Bulletproof Hoover Covertible

[3rdgenvacguy]

I wanted to share this story of my childhood. I grew up in the country and use to go hunting and plinking with my 22 rimfire. We also had a deep pile carpet in front of our gun cabinet. Well, I think you can tell where this is going. Yep, my mom vacuumed up a .22 shell in our Hoover deluxe convertible and it went off. I don't know the exact model other than it was blue with an aluminum base and fan, and a coverall hood with 4 pos. height adj. I believe the bag had a white and blue floral print. The vacuum suffered no damage whatsoever. Because the shell was not confined in a chamber, all the force of the blast probably went out the sides of the shell case, but the bullet had to come out with some force you would think.

 

[human]

Saw it on 'Mythbusters'...

I remember seeing something similar on 'Mythbusters' several years ago. It seems some 'good ole boys' had a blown fuse on their pick-em-up truck and jammed a .22 cartridge in the fuse block as a temporary replacement since it was about the same size. Supposedly, the bullet cooked off from heat building up as a result of the electrical current passing through the shell casing and injured one of the occupants of the vehicle. If I recall correctly, their tests proved two things:

1. It took far more than 12v DC to cook off a .22 round.
2. In every test, the slug and shell casing separated harmlessly, if somewhat dramatically, resulting in only minor damage to the fuse block and no damage to their trusty and long suffering test dummy "Buster".

It seems to me your experience with the bullet and a Hoover that beats as it sweeps as it shoots would be consistent with their findings.

 

[tolivac]

Years ago the Army tried burning a box of 30-06 ammo and put cardboard barriors around the fire.NONE of the bullets or case fragments went thru the boards.Now lets not go burning our ammo to prove or disprove theories.Shooters who reload their centerfire cases have to be careful about live primers getting on the floor.A direct air vacuum with the rotating brush and fan can pick them up and set them off.Most of the time its a loud "BANG"! and no harm done.But what if that primer set off dust in the bag?I deliborately picked up a live shotgun primer several times with a Cadillac blower before it went off-and blew a big cloud of dust from the blower!A real danger for some reloaders is they put stray primers loosely in a glass jar.NEVER,EVER do this!!If you shake or drop the bottle a really bad explosion could result.Primers should only be put back in their orig factory boxes.Haven't done reloading in a while-but used to reload 30-06,308,44 mag shells.have the reloading press and dies.If you have the spent brass or new and bullets,powder,primers you can easily load your own ammo.Just pay attention while doing it.Not a job for "multitaskers"!You don't want a double charged case to get into your guns chamber!!!