Why not to use Soda Bottle Chambers (VIDEO) (AFTERMATH PIC)

[rp181]

So true, i shot a pressurized canister (asthma thing)and a metal fraghit me, it didnt work.

[super spuder]

"i missed on the first shot because a mosquito bit me" Thoes damn mosquitos That sound reminds me of deer hunting season. Wonder how the bottle flew after it blew up.

[subsonic_karet]

so the power of your air rifle is relative to that of someone whipping a rock at something. and you have chronoed it at around 600 FPS at 10 pumps. then you pressurized a plastic pop bottle to aobut 150 PSI. absolutely devistating results, not. maybe for your next scientific experiment you could pressurize a piece of pressure rated pvc to 200 psi or so and then whip a rock at 600fps at it. do you think it would sound as insane as a pop bottle? kinda insane

[VH_man]

hahaa i might actually do that.......... that was my next test.

[DYI]

They filled a 10 gallon tank with rubbing alcohol, lit and kablow! A fragment hit a kid smack in the head, and their was absolutely no damage. The thing is, the plastic is not massive, or dense enough to hurt anything.

Well that's responsible...

Really, having an audience that close to such a demonstration isn't a very brilliant idea. Of course, I design most of my chem. class's demos myself, so it makes more difference to me than it would to most people. How would you be sure you had a stoichiometric (or even ignitable) mixture in a demo like that?
[/irrelevant tangent]

As to what's being discussed here: Most of us know that things like soda bottles, ABS, and copper pipe rip instead of shattering, and are therefore safer than materials like PVC or hardened steel. But that doesn't mean safe to hold on to. That means that if you're standing beside it when it fails you probably won't get sprayed with shrapnel. If your hand is around the chamber when it fails, you'll still get cuts, burns, or amputations (or in my case, instant and complete incineration ).

Basically, if you're holding on to a pressure vessel, make sure you have a substantial safety factor, and that the vessel is made from a suitable material (i.e. not PVC).

[MrCrowley]

The thing is, the plastic is not massive, or dense enough to hurt anything.

Eye.

[Ultimate Weapon]

I've had a bottle bomb blow up in my hands and honestly the only thing that happened was I got a few small cuts and my hand bled some but it did hurt a lot and the pain lasted a few minutes... Oh yeah and only cause the bottle is close to your ears it makes them ring.

[ammosmoke]

I've had a bottle bomb blow up in my hands and honestly the only thing that happened was I got a few small cuts and my hand bled some but it did hurt a lot and the pain lasted a few minutes... Oh yeah and only cause the bottle is close to your ears it makes them ring.

It would probably be worse on your face... But, I have seen people jump on 2 liter bottle bombs to get them to go off and nothing happened to them... So I would say that it wouldn't be too bad, but unpleasant nevertheless.

[Ultimate Weapon]

Well I'm not talking about one going off right next to your face though. If that happened I am sure your eyes will be messed up and I would not want that to happen.

[jrrdw]

What size bottle was it?

[Ultimate Weapon]

Looks like he is shooting a 20oz soda bottle... I could be wrong though.

[VH_man]

yeah its a 20Oz.... its all i had on hand. a 2litre works much better but whatever.

I just did some tests and found that Gatorade bottles DO NOT produce these results when shot. if your going to use a bottle as a chamber use those.

[Hotwired]

Drinks bottles are thin walled balloons, they're not hard and they're under high tension. Poke it with something sharp while under pressure and it'll burst like one.

You don't need to shoot it to make it burst.

Also don't need it pressurised to frag it.

I've shot empty bottles with the cap on and completely failed to find large sections of them afterwards.

[psycix]

This all just shows people should spend those few bucks on a pvc chamber.

[Ragnarok]

How curious. I was doing a rather similar thing with my air rifle only yesterday.
I was shooting out the bases of 12g CO2 bulbs and sending them rocketing across my garden - They don't explode, but they do make a pretty cool trail of gas, and do make something of a pace.

And I have to say I don't think much of your accuracy...
I had a target less than a 1/4" across I was trying hit from 10 metres, and I was doing a lot better.
"I missed because a rogue flaming pink elephant charged past... seriously, it really put me off."

Out of interest, you might have seen this guy's collection on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/radude131
Looking at that, I don't think that PVC chambers show up much better in similar tests than the bottles.

I'll be sticking with copper - even the weakest pipe I use (28mm) still has a burst pressure of over 2000 psi. Regardless of whether or not failure will be dangerous (my bet being that copper failure is probably safer than most other things), failure is at least unlikely.