Making things go boom

It should, but since I've never tried it I can't say for sure.

The Discovery Channel Mythbusters set off some .22 cal rounds by passing electricity through them to heat them up so I guess it would be possible for other rounds.

Richard

If you have access to a good library, check out a book titled Hatcher's Notebook. It's an older book, but it has a lot of gun facts. I believe it also has a section on what happens when a round is put into a fire. From what I remember, in that scenario, the shell casing splits before the powder explodes and therefore there is a "boom" but bullets do not go flying all over the place because the pressure is so low.

I'm going by memory here, so I could well be mistaken.

A bullet put into a fire should explode (the boom sound), but there's nothing propelling it forward on a set path like when it's fired from a gun. It's not forced down the barrel; it's got a lot more room to move in an open area. In a handgun the hammer strikes the back end of the bullet where the powder is so that the explosion acts like a catalyst on the projectile at the tip.

Putting a bullet on a hot stove will cause it to explode (it's been used in movies, TV, etc.), but it's not a controlled weapon any longer.

I'm not a weapons expert by any means, but depending on what the magazines were made of you could end up melting the casing around the bullets and sealing them all in together - that might make the resulting explosion bigger. You'd also have the projectile parts striking random areas inside the oven - and if those ovens have any glass in the doors, they would break from the force or by being struck.

I wouldn't bet my life on it, but an oven, even a commercial oven isn't going to get hotter than 600 degrees F. That's not enough to melt any metal and I don't think it would be hot enough to set off the gunpowder.

ETA: I just looked up lead. It melts at 621.5 °F The lead portions of the bullets would be soft but i still don't think the ignition point of the gunpowder is that low.

Over the years, The American Rifleman has published several articles on cartridges exploding in various fire situations and from being heated in ovens.

These situations are different than a condition known "cooking off." A "cooked off" round is actually in a gun’s chamber (usually a machine gun or submachine gun) in which the chamber gets hot enough from firing to ignite the powder without the firing pin striking the primer.

Without looking up a specific article on ammunition in ovens, as you specified, the gist is these experiments cause cartridges to rupture when the oven heats. The type of cartridge you mention usually detonated somewhere between 450 to 550 degrees Fahrenheit.

The bullet being the heaviest component of the cartridge follows Newton’s first law of motion: "An object at rest tends to stay at rest." The bullet tends to remain where it is, and the lighter brass jets away, some with enough force to do damage. If the case fragments, pieces may fly dangerously. Sounds vary from fizzles to loud pops, but no big booms like the noise of a cartridge fired from a gun.

However, cartridges contained in magazines may be secured/confined in such a way to produce other effects.

I hope this general information helps.

I'm definitely not an expert on sound, as I'm deaf. However, reports (pun intended) from Rifleman and Guns & Ammo repeat the words "snap" and "pop" to describe the phenomenon of rounds exploded other than by gun.

A segment of Mythbusters on TV showing rounds going off in a campfire used the phrase "popcorn pops" on closed captions.

Again, no booms.

Part of the "boom" you hear when a bullet is shot is a literal sonic boom (unless it's a low velocity round). If you're not firing out of a gun, then the sound is less because the velocity is lower - no sonic boom, just pops. You might as well toss a pack of black cats in a barrel and light 'em up.

Guns are loud, extremely louder than portrayed in the movies or on the news as recorded by television equipment. They are especially loud if fired indoors or near a wall. But if you add a bit of distance the noise level drops off percipitously.