Original subtitles

Do not try anything that we are doing

On this episode at home.

We're what you call experts.

Narrator: On this episode of "mythbusters"...

...In a duel to the death,

The team gets graphic,

Grappling six cinematic ballistic clichés.

[ knuckles crack ]

But which will be the last myth standing?

Aah!

[ alarm blares ]

[ siren wails ]

[ gasps ]

[ gasps ]

[ growling ]

[ screams ]

Who are the mythbusters?

Adam savage...

It's scientific!

Narrator: ...And jamie hyneman.

That's one of the ugliest things I've ever seen.

Between them, more than 30 years of special-effects experience.

Together with kari byron...

It's the scary-go-round.

Narrator: ...Tory belleci...

This is gonna be so awesome!

...And grant imahara...

Somebody order an explosion?

Narrator: ...They don't just tell the myths.

They put them to the test.

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by discovery communications

Buckle up your bandolier,

Because this is "bullet baloney."

[ gunfire ]

[ squeak! ]

In a feast of six sensational firearm fables...

Aah!

...The team busts out

Their weapons of mass deduction...

It's for science.

Narrator: ...To uncover the truth behind the bullets.

[ all scream ]

And the first question on their quest -- what's first?

[ bullet ricochets ]

I'm thinking "bent barrel."

You're gonna have to give me

A little more to go on than that.

Okay. I've seen it in a million cartoons.

One character grabs the gun of another character

And bends it, hoping to neutralize the weapon,

But it still fires.

So we can, like, shoot around corners and stuff?

Maybe. If it works, that might be possible.

Sounds like fun.

When a cartoon character nonchalantly bends the barrel,

The gun always seems to fire just fine,

Albeit with an appropriately twisted trajectory.

But wouldn't the rifle's finely balanced ballistics

Actually be, well, all bent out of shape?

So, what's the plan?

The plan, I think, is pretty elaborate,

So see if you can follow along.

I think what we should do is get a gun with a barrel,

Remove the barrel,

And -- wait for it --

We bend it.

Whoo!

Yeah! I love this problem-solving stuff, man!

Best part of this job.

[ laughs ]

Genius.

Thanks.

As adam "savant" savage said...

More.

...It's a pretty simple plan.

Awesome.

And at the yolo county bomb range,

They're all set to bend it like gunbusters.

You got it coming to you, man!

We already know that it's possible

To shoot a gun with a bent barrel.

The nazis did it in world war ii

With a thing they called the krummlauf.

But the krummlauf was engineered specifically for that purpose.

What we want to find out is

If we can take an normal gun like this one

And bend the barrel and have it work well enough

To shoot around corners.

Yep, will an ad-hoc cartoon curl...

Loaded. Range is hot.

...Really leave you with a fully functional firearm?

Ready when you are, sir.

Well, first up to find out is a straight-shooting control.

In three...

How far into a block of ballistics gel...

...Two...

...Will the bullet penetrate?

...One.

There you go. That was neat and pretty.

Let's go check it out. Okay.

And the benchmark is a through-and-through

And, uh, through again?

[ laughs ] this is funny.

It actually went all the way through it,

Hit our bullet-resistant glass,

And bounced back in the ballistics gel

About an inch and a half.

It went, "doink, doink!"

So, to bend our barrels,

We figure we're gonna heat it up first

To make it more malleable.

That means getting it, like, red or cherry-red hot.

And to do that, we've got a sword forge,

Which, for some reason, adam just happened to have.

I didn't just happen to have it,

I -- since I've always wanted to learn sword-making,

I've been admiring these sword forges for a while,

And I was looking for an excuse to buy one,

And this episode was a perfect excuse.

So I didn't just happen to have one, I happened to want one.

Of course you did.

[ laughs ] let's fire it up.

Okay.

Adam: So, what exactly is a sword forge?

As its name implies, it is a forge...

Perfect.

...An extremely hot oven, in the thousands of degrees,

For manipulating metal for making swords.

Here we go.

In a few minutes, we should have

Some delicious gun barrel to eat.

And it's perfect for our purposes.

[ laughs ] it's getting there.

It's powered by five gas jets of propane.

Once that gets cherry-red,

We'll pull it out and bend it to the angle that we need.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, it's moving! Look at that!

[ laughs ] all right?

Narrator: And with a barrel pulled to a perfect 45 degrees...

Excellent! Let's let it cool.

...Then quenched...

Oh. [ laughing ]

...Prepped and remounted...

[ laughs ]

It just kind of feels funny, don't it?

