designed to do exactly this. Of course there are conditions in which cartridges can detonate so you need to handle it like any other explosive. But there is no need to handle it much more carefully then that as the cartridge itself can handle a lot of abuse without detonating.
It takes a good amount of force to cause the primer (little round thing on the bottom) to ignite the powder so unless you are purposely trying to hit it with a nail or throw it in fire or something they are pretty safe.
Technically you mean “cartridge” or “round” (of ammunition) as a bullet is just the hunk of metal (lead etc) that is propelled from a firearm when the primer is struck and the cartridge is fired.
Many of us have loaded thousand and hundreds of thousands of rounds into magazines and firearms without a single instance of anyone being injured by JUST the un-fired cartridge.
We would get blisters as the most serious ‘injury’ from handling ammunition.
You can safely drop them on hard ground or concrete. They don’t go off unpredictably, and if they did they would not propel the bullet.
You probably shouldn’t suck on the ones loaded with lead bullets due to the risks of heavy metal poisoning but just holding or loading them has done no on any harm.
Contrary to what you see on TV live ammunition cartridges generally cause no real trouble when set on fire as they need a contained “chamber” to build up pressure to propel the bullet
Though don’t do this, there is some slight chance that the ignition and popping might propel debris into someone’s eye or cause people to run away in fear and injure themselves in a panic by falling or running into trees.
If someone is stupid enough to throw cartridges into a fire do be sure to stand well away. And note that if a firearm is set afire then the bullet could possibly be expelled forcefully (in the direction the barrel happens to be pointed) and do serious damage if it strikes someone or something valuable.
Something that I just learned about why brass is used as a casing is that it acts as a sealant and makes sure all the pressure is put against the bullet when it fires. If it explodes outside the chamber (a bare round) then the forces goes in all directions and is much, much lower.
Something I forgot to add in a reply earlier, you CAN somewhat reliably get rim-fire cartridges to go off if you drop them. You might need a more irregular surface than concrete, maybe asphalt or gravel, though I don’t know that for sure.
But as has been said, even if it goes off, there isn’t anything to contain the blast. There’s [this video](https://youtu.be/U4FQgrU2fYk) by Demolition Ranch showing what I’m talking about. I wouldn’t advise someone do it, but it’s not all that dangerous.
Latest Answers