If the NRA ever decided to commission a TV show that’s like Jackass meets Shooting USA, it might look like the video above. Strike that. It might look EXACTLY like the video above. The jackass in question has been a busy boy, shooting off 300-some-odd rounds in an AK-47, quickly enough to catch the foregrip on fire. Stop and think for a moment just how hot the barrel would have to get to accomplish this feat. I don’t know at what temperature wood will catch fire (if the foregrip was made of paper, I could tell you. 451°.) After marveling at the physics of it all, let’s stop for the nonce and consider what kind of moron would shoot a gun in a way to make it catch on fire. I’m no metallurgist, but you gotta come from the shallow end of the gene pool if you think you can heat metal hot enough to burn wood and not assume that you’re risking metal fatigue or some kind of catastrophic event with the barrel in the near future. (Exploding barrel…meet moron. Moron…meet exploding barrel.)
As entertaining as this video might well be, I question the wisdom of YouTube allowing this kind of thing online. It’s logged over 6 million views since it went online in January of 07. That’s a lot. And I can’t help but think that some percentage of the viewers might decide to out-jackass this jackass. And that could be both stupid AND dangerous. (Add “fatal” to the mix, and you end up with a moronic trifecta, and a nomination for the Darwin Awards.)
You might ask, “Well, TTAG, if this video is so dangerous, why are you showing it here?” And I’d rationalize answer, “Well, anonymous viewer, We believe we attract a little more discriminating kind of reader here, than you find on the…ahem…more “mainstream” sites like YouTube.” Simply put, we think you can handle it. But do us a favor. Don’t make liars out of us. We’re putting a lot of trust in you to be able to watch something stupid and not be driven to imitate it.
Oh I don’t know. In the same way, I like to bury the gas pedal on any car I’m testing, I don’t mind the idea of firing a gun until it cries uncle. That’s the idea. Not necessarily the practice. For example, I’m reading “Effective Handgun Defense.” Frank W. James and his pals claim they shot 10,000 rounds through a Smith & Wesson 1006 in just under eight hours. (Note to Frank: if you do that again, can I be shooter number one, and then head off for a leisurely lunch?)
Wilson Combat has agreed to let us stress test a gun. Whatdja reckon we should do to it? And what has to happen to it to get YouTube notoriety?
I’m thinkin’ we should devise a “Katrina” test – essentially do to a gun in a week, what the New Orleans police did to the guns they confiscated in a year’s time. THEN see if it shoots. That way, our audience will know that, even if the overreaching government confiscates a gun, should they – eventually – get it back, they’ll know if it will still run.
That test cost about $165 in ammunition and $300 in ruined AK. =(
As for stress testing a gun without setting it on fire… Obviously shooting it a ton. Throw it in a river, pull it out, fire. Toss it in dirt, pull it out, fire. Unload it, bounce it off a rock, fire. Bake it (unloaded) in the toaster until its 165 degrees warm and fire.
Then again, probably just shooting it a lot without cleaning will answer most peoples questions about it.
Unfortunately gun scribe Patrick Sweeney has put his Wilson CQB through more torture than imagineable (mud, dirt, run-over, freezing, boiling, etc). We gotta think original. I’m brainstorming…
BBQ, fall from a great height,drag it behind a car for a few blocks, bake it inside some delicious brownies… Bake brownies in it. Fill it with raw dough and bake. Mmmm.