Penn and Teller and the magic bullet

D

ds1973

New member
Has anyone here ever seen the Penn and Teller "magic bullet" trick where they get "independent observers" ussually LEOs to inspect the gun and the bullet etc. Then they have one LEO write their initials on the bullet and the other LEO draw something on the cartridge casing. The cartridge is a .357 magnum and the revolver has a laser sight on it. Teller aims at Penns mouth through a piece of hanging glass and the laser points right into Penns mouth. Teller shoots, the glass breaks and after some closed mouth movements, Penn spits a bullet out of his mouth into the plate he's holding. The LEO inspects the bullet, confirms "rifling" marks and the initials he wrote on the tip. The other LEO confirms the empty casing in the revolver is the one he drew on when it was an unfired cartridge.

What I liked about this trick is that Penn explains the four rules of gun safety and says that if everyone followed these rules there would never be an accident with a firearm.

Now are there any ideas out there on how they do this trick??? The only other thing I can think of is that the point of impact is not where the laser shines... Penn wears a bullet proof jacket during trick. The bullet appears undeformed. Short of setting up a bullet before the trick and having the LEOs in on it, how would they pull this off?

Note: I am not going to attempt this as I am not an idiot, but I am curious...
 
seen it...interesting trick. How's it done unless the 'Leo's' are in on it? no idea.

I like the one where the short guy is getting cut or something...bleeds all over the place like a stuck hog...veeeerrryyyy funny!

[[oh, BTW...'short guy' is un-PC but hell, I'm only 5'5" and I got a sense of humor about it. :) ]]

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Satanta, the Whitebear
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I have NO idea. I also love the trick, though! And I can tell you for what it's worth that a TFL member was once chosen as one of the "experts" from the audience. He claimed that he at least was NOT in on the trick and also that he was completely unable to figure out how they could have done it--to him, it appeared that the bullet that got spit out had exactly the mark he'd made on the live round.

Interestingly, I heard Penn Gillette talk about this trick on the radio the other day. He was being quite candid about the fact that it was an illusion, but he claimed that the gun is absolutely a live one and that they spent weeks in rented-out, empty firing ranges working out their method. When they first decided to try it "live," at one of these practice ranges, they flipped a coin to see who would have to fire the gun--it was dangerous enough that neither wanted to fire the gun because they figured it would be better to be the one who got shot than the one who had to live with killing his partner for the rest of his life.
 
The cartridge used for the trick could be a very, very low velocity handload. If the bullet struck a kevlar pad hidden under Teller's shirt, the only catch would be getting it into his mouth.
 
I had thought about a low velocity handload, but it seems awfully risky.. Of course in conjunction with what Don said about them spending a lot of time at the firing range setting this up. Just the fact that they're shooting through glass also bothers me. With a low powered round, how can they be sure the bullet will get to where it's supposed to go after passing through the glass? I don't think I'd risk my life like that for a simple trick.. Of course Houdini risked his life all the time..

I did read all the other posts and have to agree that it's something simple and we'll kick ourselves if we ever find out... I guess I'll just let the magic amaze me. :)

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The first step is registration, the second step is confiscation, the final step is subjugation.
 
I've seen them do this trick several times on TV and I think I have a pretty good idea on how the trick is done. No magician has told me this, it just makes a lot of sense to me.

Remember, a magic trick isn't so special anymore if you know how it's done. Therefore, you might not want to read the rest of this post.

The guns and the bullets are real, but they might be a little underloaded to make things safer and easier.

Videographers are used to get close-ups on the audience members drawing on the bullets and brass with wide-tip markers. (This is often done so that the entire audience and those watching TV can see the bullets close up before and after the trick.) Penn & Teller's assistants off stage are watching monitors and drawing the same letters and pictures on bullets that have ALREADY BEEN FIRED.

Any differences in the images between what was originally drawn and the bullets at the end of the trick can be accounted for in several ways:
1) Loss of the audience's EXACT memory of what was drawn.
2) Drawing on metal tends to smear.
3) The bullet will be fired.
4) The bullet was in Penn / Teller's mouth.

The assistants secretly place these bullets into Penn & Teller's headgear sitting at the back of the stage.

At this point Penn & Teller walk to the back of the room to don their goggles, helmets, gloves, etc. Notice that each of them places at least one article of clothing briefly in front of their face! At this point, they pop the bullet in their mouth.

