Had to do quite a lot of noise cancellation on our mics for this one. The audio track had a bunch of hiss and clicks on it as though no mics were plugged in even though all our mic audio was also there 🤔. So sorry for the slightly weird audio on this one!

I love how ridiculously complex the setup is, how precise everything has to be measured, and then the final target they’re using to measure success or failure is flapping around madly each time. 😂

In the quiet of my mind, you guys are now the spiritual successor of the mythbusters and I love you for it.

For the love of god! use a marker to mark your old bullet entries so you won't have to guess which one is the new one!! 😁 Nice explosions though! I bet the bullet is deflected a tiny bit, which may show better if target was like 1km away

PLEASE continue answering questions absolutely no one was asking, because this has to be one of your coolest and most interesting videos to date. So glad that 13 years later, you guys have still got awesome ideas for content, and have the resources to really take these experiments seriously.

A few slow-mo "Myths" with Adam Savege would be amazing! Incredible footage as always as well :D

Gavin starting off by saying its a very Mythbusters style of experiment at the exact moment i thought to myself "these two are the new mythbusters to me" is wild and i hope it continues forever

I think a revisit on this is in order. The shockwave happens so late vs the passing of the bullet. The flamefront and detonation is dead on the explosion's 6, but you can see the shockwave when the bullet has moved off to around 4 on the watchdial. Looks like you needed to set the detonation off even earlier.

I am guessing that the gyro stabilizing effects of the spinning bullet make it very hard to push it off course. Whatever the reason, it is very cool to see in such slow detail. Awesome job!

Super cool video.

I just graduated from Mines and I had no idea yall have been here. Makes me even more proud of it. Helluva Engineer

Awesome video guys! As a precision long range shooter I think your lack of bullet defection has more to do with the distance of the explosion to the target. It had very little distance/time to show you the deviation before it made impact with the target. When shooting long range wind deflection of the bullet to the intended target is more important at the shooting location than it is closer to the target. Think, its has more time to deviate if there's wind at the gun than the close to target at say 1,000 yards. Heck of a video, idea and effort! Very entertaining for sure!

Came for the bullet, stayed for the shock waves. Stunning!

since you mentioned a storm coming in, an explosion going off in the middle of rain couple look super cool! Seeing all the rain droplets being displaced by the shockwave and stuff

You need to think of this like the timing of a car’s ignition system. For the most effective firing, you set the ignition to fire just before the piston is at the top of the cylinder. Therefore you need to look not only the explosion, but the shockwave. The bullet has already traveled quite a distance between the explosion and the shockwave.

I would love to see this revisited with sub sonic rounds.

I’m currently a student at Mines, and I’m glad you guys enjoy your time here!

I’m so glad you guys have just kept going. Never went too corporate, never became some crazy production. Still just 2 fun guys who slightly got some more money and equipment over time. Love it

I really think you should try to get the explosion ahead of the bullet, almost like a dome shield to try to divert it, so the bullet travels into the shockwave that is already there and moving.

Watching how the Colorado Mines team has responded to socal media since Mythbusters is utterly fascinating.

When you see them standing at the Colorado School of Mines, you know it's going to be a top-tier video.

Honestly, just that still frame of the first moment of the explosion with the bullet below it, the lighting of it, it's simply art. It's so beautiful.

What the heck! This is so cool! I’m a second year Engineering Physics student Mines! I had zero idea you guys came to my school! Also, you would be correct in that Mines has a lot of explosives. We have an Explosives Engineering minor and a Pyrotechnics Club. I was part of the club for a little while as a freshman. This is so cool! Glad you liked our eccentric, nerdy and slightly unhinged school. Also fun fact about Mines: if you minor in Explosives Engineering and combine that minor with certain majors (such as chemistry, mechanical, or chemical engineering) you get put on the government watch list! Also you are not allowed to take explosives classes together with anything regarding nuclear engineering here! 😂

13:44 wow! 😳 The timing of that shot!!! You guys nailed it!! 😮 I’ve watched hundreds of your videos and this is the first I felt obligated to give a response. Don’t get me wrong I’ve felt like commenting before but this one prompted a response. Good one guys 😊

The bullet has a pretty tiny surface area for the shockwave to act on and is quite dense. I would've been more surprised if it had been significantly deflected. But who cares because awesome slowmo detonations are always epic.

This is the essence of slo-mo. Way to go guys!

Just discovered these Slow Mo videos yesterday and have been binge-watching. They are fascinating! So cool.

