Make a bullet that has wedges cast into it so that when the bullet is fired the wedges expand against the sides of the barrel and jam blowing the breach out of the gun or at least ruining the barrel. Possibly use tungsten for the wedges and balance them so they look, feel and weigh exactly like an ordinary bullet, also the tungsten is non magnetic so some bastard couldn't sort them from ordinary bullets. These could be mass produced and used to wreak the black gun/munitions market so all those shitty little terrorist armies can go back to throwing rocks. I'm thinking start with AK47's.
-- Spaceman Spiff, Feb 19 2008

Other bad exploding bullet idea E_2eA_2eT_2e_20Lead_20Rounds
[MisterQED, Feb 19 2008]

GPS Dud Munitions GPS_20Dud_20Munitions
Same idea but with bells. [bungston, Feb 20 2008]

Auto-destruct ammunition Auto-destruct_20ammunition
Pretty much exact same idea. In same category. [bungston, Feb 20 2008]

Blowing the breech out or exploding the barrel is a terribly not non-hazardous solution to whatever problem you're trying to solve.
-- Noexit, Feb 19 2008


Annotation copied from similar idea who thought exploding guns would be cool. Ignore parts about gun theft.

//If you want to do this, you should sabotage the firing pin to weld itself in place. Put in a fake round that when fired, it ignites a small thermite charge that welds the pin to the bullet. Make the bullet a “hollow point”, so you can vent the gas out the nose of the bullet. So if the gun is stolen and “fired” using the “sabo” round, the gun will not fire anything, just get hot, smoke a little and become useless without hurting anyone.//
-- MisterQED, Feb 19 2008


sp. wreck. (You wreak havoc, but reck gun barrels, at least if you put jamming bullets in them.)

I would remind you that bullets are designed to expand into the gun barrel, picking up the rifling there so they spin.
-- DrCurry, Feb 19 2008


The AK-47 is made in at least 3 different calibers with 5 different cartridges that I know of. None of them are specific to the AK-47. Bone to you for not knowing your subject.

Bullets have copper jackets because the copper is ductile and self-lubricating. You'd need to remove the copper from the tungsten to get them to jam, which would be blatantly obvious to anyone looking at them. Bone to you for not knowing your subject.

[marked-for-depletion] punish all people who do X

[DrCurry] sp. wreck. Or maybe you mean dreck. Sorry, "reck" not found.
-- lurch, Feb 19 2008


I disagree with the MFD. While this is a means of getting back at black market gun dealers, that's not the new idea, merely a premise.
-- jutta, Feb 19 2008


First this idea is not intended to be user friendly and the gun blowing up is actually a boon as it makes others think twice before pulling the trigger. Second using thermite rounds works until someone checks the contents of the round or stops using hollow point. And third the copper can be made very thin so that it hides the tungsten but does not lubricate anything. As for you [lurch] your little blurb about AK47s is nice but totally irrelevant as the rounds can be made to fit any gun of any caliber. The bullet can also be made to look like any type of round.
-- Spaceman Spiff, Feb 20 2008


I think I'm missing something here. Who buys this ammunition? Wouldn't the offending gun nut just say, "the non-jamming variety, thanks" when buying their supplies, and discard any old ammo about which they are unsure.
-- Texticle, Feb 20 2008


[jutta] - OK, I've pulled my mfd, but I'm going to disagree with your disagreement. The ammo dealers may suffer repercussions, but as [SS] has clarified, that's only a side effect. The idea of blowing up a user's gun strikes me as no different from the "spike in the steering wheel" ideas. ("Kill or maim the user of X because I don't like people who use X.") And moreover, there's not a new idea - it has three duplicands in this category, as [bungston] and [MisterQED] have shown.

