Original subtitles

This episode of Mythbusters might best be described as high impact.

It'll be like blood now.

Adam and Jamie are hell -bent on busting three of the biggest real -life gun

myths of all time.

Slugs down sniper scopes. It's either him or me.

I think that was the money shot.

Backwards bullets.

And a Civil War legend that's never been proved.

Like this.

And it's hammer time for Tori, Grant, and Carrie.

Could the simplest of all tools really explode in your hand?

It'll be like couple ammo.

With danger at every turn.

This test becomes a battle for survival.

Who are the Mythbusters?

Adam Savage.

And Jamie Heineman. This is going to kill you.

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

That's what I'm talking about!

Joining them, Tori Bellacci.

Very excited about this.

Cary Byron. Look, he crashed into his skull.

And Grant Imahara.

Don't say anything.

They don't just tell the myth.

They put them to the test.

After all the gun myths that we've tested, what could be left?

Well, actually, there are a number of myths, and they all involve making a

nearly impossible shot.

Nearly impossible shot. All right, what's first?

I call this one the mystery of the backwards bullet.

Oh, I think I heard about this one.

Supposedly, there was a shootout in Seattle between some cops and a

and the perpetrator's bullet was later found...

lodged backwards in the policeman's gun barrel? And that justified the shooting

because it proved that the perpetrator was pointing his gun directly at the

Well, close.

Actually, it was in the cylinder.

It was a revolver. But that's what the myth is, and I think we should test it.

All right.

Their best shot at success is to test this myth indoors with an old friend.

We're here to have a shootout.

Alan Normandy is one of South Frisco's finest. One round 9mm pistol fired from

an MP5.

And he's already guided the team through a dozen gunshot tests.

Some of those gun myths came from the movies, but this one's from real life.

It's something like firing a bullet down the barrel of another gun, which is why

it ends up facing backwards.

But in this case, a bullet fired by a criminal in Seattle is said to have

a direct hit on the empty chamber of a police revolver. You've heard of it,

then? Yeah, I have, actually. Just recently, we were doing some research on

that. I'm actually very excited about this particular experiment.

They're firing the same types of guns used in the Seattle shootout.

The suspect pulled a pistol on two officers.

Then they drew their .38 Colt revolver.

Of course, we'd love to reenact this shootout by Adam and I facing off and

seeing what happens.

That'd be kind of stupid because one of us would get badly hurt.

So what we've done is we've set up a rig. We've got a board that will line

two guns up at a precise distance.

We've got a way of aiming them precisely, including some laser sights.

And we've got special -made holders for the guns that we'll be able to hook a

string onto and fire the guns safely and remotely from the other side of the

range. The shooting gun is a Glock that...

Receiving gun is a Colt Police Positive 38 Special.

We've got it mounted here into basically a clamp that won't allow this gun to

move. Glock's mounted in the same thing.

It should just be a matter of sighting these up, firing them, and seeing what

the result is.

To replicate this one -in -a -million shot, they're fitting a laser sight

the Glock's barrel to line up on the empty chamber.

But bullets don't fly as straight as a laser beam, so Alan suggests a target

test to calibrate the trajectory.

Turns out the bullets don't always leave the barrel of a gun and stay on perfect

columnar center of that barrel.

That's something I had no idea about. Look, I mean, all these things are

-to -one shots, which means that getting it is exceedingly difficult and

requires a really high degree of precision.

The laser is aimed at the heart of the bullseye, and Alan's betting none of the

test shots will hit the mark, even from a range of just five feet.

Fire in the hole. Prepare to fire.

All right.

Firing in three, two, one.

The first bullet went through top hole, and the second and third bullets both

went through this bottom hole. Right.

So do we just split the difference between them? Absolutely.

Three more shots should help refine the aim.

That grip looks nice and tight. It is a little bit right of where the laser

sight was. We need to make one little final tweak of an adjustment, and I

we're in.

The Seattle Backwoods bullet became instant firearms folklore.

Reports of the incident were widespread, but you can't believe everything you

read in the paper.

So Adam and Jamie are set to look this myth straight down the barrel.

We've got our Glock aimed down at the 38th special, right down the cylinder.

It's all been aimed up, and it should work.

Our goal here is to end up with a backwards bullet lodged in the cylinder

38th special.