It does. It feels funny.

...Here's adam with a prediction and a plan.

Adam: I, for one, think that that bullet's gonna come out...

Here we go.

...At very close to the same amount of power as before,

And if it does...

Range is hot.

...Well, we're gonna bend this barrel some more

And see how extreme we can bend it and still get a bullet out.

All right. 45-degree bent barrel.

In three, two, one -- go.

[ laughs ] it fired!

Narrator: Fired, but how successfully?

Oh, look at that. It went all the way through.

Adam: It went all the way through,

Bounced off the bulletproof glass,

And -- look -- landed on top of our ballistics gel.

That is awesome.

Well, the numbers are in.

Our first control bullet,

Fired from the straight barrel,

Shot out of the barrel at 1,216 feet per second.

Our second bullet fired out of this,

The 45-degree angled barrel -- 1,131 feet per second.

45 degrees -- still lethal.

Wow! That's a loss of energy of only 7%.

I'm starting to feel real optimistic.

Let's bend it some more.

Let's bend it some more.

Narrator: Roll up, roll up.

The mythbusters carnival of ballistic carnage continues.

Okay, so, what have we got?

Well, we couldn't do an entire episode on bullets

Without doing another installment

Of "what is bulletproof?"

Aah!

Tory: All right. So, what's the plan?

Actually, we have a carnival-style shooting gallery

Waiting for us at the gun range.

[ bells dinging ]

Ooh! I get to relive my childhood.

[ gunshots ]

Narrator: Yep, no collection of guns and ammo would be complete

Without a stroll down bulletproof lane.

I can see you!

Narrator: Over the years, the team has uncovered

Some lifesaving surprises.

Holy cramoly.

But lifesaving firearm folklore...

Fine day for a shooting gallery.

...Is the gift that keeps on giving.

We are here at the alameda county shooting range

To test what is bulletproof.

Now, a lot of these items, people have said,

Have stopped bullets and actually saved their lives,

And that is what we're gonna test.

The best part is, we have a shooting gallery

To set everything up in!

[ southern accent ] step right up!

See if you can win a cigar!

[ normal voice ] oh, this is gonna be so much fun.

Tory: It's the mythbusters shooting gallery!

Kari: Oh, my god, this is so awesome!

Grant: That's crazy!

All right. First item up -- tape measure.

Who gets to shoot first?

Ooh! Me! Me, me!

Think he wants to go.

I got it. I got it.

This is so cool.

So, I actually have heard of this one. It goes way back.

Contractor has a tape measure in his pocket.

He is shot, and the bullet doesn't make it through,

And protects his heart.

Are you guys ready?

Ready!

So, we're gonna start out shooting this with a .22.

If it does make it through,

We're gonna increase the caliber.

This should be fun.

Narrator: So grant steps on up and takes aim

To tag one of the moving tape measures

And test its bulletproof qualities.

But it takes a few shots before he gets a direct hit.

[ bell dings ]

Now, how did it fare at the live-ammunition fair?

Dude, you nailed it!

Grant: Did it make it all the way through?

No. It didn't go through. It stopped the .22-caliber.

Right on! Well, let's move on to the 9 and see what that does.

The tape measure saved your life!

Narrator: Success so far, but...

Okay. Ready for 9mm?

Absolutely. All right.

Narrator: ...A bulletproof material would be expected

To stop any handgun, not just a low-velocity .22.

Whoa! Definitely hit that one.

Narrator: So what happens when the stakes are up?

It went in there, but didn't come out!

No way!

9mm. It stopped a 9mm round.

This is absolutely astounding.

A .22 didn't make it through this,

And this is a regular tape measure.

A 9mm didn't make it through.

This is not a lot of steel here.

Here we go.

But you know what?

Next up is the .40-caliber.

[ gunshots ]

And, unfortunately...

Nice shot. Right in the middle!

...I think that's where the tape measure's gonna lose.

Kari: Oh, yeah!

All right, so, it looks like the tape measure stopped

A .22, a 9mm, but not a .40-caliber.

This one is busted.

[ laughs ] busted.

Narrator: Coming up on "mythbusters"...

Fat cats and mob hits...

Crazy cartoon curves...

It's kind of handy.

Narrator: ...Deep-fried guns...

Firing a gun in a vacuum.

...And guns in space?

[ gunfire ]

Narrator: This is "bullet baloney."

[ southern accent ] come on down to jamie's house of bent barrels.

Narrator: And the mythbusters are tackling a bumper pack

Of ballistic mysteries...

