If you are loading a clip wrong or loading a clip too hard is it possible to make the bullet go off accidentally when you're shoving it into the clip? Without the physics of the barrel forcing the bullet into a certain path, wouldn't a bullet that went off without being in a gun be significantly weaker? What if your gun is jammed and your messing with it trying to get stuck bullets out, can heat from inner parts of your gun touch the tiny fuse on the end of the bullet and cause it to go off without being tapped by the firing mechanism?
I don't see that as being very probable, first off chances are you won't be loading a "clip" it will most likely be a magazine (whether internal in the gun, or external). Also when a round goes off in space it most likely won't be lethal because the gas is not being concentrated and forcing the bullet to escape at a high velocity. You would have to be pretty dense to be rough enough with ammo to cause an accidental discharge, unless the ammo had some preexisting condition causing it to do so.
No. Rounds are capable of taking a lot of harsh abuse without going off. That's correct. Without a chamber and barrel to direct the force, a round going off (as it would if thrown into a campfire, say) would have significantly less force and would probably not be lethal. No, neither the primer nor the powder in the casing will ignite due to residual heat from the chamber.
Well, you can drop them -- or even throw them forcefully -- against a hard surface, crush them, and expose them to heat that would burn skin and they won't go off. I don't recommend deliberately mistreating ammunition, but you don't need to treat it like it's an unstable high explosive that will blow you to pieces if you look at it cross-eyed.
Ammo Amunition discharged outside of a firearm will probably not kill you, at least not with the bullet, when loose rounds are detenated the bullet really dose not go anywhere, its the brass that you have to watch out for as it goes flying in direction it is pointed in .
Dangerous? It would be almost impossible to cause a round to fire while loading a magazine. There is the possibility that an unfired round being extracted manually from the chamber of an auto loading pistol striking the ejector and going off. You should keep your hand clear of the ejection port when removing a live round.
"can heat from inner parts of your gun touch the tiny fuse on the end of the bullet and cause it to go off " ? I'm not sure I follow you. Bullets are, by definition, inert metal and are harmless unless/until they are fired out of a contained cartridge, usually from a gun. There are no fuses at all on bullets, even tracer bullets have no fuse, as such. Only explosive shells have a fuse, bullets do not. ???
A round left chambered in a very hot barrel can go off - it's called a "cook-off." Very rare except in fully automatic weapons, which can get blazing hot with extended firing... Otherwise, ammunition is quite safe, barring willful and violent abuse (no sledgehammers, please
Berry, a cook-off wasn't my issue, I only addressed the fact that there is no "tiny fuse" in a bullet. Ammunition, ie, cartridges, are not bullets and the question referenced bullets only. I don't think anyone would be attempting to clear a jam if the action was sufficently hot to cause a cook-off.
Not every one is blessed with knowing the correct terminology... The original question was about cartridges (bullets) and primers (little fuses)...
When an outside heat source is applied to a loaded cartridge you really do not have to worry about the bullet at all. We will take a 45acp for example. The standard load is a 230gr bullet loaded with say a max load of 231 (5.3gr). The heat will when high enough ignite the powder and/or the primer. With out the supporting of a chamber the brass case walls are the weakest part of the whole thing. So with the pressure building in the case you would really get a pop and then the case would either break into small shrapnel like shards and fly off or the case its self would fly off with little if any force. I have experimented with this. (Don't ask) but yes when I was a bit younger and a lot more stupid i did stuff like this. never will the bullet fly out because of Newton's third law (To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction). This would mean that the case and the bullet would need to weigh the same and provide the exact same ammount of surface area in contact with the burning powder. For the heated cartridge to expell the bullet at the same velociety as the case.
"Not every one is blessed with knowing the correct terminology... The original question was about cartridges (bullets) and primers (little fuses)..." Granted. But, in respect to him, I prefer to accept that the poster knows what he's talking about and respond in kind, not to "assume" I know more of what he's asking than he.