This is one of the things that's probably harder than it might seem. I

we're pretty much point -blank range, but there's no room for error here.

Test number one, hopefully the only test.

Firing in three, two, one.

Oh.

Is that as bad as I think it is?

Maybe not, but it seems the sight correction was a touch off -beam.

Well, there's no bullet in any of the cylinders or any of the chambers.

No, although this thing is damn hot.

Although that's probably from the light.

My first thought is...

Maybe the bullet bounced out of there.

Certainly possible.

I'd like to see what the high speed says.

The high speed camera shows the bullet did hit the gun, but just missed the

chamber.

It's high. It's way high.

Look at the splattering.

Coming out the back even.

That's crazy.

All right. Well, all I think is that we could re -aim and try again.

Yeah. I agree.

After all this effort, it's definitely worth another try.

Fire in the hole.

Firing in three, two, one.

Hey!

That looks a little better. That looks a lot better. I'm provisionally excited.

One minute adjustment, and the bullet is all over that chamber.

Though you really can't call it a bullet anymore.

Nothing but little pieces there. The bullet did go into the chamber, but it's

not left there as a chunk of a bullet. And that may just be the way that it

worked.

I think we ought to try it again. I'm just not sure from this distance that

bullet's going to be anything but munged like grass by the time it hits this

gun. They try again.

Firing in three, two, one.

And again.

With similar results.

Anything short of a perfect entry disintegrates the bullet.

And a chamber half full of metal mush won't confirm the myth.

I should know. When I'm heading out for a day of shooting and I think, this is

going to be easy. We've got laser sight.

Everything requires some fussing and fudging. And even something as powerful

a handgun.

It requires some finesse to make sure you know where it's going to shoot, even

from five feet away. I didn't expect that.

It's a tougher shot than anyone imagined, and one of the reasons is all

obvious. The 9mm bullet is slightly bigger than the .38 caliber chamber.

First of all, the bullet is larger than the cylinder bore, which means when it's

hitting, parts of the bullet start stripping off. But on a high speed, it

looks like the bullet is just integrating into...

powder practically well it's a little frustrating at this point we keep lining

it up dead on with lasers and very carefully finessing it into position and

these guns just aren't designed for that they're designed to hit relatively

large meaty objects and uh they're not designed to go down a tiny hole

All right, this next myth actually comes from a viewer complaint.

A lot of people feel that Jamie is using hammers unsafely.

A lot of people feel that when he's shaping metal with two hammers like

they feel like there's a potential to crack the heads or even explode the

Well, this seems easy. Why don't we just bang them together and find out what

happens? Well, if it's really as lethal as the fans say, I think that could be a

little dangerous.

Now, hammers aren't normally sold with instructions, but some do have warnings

that give this myth plenty of street cred. Never strike the tool with or

another striking tool, hardened nail, or other hard objects, as chipping can

occur, possibly resulting in eye or other injury.

But is this tall tool tail really a serious threat to life and limb?

So far, it's done Jamie no harm. But maybe that's why he wears the hat.

Time to consult an honest -to -God, old -fashioned blacksmith.

Scott Thomas doesn't just use hammers. He makes them.

Have you heard that slamming two hammers into each other is dangerous?

It can be bad, generally because hammers are both made out of hardened steel,

and when you strike two pieces of hardened steel together, something's

give, and you're usually going to get chips, or one might even break or

on you.

Draped from the horse's mouth, or at least the guy who makes their shoes,

thinks testing this myth will be risky business. So Torrey's designed a, what

you know, hammer -smashing robot.

What I'm going to build, it'll be like a little triangle frame with two arms.

and the arms will be on two axes, kind of like this, so that when they both

reach the bottom, the two hammerheads will strike against each other.

We're probably going to have to use some pneumatic actuators just to get the

kind of speeds that we want.

Actuators are simply devices that make something move.

These rotary models use compressed air to rotate at high speeds through 90

degrees.

they should give the robot arms the mechanical muscle needed to simulate a

swinging human arm.

All right, so I have my arms made. What I'm going to do now is I'm going to put

them in two pillow blocks, and this way it'll allow a smooth swinging action

for the two arms to come crashing together.

It's ironic how I'm using a hammer to make this, and this is going to be the

same thing that destroys the hammer.

It'll be like couple ammo.

It'll be like blood now.

Well, let's just wait and see.

