Does Ice Bullets Actually Work?

[LouisBMason]

Anyone here know about Ice bullets? Does Ice Bullets Actually Work?

[Moonbogg]

I'll give it a google to find out. I think you'd have to try it out yourself. Also, if you were going to use them you'd have to carry around a freezer with you, right? Remove bullet from freezer, quickly load and FIRE! I think it would just shatter into dust and water vapor if shot from a real gun, but I'm sure ice slugs would work from a potato cannon.

[jimmy101]

way back when people were using pykrete. Sawdust and water frozen. The sawdust makes the ice melt a lot slower.
spud_wiki/index.php?title=Pycrete
It should be mentioned int eh forum someplace as well.

[reginasilke]

I tip my hat to the Mythbusters, but I have to say I believe it is entirely possible.

The Mythbuster ice bullet was brittle because they did not deaerate the water. A very cold, deaerated bullet would be hard, and not melt when fired.

Speaking as a formulation chemist,

Any problems with the ice bullet being brittle could be solved by doing a little chemical research using polymers to modify the rheology of the ice. This is a very common practice to modify fluid behavior.

I think a problem with using such bullets could be the impracticality of carrying around extremely cold bullets. This would require a generator and freezer. I bet you might have a design problem with getting gun powder to ignite at low temperatures, but I am confident that could be solved as well.

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

I think you'd have to try it out yourself.

Maybe not, given this appears to be a bot account promoting whatever is in the signature.

[jimmy101]

I tip my hat to the Mythbusters, but I have to say I believe it is entirely possible.

The Mythbuster ice bullet was brittle because they did not deaerate the water. A very cold, deaerated bullet would be hard, and not melt when fired.

Speaking as a formulation chemist,

Any problems with the ice bullet being brittle could be solved by doing a little chemical research using polymers to modify the rheology of the ice. This is a very common practice to modify fluid behavior.

I think a problem with using such bullets could be the impracticality of carrying around extremely cold bullets. This would require a generator and freezer. I bet you might have a design problem with getting gun powder to ignite at low temperatures, but I am confident that could be solved as well.

Or you just do what others have done for years: use sawdust. Not only modifies the ice but makes it melt much slower. Hence the British military considered building aircraft carriers with sawdust-ice for WW2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk

[mark.f]

I think you'd have to try it out yourself.

Maybe not, given this appears to be a bot account promoting whatever is in the signature.

Maybe when jrrdw bans him we can keep the thread to talk about ice.

Also, if you were going to use them you'd have to carry around a freezer with you, right? Remove bullet from freezer, quickly load and FIRE!

Maybe not a freezer, just an ice chest and some dry ice (or dry ice/ethanol slurry if you're really fancy).

At the end of the day though I think any of the subtlety of melting evidence would be ruined by somebody running away with something about as concealable as an FN-MAG though.

[Anatine Duo]

I've pondered this for decades. Daily highs are below freezing here for four months, so keeping an ice projectile solid is not a problem, though I bet -40 ice is stronger than barely frozen.

Sabot would help. Smoothbore would help. Potatoes are about the same density as ice and we have all seen the damage they can do... so I think a large bore ice projectile would work, whatever work means.

Small bore would be more like a hailstone at distance unless shooting in a vacuum... hey, spaceforce near infinite ammo! Cast at STP, freeze and shoot!