Wa-pa!

...And classic cinematic clichés.

Aah!

So button up your bulletproof vests...

Ow!

Firing a gun in a vacuum.

...Because there's six myths to solve.

[ growls ]

[ laughs ]

And with first-up bent barrel success...

It fired.

...Adam's feeling real optimistic.

I'm starting to feel real optimistic.

Narrator: But jamie's noticed an interesting,

Not so encouraging ballistic detail.

Barely inches after leaving the gun,

The bullet has started to tumble.

So it's being very seriously affected by this bend.

I don't know what exactly it's doing,

But I suspect that it's gonna get worse

The more that we bend that barrel.

Now, our first bent barrel, the one bent at 45 degrees,

That was just a dress rehearsal.

That was to test our equipment,

Our machinery, and our technique.

But this gun -- bent at a 90-degree angle --

This is where the rubber meets the road.

[ chuckles ] that's just wrong.

This is, potentially, a gun that shoots around corners.

And if a bullet comes out and it's still lethal,

How cool is that?

Also, how illegal is that?

Seriously, has anyone checked how illegal this is?

Meanwhile, glass-half-empty hyneman...

Oh, jamie, this is perfect!

...Thinks the right angle will be the last right angle

Before things go wrong.

This 90-degree barrel is the maximum point

That I think that the bullet is probably gonna come out of.

Loading the gun. Beyond this,

What it means is that the bullet's actually having

To go down an opposite path that it came in on.

All right. Here we go.

At this point, it's just going off at right angles,

And I think it'll make it.

Shooting bullets around corners

In three, two, one -- go.

Hey! It hit the ballistics gel, and the box jumped.

Narrator: Yep, once again, the box stand jumps

As the bullet penetrates the ballistics gel.

But does its penetrating power match up?

Look at that.

That's still a significant hit.

It is a significant hit.

It's slightly less than the middle one,

But it went all the way through the ballistics gel.

That puppy's lethal.

And that's a conclusive result.

We shot a gun around a corner!

Adam: Our 90-degree barrel worked perfectly.

In fact, the bullet left this barrel

Traveling the exact same speed as it left the 45-degree barrel.

Now I'm feeling real optimistic.

On that note, we'll be right back

After a short word from our sponsor.

[ southern accent ] come on down to jamie's house of bent barrels.

We got a gun that'll shoot whatever you want.

Duck hunting, fishing --

Heck, it'll shoot things you can't even see.

Only $19.95. Curved ammo not included.

Welcome back.

We've been testing the idea

That a gun can suffer a bent barrel,

Yet still fire its bullets effectively.

That is awesome.

Emboldened by these results,

We went, then, to a 90-degree bend

And found that it absolutely shoots,

With only 7% less energy than a straight barrel.

We shot a gun around a corner!

But this isn't enough for us. No, no, no, no, no.

We now want to bend this barrel even further

And find the limits...

Here we go.

...Of how effective a bent barrel can be...

It's say that's good. That's a nice, gentle bend.

...Or how bent an effective barrel can be.

I guess both.

135 degrees. That's a serious bend.

Narrator: Yep, with a muzzle facing

A comical 135 degrees away from the barrel's base...

I'm confused.

...If the bullet makes it out with lethal intent...

Range is hot!

...The myth will have exceeded

Even the most optimistic expectations.

135-degree bent barrel in three, two, one!

I saw the box jump!

I guess that means it came out.

Came out, went in...

Oh! It went all the way through the gel.

...And, proving its deadly force, came out again.

That's astonishing to me.

I thought that by the time we got to 135,

It was gonna be going halfway through.

To remind you, with a straight barrel,

The bullet was coming out at 1,200 feet per second.

Now, with a barrel bent at 135 degrees,

The bullet's coming out at 1,050 feet per second.

Now, that's not a whole lot of reduction.

Who would have thought it?

Narrator: According to an earlier prediction, not jamie.

Question is, can the gun confound all expectations

And go the full comedy curve?

This barrel is going all the way -- 180 degrees.

This gun that we're about to put together

Will shoot the guy who's holding it

Or someone standing behind him.

[ grunts ]

Almost. Almost there.

That's it!

That's pretty much it.

That's beautiful!

Narrator: Beautiful? Sure.

Absurd? Without doubt.

[ chuckles ]

It's kind of handy.

Narrator: But will it be deadly?

Adam: After witnessing the 45-degree bend,

The 90-degree bend, and the 135-degree bend,

I think this is gonna work!