[Spaceman Spiff] - do you think that those //shitty little terrorist armies// will decide to throw rocks, because it would be just immoral of them to use land mines where kids might go?
-- lurch, Feb 20 2008


[Texticle], the ammo is given out for free at terrorist expos.
-- theleopard, Feb 20 2008


[lurch]-This idea takes care of most of the gun problem if employed properly. The land mines are not dealt with in this idea. As for the other ideas that are "the same" they are not as a few hundred kids, suicide bombers to be, whatever spread throughout the terrorist organization can defeat the other three ideas by manually inspecting each round while my rounds require some hi-tech hardware like X-ray scanners or equivalent device to detect and the terrorists are not likely to have very many (if any) of them.
-- Spaceman Spiff, Feb 20 2008


[Notes US hasn't signed landmine ban treaty; makes note to watch where stepping next time in Central Park.]
-- DrCurry, Feb 20 2008


This idea is redundant with those linked. The eldest [kinemojo] one actually has some interesting discussion of the concept, which is not outrageous.
-- bungston, Feb 20 2008


[UnaBubba] - not to argue, just a point to scratch your head over: Which countries from that list might sign the treaty, but then act in violation thereof? I'm guessing that's a non-empty set.

[Spaceman Spiff] - //while my rounds require some hi-tech hardware like X-ray scanners or equivalent device to detect// There are lots of under-trained soldiers who try to convert a full-metal-jacket round into a fragmenting round by scoring circumferentially with a file. If the tungsten is so near the surface that the //copper ... does not lubricate anything// hitting it with a file is going to be more than a leetle bit obvious, no?
-- lurch, Feb 20 2008


There is a much simpler way of doing this that wuld be bloody hard to detect without a good micrometer or vernier. Just make the bullets a little oversize. For example, a 7.62X39mm russian (ak47) round is actually 7.9mm diameter. You could put an 8mm <actual> round in there and it wouldn't make it out the barrel. A little research and you could easily select a size that would be guaranteed to work.

Lastly, one of the most effective ways of sabotaging a gun is of course to fire a round without any powder inside. You could easily supply a small quantity (maybe 1 in 10) of the bullets without any powder. The primer is enough to drive the projectile into the barrel - but the noise is negligible, and most people will assume a misfire and eject the round. A cautious person will wait >30seconds and inspect the ejected round, and see that it has no projectile. Most will not. The next bullet, if fully-powered, will jam in the barrel when fired, destroying the weapon (and often the user). This is why you never use someone else's reloads and always check the misfire round before firing again.

So there. Two ways you could make this work, but I still don't like the idea. As a firearms user myself I think what you want to do is just plain irresponsible. Most of those "shitty little terrorist armies" exist because of bloody-minded politics of the previous generation. You show me one terrorist group whose existence, motivation <and for most of them, training and equipment> are not a direct result of the actions of the US, UK, UN, or some other so-called global "benevolent" authority. Maybe you will manage to find 1 or 2 examples, but they will be the exception, not the rule.

Grow up.
-- Custardguts, Feb 20 2008


[DilatentIntestines] you are absolutely correct, of course, and you don't need me to tell you that.

That said, imagine:

A police officer walks into your house and murders your family, leaving you alive. He smiles and walks out, saying "Peace has been kept, here".

If in response, you then take up arms and start taking potshots at innocent neighbors, what should that same police force do?

a) stand back and say "Oh, we are sorry for what we did to you. We understand that taking innocent lives was your only recourse, and we take full responsibility",

or

b) hunt you down and kill you, too.

Unfortunately, (b) is the sad correct answer. Unfortunately then all of your cousins are then going to start killing their innocent neighbors. This is because they have been told by Big Uncle Mo that their religion says they can do this as a just and proper response to what has happened to them. Then you have a bloodbath.

I am thinking there is no solution besides waiting for that backwards-ass religion to grow up in a few centuries, along with a change in our own international policy here (in ze vest) to match our actual ideals (which is going to happen soon, for sure).
-- globaltourniquet, Feb 20 2008


Appreciated, for sure.

Sadly, I beleive it is our ideals that seems to be changing to suit our international policy, to some degree.

I would never suggest that there is a simple or even singular answer, but there are a lot of people, even more ignorant than myself, who will arrogantly stand on the sidelines slinging shit.
-- Custardguts, Feb 20 2008



random, halfbakery