handguns, myths(I know this is a question that has been asked many times on general forums, but just wonder what would be the firearms experts’ opinion on this matter.)
It is very common to see cars and even cooking gas cylinders getting blown up rather easily during gunfights featured in movies and games, how rooted is this to reality?
It’s not possible unless the car is filled with some sort of explosive (like Tannerite, for example, or an artillery shell or C4…). I’ve shot many cars in my time, both running and not, moving and still, filled and empty. The only ones that ever blew up were the ones with explosives in them, or the ones I shot with the Mk19.
The common myth is that the fuel, being flammable, will ignite if struck. Being in an enclosed space the fuel will then explode. MythBusters even did an episode on this. Twice. And twice busted.
I will say, however, that if you shoot a running car in its engine block enough times and get the fuel leaking, it will catch on fire and burn the car to the ground. (Unless you try to put it out, obviously.)
As for cooking gas cylinders, most are under high pressure and will rupture when shot. While I've never shot a propane or butane cylinder, I have shot aerosol cans with flammable liquid inside (WD40). Except for spewing the contents everywhere and making the can fly around like crazy, they didn't ignite.
As a few youtube videos suggest, you would either have to shoot them with a tracer/incendiary round, or light a fire next to them so the gas ignites when you rupture them.
This is usually the reason a car doesn't explode when you shoot the gas tank, the liquid fuel isn't very reactive until it mixes with air, and there is not enough energy provided by the bullet impact or subsequent sparks.
I was once in an incident in which the shooter emptied an entire Kalach into about a dozen gas cylinders, from the range of 10-20 meters. All that happened was that the gas had escaped from the holes in the walls of the cylinder, though I shudder to think what would have happen if he had used tracers. As it was, he did have tracers, but in a different magazine.
The gaseous gas in the cylinders is much more flammable than the liquid petrol in an automobile. Other than the small amount of gas fumes above the liquid gas in the tank, there is nothing to explode. The tank is designed to contain even that small explosion. You can even drop a match into a bucket of gasoline on a cold day (no fumes), as liquid petrol really isn’t very flammable.
In short, there is no real chance of an explosion. If you are very lucky, you might ignite the fumes above the liquid in the tank. But the resulting damage will mostly be from the fire it causes, not the force of the (probably won’t happen) small explosion.
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