Science project involving BB gun too dangerous

QED

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I do like the irony! Or is it irony...?

BB guns are totally prohibited in Australia, which actually doesn't stop people trying to bring them in from Bali when they go on holidays...

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Excuse my ignorance, what exactly is a BB gun? I was expecting something about Big Bang experiments and accelerators

Do they mean ball bearings, martian blueberries or what? I did a quick search, pages and pages of weapon dealers wanting to sell them to me but no descriptions of what they are or any safety/legal (UK) stuff.

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Its a gun that shoots little bullets (that are not much unlike Ball Bearings in shape and size) using some sort of spring or compressed air.

Thanks Stregone So what you have in esence is a low accuracy weapon discharging metal pellets (I'm guessing ~1/8" or 3mm dia) Driven by compressed air or CO2 I would imagine that they could easily penetrate flesh at close range and eyesight, even at a distance, would certainly be compromised. Not the sort of thing I would let an unsupervised child play with.

I realise this was a project conducted under responsible adult guidance but surely part of that guidance would be consulting and interpreting the competition rules? I have to side with the competion organisers but I'm pleased the research done won't be wasted.

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YOU'RE GONNA PUT A EYE OUT WITH THAT THING!!!

[/mom]

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In the progress of this discussion I shall endeavor to give a satisfactory answer to all the objections which shall have made their appearance, that may seem to have any claim to your attention.

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 1

My best friend and I used to play with his BB gun all the time when we were kids. We'd setup little army men and stuff and shoot at 'em in his backyard, that had a nice tall solid fence around it (no space between boards for BBs to fly through). We weren't allowed to use it anywhere else. They are really only dangerous if the kid and/or the parents are stupid. I'm sure a lot of you (Americans anyways) know someone who is rather old now that was given a .22 rifle when he turned 13 or something like that, and never killed himself or his friends with it.

I hope I didn't come over as another anti gun Brit who demands the US disarms its citizens. True, we do things differently but it's a matter for the US to decide, not for outside interferance. For the record we have a big problem with kids carrying knives and criminals will always obtain illegal guns if they want to.

I was just mildly shocked that BB guns (especially gas powered) were freely available and quoted in Sterling when I'm fairly certain they would be deemed illegal offensive weapons in the UK. Gas powered air guns and repeaters certainly are.

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By asking questions we sometimes get the wrong answers, from wrong answers we learn to ask the right questions.

Our BB guns are air powered, tho not with compressed gas via a bottle/catridge. Each gun has a lever-action pump which builds up a low pressure "head" of pressure. A BB will definitely penetrate flesh, through clothing. One of my childhood buddies accidently shot another buddy in the thigh, and a trip to the ER followed. It was extracted without real surgery, but our parents got pretty hysterical!

If you haven't seen it, get the movie "A Christmas Story" by the humorist Jean Sheppard (c 1980s). It's about a 1930s kid who lusts for a BB gun for Christmas. His mother's response is always "You'll shoot your eye out!" His dad gets him one and he almost shoots his eye out.

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Well, you can't get any better supporting evidence than that.

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BAUT Team Stats

We're talkin' .177 cal (that's 177/1000 inch diameter ball)/ 4.5mm with a muzzle velocity of 275 - 300 feet per second (remember, that's at the muzzle -- that velocity falls off drastically as the round goes downrange -- round balls have an abysmal ballistic coefficient).

Supposedly, more modern BB guns have muzzle velocities of upwards of 350 fps. Any way you look at it, if it fires something faster than you can run, and you're close enough to smack someone over the head with it, DON'T SHOOT IT IN THEIR DIRECTION!!!

[dummy me mode]This is the voice of experience speaking![/dummy me mode]

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Thanks for the added info Charlie. .177 (4.5mm) is a fair size projectile. Are they lead/heavy alloy based or aluminium? I've seen plastic beads for sale on market stalls but they may be for something different.

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They're legal in the UK pending you keep the power output below set limits.
(from their warranty and regulations page.)

