I am always interested in the relative strength of various things. For instance, when I was a kid, an older kid who was studying to be a mechanic was telling me about pulling engines out of cars. At school they tell you to always use two chains and four bolts and an adequate hoist, etc. etc. Then he tells me he had seen the mechanic down on the corner pull an engine out of a car by the water pump. It's funny how strong some things are in some situations, but change things just a bit and it becomes a very different story.
So I was shocked when I read this on
Tam's blog: "
The recoil impulse on these guns is so savage that bullets are pulled from their crimps sometimes."
What she is talking about is the other five cartridges that are not in the firing position. Technically, I think you would say that the recoil of the gun pulled shells away from the resting bullets (bullets at rest tend to remain at rest), but the effect is the same. The rim on the shells are held by the cylinder, the bullets are only held by the crimp of the shell.
Eric Haines created this drawing and posted it on the web some ten years ago. I came across it while looking for a drawing to illustrate a post on my regular blog. I passed this one by because the original was too dark. Turns out I had the tool at hand to correct that problem. Eric clued me in: Picasa. Click on Auto-Contrast and presto! You get the image you see here.
I was looking for pictures of planetary gearsets and I came across this piece of weirdness. At first I thought it could not possibly work, but the animation convinced me otherwise. Not sure what it would be good for, but it sure is strange. Search for title on linked page to read more about it. Click here to watch the animation if it isn't running on this page.
