Splitting The Hangman's Rope

I'm curious about the diameter of the rounds they used in busting the myth. I'd think the diameter of the round (or the broad surface of the arrow in your case) would have to exceed half the diameter of the rope.

Challenging the Robin Hood stories?

Um, as I recall, they had a marksman using a .22 round for the shoot.

There wasn't enough recoil shown by the marksman and recovery and subsequent shots at the rope were far too fast for him to have been using an actual Winchester in even .230 or .30 or .30-06 or high caliber.

MythBusters has a habit of weighting the experiment the way they want the results to emerge.

Frankly, I'm impressed only by their engineering, not their scientific method.

A razor sharp broad tipped hunting arrow would do the job ... with a hell of a lucky aiming, even at a stationary rope.


in real life I'm not betting on that or even the higher caliber bullets

The Unseen Moon said:

Mythbusters once explored the myth of someone cutting a hangman's rope all the way in two with a single shot of the bullet. They proved that it couldn't be done with one bullet, but took several shots to do so.

So what about an arrow? Would a broad head arrow split the rope in two?

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Mythbusters is not science. The hosts are special effects artists, not scientists. The closest that anyone at that show is to being a scientist is the Japanese guy and his training is in robotics. From a biological scientist stance, that show is about on par with wikipedia.

FOTSGreg said:

Um, as I recall, they had a marksman using a .22 round for the shoot.

There wasn't enough recoil shown by the marksman and recovery and subsequent shots at the rope were far too fast for him to have been using an actual Winchester in even .230 or .30 or .30-06 or high caliber.

MythBusters has a habit of weighting the experiment the way they want the results to emerge.

Frankly, I'm impressed only by their engineering, not their scientific method.

Click to expand...

I'm glad for that information. I am sure that a.45 bullet would destroy enough of a rope for it to break. I don't know what size rope was common for hanging, but it shouldn't have been more than 5/8 inch, so the .45 would go through more than half the rope and damage the rest. If someone used a half inch, or large, ball in a musket it would also be sure to break the rope.

I have had some disagreements with their methods, but I haven't seen all that many of the shows.

In order for any projectile (short of an explosive charge, like a RPG) to break a rope, the rope must be in tension--in other words, the trap beneath the prisoner must open and he fall to the limits of the length of the rope for that tension to be present.

Unfortunately, by that time, the rope will likely have already broken his neck, or at least begun that process, and when the rope is severed (assuming it can indeed be severed this way), he would fall the rest of the way to the ground and probably break an ankle.

I can't see a scenario where the prisoner would survive such an event in good enough condition to continue with an escape.

The matter of breaking the neck in the fall is relatively recent; I am sorry that I can't remember when that became the way it was cone. Before that time death by hanging was death by strangulation.

I looked for a history of the matter, but the longer drop came into use in the later 1800's and early 1900's, but it still isn't universal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanging

With the short drop one could hang there for a while, which would give the marksman time to aim and fire.

I think that a lose rope could be broken with a bullet, but the tension would do a better job.

Snick said:

I'm glad for that information. I am sure that a.45 bullet would destroy enough of a rope for it to break. I don't know what size rope was common for hanging, but it shouldn't have been more than 5/8 inch, so the .45 would go through more than half the rope and damage the rest. If someone used a half inch, or large, ball in a musket it would also be sure to break the rope.

I have had some disagreements with their methods, but I haven't seen all that many of the shows.

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Add to that, that miniballs were not jacketted like many ammo today, and the lead was softer to the point that the projectile would actually mushroom while in the air due to air pressure so the diameter was larger than the caliber. Also as mentioned above about the rope being on tension, many hangings were slow by strangulation, not by trained hangmen. The Clint Eastwood movie dealt with it well. I think it was, "The Good the Bad and the Ugly?"

I don't remember the citation, but read about a hangman's memoirs from the American Civil War talking about the lengths of rope and where to place the knots...too long a drop and sometimes the head would pop off. Too short and sometimes a merciful fellow would go hold onto the victim's legs to add weight to speed it up. There were a lot of bad hangings, not the quick drop and snap.

Google George Maledon... Here's a taste...

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/ar-georgemaledon.html

There are stories (from Tyburn gaol if memory serves) where the relatives of the prisoner being hanged would jump up and hold on his legs to quicken the death by strangulation, so given that the hanged individual survived the drop, the problem would be waiting on the rope to stop moving. Even an expert archer would have problems hitting the rope (with the notion of the arrow being able to sever the rope) as it would not remain stationary long enough to aim, then take the shot.

However, in order to prove this one conclusively, either way, we're going to need a few volunteers...

GeorgeK said:

Add to that, that miniballs were not jacketted like many ammo today, and the lead was softer to the point that the projectile would actually mushroom while in the air due to air pressure so the diameter was larger than the caliber. Also as mentioned above about the rope being on tension, many hangings were slow by strangulation, not by trained hangmen. The Clint Eastwood movie dealt with it well. I think it was, "The Good the Bad and the Ugly?"

I don't remember the citation, but read about a hangman's memoirs from the American Civil War talking about the lengths of rope and where to place the knots...too long a drop and sometimes the head would pop off. Too short and sometimes a merciful fellow would go hold onto the victim's legs to add weight to speed it up. There were a lot of bad hangings, not the quick drop and snap.

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The length ws generally lengthened aroun the time of the Civil War, but no one ever figured out the best length, and heads did pop off, and people strangled slowly even in recent times.

Not to be overly gross, but it does bear mentioning... If one has ever witnessed a hanging where the drop didn't break the neck and strangulation ensued, one would be rather reluctant to assist by grabbing the legs... The bladder and sphincter tend to relax at the moment of death.

They were family and very good friends? Or paid to do so; it's been a while since I read about the subject.