Here's the Daisy website. They're one of the big names. And here's a general order website.

Edit: Oh yeah the metal used. I've seen both copper and steel. I don't remember ever seeing lead BBs. I've seen plastic too, not as much when i was young, but more often now.

As the good Captain has pointed out they are called air rifles here. There have been a couple of deaths and some serious injuries recently due to misuse. There is some media hysteria to get them banned. A couple of years ago crossbows were the terror weapon of choice of neds, I can't remember if they were banned or not.

Hmm... A fascinating if somewhat scary world. I can see the appeal although they are not for me. I've only ever fired a shotgun (.410) twice and it did absolutely nothing for me (or the target!) Now a trebuche or cannon and black powder - thats probably something I could get into.

I would probably start small and work my way up from there 8)

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By asking questions we sometimes get the wrong answers, from wrong answers we learn to ask the right questions.

Air guns have been around for centuries. There were a few with .50 cal bores on the Louis and Clark expedition. Today they are usually .177, .20 (5mm), or .22 cal. BB guns are always .177. A well made one is capable of decent accuracy. The ones like on Christmas Story are smooth bore and only use BBs. The low end ones might get less that 200fps. The high end pellet guns can hit over 1100fps and are as accurate as a rifle. I have never heard of anyone being killed with any kind of small bore air rifle, though I suppose it is theoretically possible.

BTW, the winner of the Steel Chalenge combat pistol match last year was Japanese and had only ever fired an air-pistol before. He uesd what is called an Air-Soft pistol that fires 6mm plastic balls. I think the military and police forces have underestimated the value of these "toys" as serious training tools.

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I know this is a bit overdue, but welcome back Ripper 2.0. It's good to see you here again!

Yes, bb guns can be dangerous. I got a tooth shot off while playing "bb gun wars" when I was a kid. ops:

I guess I'm lucky I still have both eyes. :wink:

I wouldn't flat out say they will penetrate flesh through clothing. We used to have BB wars as kids. It was a gas. Everybody wore a helmet with bubble style face shield. We all got hit many times, never a single penetration. They were fairly cheap guns, but I even shot my brother from 4 feet away, and all he was wearing was a t-shirt. He got a nice lettle bruise - that's it. I'd say it is more likely the high-end guns could do damage similar to a bullet, but not the basic daisy rifle. I'd say with the guns we used, anything more than 50 yards wouldn't even hurt on bare skin. Heck, you could actually watch the BB all the way to it's target, and watch it drop about 3 feet in 100 yards.

I would say a more accurate statement would be that a high-powered BB or pellet gun could penetrate flesh, especially at close range and if the victim is wearing light clothing.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

Ah, ha! That's where I went wrong.

Yeah, we went to garage sales and got some real old corny looking helmets. Metal flake colors, chin cup strap, etc. My one buddy even bought his just because the lady said her son had been killed while wearing it. He figured the odds of another person dying while wearing the same helmet had to be just about zero.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

Good to hear from you too. I hope your year has been better than mine.

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The pavement is evil, and it must be punished.

I applaud the students for doing research into this. However one of the one of the first rules of experimenting is to make sure that your experiment meets whatever standards are considered legitimate by the panel of peer review. I'm not saying the experiment itself was flawed (I don't really know anything about their methods) but it's a good learning experience for them to understand that any experiment is always subject to possible disqualification if the review board finds you have not followed the proper safety protocols.

I understand the school's policy for not allowing students to use firearms for their tests. Yes, BB guns are quite low power compared to most everything else, and I really don't have a problem with them under basic safety measures, but I think that their inaccuracy and general unpredictability can be dangerous. Their trajectory is highly influenced by the wind and how many times they are pumped can drastically change the shot as well. More importantly, the shots have a very high capacity for ricochet. It's not uncommon for a BB shot to rebound off of a target 30-50 feet away and still land behind the person firing (trees and harder surfaces easily deflect shots in this manner). In short, it's very difficult to control where that shot will eventually end up.

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