Thread: How well do bullets swim?

Picture a scene you've seen in a thousand action films.

Our intrepid hero drives off the dock into the bay to escape the heavily-armed evil hoodlums in hot pursuit. Seconds later, said heavily-armed hoodlums are rapid-firing towards the submerged vehicle as our hero struggles free. Rifle rounds are penetrating to the ~5m depth of the wrecked vehicle sitting on the bottom. Peuw peuw go the bullets, leaving little bubble trails all around making it crystal clear that our intrepid hero is in real danger ...

... except, yes, they are ~5m under water.

So do bullets fly, at speed, under water? I think not.

Using my Ninja googling skills, sure enough it turns out a gun fired under water horizontally at a brave scientist/foolhardy Darwin award candidate flies for maybe a metre or two in a parabolic arc to the floor.

Question is, is that simply physics due to the density and viscosity of water, or a side-effect of firing the gun under water rather than from the dock side down into the bay?

Myth busters did a show on the topic,myth was busted,think a shotgun solid did the best but it was real close range stuff,probably google and find the episode.

Somewhere on you tube there is a guy that modified a glock to shoot under water and he swims around culling lion fish, seamed effective at very close ranges though.

https://youtu.be/-1yM2wOGNE8

Originally Posted by rusl

Somewhere on you tube there is a guy that modified a glock to shoot under water and he swims around culling lion fish, seamed effective at very close ranges though.

Cheers, here is the link.
I want one!

Originally Posted by 40mm

Cheers, here is the link.
I want one!

It would be a good way to shut up the people who sneer at using a spear gun when your on tanks. I see you spear and raise you......

I fired many rounds of 762x39 into ‘puddled’ In the McKenzie Basin area and waded into said puddles in gumboots to pick up the undamaged projectiles that were just lying on the bottom of the puddle. (which would have been all of a foot deep)

Even the mighty 50 cal won’t

Myth busters again - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yvSTuLIjRm8

I have done fairly "extensive testing" in varying water conditions on fish.
Tests indicate shotgun shot generally has best penetration although in some instances 8x57 ball ammo worked quite well.
Most others penetrate no better than a 22rf,although those big bangers can move an impressive amount of water on impact

I saw a forum member fire a 338-378 Weatherby Magnum into a pond with a foot of ice on it once. Fire a .243, get a small hold about 6" across. Fire the 338-378 and everyone is running for cover as huge chunks of ice rain down.

No substitute for horsepower.

During WW2 the US Air Force conducted tests to see how safe aircrew were in the water if they were strafed. They came to the conclusion (subsequently published in survival booklets) that 5 feet was considered safe.

Have seen a 300 win mag (180's) fired at an introduced freshwater game fish from directly above. Momentarily the fish was suspended in mid air about 800mm below the surface as all the water around the fish blew out of the river leaving a big cone of fresh air. The fish recovered by itself 20 mins later despite best efforts to retrieve it and provide medical assistance.

Haha, cool...reminds me of showing my mates how cool the shotgun is when a teenager...nice eel in the drain, 8 inches of water, untouched eel after 6 shots including both barrels. Laughing mates and deflated self

Someone I know very well may have, many years ago, fired a 30-30 round into a river, possibly at some sort of non-native fish, and after the big splash hypothetically saw the projectile sinking to and fro towards the bottom, and then allegedly waded out and collected the projectile which was well mushroomed, but on a slight angle.

My grandfather may have allegedly caught a lot of fish with a 303 lead fly to feed himself and the kid's in his 1 room tent school at a 1930's
depression time work camp.
Z