Is the Incredible Spinning Bullet on Ice Real?

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It looks real to me... I can't explain any of the science behind it, but it looks cool, THOUGH probably not the safest activity with a firearm. :D
 
idk, but it seems plausible to me...

reason the first

with the energy the bullet imparts on the ice at moment of impact, i could see forward momentum being arrested while spin energy still strong... ya know ice shatters and blows out.

the second

the metal would melt a small layer of ice into a sheet of water to spin on... like skis or ice skates...

the third

as for the bullet not being damaged

i remember reading something long ago about a guy who could throw a regular uncooked egg over a barracks and have it land on the other side unbroken. he attributed that feat to the spin imparted on the egg. he said the multidirectional forces helped dissipate the energy of the egg coming to a sudden stop and breaking it.

so yeah, it makes sense to me.
 
Living where it does look like the video for about half of the year, I can attest to the fact that FMJ bullets can be recovered after shot through snow fully intact and looking like one could reload them. In The Winter my backstops always are covered in snow, or are snow; with some ice, but mainly snow. (To turn ice from snow it pretty much needs to melt and refreeze. Since the snow really doesn't melt, it does evaporate at below freezing, it can't refreeze where I live therefore mostly snow.)

I personally have not gone out and shot a lake in The Winter; walked on them, ridden snowmobiles on them, seen trucks on them, dogsledded on them. I would be concerned about just how far the bullet would ricochet; I don't want to be a backstop!

We are talking about two different vectors. If the forward can be "stopped" while leaving the rotational vector "undisturbed" I can see the water (from the heated bullet) on the ice reducing friction quite easily.

In The Interior (think Bush not Fairbanks) really no need for studs on tires; little ice mostly snow, too cold for the snow to melt even with the friction of the tires; different story in the cities like Fairbanks at traffic lights where the vehicles, sitting on a red, engine heat melts the snow and on the green refreezes as ice . Sliding on ice is usually hydroplaning on the melted water between the tires (or your shoes) and the frozen ice. Get cold enough and stay that way and your tires get frozen flat spots from sitting; thump, thump, thump. And really no slipping on the snow.
 
Snow backstop

Hello, As far as firing FMJ into snow with no damage is no Biggie, cast-bullet shooters have been doing this for ages with rifles and pistols, to determine proper obturation, gas cutting, or skidding.
 
looks real to me - and cool as hell too!

Watch the second time they get it to work.
You can see the bullet bounce out of the hole and land on the ice (you have to go full screen and watch it a bunch of times from about 3:10).
 
Angular momentum is not slowed down so much.

I believe it.

The bullets' seemed to be rotating in the right direction to match the rifling marks.

I recall hearing from a roofer, a few years after the 1967 L.A. riots that he found a lot of bullets embedded in rooftops. They were embedded base first. Presumably from warning shots having been fired straight up in the air, then coming down with their orientation still intact from the gyroscopic stabilization of having been still spinning even after gravity slowed them to zero and pulled them back to earth (or in these cases, to rooftops, which is close enough).

No scientific verification of this by experiment, but I believe it, too.

I would not have thought it so easy to find the bullet so close by, though. The trajectory of the ricochet is more surprizing to me than the spinning part.

Lost Sheep.
 
Need to get some high-speed footage, to see if the rotation speed would be appropriate for the approximate rate of twist of a barrel in that pistol (with minor compensation for the impact, of course).
 
Proper gun control

If anything let this video be a lesson in improper gun handleing. Not trying to sound like a weenie here but my God he didn't even lock the gun back when he was sitting there gazing moronically at the "magic bullet". At least he kept his finger out of the trigger guard but he still has the muzzle pointed in an unsafe direction. Magic bullet or not this guy is going to eventually kill someone.
 
FMJ bullets are tough mothers. I've shot into gravel banks and dug out FMJ .40's that looked good enough to load up and fire again.
 
It seems to bounce backwards or off to the side, not where you'd expect it too. Couple that with the video that showed the ice stopped the forward movment of the bullet but not stop the rotation and it just doesn't seem to add up.

I'm not a physicist but it just seems unlikely.

On a side note, there are several videos like this on youtube so who the hell knows? I assume it's faked but what the hell do I know?
 
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Yeah I'm skeptical, hopefully the MythBusters will get on it quick. If not I might just have to try this for myself which doesn't sound like the best of ideas.
 
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