Torrey sets up in the blast chamber, and for the first test, he's fitting brand

new wooden -handled claw hammer.

We have two hammers set up on the rig that Torrey built with the pneumatics

Grant has added.

They're basically just going to come together at a very high velocity, which

will measure with our scale and our high -speed camera.

Okay, here we go in three, two, one.

The speed was fast, around 16 meters per second from each arm. But the timber

handles took all the impact.

Still, some hammers are tougher than others.

These are double -tempered, steel -handled, unbreakable under normal

Okay, these are far from normal conditions, but that's the point. These

toughened steel handles should at least put the pressure back on the

hammerheads.

After seeing the force that these hammers came at each other with and

out the high speed, I think that with the new steel handles, they won't have

this sort of weakness. We might have the possibility of getting some shrapnel.

All right, we ready?

Yeah. Here we go in three, two, one.

This face right here has a dent, but that's about the worst off.

There's no chipping. It's just denting. It's all intact.

Well, there's your two basic hammer types, bash and bang, and still no

shards of steel.

Perhaps they're just not hitting hard enough.

Adam and Jamie are just as frustrated with their backwards bullet.

Is that as bad as I think it is?

They want to confirm the story that a criminal's bullet hit and lodged in the

empty chamber of a police revolver. So far, the messy results don't quite match

the myth.

Maybe the bullet bounced out of there. After some tiny adjustments to the pitch

of the guns, they stand back, block their ears and give it their best shot.

Filter test number five, trying to get a one in a million shot. Fifth try. Here

we go.

And three, two, one.

The aim looks good, but they're chasing perfection.

It's just a sliver straighter than the last shot. And that's all it takes.

Incredibly, most of the bullet is still intact.

And it's a very close match to the police photos. There's a hell of a lot

shrapnel at the bottom of the very chamber we were shooting into.

And if you look in this way, you can see the copper jacket.

That's a bullet lodged the wrong way in.

This is the ballistics equivalent of a hole -in -one.

Perfect. It's as perfect as we can possibly make it.

It's a tight fit, as no one knows better than Jamie. It takes him 15 minutes to

prise the bullet loose from the chamber.

There wasn't much left of it. I had to saw and pry and finagle the thing out of

the back of the gun. And a lot of it had actually gone into the cylinder and

then kind of sprayed out the back and the gap between the cylinder and the

of the gun.

But it was an honest -to -goodness bullet, and it was in there. It looks

like the picture that we had from the report we saw.

It's just, it's perfect. I couldn't be happier.

I'm calling this one confirmed.

Totally possible that he'd shoot your bullet down the cylinder of another

person's gun.

I'm calling this one confirmed.

100%.

The

humble hammer was almost certainly our first real tool. And where would

slapstick be without it?

Oh, son of a... Son of a... Son of a... Gun.

But can bashing two together really send deadly shards of steel whizzing around

the workplace?

Some toolmakers take the myth seriously.

But so far, Tori's hammer -smashing robot has barely made a dent.

Well, clearly we're not in any imminent danger based on these few tests here. So

we're going to step away from the robot and give it a crack ourselves.

Grant's concerned that the robot arms might simply be too slow to cause the

fabled fracture.

So with a high -speed camera and a calibration board, we'll soon find out

fastest, man or machine.

Tori thinks he'll drive the nail with one strike.

But that was a tad optimistic.

I was just like inches away from hitting the nail. Inches?

Inches? I was just inches away.

Back to the plate at its swing and a miss.

You know.

Look, I hit the same spot as last time. Why don't you put the nail there?

It's worth noting that a smart remark rarely goes unpunished.

You guys might want to, like, knock Sam behind you. The advice is well taken.

And in due course, Torrey finally hits the nail on the head.

Yeah! You got it? One shot.

At least we have plenty of information on his velocity, not his accuracy.

High -speed replays clock Torrey's mighty swing at 16 meters per second.

which is no faster than the robot.

So speed at impact clearly isn't the problem.

With our last round of human testing, we were successful in that we confirmed

our robot is well in the realm of human capacity.

In a desperate effort to prove the legend of burning shrapnel, they try

with two of Adam's old, pre -loved hammers.

Possibility. that over time, the constant hitting of those hammers maybe

them in some way and makes them more brittle so they might shatter. This is

Adam's old hammer versus Adam's old hammer.

Once again, no shards.

