RS, it is precisely because the bullet weighs more that it will not move forward with any significant velocity. See Hatcher’s work on this topic. If the rat shot is very light, the cartridge case may be strong enough to act as a barrel. In the case of a proper rifle cartridge going off, you are more at risk from shards of brass from the cartridge case then you are from the bullet.
MythBusters had a show dealing with this type situation. Unchambered rounds cooking off in an oven, filmed by a high speed camera. the slugs moved little if at all, the cases, launching from the bullets and sometimes shredding as they went.
See Dicovery channel/mythbusters and they might have clips of the segment online.
Maybe the army bulletin I saw was dated 1 April?
It was so odd that it stuck in my mind, which is filled mostly with oddities. 
I’ve been trawling the AWM site and others to see if I can get something on it, to no avail.
I’ll keep digging and post if I can find something.
I’m not sure that ignition on a round fired by primer and by oven would be the same. Did the MythBusters round actually fire the primer to ignite the charge? If not, the process might be different, as might the behaviour in an oven at X degrees rather than working battlefield temperatures.
Maybe the army bulletin I saw was dated 1 April?
It was so odd that it stuck in my mind, which is filled mostly with oddities. I’ve been trawling the AWM site and others to see if I can get something on it, to no avail.
I’ll keep digging and post if I can find something.
Hatcher did experiments in which he ignited the primer of a 45 ACP ball cartridge using a welding apparatus, and concluded that the worst that would happen was likely to be a nasty bruise.
Is it possible that the projectile didn’t cause the injury in the MG belt case but that the round detonated and a bit of case shrapnel penetrated the wearer?
Does a primer fire the charge the same way if it’s heated rather than struck?
I’m thinking from my welding experience that it’s impossible to isolate heat to a tiny area like a primer on a rifle round, with the possibility that it’s heating the charge, and softening the cartridge case, and altering their behaviour compared with normal pin firing.
Why didn’t the experiment just use a firing pin?
He touched one contact on to the rim and the other onto the primer.
He didn’t use a firing pin because he was investigating a claim that a round had spontaneously detonated in somebody’s shirt pocket and thereby shot them. The fact that there was rifling on the recovered bullet had totally passed the police by, as had the lack of any fouling on the shirt in question…
The other reason for not using a firing pin is that a mechanism to do it it would necessarily need to restrain the case and thereby not replicate the conditions of the supposed incident.
This is the most likely scenario, especially given that a significant portion of the case is restrained by the link, which would tend to direct shards away from the link side of the belt
same here
For the precisely same reasons, spookily enough…
:roll:
What’s even spookier is that Soldierboy and Sgt Dorr seem to be of one mind, able to communicate without explanation. Maybe they are of one mind. 
Such as the mind is.
That seems to be the consensus.
The Australian official histories, both general and medical, which I’ve now consulted and the AWM site are useless on details of individual causes of death, so I doubt I can track down the specific case I mentioned
Had a look at Gunshot wounds : practical aspects of firearms, ballistics and forensic techniques by Vincent J.M. Di Maio (1985) which is the only book accessible to me, which takes the same view (mainly based on Hatcher), as do most posts here http://www.thehighroad.org/archive/index.php/t-231751.html .
However, there’s a couple of exceptions to the rule in that link, in a thread which generally supports the consensus.
I wish people would not make blanket statements like this.
AMMO CAN EXPLODE AND SERIOUSLY WOUND/KILL YOU !!
My son was sitting around a campfire. A ‘friend’ threw a .22 round in the fire. Son raised a coke can to his mouth and screamed. His hand was bleeding badly.
The .22 round hit his finger with enough force to take a large chunk of meat off of his finger and splinter the bone. His hand was in front of his eye when he was hit. If he had not taken that sip of soda when he did, the round would have either entered his eye or forehead. It had enough power to shatter his finger so it most likely would have penetrated his skull. He still has metal chunks embedded in his finger bones.
I repeat:
AMMO CAN EXPLODE AND SERIOUSLY WOUND/KILL YOU !!
I had read/heard, like most posters here, that when ammo cooks off it just kind of pffffts out and there is minimal risk. Well, this spring we were doing some construction at the club and decided to burn some of the scrap material. We just picked a spot that was convient - never really thought anything of it - except that there were a few live rounds on the ground (it was dark at the time). While the fire was burning we heard a loud pop and then a “thwack” kind of noise. The next day my buddy’s Tahoe had a huge dent in the door and on the ground was .45 slug with black paint on it!
Maybe wouldn’t have killed anyone, but it sure would have hurt like hell!
Americans have had very few opportunities to speak ill of any weapon issued for the past 100 years or so, because by and large, they’ve been issued some good weapons overall. I’m not sure what the better design than the Thompson was. I believe there was another .45ACP submachine-gun issued besides the Tommy Gun and the Grease Gun, which WAS NOT a better design. Cheaper, yes --but not better.
The only weapons that drew significant complaint was the first version of the M-16, because of jamming issues due to some poor briefings one the weapon in which the troops were told it was a “space age rifle” that needed no cleaning, and the fact that the powder for the 5.56mm round was switched causing significant fouling. Today some gripe about the three-round burst on the M-16A2…
Never said it was, I said that the advent of the GPMG rendered all light machineguns obsolete.
Then why have most armies gone back to fielding them, in incarnations such as the SAW?
So it wasn’t designed for sustained fire, so it’s not a LMG. And it’s too heavy for a rifle… What role/purpose did it have again?
It was designed to provide a high rate of fire without the need for an assitant to haul ammo and the like. The gun was imperfect, but it did the job well. For instance, once the US Marines started taking heavy casualties in towards the end of the Island campaign, they would take an understrength squad and issue every man a BAR or a Tommy Gun in order to increase firepower. So the weapon could be used as an “assault rifle.”
And “too heavy?” Bonnie of the Barrow Gang/Bonnie and Clyde fame wielded the BAR, in the words of one commentator, “like a US Marine.” And she was only 98lbs!
Sorry mate, but you’ve completely missed my point. The Thompson was introduced as a necessity as the Allies had no suitable SMG at the beginning of the war. As soon as the Brits had the Sten they started to replace the Thompson. Even the US recognised that it needed to be replaced ergo we have the Grease Gun.
Weapons like the SAW are not LMGs in the true sense as they are belt feed. They are a new hybrid between an assult rifle and a GPMG. I guess with all the other stuff soldiers have to carry these days, a GPMG is too heavy. Have they rendered the GPMG obsolete? I have no idea as it’s outside my field of interest.
But you certainly don’t see Bren guns being used in Iraq.
i agree with every one of you who likes the m1 garand . it provide the gi’s to have fire superiority and i think it was better as the kar-98
The US Army squad never had fire superiority over its German equivalent, unless the MG was disabled. The individual rifle man certainly had more “firepower” than his German counterpart, but the ethos was totally different. The German infantry section was approximately 11 men dedicated to the care and feeding of the MG, whereas the American infantry squad was more a collection of individuals who could not , neither individually nor collectively, apply as much concentrated, accurate fire as one good German MG gunner (provided he was being fed sufficient ammunition).
me too! 
M1 Garand all day long…
True. But the Germans were also primarily on the defensive against the Americans, in which case their firepower could be brought to bear on exposed, attacking troops. In many cases where the Wehrmacht went on the offensive later in the War, they did not do so well as the MG42 is only going to be of limited use in an infantry assault…