Does anybody else get exasperated when movie and TV shows show sparks when bullets hit stuff? Usually it's when a vehicle gets hit, but I've seen it when it strikes the ground, and even wood. It even happened in "24", and that really got me upset. If 'ya can't believe Jack Bauer who can you believe?
My question is, is there a substance that when struck by a bullet would create sparks?
Jim

Thats almost as good as a car scratching out on a dirt road with the tires screeching!

I also like how either nobody can hit anything or when the hero can't miss

__________________
"... shall not be infringed."

If you are dissapointed in the way a media depicts a story, read a book. Your mind's eye will provide the special effects & the more informed you are on a subject, the more real the story will be. After all, whether reading or watching TV, the objective is to kill time & be entertained.

Some time ago, my son wanted the video game "Rainbow Six". I told him if he read the book first, I'd buy him the game. He came back to me & was amazed " that's not even the same story as the movie" he said. My answer, "the difference is when reading, your mind's eye provides the visual effects".

He is now an avid reader & still coments on how far off the movie version of a story can go for the sake of sensationalism.

FWIW, the last movie I went to see, was a newly released "Pete's Dragon". And no, I don't own a TV.

Years ago my dad came west and I took him over to sis`s house. There was a bunch of grandkids and great grandkids there as pa was about 88 years old. They were watching that movie with arnold schwarzenegger where some hero gets shot, leaks chrome looking blood or whatever and heals himself. Dad was the most conservative no nonsense outspoken man God ever created, looks at me and roughly says what he thinks of the movie. My sister hears it and fishs out "Bambi" for the kids. One of them sat there for a minute watching it and proclaimed it a boreing dorkie movie. He said who could belive that talking deer?

Yes, there can be instances where a bullet strike could spark, but not very often. I like how when someone hides behind a 55 gallon drum 9mm or 223 from full automatic fire just bounces off creating sparks and not penetrating; how bullets bounce off of car bodies and leave no holes or pock marks but leave visible sparks.

The squibs used to make the effects of the bullet strikes apparently are wont to produce sparks and the camera catches it.

I cringe at how movie production companies spend gazillions on certain stars but can't hire a qualified technical director (you listening, Sip ? They need you).

Michael Mann (Miami Vice, Heat, etc.) has some of the best movie gun effects you'll see. I love how the gun battle in "Heat" was recorded sound-wise. Very realistic. Usually those effects are overdubbed and not usually very realistically; but in the downtown shootout scene you can hear the echoes of the battle rifles and carbines off the canyons created by concrete and steel high rise buildings and if you've ever heard those sounds it definitely stands out as opposed to other movie scenes that compare.

My favorite frustration - how the hero (or the villain) takes careful aim with a standard handgun (usually a 9mm) and proceeds to explode the gas tank on a car.

It's entertainment/fantasy and requires the suspension of belief for a while to enjoy the show. It drives wives nutz when we point all these flaws out DURING the movie

I have a supply of lacquer-coated steel cased Wolf ammo in 9mm (jhp to be exact). Very dirty and, as to be expected unreliable.

I've fired them out of a Browning High Power in an indoor range...when the slugs hit the bullet stop, there is a lot of sparks.

__________________
The Last Standing Knight

I was shooting last week at steel targets and saw sparks every now and then. This was on a indoor range.

I've been shooting 7N6 Commie 5.45x39 FMJ, w/steel core ammo for several yrs now.
One evening we shot my steel plates and I noticed SPARKS! I was rather amazed. So did it again a few months back...at night with snow on the ground. LOTS of sparks!

How I never set anything on fire the previous years with how dry it gets here in the summer and the dry grass...I will never know.

Speaking of the movies...I want some of those 9mm rds that fling the bad guys against the walls and disable cars soundly.

FN in MT

I recently saw sparks from the impact of .50 BMG projectiles --- maybe bronze, but not steel --- on rocks (our distant targets). My friend, a shooting range designer and expert on terminal ballistics issues says that there is a legitimate concern about sparking from bullet impacts, and says that the prohibition on plinking on federal lands during periods of high fire danger is legit. I guess that even soft bullets striking hard rocks, such as quartz, can strike sparks. Of course, the exaggerated effects from Hollywood are laughable.

Brass, lead, or copper will not spark. Larry

Maybe they're using sparks to let the audience know where the make believe bullets are striking. Wow!, that was a close one!