Looks like the handle's bent, but no shattering.

So what about a pair that spent a whole night in the freezer?

Well, these are our best quality hammers.

kept overnight at minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

And you can tell right here, closest that we've gotten to a chip, still

no explosion.

Okay, so where to from here? Maybe Jamie has the answer.

Jay, we've been doing this all afternoon. We've been smacking hammers

We haven't gotten anything more than like a little tiny spray of particle

And you're sort of the subject of this whole myth, and you're the reason that

we're visiting it.

I think if a...

Hammer head is really hard.

If it's just super hard, it's going to be brittle. That you would do by getting

the hammer head really hot, like red or white hot, as hard as you can get it

without melting it, and then quenching it and use motor oil because it absorbs

lot of the excess carbon in there.

It's called case hardening, and here's why it could work.

Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon.

The more carbon you add to the mix, the more brittle the steel.

So Tori taps into the nearest source of free carbon.

That's some dirty oil.

The used motor oil is full of carbon, which is introduced into the hot metal,

and it's supposed to make this a much stronger hammer.

But in taking away some of its softness, which absorbs shock, we are making it

more brittle, at least.

That's the idea.

And that calls for a down -home, MythBusters -style barbecue.

Who had the 20 -ounce claw hammer?

Medium? Okay. Medium on this one.

Once the hammers are heated to a healthy red glow, they're all set to suck up

the carbon from that second -hand motor oil. When they've cooked and cooled, we

might just have the explosive hammers we've been looking for.

Back at MythBusters HQ, Adam and Jamie are ready to test their next classic gun

myth.

I've seen this in the movies. It's one sniper taking out another sniper.

And the final thing is the guy who's about to be killed sees the first sniper

his eyepiece and gets shot right through his scope, through his head.

That's it?

That's it.

So what's the plan on the sniper scope?

Well, the first thing is I think we have to find a range to do this in because I

don't think it's fair to... you know, use 10 feet or 20 feet on this deal. We

should have a nice long throw between these rifles. I agree for accuracy.

And I don't think that the insurance company is going to let you or I be the

sniping victim in this. I think we should ask Grant if he's willing to do

Okay.

Sadly, Grant's too busy bashing hammers to accept the invitation.

But he has offered his likeness in the name of science.

Well, the stuff that I'm making it out of is a ballistics media that's actually

based on animal protein.

So it's perfect for us in seeing a real damage assessment to muscle tissue.

That's exactly what this equates to when it's dry, is muscle tissue.

Just like the backwards bullet, this myth wasn't invented by a script writer.

The legend stems from the Vietnam War, when a U .S. Marine sniper named Carlos

Hathcock... killed his VC counterpart with one shot straight down the scope.

Jamie's first job is to track down a similar rifle.

This is a new gun that just came out. This is the actual 100 % true copy of a

Vietnam sniper rifle.

Is that a good rifle?

Oh, man.

You could hit a fly at 500 yards of this if you were a good sniper.

After buying the rifle, the budget stretches to four quality scopes. That

they'll have just four shots at busting this myth.

All they need now is a victim, and Adam delivers a bouncing ballistics baby

named Grant.

Beautiful. Look at that.

That.

That's great.

This ought to be not so hard.

Look at that.

That's easy. I can do that with a piece of bailing wire.

Always a bear for detail, Adam hitches a lift to raid Jamie's wig wardrobe.

That's it.

Now at least we'll have a snappy sniper.

A little cosmetic surgery to accommodate the rifle rig, and they're ready to go.

I guess we're all set. Let's go do some sharpshooting. We're ready to load up.

Jamie and Adam have brought their two sniper rifles and a rubbery likeness of

Grant to a local rifle range.

There's a sniper.

They want to see if one sniper could kill another by shooting a bullet

down the enemy's skull.

I look forward to seeing if we can make that shot. What is it from here to the

end of the range?

It's 100 yards, which for a sniper or a precision marksman is not really that

far. But the math at 100 yards is perfect for us because the calculations

one inch at 100 yards is one minute of angle. And what we're trying to do today

is to shoot into a one -inch scope tube.

So that should be just perfect.

So you think this is totally possible?

Apparently back in World War II, when marksmen were first used for this type

activity, they were trained to aim at the glint of the opponent's scope.

