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Fluid mechanics teaches us that gas moving through a tube leaks very little at a ninety degree angle. It's easy to demonstrate. Take a piece of paper and tape it over the cylinder gap. Fire the gun. You will notice nothing except possible mild scorching of the paper. When revolving rifles and shotguns first appeared more than a hundred and fifty years ago shooters would naturally place the nonshooting hand at about the cylinder gap. They quickly learned, however, that it hurt.
The video is nonsense. If it were true Smith & Wesson never would have put the .500 magnum on the market because of the potential for liability suits along with the certainty of damaging publicity. They did no such thing and have been selling the guns for years..
That is suspect. If the danger of destroyed fingers was true like Happy in Wyoming wrote S&W wouldn't be selling it out of fear of liability.
Now talk about a cap and ball revolver there was a real fear of a "chain fire" if it wasn't loaded properly and shooting one could cause the rest to go off in the shooters hand.
Fluid mechanics teaches us that gas moving through a tube leaks very little at a ninety degree angle. It's easy to demonstrate. Take a piece of paper and tape it over the cylinder gap. Fire the gun. You will notice nothing except possible mild scorching of the paper.
Fluid dynamics of unobstructed laminar flow through a tube shows what you're describing (assuming the gap is small enough), however the fluid dynamics of an obstructed turbulent flow through a tube shows something entirely different.
If you're going to try the tape test, remember the gun must be cocked, loaded, and ready to fire and you can only pull the trigger once or the cylinder will rotate and invalidate your test.
Be my guest for running your own test on this, get back to us with your results.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Happy in Wyoming
When revolving rifles and shotguns first appeared more than a hundred and fifty years ago shooters would naturally place the nonshooting hand at about the cylinder gap. They quickly learned, however, that it hurt.
When revolving rifles and shotguns first appeared the shooting form was identical to muskets and blackpowder rifles, this placed the support hand (fore) ahead of the cylinder/action as it currently does in all rifles except bullpups. Given that the original revolvers had the firing pin attached to the hammer (the separate firing pin came later) the geometry of the action places the cylinder directly above the firing hand. Revolving handguns were initially ubiquitously fired using a single hand grip, it was not until much later that two handed grip for handguns became standard.
If the original owners naturally gripped the cylinder why are there few accounts of people complaining about failures to fire additional rounds, since the cylinder would be blocked from rotating by the support hand grip, or mechanism failure from the pawl trying to overcome the support hand gripping the cylinder?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Happy in Wyoming
The video is nonsense. If it were true Smith & Wesson never would have put the .500 magnum on the market because of the potential for liability suits along with the certainty of damaging publicity. They did no such thing and have been selling the guns for years..
Except S&W puts a clear warning in their manuals (Page 17).
Quote:
Always keep fingers and other parts of your body away from the muzzle, away from the gap between the revolver barrel and cylinder and away from the pistol slide and ejection port
It's a clear warning, guns are not toys, the design of a revolver is 100 years old so not a novel design. To claim liability for injury for holding the gun inappropriately while being discharged would be like trying to claim liability for losing your fingers while trying to untangle something from your lawn mower while it's still running.
Not claiming Mythbusters is entirely accurate, but it is feasible, and none of your conclusions are reasonable for why it is infeasible. I certainly will not be putting my fingers up for an experiment to determine their accuracy.
Fluid dynamics of unobstructed laminar flow through a tube shows what you're describing (assuming the gap is small enough), however the fluid dynamics of an obstructed turbulent flow through a tube shows something entirely different.
If you're going to try the tape test, remember the gun must be cocked, loaded, and ready to fire and you can only pull the trigger once or the cylinder will rotate and invalidate your test.
Be my guest for running your own test on this, get back to us with your results.
That makes sense. I assume that the distance from the opening to the obstruction would affect it.
I was planning to do just that withe paper and tape although aftter watching Hickock45 I know that my response was incorrect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gungnir
When revolving rifles and shotguns first appeared the shooting form was identical to muskets and blackpowder rifles, this placed the support hand (fore) ahead of the cylinder/action as it currently does in all rifles except bullpups. Given that the original revolvers had the firing pin attached to the hammer (the separate firing pin came later) the geometry of the action places the cylinder directly above the firing hand. Revolving handguns were initially ubiquitously fired using a single hand grip, it was not until much later that two handed grip for handguns became standard.
If the original owners naturally gripped the cylinder why are there few accounts of people complaining about failures to fire additional rounds, since the cylinder would be blocked from rotating by the support hand grip, or mechanism failure from the pawl trying to overcome the support hand gripping the cylinder?
I've read of this several times. While I've never placed my handner the opening when firing I have noticed that this is the nattural place for the nonshooting hand It's where I automatically place mine.
The hand would be under the cylinder, not gripping it.
Thank you for the information. I've revised my thinking.
Fluid mechanics teaches us that gas moving through a tube leaks very little at a ninety degree angle. It's easy to demonstrate. Take a piece of paper and tape it over the cylinder gap. Fire the gun. You will notice nothing except possible mild scorching of the paper.
Unless it's highly pressurized gas, in which case the gas tries to escape in any way it can. Including through the cylinder gap. Or a pin-hole in a pressurized tube; think leaky waterhose, although a non-compressible fluid behaves somewhat differently than a gas.
I forget exactly what I was doing wrong, but do remember getting a powder burn with some unburnt powder embedded in my left index finger while firing a .32-20 Single Action Army (Bisley model). Slower powders are worse for the flash around the cylinder gap.
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