doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Mythbusters- guns fired under water

Interesting Mythbusters the other night. They got a long tank, filled it with water, installed a Ransome rest and fired all manner of guns under water. To make a long story short, the pistol and rifle rounds did go some distance and could be lethal at short ranges, but they put a 12 ga shotgun, looked like a modern Savage 311, any one else see this and identify the gun?, it was new anyway.
Well this was really interesting, the shotgun was fired underwater and when they pulled it out the fired barrel was burst about a foot from the breech, and the action was badly cracked at the back of the water table, so the gun was ruined.
So I guess now I know what happens when you fire a shotgun under water, don't!
Mike

Water table, now there's an interesting term. Anyone actually seen a water table?

On all SXS shotguns I ever saw, smartass....
Mike

OOps, in case you do not know, the water table is the flat part of the gun frame ahead of the mechanism onto which the barrels flats hook into and lay flat on. Bad grammar, anyone else want a go at explaining water-table? Proof marks for the action as stamped on the water table. No, I do not know why it is called that, it's a British term, they always called it that, so get used to it.
Mike

Mike,
'didn't mean to be a wise ax. Just wondered how the term came into play on a gun. I suppose it has to do with the level surface of the receiver as drawn by the engineer. I vaguely recollect hearing the term and might-could recall seeing a old drawing of something that might've maybe had a level line named a "waterline". But "watertable"?

From architecture, a projecting ledge. BTW, while teaching in the Norfolk,VA area,one of my students mentioned firing a gun under water. The firearm was the .45 Colt Government. I asked how many shots and what range. THe answer " One. You press it up against the other guy. Beats a knife."

AKA......action flats?

Which could lead one to wonder "which one?" if the term "standing breech" is not in the vocabulary and one would look fer "flats"?

Aaannndd......the flats have no "action"....so there! All terminoligy.....not logicoligy, and the world is just fine just the same, no?

Best wishes to all for a safe weekend,
Mark

Yeh but no buttlines and the only stations are in skeet. Where's the "detonating"?

jack

On a similar, but less destructive note, the Russians developed several cartridge 'guns' that could be fired under water with impunity. I do not remember what they were called, but I think they were developed for use by their 'frogmen'. The intended ranges were short. One thing about water, it does not lend itself to compression, so I'm not surprised to find that it damaged the shotgun you spoke of as soon as the pressures were suffucient to do so. Its just a dif type of obstruction. Perhaps someone here will post a link to the Russian underwater cartridge 'guns'. There are also 'shark sticks' as I think they are called, essentially a 12ga. chamber rather than a bbl that that is mounted on the end of a pole and that fires when pressed against something, like a shark. I think they work below the waterline as well as above, but I have only read of them and never actually used one nor seen one used. I'm not a TV kinda person, so I did not see the show you ref. but it sounds like something that was discussed sometime ago here or perhaps on another BBS. I kinda view it like ol' 'Fodder Wing', sticking some straw on his arms and leaping from the barn loft .. lucky to survive the misadventure. The line between curiosity and stupidity is sometimes hard to define, but it it most assuredly nonetheless there. I'd define it like this .. curiosity enlightens where stupidity hurts.

As an aside, there was quite the discussion on the old board right here on the origin of terms, 'watertable' being beaten quite flat before it was over ;-)

Yeh, why is that not the action flat opposing the barrel flat?