So in bright sunlight, they saw a little reflection to aim at that glint. And

that's why there's really potential for this myth to be seen today. I think we

can knock this out today.

But Jamie has his doubts.

For this myth to be true, not only do we have to hit a small target at some

distance, I mean, we know that we'll be able to do that.

sooner or later.

The question is, what will happen to that bullet when it hits the scope? Is

actually going to penetrate all the way through and hit the other sniper in the

eye, or is the scope going to serve as some sort of a shield?

Jamie's worried about the half dozen or so glass lenses inside the scope.

They're not especially robust, but any one of them could still deflect a

speeding bullet and stop it from bursting out the other end.

Once again, Alan needs to sight in the rifle by taking test shots at a target.

Here's the center of the group, right?

We're going to move it one click left and one click down, and that's it. Once

know that it's reasonably centered in that fashion, you guys can start

Now's the chance for Adam and Jamie to get their fingers on the trigger.

Good job, young man.

Yeah, good shooting there, Tex.

Those three cracking shots won't just help sight the gun. They could also

determine who gets to play sniper.

If Jamie's aim is just a little off, Adams our starting shooter.

There's a myth that I'm looking to bust today, which is that somehow Jamie is an

incredible shot and I'm a terrible shot.

It's not that I feel competitive.

You know, I happen to be a myth buster.

Bullseye right down the middle.

Perfect shot.

Jamie's grouping is close to perfect, but then Adam's effort wasn't exactly

scattershot. There can only be one fair decision.

They both get to shoot Grant.

I think it's time to set up our sniper target. I think it's time to set up our

sniper target as well.

This might be a good time for Grant's mom to turn off the TV.

Our floppy facsimile is carefully positioned behind his rifle out at the

-yard mark.

Head.

Tail. Jamie goes first.

Jamie wins the coin toss and the right to shoot first.

I don't know whether I'm going to hit the guy behind the scope or not, but I'm

going to pretend it's either him or me.

We want to hit.

Smack dab in the middle because we want that bullet to go all the way through

the scope and into our sniper.

Confidence is high that this myth could be proved with a one -hit wonder. And

there's no doubt that Jamie's got his eye in.

I think that was the money shot.

It's a direct hit from a distance of 100 yards.

The scope is history, but gunman Grant lives to snipe another day.

It didn't make it through to his eye.

It didn't even make it to the back of the scope. I dare say this guy would be

kind of upset, but his eye is still intact, and the scope acted effectively

shield. It looks like Jamie's fears were well -founded.

The optic elements jam the bullet, but with three more scopes to destroy, they

can still turn this myth around.

Well, it's up to Adam to see whether he can best this shot, and that's going to

be a pretty tall task.

The fate of the squad rests with Sergeant Savage.

I'm happy with that shot.

Let's see how it is.

It's another clean hit, unleashing a river of pulverized glass.

But it's Adam who's truly shattered.

Doesn't look like I made it.

No, similar deal.

No, it doesn't even look like it made it as far.

Look, we have two hits, and neither of them are kill shots, but there's no

reason to call this one busted yet.

Jamie or I have been firing sniper rifles for all of four hours.

I think it might be time to bring in our ringer and ask Sergeant Normandy to

take the shot for us.

They're hoping for one expert shot that hits and shatters those lenses dead

level, dead center, with no deflection.

So a new scope is fitted, and the Master Marksman takes aim.

I don't think I got it.

In fact, he did get it. But once again, the bullet stopped short of ruining

Grant's good looks.

No, didn't make it through the back the same deal as before.

I don't see a hole all the way through. I see everything collapsed inside.

Yeah, look, I think this just, I mean, to me, this just keeps on explaining

it's not about marksmanship. It's about a ridiculously lucky shot.

It's not plus or minus. It's like threading a needle. A half inch. Yeah,

like threading a needle from 300 feet away.

There's only one scope left, so they decide to stack the odds and make this

test up close and lethal.

What we're doing now is we're setting up a point -blank shot so that there's no

kind of trajectory involved.

We've determined that the power of the bullet, the difference from the distance

is negligible.

So if this doesn't do it, then we'll be able to say something definitive about

whether the myth is possible or not.

It's literally their last shot at this myth, and Alan has the honors.

One, two, three.

The impact is strong enough to knock the scope from the rifle.

It's a fitting end to a myth that's been all but blown away.

Oh, man.

