Shaped Charges vs Ballistic Heads! - Ballistic High-Speed

Bryce and Adam discover what happens when you get on the wrong side of a shaped charge!

This video was performed by trained professionals on a closed private range. Do not try anything you see at home.

[BallisticHighSpeed]

What would you all like to see done with explosives next?

[DutchTraveler]

“Or three heads?”
“Not those three heads.”

I cackled a bit too hard at that.

[SteveFye]

Man, that's a lot of expensive equipment just a few feet away from the explosion. You guys are brave!

[generallyawesome]

That comparison to a shaped charge exploding like a nuke got me thinking:
What if a Shaped Charge exploded in a Lego City?

[mokopa]

I worked with a company that make anti-tank warheads, and I was part of a team whose job it was to figure out how these things work and look in slow-mo, using software simulations.
I cannot express the torrent of emotions a video like this conjures up in me! We had spend so many frustrating weeks and months testing, tweaking, testing, tweaking the software...just to get a 10th of the kind of information one could get by just watching the actual video footage in slow motion. What this video captures in a day's work would have our team many months to reproduce.

[mattwillis]

We've seen in GWOT - Iraq, copper plated shaped charges using HME (home made explosives) punch completely through Bradley reactive armor into the hull and take out infantry wearing L3 SAPI plates. My patrol once found a 10" shaped charge in Baghdad hidden in a pot hole in one of the freeway overpasses. Thank god we found it before they fired it into the underside of a HEMMET or MRAP. Amazing footage of the physics behind just how destructive these kinds of specialized explosives can be and your data can be shared to help develop better countermeasures in the future.

[tinaann]

As a combat engineer in the Marines, I set off a 15 pound shape charge of RDX/C4) on a D10 dozer in the steel pit. Straight through. It was amazing!

[crandalllogan]

I love how Adam has had his life forever sleeping mulligan, and knows he can joke about it and not be in any danger (with explosions anyway). Same with how Scott makes his jokes

[IIIAnchani]

Fun fact: If you calculate relativistic mass increase for the shaped charge jet if it's 50 grams of copper at 6500 m/s to begin with, you get around 11.75 nanograms of mass increase due to its velocity.
And if you think that's nothing as it contains the phrase "nano" be reminded that each of their frames is exposed for a time in the nanoseconds. Just a fun fact for y'all.

[hans-joachimtenhoope]

4:35 Yes! Finally! You used the right standoff distance and did not place the shaped charge directly on the target. 🥳

[lady_draguliana]

Fun Fact: _anything_ if struck hard enough, will emit light. Here are 4 ways it can happen!

1) Triboluminescence, generated when bonds in a material are broken when that material is scratched, crushed, or rubbed.

2) Fractoluminescence, generated when bonds in certain crystals are broken by fractures.

3) Sonoluminescence is the emission of light from imploding bubbles in a liquid (see Pistol Shrimp, it's also similar in principal to #4)

4) Incandescence due to adiabatic compression* (this can run a Fire Piston to start a camp fire, or, with more power, a diesel engine, or, with WAY more power, it can start Nuclear Fusion!)

the 4th option is my favorite, and most pertinent here. when something is compressed, it takes it's heat with it. if you take a substance with any amount of heat, and condense it into a small enough area, it will increase the temperature, and if you do this enough, it'll glow hot!

[anonymoususer]

“I need to buy more of those”. Favorite line also huge understatement you need to buy all of those.

[MythicFool]

Between you guys here, and the SloMoGuys at the Colorado School of Mines, we have some of the best high speed footage of shaped charges in existence, but you're the only psychopaths who paired them with BDL busts. Outstanding work.

[jesserobinson]

"Imagine a one pound charge behind a copper plate. That would be insane."
GWOT veterans: Yeah, it sure is buddy.

[PopeRocket]

The jet splash and rebounding off the plate then bouncing against the pressure wave is fascinating.

[valkyriek]

Our Vehicle gunner lost both his legs in Iraq to an EFP. Copper plated Explosive Shaped charges was exactly what Iranian backed insurgents in Iraq used to defeat the armor on our vehicles. WE used Brass and water filled jugged in RPG cages to defend against them, sometimes it helped.

[jerrypolk]

I really enjoyed this video. During my time in the military part of my training was in the use and fabrication of shape charges. I knew the theory and the results of the detonations, but thanks to you I now know what the formation and travel of the gas jet looks like. We had little tin cups with wire legs that we made our own shape charges in. They were not pretty but they worked. We also had large premade charges that were used in conjunction with an ammonian nitrate charge for putting large voids under runways..

[CrimsonEsso]

The cone shaped charges are almost pure magic. They focus on a pinpoint at molecular levels as they explode. Good old RPG-7 AP warhead is a flying nose impact triggered shape charge. Those things are meant to punch through tanks.

[Crusade]

Breaking that table like that sure would make Scott from Kentucky Ballistics happy. :)
Great episode!

[jaredklein]

We use shape charges at work to perforate casing in oil and gas wells. Depending on the size, they’ll penetrate the steel casing and a foot or two of rock, 10, 000’ underground. I don’t have to wonder what they’d do to a person. Our biggest fear is a surface detonation.