Interesting video. I would also say that the tiny surface of the bullet, ignoring all stabilizing effects like rifling, inertia, etc., also allows not much energy transfer from the shock-wave to the bullet. That's why active armor on tanks can effect an incoming RPG to some degree as the hollow charge is a bigger target then a bullet. Even your floppy target ruined more precise results quite a bit, it was interesting to watch. A repeat with a solid target mounted stable would maybe bring a measurable result. But I am sure the result would be neglectable until the shot was supposed to be a precision shot on a very tiny target.

Every time I saw the explosion wiggling the target I was like “how would they know if it was the bullet being moved or the target just jumping” lol great video lads

The thing that I would adjust is the distance from the C4 to the bullets trajectory path. Assuming inverse square law, halving the distance would put 4 times the force on the bullet. For an object of small cross section, and the impulse time of the explosion, you'd need to really ramp up what you're hitting that bullet with.

I love that they were hinting at the creeper video at the end of this one, I never would’ve guessed that’s what they meant when saying lightning would “make it more powerful”

The footage is flipping beautiful. Super cool & thanks for sharing them.

Thinking about it the bullet should actually have an easier time traveling through the super-heated plasma from the explosion because its density is probably less than air at that range. Kinda like how you could in theory fly a spacecraft through the outer parts of a big star like Betelgeuse.

How far they've come....from popping bangers in the backyard to filming at the school of mines. Good on you guys!

I like seeing the bullet spin with the light of the explosion above. That and the mad flappy target instead of some plywood

Really loved the more experimental way of coming forward with this subject 🙏

As a test engineer for a weapons company, it would probably be even cooler to redo this test with a range of at least 100m and a 7.62 or 12.5 machine gun. Why not take advantage of this greater distance to add explosions to the trajectory. :) I love your experiences! It's great, thank you!

Regarding the exposure, if you can get access to identical cameras (I know, probably not gonna happen with the good ones) you can create a mirror setup to perfectly overlay their perspectives and have each record at different exposures, allowing you to capture HDR footage in slowmo, or fade between the shots to always get it best exposed.

sound design of the slowmo was awesome, i know you're apologizing for the noise cancellation but you've made it up plenty with your skills.

It would've made more sense to have the explosion go off well before the bullet arrived. The shockwave is the only aspect that could fesibly deflect the bullet, so having it go off after the bullet had passed, or right as it is already passing, means the shockwave has to chase the bullet, or will push on the bullet from behind, so it doesn't give enough force in an opposing direction to alter the course. If the shockwave was already forming while a bullet was entering it from the front, thats when you may get the results you want since that is an opposing force that could result in it being deflected. It's kind of like asking whether or not water could diflect a bullet, but instead of shooting a bullet into water, you instead tried to pour water onto a bullet from above

I love these mythbuster style videos, would be great to see a funded series testing the unknown

From my limited military experience, you'll have to set off the explosive before the bullet gets to the explosive location to get any effect on the bullet's direction. In my mind the way you were doing it was like the reaction from a two stage rocket. There's another KZfaq video explaining explosive reactor armor on military vehicles. That'll get you a better starting point for round two.

Years later and your content has been just as good and better every time.

Next time do it with a carbine and put the target at least 50 yds past the explosion site. Give the bullet room to move! This was a brilliant idea! Keep answering questions no one has asked.

Love this Mythbusters energy. The nerd in me is absolutely champing at the bit to see different variables tested. This is such a cool idea, and it'd be neat to see more experiments!

It's always incredible to see some of the perfect timing they are able to get.

Loved this one! Definitely do that again with some more variables twiddled!

Your videos amazes us as always!! Also would be interesting to see Explosions or bullet interacting with Oobleck(non-newtonion fluid) in slo-mo.

15:17 I would love to see a creeper explosion in slow motion!

I have to say, I do love how i can never predict what the next video is going to be from you guys. Always feels like a pleasant surprise reading the video title.

I'm glad to see more content from you guys showing up again. I love you content.

I love your videos! I've seen so many and I'm mesmerized everytime! I got a pair of shady rays about a month ago and I love them!

To be honest, I think revisiting with a shape charge would probably be the most effective method. Because instead of just an explosion going in all directions, you have a channeled release of energy.

Consistently the most wholesome guys on this forsaken platform

I’ve been watching you guys since the water balloon burst. It’s so fun to keep up with you! This was a great experiment!

I would love to see you do this again. Except this time use a sheet of 3/4" plywood as a target to minimize deformation due to the explosives.

It was great meeting you guys when you were here at Mines!