Looks like the same as the others from 100 yards.

Deflecting off the convex lens. Exactly the same deal.

I got to say, I thought this one was totally plausible, but I'm not so sure.

Knocked out everything in the center.

I just don't think it's possible for a bullet to make it all the way through

this scope. This isn't a one -inch diameter tube. With the aiming reticule

the glass elements in there, it's like a half -inch diameter tube.

It's harder than shooting down the barrel of another gun because there's a

bunch of crap in the way.

But Jamie can still see the point of aiming straight down the scope.

If you're a sniper and you're looking down the barrel of another sniper's gun

and you see the glint, I'd take the shot.

First off, you're going to ruin the guy's scope and he's not going to be

shoot back very accurately.

Secondly, you're probably going to make him clear out of there. He's not going

to be a very happy camper.

And then thirdly, I mean, if you miss, you're going to hit his head.

It's a one -in -a -billion shot.

He might have been the best marksman in the world and might have never made that

shot. If the sun and moon and stars aligned and maybe one of the lenses was

and maybe the sniper had removed an element because he had some better

thing, maybe then the bullet could have gone through. We don't have the scope

that Gunny Hathcock shot at, so we can't know for sure. I say we have to call

this myth busted.

Tori, Grant, and Carrie are testing the myth that smashing hammers together

could be extremely bad for your health.

So far, they've hardly scratched the surface. But according to Jamie, high

followed by a carbon -rich oil bath should make the steel much more brittle.

And much more flammable.

Well, that's a good thing. That's cool. I didn't expect that. I didn't either.

More steel and more flames. This backyard Barbie is getting way out of

You're spilling it on the wood pallet. I'm getting a fire extinguisher.

The extinguisher works briefly, but it's no match for flaming oil.

Everything's under control.

That always sounds so easy in those do -it -yourself manuals.

This case -hardened solid steel hammer is ready to be put to the sword.

And this time, they've decided to crash it into something that's guaranteed not

to bend or break.

What we're going to do is we're going to put to rest one of these arms, and

we're just going to have the hammers crash into the anvil.

So we are moving on to a test that possibly could be the grand finale.

This could be the shattering hammer that we've been waiting so patiently for.

Systems armed.

Just got to limbo my way out.

All right, so this is the final test.

Harden hammer against anvil in three, two, one.

The result is totally unexpected.

The carbon -soaked head failed to shatter, but the softer shaft has a

case of the bends.

That was the part that wasn't hardened.

That's true. That's the part that wasn't hardened.

Dang! Yeah, that was the part that wasn't hardened. That's pretty cool.

This here is our case hardened hammer, which we did on our last test.

The hammer's so hard, and this is so soft, that the neck completely bends.

Those flying fragments are just flaky residue from the barbecue. The head

is completely undamaged.

Conclusion? It's never wise to bang two good tools together. But the chances of

a hardware store hammer exploding are virtually zero.

All right, so, are we in agreement? Hammer versus hammer, busted?

Yeah, it's busted.

Totally busted.

Jamie and Adam have already proved that a fired bullet could end up in another

gun's empty chamber.

As for killing the enemy by shooting down his sniper scope, well, Grant

without a scratch.

But this last gun myth might be the toughest test of all.

Now, I've got one that I've been wanting to try about two Civil War soldiers who

fired at each other and their bullets fused together in midair and dropped to

the ground below where they hit.

It sounds like a classic myth. It also sounds like one that might be a little

trickier than we think to pull it off. I mean, they're going to want to go and

every place, but like that. This is definitely a one in a million shot, but

we've got to try this one. It's one of my favorites.

One famous fused bullet myth became folklore at the Battle of Fredericksburg

1862. These primitive rifles shot rounds called mini -balls.

Slightly pointed, 58 -caliber slugs of solid lead. They're softer and slower

than modern bullets, so theoretically, they could fuse together.

This is what one looks like.

This is the mold for one. This is the fire, the crucible, and the pouring

I'm sure there are other names for some of these things.

And I'm going to try and make as many as I can.

The recipe is simple. Melt some lead pellets, pour the liquid into the mold,

and then cool it.

Now that is perfect.

Meantime, Jamie sorts two near -perfect replica rifles to fire those mini

-bombs. What we're going to do is take it.

these rifles and put them in our bunker at opposite ends. We'll probably screw

them down onto a table and we'll line them up with laser sights.