I think a lethal bullet

Is going to exit this barrel when we fire it.

And that's pretty amazing.

Gun is hot.

But let's find out.

This is it, for the money.

Jamie: [ chuckles ] here we go.

The gun that shoots its owner, 180-degree turn,

In three, two, one.

Nothing jumped.

Narrator: A lack of visible physical impact

Is not a great sign.

[ laughs ]

Jamie, it went all the way through.

Wow.

Who knew?

[ laughs ]

This is now my officially new favorite artifact

We have ever made on this show.

That's excellent.

I was optimistic, but now I'm speechless.

This is amazing.

Adam: So there you have it.

This, I believe, is an awesome day's work.

Four barrels, bent at 45, 90, 135, and 180 degrees,

With ballistics gel showing

All four of those shots being lethal.

That is a completely astonishing result.

Narrator: Not to mention an unexpectedly confirmed --

And comical -- conclusion.

Let's get out of here.

I want to mount this on the wall of my office.

Well, are we even allowed to transport that?

Well, if it fits in the gun case.

Fair enough.

[ chuckles ]

[ horse whinnies ]

[ chuckles ]

Narrator: When you're slow on the draw,

An innocuous everyday object might just save your life.

But are the many lifesaving urban myths

The miraculous real deal or unrealistic rumor?

Next up, tory's gonna shoot some golf balls.

This should be interesting.

Fore!

Now, the myth goes that a mobster was playing golf.

He had a ball in his pocket.

Now, a hit was put on him, they took the shot,

And the ball actually saved his life.

All right. This is .22 versus golf ball.

Here we go.

If this works, I'll be impressed.

Narrator: The ball, made with a hard plastic coating

And dense synthetic rubber core,

Definitely has the potential

To save the golf-playing godfather.

Well, you guys, it looks like this one's busted.

The .22 went all the way through the golf ball.

But it's a hole in one.

Next up, has a wallet really got your backside covered?

Kari: Oh, yeah. I've heard this one.

A guy gets shot in the back pocket with a 9mm round,

But the wallet stops it.

That's it. All right.

So kari lines up with a myth-specified 9mm.

All right. This is 9mm versus wallet.

But what isn't known is what was in the wallet.

So, we're going to shoot a regular wallet

Filled with credit cards and money...

Tory: All right. Shoot them in the butt.

...A fat-cat wallet --

How do you even get that in your pocket?

And, finally, a duct-tape wallet,

Because -- let's face it -- we love duct tape.

I think that's all of them.

Let's go see which ones are bulletproof.

Narrator: Yep, the bulletproof proof...

Nice shooting, tex. ...Is in the pocket.

Kari: So, first up, regular.

And that is clean through and through.

All right. Regular wallet -- not bulletproof.

No. Busted.

All right. Here comes the fat wallet.

Entrance, exit,

And it got shot a couple times,

And it didn't stop any of them.

Let's try duct tape.

[ laughter ]

Straight through the butt.

Whoo! Clean through. No surprise there.

Duct-tape wallet -- busted for the 9mm.

They're all busted.

Well, looks like the tape measure

Was the only thing that was somewhat bulletproof.

But as soon as we moved up to the higher-velocity round

Of the .40-cal, it went right through it.

And as far as the wallet and the golf ball goes,

Well, those weren't even close to being bulletproof.

So this one is definitely busted.

The best part is, now we have a shooting gallery!

Wa-pa!

Narrator: Later on "mythbusters"...

If you're an astronaut in the vacuum of space

And you've got a handgun, can you even fire it?

Ow!

That's what we're gonna find out.

Ooh. Alien blood.

Narrator: Sit down, strap in, and stand by.

"bullet baloney" continues.

All right, this one is a fan favorite --

The shotgun spear.

Oh, you mean from the movie "the grey"?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's a bunch of guys hanging out in the forest.

There's wolves that want to make dinner out of them.

They've got a bunch of ammunition,

But nothing to shoot it with.

Grant: Yes, and so what they do is sharpen some sticks,

They harden the tips in a fire,

And then they duct-tape them to the shotgun shells

With the tip pointed at the primer.

Bangstick.

Right, and the idea is, when the wolves come into the camp,

They poke the stick, the shotgun shell goes off...

Injuring the biggest one, and the animals take off running.

All right. Who wants wolf burgers?

Ugh.

This should be a pretty simple plan.

We copy their technique, see if it works.

Boomstick.

Narrator: So, for the simple setup,

It's down to the bomb range with a lifelike lupine target

And a movie-accurate shotgun shell on a stick.

