Ice bullets: Fiction or developed by CIA for "wet work"?

[JustSomeOldGuy]

When I was about 6 or 7 a friend of my dad's who was semi-famous in Hartford, CN for his outdoor sports and shooting radio show visited us.
{stuff deleted here}
Now the story of Jack visiting and entertaining us is absolutely true, the story of the bear I leave up to you.

Whole family on my father's side are from there (Hartford), a whole clan of full-on cliche irishmen. The ice bullet stuff I don't believe because of the logistics that would be involved; the bear story I don't believe because my bog-trotting ancestors have always been FULL OF, err, BLARNEY!

[RogueUSMC]

I'm not going to describe it here but Explosive Ordnance Disposal units use a "disruptor" that uses water. If you accelerate water fast enough it will penetrate metal easily so penetrating human organs would not be a problem.

I don't know, water under pressure can be pretty powerfull...

[Soccerdad1995]

I'm not going to describe it here but Explosive Ordnance Disposal units use a "disruptor" that uses water. If you accelerate water fast enough it will penetrate metal easily so penetrating human organs would not be a problem.

I don't know, water under pressure can be pretty powerfull...

I used to work with a company that used extremely high pressure waterjets for industrial applications. They could easily cut fairly thick pieces of steel and other metals using pressurized water with some abrasive material mixed in.

I'm not sure about the practical applications of this for a weapon since you would need a fairly large source of water. Maybe a ship mounted device that feeds from the ocean? Something for facility defense would also work (since the existing jets are in facilities). But a hand held device would be a challenge, I would think.

[ScottDLS]

The "big agribusiness" outfits use water jets for chicken "processing" all the time.

[Soccerdad1995]

The "big agribusiness" outfits use water jets for chicken "processing" all the time.

I am far from an expert on the technology, but I wonder if it would be possible to develop something that sent a very short duration stream downrange? I'm picturing something that looks like a flamethrower with tanks of water you carry on your back. Obviously, the longer the range, the more difficult this would be to develop.

Not quite an ice bullet. More of a "water bullet". But the difference between ice and water is just one of perception. The potential benefits would be the same (leaving no trace, etc).

[jmra]

The "big agribusiness" outfits use water jets for chicken "processing" all the time.

I am far from an expert on the technology, but I wonder if it would be possible to develop something that sent a very short duration stream downrange? I'm picturing something that looks like a flamethrower with tanks of water you carry on your back. Obviously, the longer the range, the more difficult this would be to develop.

Not quite an ice bullet. More of a "water bullet". But the difference between ice and water is just one of perception. The potential benefits would be the same (leaving no trace, etc).

Water not under continuous pressure loses velocity very quickly.

[mrvmax]

I'm not going to describe it here but Explosive Ordnance Disposal units use a "disruptor" that uses water. If you accelerate water fast enough it will penetrate metal easily so penetrating human organs would not be a problem.

I don't know, water under pressure can be pretty powerfull...

Exactly my point.

[puma guy]

When I was about 6 or 7 a friend of my dad's who was semi-famous in Hartford, CN for his outdoor sports and shooting radio show visited us.
{stuff deleted here}
Now the story of Jack visiting and entertaining us is absolutely true, the story of the bear I leave up to you.

Whole family on my father's side are from there (Hartford), a whole clan of full-on cliche irishmen. The ice bullet stuff I don't believe because of the logistics that would be involved; the bear story I don't believe because my bog-trotting ancestors have always been FULL OF, err, BLARNEY!

Depending on how far back they go he may be familiar to some of your family. His upholstery and rug cleaning company was in Hartford. His last name was Leavitt, I think I spelled it right. I had a coworker from Hartford that recognized the name. .

[karder]

Unless you are driving an ice cream truck, I don't know how you would keep your bullets frozen long enough to use them. If they just warmed up slightly they would fall out of the casings. Besides all the other problems previously mentioned.

[TEX]

I think it would depend on what kind of ice and what it was fired from. If you had a dry ice (CO2) slug in a shotgun wadding/cup, it would probably work at short range and be moving really, really fast. No rifling marks even if they did find the wadding. Cartridges kept in a super insulated container with other dry ice blocks, then inserted at the last moment into a break open double barrel (use gloves or tongs), and I bet you could do some serious damage.

[stroo]

Andy C.,

While I agree with you that the idea of ice bullets is fantasy, my brief google search on ballistic forensics provided numerous cases where the marks on bullets, even fingerprints on bullets although extremely rare, matched the bullets to a particular gun and help result in murder convictions. This included two cold cases, one 20 years old and the other almost 40 years old.

The scholarly articles I looked at were clear that comparisons of markings on bullets to marks in barrels were not conclusive by themselves as to whether a particular gun was used, they certainly can be and are used as evidence in murder trials.

So if an ice bullet were not complete fantasy, its melting would remove one piece of evidence law enforcement might otherwise have to convict a murderer.

And all this is probably not worth the time I took to research and type this.