We'll use the adjustable qualities of these clamps to precisely dial them in

we're good to go.

But this is shaping up as one very tricky test.

These rifles need to be fully adjustable for fine tuning. But once they're set,

they can't move a fraction of an inch. I've got an idea which I think you're

going to like.

Do you know your really, really huge hockey puck magnets of death?

How could anyone forget?

Jamie used his mega magnets to climb up the inside of a metal duck.

Lord, the god of thunder is trying to enter my building.

And they could make or break this rifle rig.

These magnets are like the most diabolical things you've ever seen.

straight out of a science fiction movie, except they're real. And on a side

note, they actually provide us a lot of the adjustability we'd be looking for. I

mean, these guns aren't going to go anywhere with two of these magnets on

Mounting the magnets to the frame involves a fair degree of strength and

patience. There we go.

But the key to testing this myth is timing.

Two actuators linked up to digital timers should ensure a simultaneous

but that's no guarantee of success.

We've got a hammer that hits a cap that ignites the powder that sets the bullet

off on its path.

One bullet could be packed a little tighter. One bullet could have a little

wadding. One black powder might have a drop of someone's sweat in it. One cap,

don't even know what the manufacturing standards on these caps are.

All these factors could...

really get in our way of being able to get these bullets to fire simultaneously

and hit in midair.

So if two bullets collide in midair, could they really fuse together?

Some say it happened for real in the U .S. Civil War. But, of course, there's

one around to verify that.

So what do you got there, little buddy?

I have a letter from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, and

they have said,

Dear Mythbusters, Enclosed is a disc with photos of the mini -balls from the

opposing sides that met head -on during the Battle of Fredericksburg in December

1862. According to the donor, they were found by his father shortly after the

battle, and he donated them to the Smithsonian in 1906. And here is a

Check that out.

Now, that looks to me like...

I mean, it looks the part of what I'd expect to see, but I'm still pretty

dubious about it.

Yeah, I don't know. That could be anything.

I'll believe it when we do it ourselves.

They're setting the guns just six feet apart, hoping the laser sights ensure a

hit.

In case the aim is askew, they've fitted circular collars to the end of both

barrels to limit the damage to the rest of the gun. In order to align the two

barrels directly, down each other's throat.

We've got these, which are in -barrel laser sights.

Basically, I put this in the barrel, and I screw it in, and it pulls this little

thing down, bands this collet to fit the barrel, and then I know that this laser

is dead center of the barrel, pointing exactly where that barrel's going to

shoot. Line both of these up across the same center, and we should get two

bullets meeting. But the biggest concern is timing.

Jamie's actuators are precise to the millisecond, but 19th century firing

and gunpowder aren't so reliable.

So Adam's running a test with a slab of bulletproof plastic to see if both

rifles fire in perfect unison. The point of this is that...

If everything hits at the same time, then we're golden. We just leave

set and we go for the real test.

If we see that, say, one bullet is off to one side or one bullet hits before

other one, this will help us dial it in.

They fill each gun with exactly 80 grains of gunpowder, a standard charge

1860s.

All right, I'm just about to put the caps in. We should clear all non

personnel. Okay, I'm out. All right.

Okay, range is going hot. Clear the range.

Three, two, one.

I heard that bounce around, and I also heard that it wasn't quite exactly the

same hit.

There's only one slug embedded in the plastic, and it takes a minute to figure

things out.

No, that's the bullet from this side, because there's still a barrier.

Yeah, I think they both just kind of bounced off. This one didn't quite

as far as the other one.

Hey, how good is the aim? It's perfect.

I can't tell, is it? Yeah.

That is very, very cool. Let's check out the high speed. The high speed camera

confirms the theory. One bullet popped out the other because one gun fired a

fraction of a second later.

Which means we now want to set this one to fire 62 milliseconds before that one.

Well, I've got it set for delay, so I'll delay that one 62 milliseconds.

Six hundreds of a second might not sound much, but that tiny delay could be

catastrophic in a real test.

That's way more time than it takes for one bullet to get from one gun to the

other. So that would have been one bullet all the way down the barrel of

other gun.

Our biggest worry is that this black powder stuff is so unreliable that we

get some totally different result next time, but at least we're dialing in on

it. So Jamie dials in the timer with a slight delay.