That is one pretty wolf.

Now, for this myth to be plausible,

We need to see two things.

One, we need to see the point of the stick

Actually fire off the shotgun shell...

Get ready for the pain.

...And, two, we need to see some kind of damage

That would cause a wolf to be repelled.

My feeling is this isn't gonna work.

I would just poke at it with the stick.

Boop! Doink! Doink!

Kids, that's what you call forced perspective.

How's that for science?

Narrator: For this "definitely do not try at home" myth,

The blast shields are raised...

That looks stable.

...With a boomstick-shaped hole to poke through.

Now, that ought to do it.

Down, boy!

And grant is all set to stick it to the pooch.

Kari: You know, as much as I want these to work,

I'm kind of rooting for the wolf.

In three...

[ wolf growling ]

Two...One.

Aah!

Lot of anger, lot of anger, not a lot of bang.

Yep, a clean hit,

And the shotgun shell remains decidedly undetonated.

But kari decides...

Hit him harder!

Aah!

...Grant just wasn't desperate enough.

Okay. Okay, imagine -- angry wolf, coming to eat you!

He wants to eat you! You're his dinner!

[ growls ] get him!

Aah!

Ooh, that was a really good shot, right to the chest!

That was a solid hit.

[ screaming ]

You can't get any better than that,

And still, the shotgun shell didn't go off.

Aah!

All right, so this movie version

Of the bangstick did not work.

I opened it up, and I found that I did,

In fact, make contact with the shotgun shell.

But, unfortunately, it blunted the tip.

So we need to go back and rethink this

And probably find a harder wood.

Narrator: It's time for plan "b" --

"b" for "back to the shop."

All right, I'm gonna be trying something

A little bit different.

Now, the primer of a shotgun shell is made of brass.

Now, normally, to deform it, you would use a steel firing pin,

But, for this myth, we need to use wood.

Now, brass has a brinell hardness of 60,

So we need a wood that is harder than that.

I have to sharpen it using a steel grinder.

What I have here is ipe.

Now, this is a brazilian hardwood.

It has a brinell hardness of 80.

This the hardest wood I've ever worked with.

So, this, theoretically, could be used as a firing pin.

Narrator: Back at the bomb range,

Tory, with his hardwood in hand...

Oh, yeah. It's my boomstick.

Let's make it work.

Narrator: ...Attaches the shotgun shell to the spear.

And he's ready to fight for his life.

All right, this is ipe-hardwood boomstick...

[ wolf growling ]

...In three, two, one.

You hit it hard enough to break your stick.

That was a good hit, man.

Narrator: A good hit, but still no fireworks.

The primer's dented,

But it wasn't enough to set off the shotgun shell.

But the team isn't ready to give up just yet.

In keeping with the macgyver-like myth,

They're going to improvise.

So, there's one last possible scenario

That's in the realm of reality.

Say they found a little sharp piece of metal,

Or a screw, or a nail, or something from the plane...

Ready to nail it?

...And then used that to try to hit the primer.

[ wolf growling ]

Here we go, in three...Two --

It's kind of like playing pool -- one.

[ cheering ]

It worked! It worked!

Yes!

Just like it says on the tin, the boomstick went "boom."

Groovy.

But did it do any damage?

It didn't make it, actually, through the fake fur.

Without the gun barrel to contain the blast,

The energy disperses, and the ballistics gel is unscathed.

So, for protection from the pack,

Save time and stick to a pointy stick.

I mean, if I had a choice,

I would have gone with just the plain spear,

Because this is just going to make him angry.

The spear might actually kill him.

Spear's a great weapon.

It's worked for thousands of years.

Busted.

Busted. Busted.

[ wolf growls ]

[ wolf howls ]

Do not try what you are about to see at home.

We are what you call experts.

[ horse whinnies ]

Next up, adam and jamie hit the ballistics bunker

For a physics and fiction face-off...In space.

Dude, I think we should test how much of a deterrent...

[ gun cocks ] ...That sound is.

It's pretty distinctive. Totally.

So, what's next?

Well, apparently,

It is impossible to fire a gun in space.

You mean, like, in a vacuum?

Exactly. Think we've got to test it.

I've always wanted to go to space.

Me, too! Guns in space? What could possibly go wrong?

Look out!

Narrator: Although hollywood would have us believe otherwise,

The prevailing theory is that a gun will fail

To fire in space for two reasons.

Aah!

First, the lack of air and atmospheric pressure

In the vacuum of space may cause the slug to deform.