Pressure on the bullet must be related to the surface area. So you could calculate how much it gets deflected according to the weight. Probably more noticeable by distance. Another interesting effect might also play a role. As the explosion creates a high density area you might even get an additional lensing effect as the bullet moves into and out of the high pressure area. For this the explosion would need to be earlier and the bullet closer. Great footage!

If you do revisit this again: - Please make a target that cannot be moved by the shockwave, or fall down and be placed back in a slightly different position. Maybe a stack of cinder blocks with a target painted or pasted onto it - Please mark your bullet holes so you can look back at each attempt and know which is which - Please try to time it so that the shockwave itself hits the bullet when the bullet passes directly below (in the closest shot in this video the detonation began when the bullet was directly below, but by the time the shockwave caught up the bullet was some distance away) - If trying new variables, either a larger or closer explosion could be interesting to see. And I agree that different bullet speeds would also be interesting Thanks for such an interesting and fun video! The footage was again amazing, as always. Love your content

i LOVE the sound changes when it went ultra-slow black and white. Good job editor.

I love how you planned all this, and then decided to use a pegged up paper target as your process to measure trajectory deviation

The live reaction commentary to the footage will always be my favorite part of your videos! It's just so genuine and delightful to hear the excitement, analysis, thought process, etc. when working through getting a shot.

I am a huge fan of how your content has changed and improved over the years. Ads are still relentless, but even they are made better😂 shady rays looks good

Great job!! Timing and location of the bullet are the most important factors to consider since the power of the shockwave decreases rapidly with distance. The explosion must hapen before the bullet arrive to the explosive so the shockwave travelling in the opposite direction will decrease the bullet velocity. You can use the speed cameras to calculate the speed of the bullet, to check velocity increments.

I'd be curious to see a larger, subsonic round. Wonder if there'd be a notable difference in the explosion's effect

Going into this, I was curious how you were going to nail the timing given the speeds involved. The idea to use the bullet as part of the trigger is that kind of clever simplicity that I love and always seem to not think of.

I am glad you pulled up target so we could see where bullets actually hit, because the whole time, I was thinking if the target wasnt flapping around we could get a better idea of where bullets truly struck. Loved the footage of bullets going past explosions.

Cool to see you guys at the co school of mines I would’ve never thought they did stuff like this

15:15 Lighting making an object more powerful? Super charged Creeper perhaps?... 🤔 lol

You need to get Adam Savage and recreate the cement truck explosion that they missed the slow mo footage to be recorded.

The shimadzu at 11:13 created what looks like a chemical compound structure of spherical atoms into a molecule that's a 3d diamond shaped (regular octohedron) as it forms, such an amazing capture, very nice footage.

Another awesome presentation. Thanks for putting out the video.

So what we’ve learned is that adding C4 to my shooting fundamentals will increase my accuracy, Thanks for helping me with that! The IDPA guys won’t be quite as enthusiastic about this solution I’m afraid. 😂 Actually, I’m rather surprised that the trajectory of the bullet apparently wasn’t affected very much. 🤔 Wish I knew you were in CO, I would have loved to meet you guys!

Really love seeing a topic that is right in Dan's wheelhouse, a knowledgeable Dan is an excited Dan. Would love to see it with something heavier and slower (maybe a shotgun slug?)

Well done again guys. Always amazing. Bonus: I'm checking out Shady Rays. I want a pair of those sun glasses. Thank you Colorado School of Mines as well.

The dudes are always great but what a creative idea. Amazing video👏

hearing that there’s going to be more content at the school of mines makes me so happy :) these types of videos are the most interesting and entertaining to me

Dan hit it right on the money. As an explosives expert, I have no idea what will happen. I know there are some monstrous forces that will be at work here and I am very excited to see how they play with each other. I feel like I need to experiment with this one on my own.

Great video! Would love to see a second version with a traget that doesn't move

Awesome experiment. You could have hung a stationary bullet like a pendulum behind the explosive, around the same distance as the traveling one, to see how strongly it is pushed by the shockwave.

To deflect the bullet, I think you will need to have the explosion closer to the bullet. As it is set up, the force is somewhat spent by the time it gets to the bullet. Great stuff as always, guys. Pleased to see Dan in this video as well as Gav.

This is an insane result, especially when you recall that the 9mm was the **second slowest** bullet from the Bullet Race video during the Super Slow Show. Can you imagine how much force it would take to knock the Barrett 50 cal off course with this same setup?

