Are there any real "Bullets Spinning on Ice" explanations?

[230RN]

<Rod Serling voice>

"Submited for your consideration..."

Bullets shot onto ice sometimes just sit close by where they hit spinning madly on the ice, like a kid's top.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1btKoF_HZk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foZlciP6gUQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1gf8ck_g7k

Has anyone ever figured this out? There's plenty of mystery there, like why don't the bullets go trough the ice and why don't they ricochet off into the distance?

 I really don't think there's any fakery involved since so many people have submitted so many videos of it in so many different conditions and in so many different places.

I first heard about it back in the 60s from a guy who used to ice fish and one day up on one of the lakes he decided to start a hole by shooting into the ice and was amazed to hear and find the bullet spinning like the videos show.

I thought it was "mountain man's BS" and kind of forgot it for decades until maybe 50-60 years later, I started to see some videos on it.

Mythbusters had a Q&A video on their experiments --they found that iit does happen:

https://youtu.be/PF7Q8xSpqiI (3:40)

The first question was somebody noted the bullets spinning backwards.

My left eyebrow, my "whatsa matta fi you?" eyebrow, went up.  After all, almost all Colt handguns have left hand twists. (Besides the possible stroboscopic illusion, as when wheels in videos and airplane props seem to run backwards.)

My eyebrow remained up through the rest of that video.    The upshot in most of the "scientific" videos on it seems to be kind of a "Well, that's just the way things are" non-answer.

What, does frozen water act like a trampoline under high impact?

I myself have never tried it. By the time I got re-interested in it, I was too old to go hiking around on frozen lakes.  However, I did see one vid of it happening with a guy shooting into a frozen-over puddle in a tire track.

So.  Have there been any definitive explanations I may have missed? 

Terry, 230RN

[Fly320s]

I don't know about definitive, but the answer seems pretty obvious too me: The ice is just soft enough to catch the bullet without the bullet bouncing off into the distance, just like wood does. The bullet is hot from being fired.  The bullet is spinning from being fired.  The hot, spinning bullet easily spins on the slick ice until friction finally slows the bullet to a stop.

[MechAg94]

Never saw one, but I haven't looked.  I just assumed the ice was solid enough to stop the bullet, but slick enough it did not stop it from spinning.  Has anyone ever thought they were spinning faster than they should have?

[230RN]

"spinning faster than they should have."

Don't neglect possible "strobe effects" I mentioned above.

And bullets out of handguns will hit up to 80,000 RPM, and out of rifles up to 250,000 RPM.

Consider a 1000 foot per second bullet coming out of a firearm with a 1 in 12 inch twist.

That means it will hit 1000 revolutions PER SECOND.

Multiply that by 60 seconds in a minute and you get 60,000 RPMINUTE.

Now try a 3000 foot per second bullet out of a one turn in 10 inches rifle.

For a 12" twist rifle, that would be 3000 revolutions per second.  But the twist is 10 inches, not 12inches, so...

3000 revolutions per second  X  12/10 X 60 = 216,000 Revolutions Per Minute.

See?  As I've said before, the first time I did that calculation I thought my calculator was broken.

That's why some .220 Swift bullets would disintegrate from the spin halfway to the target.  Well known phenomenon if you reload the .220 Swift too swift. <nyuck-nyuck-nyuck>

But this bullet spinning stuff makes me think that frozen water acts like a trampoline if impacted hard enough.

Terry

[Fly320s]

Your math is correct.  Did you just answer your own question?

[BobR]

"spinning faster than they should have."



That's why some .220 Swift bullets would disintegrate from the spin halfway to the target.  Well known phenomenon if you reload the .220 Swift too swift. <nyuck-nyuck-nyuck>

But this bullet spinning stuff makes me think that frozen water acts like a trampoline if impacted hard enough.

Terry

''That's why I keep my Swift bullets below 4000fps, I know some who regularly go over that, bullets must be better built these days.

bob

[230RN]

Your math is correct.  Did you just answer your own question?

Answering Fly320s question:

No, because spin rate, from pistol bullet spin rates to rifle bullet spinrates doesn't seem to make a difference.  I've seen videos where some Eastern Bloc folks shot what looked like 7.62X39 rounds at 30° onto a frozen lake and the pointy rifle bullets spun prettily on their pointy noses.

Maybe an un-spun hard-jacketed round ball would bounce up and land nearby with no spin. We don't know.

What is really mysterious is why the bullets bounce up off the ice and land so close to the firer. I'm not too surprised that they're still spinning and that they landed point first. (Maybe those are the only ones we can catch and the others flew off in indeterminate directions. and distances.)

[TommyGunn]

It's magic,  guys, MAGIC!!

[Ron]

It's magic,  guys, MAGIC!!

Water in all it's various forms is pretty magical.

[230RN]

It's magic,  guys, MAGIC!!

That's what you said about the vacuum cleaner.




"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." --Arthur C. Clarke

REF:
https://tse2.mm.bing.net/th/id/OIP.enEiecWBPAcJ8HNO5lYr2gHaCg