22. bullet fired in pocket
 

Today I was sitt'in in my stand,it was approx. 90 degrees,hadsome 22. bullets,and several AA batteries in my hip pocket and a bullet fired.Did the batteries or the heat have somthing to do with it,or what would have caused it?? anyoneknow?

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

Had to be the batteries. 90 deg. isnt hot enough to set of the powder.

What were you doing sitting in a stand? It was hot as hell today.

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

my guess is that a battery shifted and set off the primer.

ETA- Are you okay? did you get hurt at all?

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

question: did the bullet exit your pants or stay inside? did you get hurt or just pee your pants? just curious.

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

WOW. I bet that got your attention.

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

Dang!! That sounds like a good test for mythbusters!

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

Sounds like a story to me. The batterys and the 90 degree heat aren't in of themselves enough to make a 22 bullet go off. It would take a lot more heat than that, no way the batterys produced any elctricity to cause the ignition. Either need way more heat, or a stiff strike on the base of the casing to cause it to fire.

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

I ave heard of such a thing. It was reported in the American Rifleeman years ago. But there were no batteries involved. Just a 22 RF cartridge going off in someone's pocket.

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

I don't see how it can happen.

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

I could see it haapening the rim got dinged on a battery or a coin, not sure that a small batter would have enoug juice to set one off, but I wouldn't pry it. The priming compound is extremely shock sensitive!

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

Dang I guess I will never again carry a pocket full of .22's when squirrel hunting. Never would have thought that possible. Glad you posted. You may end up saving a life.

So where did the bullet end up?

Tom

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

I had the video camera hoping to see some action,and had the 22. along in hopes of seeing a coyote.I'm okay but the weird thing is there wasa hole in my pants but the bullet and the shell were still in my pocket.

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

The bullet didn't have a barrel to direct all the gases in one direction to launch it. In other words, it went bang and all the gases went 360 degrees, hence not being able to "shoot" the bullet out of your pocket.
Wierd!! What name brand was the ammo.?

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

that's why i was curious if the bullet exited your pants. someone told me 20 some odd years ago that if you were to heat up a bullet in a inclosed cardboard box that the bullet and the case would not exit the box when it shot off. i told him that he was full of crap, but maybe there is some truth to it. sorry MY BAD who ever it was.

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

I have had a lot of change in my pocket with a couple of AA batteries and had them heat up enough to burn me .Try it you will see enough heat to set off the 22.

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

Just a couple of years ago there was a post on a predator hunting board where a guy had a box of pistol ammo. sitting on the dash of his vehicle while he was out hunting. When he got back to the truck, a couple of the shells had gone off, but for the most part, the box that the shells were in sustained the only damage.
It's obvious that putting any ammo. on the dash of a vehicle is asking for trouble because of the obvious heat factor that can occur. A guy has to be careful with ammo., and heat.

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

I can tell you as a fact that whena .22 shellfires outside of a barrel the result is flying shrapnel from the case that would fly straight through any clothing or flesh nearby. If this really occured you are beyond extremely lucky thatyou do not have brass shell casings lodged deep in your leg or your femural artery which likely would have killed you before you got out of the woods.

JC

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

after reading some more i got to thinking about it and realized that i had some 303 british shells out in the exploder with the windows up. the temp outside today was 106 degrees, making the interior aprox. 109-112 degrees. i also had a 22 shell(unshot)in the console. if none of them exploded or fired off in that heat then how hot was it in dayna0306"pocket? maybe the change in his pocket spread out and touched both ends of the battery which set off the 22? just my thoughts.

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

What name brand was the ammo.?
[/quote] It was Remington 550 hollow points. Yea dayna0306 the batteries were so hot I could'nt hold'em in my hand. I guess I was really lucky!!

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

that doesnt make sence that a bullet would go off in a car. mythbusters tested it and they proved that heat alone would not set them off. at least not the heat inside a car, even on the hotest of days.

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

It's very possible that it happened. I've seen a9mm go off by dropping the box of ammo. Any kind of jolt can set stuff off, maybe it's a mistake in how it's made but it does happen. glad to hear you're ok.
-Jake

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

Some powders are more heat sensative than others, along with the fact that some powders can change property when vibrated enough, that's why you're not suppose to put loaded ammo. through a tumbler.

Just because Mythbusters can't replicate something certainly doesn't convince me that it can't happen. They couldn't even get a robbin hood with arrows!

Just like the guy that I posted about earlier that had handgun ammo. on his dash, isn't it strange that not all the ammo. went off, but instead only 2 rounds of the box of 50. He also posted pictures of that incident. SO, no doubt it CAN happen.

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

When a smokeless round goes off outside of a gun chamber, the pressure builds up to the point that the case is separated from the bullet. Since it has less massthan the bullet, the casebecomes the projectile, if any....

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

well i doubt it was the heat. I left at least one or two in my pants they got washed and dryed no fire. Now i guest the washer could have gotten the powder wet but it looked sealed to me.

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

I don't see how it could happen, either. It's not enough to strike a .22 on the rim, there has to be something to strike against, i.e. it's a hammer-anvil effect. The firing pin hits one side of the rim while the other side is supported against the edge of the chamber. The firing pin crushes the priming compound between the brass lips of the primer.

The batteries? There's an electrically primed muzzleloader on the market, but that's black powder with an ignition system designed to set it all off.

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

I always change the batteries in my household smoke detectors during the time changes. Last year while doing this task I had the fresh batteries in my front pants pocket. When changing I would place the old battery in my shirt pocket and and replace it with a fresh one from my pants.

Later that morning I felt my shirt pocket was getting warm and discovered that one of the nine volt batteries had shorted out against another. I removed them from my pocket and just for the heck of it I snapped two of the batteries together. Within only a few minutes they became too hot to handle.

I got to thinking that could be a fire hazard if they got together in a trash can. I now put electrical tape across the electrodes before discarding.

This has nothing to do with shooting but just something I wanted to pass along to everyone.

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

Just because we don't understand the conditions under which it happens does not mean that it is impossible. There are enough stories around about such occurrences that we know it DOES happen.

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

rob94: What are you thinkin' man! This is law suite city, buddy! If a feeble-minded little old lady who spilled her hot coffee in her lap can get millions from McDonalds, what about you! Talk about pain and suffering, you'll probably suffer the psychological scars of this experience forever!

Just joking. I'm glad no harm was caused. Odd things do sometimes happen. Maybe you dinged the edge of the cartridge enough to set it off (it is a rim-fire type cartridge). Maybe the heat? If it hasn't already been said, the pressures created by gunpowder depend upon confinement. Set off a coffee saucer of 50 grains of nitro smokeless powder with a match and then compare that to a .30-06 shot from a gun. Fortunately for you, not much confinement of the combusting powder out of the chamber and barrel of a gun.

RE: 22. bullet fired in pocket
 

If 110-120 degree heat could cause a shell to go off, then there would definitely be problems for our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, or in non air conditioned houses in Arizona and Nevada......