OT - Shooting Underwater?
 

Question, this topic has bugged me for awhile. Does anybody know anything about shooting an immersed handgun, any handgun? Ammo is waterproof (for awhile) and well built inexpensive stainless handguns like Ruger Blackhawks are around. Would a lightly loaded .44 mag. have any use underwater?

Maybe the range underwater would be hopelessly short. Perhaps the concussion from the blast would injure the shooter? I don't know, does anyone?

Loading so weakly to allow for the displacement of the water in the barrel that the chamber should not be ruptured would render the velocity, energy, and distance as harmless. I do not know this for a fact, just reckoning.

I believe that the use for a .44 mag. underwater would be mostly as an anchor.

But, if you are brave enough to discharge it, I am foolish enough to catch it in my teeth! (100 yards should be safe enough.)

Seems like I read somewhere long ago that attempting to discharge a firearm completely submerged would have the same effect as firing it with a bbl full of sand....you would end up with a lot of small pieces of expensive scrap iron mixed with bone, flesh and blood. <img src="graemlins/c.gif" border="0" alt="[ouch]" /> <img src="graemlins/crying.gif" border="0" alt="[crying]" /> [img]eek.gif[/img] [img]mad.gif[/img]

The barrel would have to have air in it or it would probably act as a plug if it was water. And NO, I am NOT going to try this

Guys,

The reason that I thought it might be possible to use a short barreled .44 underwater is that a barrel full of water would weigh less than a 300 gr. bullet now commonly used in .44s. Perhaps a 180 grain mild load would function without pressure problems.

However, water is incompressible, shock waves are generated, etc. etc. We all have heard of problems shooting rifles with bore obstructions--? Anyway I wonder. Surely this has been tried by somebody. I had hoped one of our members might know.

Now then, perhaps the concussion would cause severe problems to the shooter. Also, penetration shooting into water isn't great (probably less that 4 feet or so) from what I've read so maybe the gun would be useless.

Bump sticks, or bang sticks, are basically just shotshell holders at the end of a rod, "barrel" only just long enough to encompass the shell; for all intents and purposes its just a shaped-charge holder. Since its a contact device, water incompressibility isn't an issue. Probably still hard on the eardrums, though...

--Dwight

The bang stick was developed for use against sharks. A spear gun or knife would work too. I love the underwater fight scences in THUNDERBALL

http://www.booktrail.com/Video_Shoot...20Shooting.asp

http://world.guns.ru/handguns/hg15-e.htm

(there is a reference to an underwater kit on the Glock 17)

RK

RK,

Now we're getting somewhere. Has anybody viewed this tape? Any other experience out there?

Maybe a Ruger Blackhawk with a 2" barrel would be a 6 snot bumpstick--requiring contact to be effective.

Sir, with all due respect, that's just something I have always tried not to do. I can only relate to personal experience, but M16s did occasionally work after being submerged in Vietnam. I never fired one underwater but sure have fired one with water and mud in the barrel and everywhere else in it. I've also dunked one in a creek to wash the mud off after crawling in a rice paddy,shook out the water and it worked. The 4th Inf in the Delta dealt with that much more than where I was.

RK

THIS IS TOO WEIRD!

RK, the references to the underwater shooting (a video, no less) makes the hair stand on the back of my neck!

Al, what in tarnation are you planning? The wife accidentally shooting herself while scuba diving is a little far-fetched.

Are you going snapping turtle or catfish hunting?

But somehow, murder must be involved!


http://www.sherlock-holmes.co.uk/ima.../president.gif

Age, I heard that the russians developed an underwater rifle. It's been awhile since I read about it but even though they were succesful it had very short range. Jerry Burney

5.56mm Underwater Russian Rifle Link

http://www.milparade.com/2001/48/02_02.shtml

RK

Roadkill,

You have my unqualified admiration!

http://boards.rennlist.com/upload/02_02_03.jpg
<img src="graemlins/beerchug.gif" border="0" alt="[cheers]" />

Well, what do you expect from Kalifornia, the land of fruits & nuts? No insult meant our Lugerforum friends that have the misfortune to be stranded there! [img]biggrin.gif[/img]

Some years ago I lived in Gautemala. We had a case of a guy commiting suicide by shooting himself 14 times with a 1911 Colt.

Wes and others,

No, I am not planning anything. However, I live and boat on the gulf coast of FL and routinely carry a .44 Ruger SS Blackhawk while out on the water. I have hooked, but not landed, sharks. Also, I do have occasion to motor up the Peace River which is heavily infested with alligators.

I intend to stay aboard my boat, but who knows? I have also watched many (too many like everyone else) Jaws & adventure movies. If underwater in a life or death situation should I fire the .44 into a monster or ask him to come out of the water and fight like a man? Anyway, you get the idea.

Some years ago I was reading an American Handgunner (I think) article about a group of shooters gathered around a motel swimming pool after a match when this subject came up. The article stated (with a big ha ha) that they were evicted from the motel for jumping into the pool and firing their 1911s underwater to settle the argument (too much booze I guess). The article never discussed any of the shooting results.

Hi Folks, the Glocks work underwater as long as they got a small hole in the slide to get the water contained in the firing pin channel out when the firing pin is moving forward. this was discovered around 1983/84 after a belgian journalist in shooters' magazine " AMI " who was a former airborne and scuba diver made tests with various weapons including newly arrived Glocks; french frogmen had long practiced underwater shooting with 1911, it loses power after a few meters, I don't know about accuracy after such a treatment....

Those of you old enough to remember the Gyrojet pistol that was marketed somewhere around the '60s may have encountered their ad for a speargun that operated on their system. The Gyrojet was really a small rocket launcher. The Gyrojet round is pushed by gases generated by burning solid rocket propellant that is contained within the projectile and vented through holes in the base of the round, therefore all the pressure is contained by the "bullet" and not by the gun. Underwater firing is no problem. Didn't have much muzzle velocity, but since it was propelled for a longer period of time, it retained nearly all of its velocity out to around 100 yards (at least on dry land, don't know about underwater).

You movie afficionados may correct me on this, but I believe there is a scene in either Mel Gibson's "Lethal Weapon 3, or 4" where he struggles underwater with the villan and saves his own life by firing a AK-47 type rifle that he scavenges from one of the bad guys that he had killed a few minutes before and had fallen into the water with his rifle...

This movie is available on DVD and I replayed that scene many times in slow motion. It appears to have functioned flawlessly for more than one burst without benefit of special effects (other than the use of blanks...since if he didn't use blanks in that scene, they certainly didn't pay the actor playing the villan enough [img]biggrin.gif[/img] )

Would I try it with any firearm? Only if my life depended on it...and there were no other alternatives. I make it my business to stay out of serious social situations like that if I can avoid it [img]biggrin.gif[/img]