BeautifulWarriorWomen.com The Blog : 2007 : September

Archive for September, 2007

Bullet basics - how to know if one is fired.

Okay so the bullet is built very simply.

There is the bullet itself, which is usually lead encased in copper (to prevent heavy metal poisoning), but is now also can be made from a lead substitute. In the picture of the blog below it is the darker part sticking out at the top.

Then there is the casing. The casing is the shiney brass part that holds the gunpowder with the bullet above it.

The last part is the part that makes it go. This is called the primer. When you look at the bottom (flat end) of the entire set up, there is a little circle in the middle of the base. This is the primer.

The primer is the actual part of the amunition that is highly explosive. It is usually 3, sometimes more, different chemicals that when put together create the explosive that will ignite the gun powder.

Gun powder is only explosive when contained somehow, which is why it is contained in the casing.

When the firing pin (which is about the size of the head of a pin) hits the primer the primer explodes.

The gun powder is ignited, which then creates the pressure neccessary to force the bullet out of the end of the gun.

The barrel of the gun (the longer the more accurate), keeps the bullet in a straight line long enough to keep it going the direction it is pointing.

So of course once the bullet is used, the bullet itself is no longer held by the brass casing (which now usually has a little bit of black around the now hollow end which is caused by the gun powder). And the primer has a nice little circular dent in it.

And here is just one more little tid bit for you.

You know the twisted circle shape they show on every James Bond movie? Well, that is to show the rifling inside the barrel of the gun.

What the rifling does is cause the bullet to spin, much like the spin a quarter back puts on a football.

Why would the bullet need to spin?

Well, what that does is add to the accuracy of the bullet itself, so that it may fly farther along the tragectory while maintianing the accuracy. This of course means simply that you get more distance out of a shot, where you can hit what you are aiming for.

So there are some bullet basics to assist you in understanding what you are looking at when the news people try to pull the wool over your eyes.