Second, without oxygen,

The primer can't ignite the propellant.

And, to test these theories,

Adam and jamie need to fire a gun in space...

Down here on earth.

That looks good. It's gonna be beautiful.

To do that, they're building a bulletproof vacuum chamber.

Wa-pa!

And, once jamie inserts a pressure gauge,

Their soon-to-be-sealed chamber is ready to have

All of its air removed -- every single atom.

But first, a test fire.

Adam: This is a real pistol,

And we're about to fire it in our shop.

Now, setting up a gun to be fired by a remote control

Is always fraught with some dangers,

And we are removing those dangers in the following way.

One, our entire vacuum chamber is made

Of bullet-resistant plastic.

Two, we have an extra piece of bullet-resistant plastic

At the end of this chamber for the bullet to land in.

Three, we're gonna have a piece of steel

Behind that extra piece of bullet-resistant plastic.

Four, our gun is mounted firmly in a gun rest meant to hold it.

Five, we are only using one bullet.

All right. Jamie, I'm ready to load.

Are you ready? I'm ready.

There's a couple of others, but they don't really matter.

Jamie: Before we pull the trigger on this gun in a vacuum,

We're gonna fire the gun in the vacuum chamber without a vacuum

To be able to compare the two.

In three, two, one.

There it goes.

That was a bang.

Well, seemed to work pretty well.

Indeed.

Narrator: Yep, they've tested the remote-firing mechanism,

Captured it on high-speed,

And have a slug impact on the backboard to compare.

It's time to reload...

Gun is hot. Range is hot.

...And suck some air.

And adam, for one, is confident

That in this instance, hollywood has it right.

We're waiting for our vacuum chamber to come up to a full vacuum,

And then we're gonna pull the trigger on our revolver,

And I am here to tell you that I think it's gonna go "bang."

I don't think the vacuum's gonna have any effect

On the gunpowder's ability to propel the bullet

Out the barrel of our revolver.

This is it. With the chamber evacuated to a full vacuum...

Are you ready? I'm ready.

...And adam's remote finger on the trigger...

All right. Here we go.

...Will hollywood have its day,

Or, as the myth suggests, will the gun misfire?

[ sighs ] firing a gun in a vacuum.

Three, two, one.

There it is. There it is.

Successfully shot.

That gun fired in a vacuum!

It did.

The images are spectacular...

Wow!

...And the details fascinating.

I swear, if I just saw this footage,

I would totally believe that it was a special effect.

It doesn't look real. Yeah.

Amazing.

But exactly what happened?

Cue forensic duo doctors hyneman and savage.

Adam: Now that we know a gun can fire in a vacuum,

The question arises, does the bullet behave

Any differently in the vacuum than in the air?

We might posit that the bullet would move slower in the air

Because the air provides resistance,

Where the vacuum provides none.

And, in fact, we did find a very minor difference.

The bullet in the air traveled 5% slower

Than its partner in the vacuum.

That's not a big result,

But it is also borne out in a tiny way

By the bullets that we found embedded in the glass.

The bullet in the vacuum made a slightly larger pressure ring

In the glass than the one in the air.

It's a tiny difference, but an interesting one nonetheless.

We chose a revolver for this test,

And you'll notice in the high-speed footage

That a fireball is created around the gun when it fires.

Now, that's because of the gases

Coming out of the cartridge to escape.

If you look at the vacuum,

That fireball is much, much larger,

And that is because a gas, when it's exposed to a vacuum,

Is going to expand more.

And that makes me think

That if you had an explosion in space...

Like you've seen in countless sci-fi movies,

That explosion would be much larger

Than it would be under normal atmospheric pressure.

So, the myth that guns cannot be fired

Within the vacuum of space?

It's totally busted.

Yeah. It's busted.

Let's move on to the next gun myth.

Narrator: Up next, tory sets his sights on the lights.

All right, tory. So, you brought us to the gun range.

What's the myth?

Now, you've seen this in so many hollywood movies,

Where somebody shoots out a neon sign

And sparks go flying everywhere, just like this.

Aah! [ laughs ]

All right, so, that was pretty hollywood.

Good old special effects.

We're gonna have to make some more neon signs.

And get some real guns, and then we can shoot them.

This is gonna be awesome.

Narrator: A hollywood downtown showdown

Wouldn't be complete without obligatory neon-sign fireworks.

But is this light show a complete fiction?

Will it really fizz and spark without special-effects fakery?

