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Written by firearrow31
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Saturday, 07 July 2007 |
Western Myths
Original Air Date: 5/30/07
Episode # 79:
Giddy up, pardner! Our rootin’-tootin’ Mythbusters put their seats in the saddle to see just how the West was really won!
Myth # 1: Shooting a hat off
The Myth: That after being struck by a bullet, a cowpoke’s hat will jump off his head, just like a jackrabbit!
The Experts: Frank Tabor, who knows Wild West guns.
Memorable/Quotable Moments:
Jamie (examining a gel bust): He looks like he’s got an acne problem right about now.
The Action/Results: While Adam doesn’t lack faith in Jamie’s ability to shoot, he isn’t about to let him shoot a hat off his head. Jamie agrees that it would be too dangerous, so the two settle on making a ballistics gelatin head for the purposes of this test. Adam attempts to craft one of Jamie’s head, but unfortunately the plaster mold breaks before the gelatin cools completely. Choosing to stick with a bust of Grant with Hyneman-esque whiskers attached, the team heads out to the shooting range.
Adam and Jamie choose to start testing this myth by using an 1860 Army Colt revolver, one of the most common firearms of the time period. The first shot exits the barrel at 750 feet per second and hits the hat at the very top of its crown and goes through as much material as possible, but the hat is only nudged to the side a little bit. They try again, this time with an 1886 Winchester lever-action rifle, and the round goes straight through the center of the hat, but it does not budge. They place a new hat on the bust and try again with the Colt, and this time the hat falls off, but does not fly off as the movies indicate. Only after releasing a barrage with a side-by-side shotgun do they achieve the result that they are looking for.
The Result: This myth is BUSTED. You can’t shoot a person’s hat and make it fly off his head, because a projectile moving at speeds close to 1000 feet per second doesn’t encounter enough resistance.
Myth # 2: Lock Pick of Death
The Myth: That a lock pick being used can trigger the side impact airbag, sending the pick through the base of your skull.
The Experts: Josh Gatkin, fire captain at the Livermore-Pleasanton fire department
Erin Kerrigan, manager at The Bone Room
Thomas Hannan, mechanic
Memorable/Quotable Moments:
Fire Captain Josh Gatkin: “Do not try this at home.”
The Action/Results: Grant, Tory, and Kari first head to the Livermore-Pleasanton fire department training facility to gain some insight on how to pick the lock on a car door. After their lessons, fire captain Josh Gatkin sets up a demonstration of an airbag’s power, setting a road cone on top of an airbag and triggering it, sending it flying. Back at the shop, the build team tries to decide how to go about testing this, and Grant unsurprisingly decides to build a robot to carry out the dubious task of picking the car’s lock. When even the vigorous efforts of Grant’s robot fail to trigger the airbag, they abandon the original setup, and only then does the mechanic on hand state that he knew that this wouldn’t work anyway, because the airbags are located on the inside of the door. Instead of giving up, the build team decides to try a different scenario, wherein our would-be thief gets so frustrated that he kicks the door he is trying to open. Again, they choose to use a robot for safety reasons, so Tory is put to the task of modifying the sword-swinging robot so it will perform like a Rockette. Even after applying five thousand Newtons of force to the door, they only succeed in making an ugly yet disappointing dent. In the end, it takes the power of an air cannon charged to 125 PSI to send the lock pick through a human skull.
The Result: This myth is BUSTED. A lock pick will not set off a side airbag due to the fact that the airbag is actually on the inside of the car.
Myth # 3: Jail Break
The Myth: That it is possible to pull the bars out of a jailhouse window with just a couple horses.
The Experts: Jim Conway, Museum Curator, Old Monterey Jail
Old Buckarro/Ozark Outlaw – horse wranglers
J.D. Nelson – Alameda Bomb Range
Memorable/Quotable Moments:
Adam crawling out of the jail window!
The Action/Results: After much research, including a visit to the Old Monterey Jail, Adam and Jamie decide to replicate Fort Dodge, an old frontier jail that was made out of railroad ties, because it best fits the description of jails as portrayed in Hollywood Westerns. After affixing the bars in place on their pseudo jailhouse wall, the boys borrow some horses from real cowpokes and test how much power they are creating by attaching a force gauge to the rope that they have tied to the bars. At first they use only one horse, and despite its best efforts, in can only generate four hundred pounds of force, and two horses only generate a miniscule one hundred pound increase. Jamie rightly observes that if they were to pull any harder the saddles would slip off. Not wanting to be bested by one of his own creations, Jamie brings out his ATV and manages to pull on the rope and generate nine hundred pounds of force, but the rope breaks. They reset and try again, but the ATV maxes out at 1200 pounds this time, and the bars still aren’t budging. Jamie then breaks out a piece of heavy equipment, which generates an astounding 4000 pounds of force, but the wall itself fails, and not the bars. Next they try to see whether you could break your buddy out of jail using dynamite. In goes Buster to the fake jail cell, and after the dust and wood chips clear, they go in to inspect the carnage. As expected, all shock watches on Buster were tripped, meaning the shockwave generated a lethal amount of at least one hundred G forces, which is impossible to survive under almost any circumstance. They did get the bars out, but your buddy definitely isn’t going to come out of that cell alive.
The Result: This myth is BUSTED. There is no way you can pull the bars from a jailhouse window using horses, or a machine for that matter. When it comes to busting your partner in crime out of jail using dynamite, forget it, because as Jamie said, “you’re better off using an axe.”
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Episode Descriptions 
