Video: Will Ammo Fire When Dropped?

It’s been a while since I shared anything from Demolition Ranch. Why? Because I haven’t been able to find anything interesting, and it looks as if the main man has now taken to recording his everyday life on another YouTube channel called “Off the Ranch.” And since I don’t give a rip about things like his family’s outing to Sonic for a burger, I’m figuring you don’t either.

Anyhow, here he is trying to make a shotgun shell fire using nothing more than gravity. It’s reminiscent of when he tried cramming 22 rimfire ammo into a drinking straw and tossed it up into the air.

But since he’s dealing with centerfire ammo, he uses a length of PVC pipe to guide a shotgun shell as it falls towards a nail. In the photo above, he’s showing viewers the sleeve or sabot that he made to center the shell in the PVC.

I’m still not going to flinch when I drop ammo, though. Most of the time, ammo will fall heavy-end-down, so its front will make the impact. And even if it lands on its head, it’s highly unlikely that the primer will be struck in just the right way to fire it.

But if you want to duck and run, have at it.

Spoiler alert: When he recovers the fired shell, he finds the nail driven deep into the shell, right through the primer. Be aware that did not happen due to gravity; when the shell fired, the hull was driven away from the larger mass, which was the load of shot pellets. That force then drove the shell downward onto the sharp nail “firing pin.”

Enjoy.

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.