__________________
Regards, Ron
USASA 1965/69

Ive see Tula 9mm make TV like sparks when it hits the indoor metal backstop. Its kinda scary...

The blue tipped 30-06 rounds were supposed to spark when they impacted a solid target.

Many military rounds today are loaded with steel, copper washed jackets (not solid copper), and these can spark on rocks and such.

Hollywood is pure fantasy, done to tell a story (usually with an agenda) and make money.

I can't remember who posted it but will try to quote him as near as possible.
" My wife said, 'You have no problem with cyborgs traveling through time but you get upset you when he doesn't reload the shotgun.' "

The backstops at the range I go to do it all the time.

The thing that always puzzled me was when the hero is running and the bad guys are shooting at him, why do the bullets kick up dust at his feet?

I got hit in the head, just above the eye, with a scope on a Weatherby 300 once. Not sure what the bullet did but I saw sparks.

If one shoots at night, an observer will often see sparks from bullet strikes.

The part I hate the most is when they shoot a windshield and it makes sparks. That, and when they fire 300 rounds out of one 30 round mag.

Superman, if I remember right

I wonder if a indian ever accidently started a forest or brush fire by shooting a flint point arrow strikeing another rock? How many fires been started by discarded bottles or glass magnifing the sun on a leaf? How about in that movie "The edge" where anthony hopkins demostraights starting a fire with ice? If you can think it, it has already happened!

They're jerking low & left...

I remember some old class C western when I was a kid where this BG was tradeing shots crouched behind a bar. He had messed up hair sticking out, stuck his head around the bar and a shot parted his hair down the middle and his hair was now greased down and parted!
I also like the several scenes where some innocent guy is going to be hung and the hero rides up and shoots the rope apart as the trap is sprung! It always helps to twirl the gun before reholstering!
I was raised with a nest of friends that were brothers. They had no dad, were part indian and their mother was unh,---wild. A couple of them and myself were getting ready to go shooting. One shot a 30-30 under my foot to where it stung the bottom of my foot and the concussion literaly knocked my foot up in the air! He had hollered, dance! I had a .22 rifle I could thread a needle with back then, and returned the compliment by shooting ceciel`s boot heel off! Had my dad seen or heard of it, I probley wouldnt be here!

My biggest movie question is just how many gears did Steve McQueen's Mustang have in "Bullit"? Must have been at least 147 forward gears.

Ha! Now someone knows how I feel when I watch a film sequence of someone "playing" a musical instrument! those gun scenes do bug me, and so do the car chases and spin outs and YES to the Mustang shifts in Bullitt. I think I might have to watch and count.

to date, thankfully, no technically botched scenes of someone shooting at the band. At least none I can recall.

__________________
Soli Deo Gloria

I shot a metal container with an SKS using steel core 7.62X39 ammo. It was just before dark and I did see sparks.

__________________
Corripe Cervisiam

That always bothered me as well. Then one day well scouting for deer in NW Florida I got on the gas on a rued dirt and clay road and sure enough it squealed away.

Chubbs

I remember when we fired inertia type 105mm AP rds such as APDS (sabot) at old tank hulls on the range. You would see a huge flash from the steel on steel contact.

Small handgun/rifle projectiles? I just don't know.

I've pounded a livin pile of rounds into a livin pile of things.
when I have seen sparks, I also saw a ring of slag cooling.
this can happen, Usually a high power caliber defeating a steel plate. Its is however, very rare

__________________
it just needs more voltage

Hollywood LOVES sparks! It also loves entry wounds that look like exit wounds, cars exploding for little reason, people using for cover what a .22 would penetrate, heroes rarely missing while the bad guys fire thousands of errant rounds. I also like how they massively overdo the carrying capacity of most clip fed weapons. And how they love gigantic masses of flame coming out of what should be virtually flameless guns. The amount of flame that comes out of some .223 firearms is more than those cartridges can even carry! But, as was said, they'll pay countless millions for name stars, and seemingly nothing for effects specialists. Anyone with marginal weapons knowledge sees right through these mistakes. Amazing they can't/won't fix these simple errors...but, they sell tickets, so maybe they don't care?

WHOOPS! i forgot to mention "silenced" revolvers. With VERY few exceptions, it cannot be done. (Only in Tinseltown.)