"I've witnessed, events so tiny and so fast, that can hardly be said that occured at all" - Dr. Manhattan

To compare to firing at a distant target with wind: A 5.56 mm bullet travels something like 1000 m/s, judging from the video there's roughly a metre where it's exposed to the shockwave, so 1 milliseconds. If you're shooting something a kilometre away, it's gonna take at least a second (more because you'll need to arc it a bit and it will lose speed as it goes), so you would need a thousand times more force from the explosion than wind to get the same deflection of the bullet's heading. From a paper I found, the overpressure from 100g of C4 1.5 m away is about 15 PSI or 100 kN/m^2. A gale force wind (20 m/s) causes a force of about 250 N/m^2, so the C4 overpressure isn't too far off being 1000 times stronger, and will deflect the heading of the bullet by a comparable amount to the total effect of the wind. However, in this test, the bullet does not travel far at all after the explosion. I think this is what really makes the difference. If you could set up the target to be distant from the explosion (and had a good precision rifle clamped to a steady bench) you'd probably see a distinct measurable effect, comparable to the deviation due to a strong wind.

4:00 - I was actually concerned this would happen when that was first shown. For future tests like this, I'd suggest starting with .22 short, then .22 LR, and maybe .22 magnum, and move up from there. Maybe also get the bullet traveling much closer to the point of detonation so it's hit with (presumably) an even stronger burst of force.

Well with the inverse square law, surely you only need to put the explosion closer to the bullet. Each time you half the distance to the explosion, you multiply the force applied to the bullet by 4.

That was so cool. That frame where the bullet is directly under the infant explosion is beautiful. I would hang that on my wall. When you go again, you should try a smoothbore musket. Perhaps a musket ball will be more susceptible to explosive influence as it won’t have the rifling and aerodynamics stabilizing it like a bullet would. Establishing an accurate baseline with a target might not be super feasible, but the footage would be badass if it worked. Also, if the explosives detonated before the projectile became perpendicular to it and the ground, the projectile would be receiving force pushing it back and down, rather than forwards and down. Perhaps this could help destabilize the projectile? Anyways, thanks for making videos! Keep up the great work as always. See you in the next one!

There’s probably more to understand about the universe in our backyards than in space. Well done!

The dynamics of shockwaves are so unbelievably cool :)

I wouldn't have even thought to wonder if an explosion shock wave could affect the path of a bullet in flight. Wow, thanks for doing this experiment, guys!

A few issues here, which might have been or not been considered: Gravity, the flapping target from the shockwave, and perhaps the bullet needs to enter the explosion, before, during, and after to have full influence from the shockwave. Additionally, we can hypothetically assume with enough explosives and enough distance in time that the bullet will "dip" from inital Directory. Loved the thought about moving the tape back a meter! Lmao but I think the biggest uncertainty are the target and the position of the coordinated bullet at the time of explosion. I wonder if the difference in velocities and instance of influence (the period of the bullet under exertion of force) are to great and small against the bullet to have a significant, observable effect on the bullets trajectory. So, at what point or how long much the bullet endure the duration and at what intensity of the bullet to percieve such a notable change within the relationship? What forces are at play and how does the environment barely effect the bullet (thinking fluid dynamics, states of matter, and near instantaneous change in a confined space). Fascinating video! Would love to do what you guys do.

Wow, that was some very cool footage. To add my 2 cents, I would suggest moving the target farther away from the explosion and also confirm the mean point of impact with multiple shots before testing. When firing a rifle in windy conditions, the bullet moves very little when you are close to the target. At longer range, even a mild breeze can push it off target. I hope this analogy is useful.

Lighting hitting a future video item will make it more powerful? Confirmed, Slow Mo Guys are doing Slow Motion creeper explosions

1:30 I am super-impressed at the simplicity of the camera and explosive trigger mechanism. How cool!

10:20 “now the target may have just moved”….. may have? Lol

Watched a couple awesome videos.Im glad I found this channel out of nowhere

The mass of the bullet while travelling at such a velocity is much more than the force of the explosion being exerted upon it. Simply put, the explosion either has to 'push harder' (C4 pushes pretty hard, but there are better force-mulitplying options out there) or the bullet needs to get smaller. Still very cool and a fair experiment for a revisit! Thanks for the awesome entertainment always Guys!

Such a cool idea! If you ever revisit this my recommendation would be to get a rifle with sub 1 MOA (less than 1” spread at 100 yds) and move the target to 100 yds away, keeping the explosive closer to the rifle. Since 100yds is the basis for how accurate a rifle is, you’d get a much better idea if the bullet was being pushed since you have a baseline performance to compare the test to

This experiment deserved an solid target, not just a piece of paper

Was awesome meeting you (Gav) at the Austin airport heading to Denver (assuming it was for this video). Keep up the mind blowing videos guys!