They proceed to the firing lines. Each laser pointer is sighted so the gun fires 18 inches to the left or right of target. The laser is pointed at their "target's" mouth, but the bullet actually travels left or right enough to pass through the glass, break it, and fly pass their "target" on either their left or the right and hit a backstop off stage. (Putting on goggles not only helps them slip the bullet in their mouths, but goggles also help save their eyes from bits of broken glass.)

Then they spit out eachother's bullet. Finally, they pull the cartridge cases out of the gun. No trick here, they've really been fired and never left the gun.

This seems like the easiest explanation to me.
 
Tortuga offers the best explanation I've seen so far...

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The first step is registration, the second step is confiscation, the final step is subjugation.
 
I saw them several years ago at the performing arts theater at Georgia Tech. They *both* had a gun, fired at each other simultaneously, and had pulled two firearms-knowledgeable guys out of the audience. It was pretty impressive.
 
How loud was the gun? Even a .38 would be very, very loud. If it was not as loud as a normal .357, that would support the "light charge" theory. Sight in so the laser hits the mouth when the gun is aimed at some bullet catching material. Shoot at 300fps or so.

I have never seen the trick, but no one seems to be able to figure it out.
 
I've seen this trick...

I would be more comfortable thinking that Penn & Teller are actual Wizzards with real voodoo magic stuff.

The real question - Has ANYONE heard the short guy SPEAK?
 
Of the few times I've seen this (with both of them shooting), I never noticed the article of clothing passing in front of their faces. I'll have to watch for this next time.

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- Ron V.
 
I haven't seen this trick, but I can hazard a guess about how it's done.

The shootee has a fired bullet concealed on his person. While one illusionist is showing the about-to-be-loaded round to the audience, the other one scratches the initial(s) on the fired round and transfers the fired round to his mouth.

The round that goes into the weapon is substituted by sleight-of-hand for either a blank round or a wax round.

If it's a blank, then the glass is set up with a squib controlled by a person off-stage, to break the glass at the report of the weapon. If wax, the wax round breaks the glass and vaporizes.

Shooter sights in on shootee. Shooter fires blank/wax round. Glass shatters either by remote control, or by wax. Shootee fishes around in his mouth and comes up with pre-fired round.

Just a guess.

LawDog
 
"Has ANYONE heard the short guy SPEAK?"

Yes, he was speaking with some talking head during a TV interview of him and Jillette. The silence is just part of the act. They had forgotten how it came about.

[This message has been edited by Mal H (edited August 14, 2000).]
 
There was a show on either the Discovery or Learning channel a while back, wherein Teller told stories of the act, the road, etc. His voice/speech is perfectly normal, even nondescript. The silence is just another of those distractions magicians live on.
 
I think most of you have how the trick is done... with one minor twick... the assistant who writes (copies) on the bullet is doing it to a special live round with a weak load. The assentant after copying what is written on the bullet fires the bullet into a gel. That is how they get the rifling to wipe out portions of the writing.



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Richard

The debate is not about guns,
but rather who has the ultimate power to rule,
the People or Government.
RKBA!
 
Tortuga's explanation sounds plausible and I'm glad for it. Can you imagine a wise guy slipping in real bullets? Penn without Teller.
 
I have not seen the trick either, but I suspect Lawdog has it about right. If I see the trick, I could probably fill in the details, but here is my best guess.

The cartridge the officers write on is a trick cartridge. The bullet stuck in the cartridge has already been fired which explains the rifling scratches. These rifling scratches are hidden by the case when the officers inspect it making giving the illusion that the cartridge is a brand new unfired round. Before inserting the cartridge in the gun, the bullet is removed from the casing. (If the gun itself has been modified in some way into a trick gun, it might even be possible to remove the bullet after the gun has been loaded.)

The casing with the bullet removed is loaded in the gun by slight of hand. Deeper in that casing is a wad and some powder so that the casing actually does fire and make noise. It just doesn’t actually shoot anything. The glass is probably rigged with a sound sensor that breaks the glass when it “hears” the shot. (It seems a bit unreliable and dangerous to break the glass with something fired from the gun, but I s’pose that’s possible too.)

Now the only mystery left is how the Teller passes the bullet to Penn so he can stick it in his mouth. That part I can’t determine without seeing the trick. Perhaps they use some sort of slight of hand like passing the bullet along with the plate Penn will eventually spit the bullet into. Or perhaps they use some sort of hidden mechanical conveyer system. There are a dozen or more tricks a magician could use to pass off an object, they’d just have to pick one.

Anyway, that’s the way I suspect it is done, or at least something very similar to that.

tstr
 
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