Can a .50 Cal Near-Miss Rip Your Arm Off? - Ballistic High-Speed

performing an amputation.

>> Maybe in three, two, one.

We've all heard the urban legend that a

50 caliber bullet, as big and as fast as

it is, a near miss, is going to rip your

arm off or suck the eyes out of your

skull or knock you out or something. And

this thing has been around for so long.

It's made its way all the way through

the military ranks, all the way up to

special forces snipers, all the way back

down to my local range. I've heard it

from friends and family members and

Reddit and all the comment sections and

everything. How did this thing get such

legs?

>> I don't know. Other channels like Demo

Ranch, shout out to him, have done their

own version of trying to disprove this

or prove it. We've got our own fun twist

on us today. We're also going to use, of

course, high-speed cameras to try to

catch that shock wave. Make sure it's

the bullet doing the effect and not the

muzzle blast. And then we are

celebrating 1 million of you lovely

subscribers. Thank you so much from the

bottom of our hearts for hitting that

button, following along, and supporting

us on our journey. We have something fun

planned for this

>> and maybe even double the fun. We're

going to use maybe some spicy bullets,

try to make some cool desk pieces to

help celebrate a million subscribers.

So, thanks again. Welcome back to

Ballistic High Speed.

[Music]

Okay, as a super super quick way to see

what's going on here, we just set up a

paper target just like you would shoot

at your range.

>> Something as delicate as paper, it

should just demolish most of that sheet.

>> So, we have what you can see here, just

a standard 50 BMG round. You have high

speed on both.

>> Yep. Front and back.

>> Yeah. So, we're going to be able to see

it coming through and going in and then

what's left. Then we'll get to all the

cool fun stuff. And we still have

Brandon Herrera's Barrett. I promise

you, Brandon, it's coming back. Um, and

then we strapped it down in our Ransom

International Ballistic Testing and

Forensic Machine. If this setup looks

familiar, it's cuz our last episode we

did bullets traveling down a laser sheet

with fog. We could actually see the

shock waves, the wake pattern, all that

stuff. So, go check that out and then

come back and watch this. All right,

I'mma load it. Easy test first.

Weapon's hot. It's on fire. In three,

two, one.

Well, would you look at that?

Weapon is clear.

I think we actually get the smallest

ripple in the paper. say it makes sense

that something would move outer because

it's actually hitting something. Cuz if

it was trying to affect you in the air,

you wouldn't even get that.

>> Oh, and look, shadow graph, not that

shock wave again.

>> But the diameter of that versus that.

>> Yeah.

>> I mean, we can go see it close up, but

that's like nothing.

>> As you can tell, pretty much the same

size.

>> So, you're trying to tell me if my arm

was right here, I probably would have

been fine,

>> cuz remember, it had to move some paper.

So, a lot of that is actually from

removing a physical material.

>> A shock wave needs a medium to move

energy through. Air is not a great

medium to move that through. Water is

and solids are. So, paper would carry a

little bit of energy. Air, not so much.

So, it's time to answer really the real

question. I saw one demonstration where

someone said if the someone had their

arm like this and you shot right here,

it would take their arm off. This is

pretty much this. And here you have it.

Speaking of which, shout out to

>> Ballistic Dub Lab

>> as usual. Coming in clutch with uh Did

he make this custom for us?

>> No.

>> Or does he offer this?

>> He offers this. He offers a whole bunch

though. Go check out his website. It's

freaking sweet. So, as you can see, we

got the laser on the back of the bullet

there.

>> There's not much room for error there,

>> which is as described. If he still has

an arm, we'll scoot it over until we

can. We're going to try and just barely

touch it.

>> And this isn't on a post. This is just

It's already fallen off the table once.

>> It's delicate right now. So, if this was

going to rip your arm off, he should go

for a ride before the muzzle blast gets

here. Or maybe it rips his whole arm

off.

>> So, then we've got another half of him.

>> We're going to capture a black hole

forming in high speed.

>> I do know how we can find out.

>> Load up the 50 cal.

>> Load up the 50 cal. Performing an

amputation

>> maybe in three, two, one.

Woo!

>> Why is his arm still there?

>> Why does he still have an arm?

I'm a medical halt to that.

>> Here, I'll block it.

>> He still has an arm.

>> He seems fine.

>> As you can see from the bullet hole, I'm

sure Bryce can make it happen. And

you're going to see it in the highspeed.

That went, what do you think? We had an

inch or two. Yeah. If you show it from

this perspective, it missed his arm by

maybe an inch or two. Probably an inch.

First thing through frame is of course

shockwave guy. Yep.

>> Ding.

>> It didn't even jiggle.

>> I mean, we couldn't have got much closer

to the

>> No. And it didn't even move.

>> It may as well have not even been there.

>> Yeah.

>> He never even fell off the table.

>> No. He didn't react at all. And he had a

50 cal muzzle blast. What is that? 12 ft

away. Like this breeze picking up to me

has more likelihood to knock him off the

table than that did. So, it's a little

birthday party.

>> Nothing happened in that large gap.

We're kind of curious how how light of

air disturbance is going on there. So,

we just have a table of just very light

things. We've got

>> It's hard to get lighter than tissue

paper.

>> Tissue paper. I mean, as you can see,

it's a small or light breeze right now,

and it does shift things around. There's

the old legend of uh that guy had a near

miss with a deer, and it sucked the eyes

out of its head,

>> supposedly. So this is a deer

looking.

See how light this is?

>> We have to put some flour on the front

of this.

>> So my idea is that if there are some air

disturbances going on, we'll see

vibrations in the balloons. And then we

just kind of left the the jello lids,

some loose playing cards. Uh there's

another deer

>> looking

>> looking very close.

>> Very close. And then we've got a stack

of cards. So Jello Ranch did this. We

miss you, Matt. I

>> was going to say he did a whole house

though, didn't he?

>> Yeah. Nothing bad happened to him. He

just retired.

>> Oh yeah.

>> And then just a real close encounter

with Flower. We might actually hit that.

>> I'm hoping it sucks Flower up.

>> I'm pretty sure it's gonna hit the

cards.

>> Well, whatever.