What's Wrong With This Picture

The pierced bullets all got pierced somehow. Clear evidence (staged or not) of the piercing bullet having some inertia in the expected direction. None of the piercing bullets show any evidence of damage from the inertia from the pierced bullet having been in motion.

For two bullets to collide in flight, they inherently must both be in motion.
 
I don't know much. But I would expect that in the hit, they would both fragment apart. There would be alot more mushrooming of the point of the bullet if they actually did survive like that. too many things wrong.
 
I remember a news story on local tv when I was a kid showing what claimed to be a piece of straw driven into a tree by a tornado. I’m not sure if that was a true story or not. But based on my extensive knowledge on either subject, I’m gonna have to say I don’t have a clue if the bullet thing is real. If there’s one thing I’m sorta sure of, it’s my own ignorance. Strange things happen everyday that defy MY ability to understand. What’s one more? Hahaha!

Something else to know is that the exhibitor of these bullets does not claim to explain what circumstances caused the bullets to be this way, and only that they were found on a battlefield.
 
RaisedByWolves said:
Not necessarily.

Terminal velocity on impact would allow this, but I don't believe any of the ones shown hit in mid air. If they had they would have fragged with each spinning somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000-50,000 rpm each.

Most likely, seeing as the receiving bullets are all bent, the shot bullet hit a stationary bullet on the ground or in a magazine and penetrated.
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I agree with this opinion. The first photo looks to me like the receiving bullet was lodged in the mouth of a case, and seems to have a bend that would verify this. The impact could have dislodged it from the case mouth. Everything is so corroded that it is difficult to even identify the calibers involved.
 
Interesting comments. My take was that there are no rifling marks on the left hand bullet. The dent in the side of that bullet is suspicious too. I also don't believe that an object hitting another of approximately equal mass would have caused penetration like shown. The Hague Convention of 1899 prohibited military use of bullets that expanded or flattened easily so bullets used in WWI would have had full metal jackets.
 
I’m throwing the skeptical flag on this one. No way do I believe one bullet would have pierced the other without the pierced bullet having some kind of solid backup to keep it from deflecting.

Tom
 
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"It was a one in a million shot" (well, maybe a few dozen, since there are more examples). I understand there are examples from the Civil War also.
 
If I think about it like two cars meeting at an intersection, they'd tend to deflect and spin. The only way to get a 90 degree penetration without some spinning would be if one car was basically stopped compared to the other car. If a bullet is "stopped", it isn't mid-air ...
 
I suggest we all run to the shop and drill a hole in an EXPENDED bullet and press another also EXPENDED bullet in and see what we come up with. lol
 
One thing to note is the incredible angular speed of bullets in flight. All these numbers are just made up as an example and don't represent reality, but it's easy to see these bullets are spinning quite fast.

Say the muzzle velocity is 2400 feet per second, and the rifling twist is 1 turn in 24 inches, or 1 turn per 2 feet, then we have 2400 feet/sec * 1 rev/2 feet = 1200 rev/second = 72,000 RPM. In 100us, the bullet traveled 0.24 ft (~3"), and it would rotate ~43 degrees if unimpeded.
 
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