MythBusters/Ice Bullet, Exploding Toilet, Who Gets Wetter?

Ice Bullet, Exploding Toilet, Who Gets Wetter?
Season 1, Episode 1
Airdate	September 23, 2003
← 0x03 Larry's Lawn-Chair Balloon, Goldfinger, Poppy-Seed Drug Test	1x02 → Cell Phone Destruction, Silicone Breasts, CD-ROM Shattering
MythBusters — Season One

Ice Bullet, Exploding Toilet, Who Gets Wetter? is the first episode of the first season of MythBusters, and the fourth episode overall.

Can a bullet made of ice really kill someone; then melt away leaving no ballistics evidence? Can you make a toilet explode with common household sprays and a match? Which is better when it's raining, running or walking? In this episode Adam and Jamie try to find out.

Guest Stars:

Ice Bullet

The Myth

Assassins can use bullets made of ice, so that after it has hit it's target it can melt away and leave no evidence.

The Test

They decide to actually create an ice bullet, so they purchase a rifle, and during the 10-day waiting period they get to work. They mold the bullet out of ice, use wax to seal the bullet into a casing, but they have problems, and the ice is too brittle to be pulled out of the mold. They decide to use meat and gelatin. Now, needing something at which to shoot, they create a dummy made out of ballistics gelatin. On test day, they load up the rifle with the meat bullet, but the meat simply explodes in mid-air, covering the target with little pieces of meat. The gelatin stays together, and reaches 3 times the speed of sound, with 2,000 pounds of pressure per square inch, but even with that it only goes an inch into the gelatin dummy. They decide to use a handgun, and fire from a closer range, this seems to work.

With the new found results, they decide that you could not do that with a handgun, you would need something stealthy, like an umbrella. Adam uses an old C02 pistol, and rigs it to fit inside an umbrella, Jamie fashions a whole new assembly, and uses compressed air. They both work.

The Result

Busted. Even though the tests of the umbrella-guns went well, they were still using bullets made of gelatin, the conclusion is that anything that would melt inside a body, is too brittle to be molded into a bullet.

Exploding Toilet

The Myth

A woman cleaned her toilet with normal household sprays. Her husband comes home, uses the bathroom, and when he's done he tosses the butt of his cigarette into the bowl, causing an explosion, launching him off the toilet. There are also some variations that say the woman dumped gasoline in the toilet.

The Test

First thing to do is to get a toilet, they are a little picky, because they think the deeper the bowl, the bigger the explosion will be, then they set up a Lexan blast chamber, in which to put their newly purchased toilet. Since neither Adam nor Jamie will volunteer to sit on the toilet, they need a replacement. That comes in the form of a Series II crash test dummy, which has been a huge part of the show since, they affectionatley name him "Buster". They make a remote controlled hand, to drop a cigarette into the toilet, and they are ready to test.

The first combustible they use is a lot of hair spray, this doesn't even ignite, then bug spray, same result. They decide that maybe the husband might have dropped his match into the bowl, and the open flame might cause more of a reaction, so the plan is modified to drop a match, rather than a cigarette. With the match and bug spray, there is a little poof, so they move up to butane. With a cigarette, nothing happens, with the lit match, there is a flash, but not enough of an explosion to launch Buster off the seat. They replace the water in the toilet with gasoline, again, cigarette nothing, match, nothing more than a flash. At this point, really wanting an explosion of some sort (something which you see repeatedly throughout the show), they use half a can of black powder, the match causes enough of an explosion to blow the chamber apart, but Buster is still sitting non-chalantly on the toilet, with nothing more than his pants being blown off.

The Result

Busted. Even with half a can of black powder, and an open flame, they couldn't launch buster off of the toilet.