Fireballs at the range

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ditto1958

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A guy at the range today was shooting a 460XVR with a 3.5 inch barrel. Pretty near every time he fired that thing, the biggest fireball I've ever seen in daylight came out of the muzzle. It was quite impressive. He was shooting at a steel swinger at 25 yards, and couldn't hit it to save his life, but that blast was sure cool. I'd love to see that thing shoot at night.
 
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I bet he was flame cutting the steel swinger! It was to soft to hear the bullet hit!!

How's this for a fireball? Out of my 8in SBR shooting 7.62x39 without a flash suppressor
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I shot in a dusty place and people dropped their jaws at the concussion waves of my 460. The group was about 40 yds to my side. I get fireballs out of a 12" too.
 
What you're seeing is nothing more than powder being wasted by burning outside the barrel instead of within it. Slow-burning powders or ammunition intended for longer-barreled guns exhibit that. Can you imagine lighting one of those loads off indoors in the dark during a self-defense situation? You best make the first one count because you'll be helplessly blind for a few moments afterward.

Ed
 
I've always been impressed by the fireball on one of Mas Ayoob's books showing him lighting of a 125 grain 357 Magnum round in low light. Looked like a large tube of fire.
 
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Just my opinion and experience. Fireballs are often caused by the powder the shooter used. I seem to notice them much more with handloads than any factory round, but then who knows the burn rate of factory ammo. My worst/best fireballs were generated with magnum handgun loads of Blue Dot. It really gets your attention, and the attention of everyone else around you. We've been told that proper self defense technique doesn't include flinching, but I'm not sure. Remember you know when the flash is going to come, the other guy doesn't. And just like tracers that work both ways, the flash is even going to be worse for the unexpecting guy you're shooting at. If you make your first shot with your eyes closed, you can fire subsequent shots at a big advantage. Not only do you kill your adversary, you roast him too. He dies blind and stupid.
 
No pics handy right now, but one of the worst offenders (or best, depending on how you look at it) is the Remington factory 180 grain .44 mag load out of a short barreled revolver. A .22 mag shot out of a 1 inch barreled mini revolver is pretty impressive for its size as well.

Larry
 
It shouldn't be lost on any of us that he wasn't hitting the target. Let's hope he keeps a .38 at home for SD.
 
I got invited to a night shoot several years ago (our range normally closes at sundown - this was a special event to which a few of the regular IDPA shooters were invited.) At the time I was competing with a Glock, and I was reloading 9mm using Power Pistol. Never noticed any fireball during the daytime, but those rounds sure lit things up in the dark. We were using flashlights to see the targets, so I didn't really get shut down with flash blindness. But the flash was very obvious, even with a flashlight, and the rest of the participants sure did gig me about the extra illumination I brought.

Later research showed that big flash was a known characteristic of Power Pistol powder. I still have a lot of that ammo, as I switched to revolvers and other powders for my 38 Special loads. (Haven't been invited to another night shoot, so don't know if Trail Boss has a big flash or not.) But if I ever need to replenish my supply of 9mm, I'll look for a different powder that has lower flash characteristics.
 
These fire breathing guns are fun, in a junior high school sort of way: sort of like lighting fxxxs in gym.

Lots of fun making other shooters wince and look. Not so much fun for any practical use.

Back in the day, I shot some night courses in IPSC competition.

Inevitably, some folks would shoot handguns that produced impressive fireballs: usually hand loads using unknown (to me) powders. They usually finished out of the winners circle.

Flash matters in practical shooting.

It's nothing to be proud of

Just my opinion, of course.
 
Sometimes its just fun to throw fireballs downrange. Most people are not CCWing with these guns so I'm betting it's just an enjoyable day at the range.

Best fireballs I ever seen was at the Hiram/Maxim Machine Gun Festival they used to have up in Maine. They had the 4 machine gun setup from the movie Waterworld up there and they started it up just as darkness set it. It was pretty damn awesome. They had exploding targets and all kinds of things going off. Fun!
 
Wanna see some fireballs?. Get one of the moisin nagant carbines and shoot some yugoslavian heavy ball ammo. During the day not so easy if you are the shooter but get someone to do a few rounds and stand off to one side. Dusk is even better. Frank
 
AveragEd said:
What you're seeing is nothing more than powder being wasted by burning outside the barrel instead of within it. Slow-burning powders or ammunition intended for longer-barreled guns exhibit that. Can you imagine lighting one of those loads off indoors in the dark during a self-defense situation? You best make the first one count because you'll be helplessly blind for a few moments afterward.

Ed
Click to expand...

so will the other guy.
 
Yeah and isn't that just a great situation? Two guys who can't see shooting at each other - a sure-fire (pardon the pun) recipe for an innocent bystander being shot.

Ed
 
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Some years ago, when I helped teaching a Sheriff's training program, we would on each session wait until about dusk then light off a Mod 19 snub with a full load of 296. The fire ball is like daylight. This was to teach how your eyesight was compromised in those situations. Heavier bullets don't do near as bad.
 
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