The guns are reloaded, and fresh caps are fitted.

Three, two, one.

Now that was the right sound.

It was off, but a lot closer. I couldn't tell you that I heard two distinct

bangs, only one bullet falling.

I heard two.

Really? Yeah.

That's bionic hearing.

This is one time Janie would love to be proved wrong.

Sadly, he's never been more right.

Now it looks like the opposite happened, that this gun fired first, and this

gun led, knocked the first gun right out of there. That is so cool.

The high -speed shots are crystal clear. The aim is still dead square.

But these two slugs are a long way from meeting in the middle.

Oh, that is such a beautiful shot.

Look at that.

That was 30 % closer than the other one, but in the other direction.

Yeah. Which tells me we're dealing with a lot of inconsistency here. I think

we're getting as close as we can possibly get, but I think...

From any shot to any other shot from the same rifle, you're going to deal with a

difference in delay of, you know, 20 to 80 milliseconds, and that's what's going

to kill us in this.

Okay. Let's just set up and do as many shots as we can.

Okay.

The odds against perfect synchronicity are enormous. The gunpowder is just too

unreliable. So they might as well bite the bullet, lose the plastic, and do

test for real.

In three, two...

One.

Oh, collar got knocked up. That hammer's down.

Interesting. Test after test proves that timing is still the problem, and

there's no way to fix it.

One rifle always fires fractionally before the other, and they take turns

jumping the gun. Any delay Jamie dials in is pure guesswork.

We can, in the high -speed camera, clearly see one bullet moving across

and then another bullet moving across frame in that kind of time period.

So it's not like they're like this. They're kind of going... We're not

sure how to get there. These bullets are little rascals.

It's like herding a cat. They're not behaving.

So we need to come at it from a different angle, and I'm not sure what

right now.

The solution might involve some lateral thinking.

Hey, Tori.

And there's no doubt that Adam's brain often works sideways. This is perfect. I

want to put a bullet in there, just hold it ever so lightly enough that it stays

there and I can shoot it with another bullet. You guys use this for silver

dollars, right?

Yeah, and that's what it was designed.

So there's no resistance whatsoever.

Fantastic. That's perfect.

Tory once used this fancy frame to see if he could shoot a hole through a

dollar. And it might just work now as a bullet holder.

It's a legitimate way to test them in. Remember, they're not out to see if two

bullets could hit, but whether they'd fuse together.

It's basically just a tube with three long screws mounted in it that hold the

bullet very gingerly. The thing that it does is holds it completely stationary,

so we're guaranteed to hit it.

If those bullets completely disintegrate and don't fuse at any speed, then this

myth is busted.

If we are able to get those bullets to fuse at some speed, well then, we're

going to say it's plausible.

With one mini -ball held fast in the frame, they compensate by cutting the

charge to just 20 grains of gunpowder.

It's a fairly realistic battlefield scenario, and their last chance to turn

bullets into one.

Powder's in.

Bullet's in.

Safety's on.

Target bullet's in. Lights are on. I'm going to climb out and put in the cap,

and we'll be able to close the doors and fire.

Firing in 3, 2, 1.

That was such a delay.

It was like, pow!

Jamie always says the simplest rigs are the most effective.

And once again, he's proved the point.

Oh, Jimmy.

If you and I had hired a sculptor, we couldn't have asked him to do a better

proving of plausibility than that. Yeah, that's pretty elegant.

It does not get any better than that. Dude, that is fusion.

There's no doubt that these two lethal chunks of lead have hit and fused.

The high -speed camera can't clearly show the melting moment, but so what?

you can't see it.

It's already gone.

Oh, well.

I thought the evidence would be on the high speed, but no! We have physical

evidence. Who cares about the high speed today?

Not me.

When you think about what's required to make this happen in real life, I mean,

it's a freak accident.

I am so happy about this. This is one of the most beautiful objects we have yet

made on the show because of how unexpected it is. I would have to call

plausible. However unlikely, it is in fact plausible.

All right. Time to call it.

First one up, mystery of the backwards bullet. What do we say?

That would be confirmed. It is possible to fire a bullet down the cylinder of

another gun.

Diffused bullets from the Civil War.

Plausible. it worked and sniperscope oh we kind of have to say

busted i think i mean as much as i don't want to make a bunch of snipers angry

no i don't either it's busted we couldn't make it happen no