Now, the way they create sparks in the movies

Is by using a paintball gun and a paintball round

That has zirconium and an abrasive substance.

When they fire it through the gun

And it hits its target, it creates a spark.

But we're gonna see if we can create a spark

Without the help of special effects.

Narrator: So, first up, kari goes into the light...Store

For a little light learning.

This is shawna. She's gonna help me make a neon sign.

Now, a neon light is not that different from a fluorescent tube.

You ready? Think so.

A neon light uses high voltage

To propel a current through a tube

That's filled with low-pressure noble gases like neon,

Which gives us that sort of orangeish-red glow.

Different gases will give you different colors of light.

Oh, my god, I love this. This is so cool.

Narrator: Yep, it's physics fireworks.

High voltage causes electrons to flow through the tube,

Bombarding the gas atoms.

The resulting energy is given off in the form of light,

And the color, or wavelength, of that light,

Is specific to the gas in the tube.

♪ ahh

It's gorgeous!

And with her two themed neon signs sealed,

Kari delivers them

To a familiar and warranty-voiding location --

The gun range.

Grant: So, we're back at target masters west

With a custom-made neon sign.

Pink? Yeah!

Did you pick the color? Of course I did!

That's cute.

We'll get a bunch of guns, we're gonna shoot it, and see

If doing so actually produces spark and flame

Like it does in the movies.

All right. Are you guys ready for this?

Neon sign versus 9mm handguns?

Tory: Let's see if it sparks.

Kari: In three...

Narrator: So, will the combination of high voltage,

Vacuum-sealed neon gas,

Kari: ...Two...

Narrator: ...And live ammo

Provide the spark the myth requires?

One.

Narrator: Uh, no.

Well, we hit it, but no sparks like hollywood.

No. It was absolutely nothing like the movies.

A result...

Shotgun!

...That's double-busted.

It's for science.

Narrator: When the guys pull out the big guns...

All right. We're hot!

In three, two, one.

Tory: Get some! Whoo!

All right. It doesn't matter if you have a shotgun or a pistol.

You fire at a neon sign,

You're not gonna get the sparks

That you'd get in a hollywood movie.

Narrator: Coming up on "mythbusters"...

If you can't stand the heat, don't fry guns in the kitchen.

Let's go eat some gun.

Narrator: To give their neon nightmare one last shot...

We're gonna have to do something a little more...Mythbustery.

Narrator: ...Kari, grant, and tory filled a new sign

With highly flammable hydrogen

And lit it with the worst wiring job possible.

[ laughing ]

That's right, I've created several jacob's ladders,

Which are just, basically, traveling arcs.

All right. We are hot!

12,000 volts each. There are three of them.

In three... 36,000 volts.

Two...

If anything is going to ignite that flammable gas...

...One. ...This is it.

Fire!

Narrator: Despite the enriched set of circumstances,

Not one single spark sparked.

Grant: I know why they do it this way in the movies,

With all the sparks and the flame --

Because in real life, it's boring!

You shoot a tube, and the tube just goes out.

But you know what? That's okay.

Hollywood, you keep doing what you do,

And we'll keep busting the myths.

Narrator: For the final round in the "bullet baloney" chamber

Comes a myth best served hot.

Okay, we've got a story about a guy

Running from the police

Through the back kitchen of a restaurant,

When he decides to ditch his gun

Into a hot deep fryer.

Don't tell me. It goes off.

Exactly. I think we need to deep-fry some guns to find out.

Sounds tasty.

For a not-so-lucky fleeing fugitive,

This fast-food firearm fable was a high-calorie catastrophe.

But adam and jamie want to know if a gun firing in a fryer

Is a high-fat fact or deep-fried fiction.

To find out, they've hit the bomb range for a fryer fight.

Ready for some deep-fried guns?

You betcha. I'm hungry.

Adam: When you want to shoot a gun in controlled conditions,

As we've done countless times on the show...

In general, you go to a shooting range.

But when you want to shoot off a gun

In uncontrolled conditions,

I.E., dropping one in a vat of boiling oil...

Well, then you want a place that's a little more remote,

And that's why we've come to this,

The yolo county bomb range in davis, california.

They've got a shooting range with very wide exclusion zone.

That means we can conduct our experiments safely here.

Narrator: And, as experiments go...

That's good.

Narrator: ...This one's as simple as it gets --

A deep fryer...

Aww. Isn't that pretty?

Narrator: ...A 9mm handgun...

Perfect!

Narrator: ...And soon-to-be-hot oil.

Adam: So, the major components of this experiment

Are pretty straightforward,

And they're all right in front of you.

We've got a one-foot cube made of steel

That holds eight gallons of canola oil,

We've got a pistol mounted solidly in a machine rest

On a slider that allows us

To safely and carefully lower it down into the oil...

Which will be heated up to frying temperature

With my propane torch.

As everyone knows, it's vital, when deep frying,

To know the exact temperature of your fry oil.

And we will know that using this thermocouple,

Whose wire travels all the way back...

Behind these blast shields,

Where we'll monitor everything in perfect safety.

How'd you get here so quick?

Movie magic. You ready?

Yeah. All right.

Narrator: It's time to get down to business,

And the job at hand is cooking a loaded gun

To see if it will fire in the fryer.

Now, there are many different temperatures

That restaurants keep their fry oil at,

But at the top end, it's about 390, just shy of 400 degrees.

So now we wait.

That's hot oil.

That's the temperature

We're gonna be looking for to drop our gun.

Narrator: And temperature is the key

To the whole shooting match.

Way back when the guys baked bullets...

Hot bullets! Get your hot bullets here!

...They found the heat from an oven

Could get a gun to go "bang."

But now, the question is,

Will the wet oil dampen that detonation?

All right. That's 390. I'm gonna shut off the gas.

All right. The gun's free. You ready to lower?

Adam: I really feel strongly that the moment

We lower that gun in there, it's gonna go "bang."

All right. Dropping a gun into hot oil.

I don't think it's gonna take much more

Than 10 or 15 seconds.

Three, two, one.

Jamie: There it goes.

There it goes.

Narrator: And there it doesn't.

The range is most definitely hot.

That heat's working its way towards the bullet.

But the gun is clearly not fast food.

I was thinking it would go in the first 15 seconds.

And, as 30 seconds rolls into several minutes...

Come on! Do something!

...Confidence that the myth will go off with a bang

Has cooled.

You sure there's a bullet in there, right?

I'm sure there --

Whoa! There it is!

[ laughs ]

Awesome! That worked.

Very well done. Let's go eat some gun.

Dinner is served...

Whoa!

...Once again proving that heat and ammunition

Are dangerous ingredients in the kitchen.

Adam: Well, I just hope this goes to show you,

Kids who like to play it fast and loose with the deep fryer,

That this plus this do not make for a tasty meal.

Oh, no, you got to be careful

When you bring guns around the food processes,

'cause you don't want to get shot in the fish and chips,

If you know what I mean.

I'm not even sure what I mean.

Narrator: What adam actually means is...

The gun went off real sweet, just like the myth.

Narrator: But they're not done yet.

They're going again, and this time, they're starting cold.

So, our gun went off in the vat of boiling oil,

But that begs the question,

What's the lower temperature threshold for setting off a gun?

So that's what we're gonna figure out.

We're gonna refill this tank with some cold oil...

Lowering it in.

[ laughs ]

...And heat that oil until the gun goes off.

That's all the information at this point.

So, what are we up to?

Just over 160, climbing steadily.

You know, waiting for things to go off like that,

While you're heating them up slowly,

Waiting for a failure point,

Is always nerve-racking.

This is no exception.

Jamie: Well, we're up to about 260 degrees.

Got a long ways to go.

Adam: We're sitting there passing the time

As the temperature's just climbing slowly.

So, at the point it's rounding 300,

We're kind of feeling a little bit bored and lax...

So, what's your favorite fried food?

Fish and chips.

Fish and chips?

When they're done right.

...Not really paying close attention,

But just keeping tabs on it.

Then, around 340, we know that we're in the zone,

And I literally was in the middle of saying to jamie...

All right, I guess we'd better start paying atten--

Whoa!

It totally just went.

What temperature was it?

It was right around 344 degrees.

Whoa!

This is a rare time when the experiment happened

Long before we expected it to happen.

Wow. That's lower than I thought it would be.

Me too.

It was surprising.

Narrator: But with two successful fryer firings,

What's not surprising is the result.

So, I know this is probably a little obvious,

But it's time to call it.

We don't need to call anything.

Just drop that sign on the ground,

And the camera guy will take care of the rest.

All right. Here we go.

Why do we always park

On the other side of the hill?

I don't know. It's stupid.

And that's another fully-loaded, gun-toting collection

Of clichés concluded.

We shot a gun around a corner!

Using their weapons of mass deduction,

Their sums, and ammo...

I'm speechless. This is amazing.

...The team has once again defeated

The dark forces of fakery and fiction.