Demolition Ranch; or, Gun Safety Isn't A Liberal Conspiracy You Fucking Sickos
Let's start with a disclaimer. I don't own guns because I live in Canada and was diagnosed with depression in my early 20's, and had been hospitalized due to symptoms of an acute anxiety disorder. This (temporarily) disqualifies me from owning guns, which I feel is an adequate measure to prevent self-inflicted harm or death. That being said, I've shot firearms and had a blast doing so, and as an Air Cadet I enjoyed the range days with gorgeous Daisy air rifles. My dream rifle to own is one of these air rifles, for the nostalgia and the pump-air mechanism rather than using wasteful CO2 canisters. All this to say: I love guns, I'm legally disallowed from owning them, I agree with that legal prevention measure, and I think gun control is a good thing.
Apparently, this seems to put me at odds with a particular YouTube channel I came across while looking for videos of the MBAssociates Gyrojet firearms. Maybe not in terms of political views, but certainly in terms of my reverence of and respect towards firearms.
The MBAssociates Gyrojet family of firearms are very special because of the rounds they use. Rather than using traditional ammunition that 'explodes' its way out of the barrel, the Gyrojet ammunition uses rocket-assisted propulsion. This means the projectile fired out of a Gyrojet continues accelerating and reaches its maximum velocity rather far outside the device used to ignite it. It also means the entire cartridge is propelled out of the gun, rather than a small projectile being flung from the gun and a spent cartridge ejected from the chamber. It's a very intriguing firearm design that didn't last very long due to the unreliability of the ammunition, poor accuracy and extremely slow reloading method. That being said, the fascinating Gyrojet is an absolute wonder of engineering. Watching someone hold a loaded Gyrojet is nerve-wracking when you consider the fact they're literally in possession of a handheld rocket launcher. Granted, there's no explosive payload in it, but the inherent danger of a self-propelled cartridge is hopefully self-evident.
So colour me fucking surprised when a gun range YouTube channel shows people whipping the damn thing around like cosplay cowboys.
It's very obvious right from the start that the YouTubers - and even the gun owner himself who offered to let them shoot the gun - are extremely anxious about shooting it. I would be too, any rational individual would be. They start out being extremely safe with the gun for the most part, treating the Gyrojet with the respect it deserves. There are moments where the chaotic anxiety is obvious as basic gun safety is forgotten once a cartridge misfires; they're constantly flagging down their own feet, not pointing the gun down range away from all the trees nearby that can cause dangerous ricochets. It's obvious to me that this range is not appropriate at all for firing rocket-propelled cartridges like this too, because all I see are vectors of danger for everybody in the vicinity of the person operating the Gyrojet in the case of a stray or wandering rocket.
However, the video was serving its purpose for me because I was genuinely curious to see how this odd firearm operated. The barrel is shrouded by a heat shield, which the cartridge's propellants expel from as it leaves the chamber. This causes a remarkable amount of black dust to cake the operator's hands, especially on the thumb tip, around the first knuckle of their pointer finger and the webbing of the thumb. The gun and the projectile itself is extremely hot to the touch after operation, which shows another design issue with the Gyrojet. Being hot to handle after firing a single round would be problematic in any wartime application - which, by the way, this family of guns was designed for.
As the video continues, shit gets pretty fucking dangerous - right up to the point that I personally would be extremely vocal about my displeasure with gun handling, and immediately leave the premises to never come back.
The anxious energy from handling such an exceptionally dangerous weapon - that at this point had misfired a dozen times - has been given some seriously bad coping mechanisms from the on-screen talent. Rather than recognizing their nervousness and either ending the shoot or shifting the video over to analyzing the slow-motion footage they already got, they continued to shoot the weapon in increasingly more dangerous scenarios. At one point a misfire occurs, and one of the on-screen talent points the gun directly at his own face to look down the barrel containing a squibbed rocket-propulsion cartridge. The cameraman joins in the fun later by firing a projectile down a long and narrow range off to the side of the range they were previously using, which is already a bad idea considering the demonstrated terrible accuracy even at just 10 yards. The projectile drops significantly after firing, hits the ground and ricochets high up into the sky, still being propelled by its fuel. All it takes is significantly bad luck to make that projectile point straight back at the crew and talent.
Immediately after, the main on-screen host begins acting like a fucking cowboy, flinging the gun from parallel to his leg to perpendicular at a mannequin and firing before ensuring adequate sight picture. We've already screamed past unsafe before this point, but it's here that I realize I'm watching a bunch of the absolute worst types of gun nuts I can't believe exists. These people think guns are fucking toys, and they're handling a fucking handheld rocket gun.
Numerous misfires, misses and ricochets later, the only female on the crew mentions that one projectile had fired back at them. In response to this, the host says "I guess we'll stop shooting because of the Fun Police."
I shouldn't need to overstate how absolutely sickening this behavior is.
Not only is he being extremely misogynistic by downplaying the very real, rational concerns the only woman on the crew has, he's also completely ignoring the fact that a rocket cartridge had fired down range, ricocheted and flung itself right back at the crew - a danger that had always been present and obvious to me, but seemingly only then became a possibility to these idiots.
This is why I fucking hate gun YouTubers. A very large portion of them are the exact type of sicko gun nuts who are lucky they haven't shot their fingers off yet. One YouTuber I appreciate in this field is Scott from Kentucky Ballistics; his range and gun operation is much safer by comparison, even if the standards on display in Demolition Ranch's videos are subterranean. It makes a lot of sense, too; while operating a .50 Caliber Serbu RN50 anti-material rifle with SLAP rounds, the RN50 exploded in Scott's hands. This was not due to a malfunction of the gun, but a misconfigured round that contained way too much gunpowder - commonly referred to as a "hot" round. Serbu spoke to Scott after the incident and upon analysis, mentioned an interesting note that Scott himself talked about in his video detailing the incident.
The endcap of the barrel is a twist-off cap, which the operator is supposed to screw off to insert a round then screw back on. This endcap is capable of withstanding the 55,000 PSI operating pressures common in a .50 caliber rifle, but in this incident the endcap had sheared the threads holding it in place and launched it at Scott's eye. According to Serbu, for those threads to have been sheared in that way and still maintain enough momentum to injure his orbital socket, it would require over 85,000 PSI of pressure at the endcap.
The endcap then launched backwards through the rear assembly of the RN50. This sheared off two "ears" of thick metal that were used to ensure the gun could not operate without the endcap being screwed on properly, with one taking off his hat and throwing it 8 feet behind him while the other ear lodged itself in his throat, redirected downwards then punctured his lung. His father behind the camera drove him quickly to the hospital as Scott applied pressure to his bleeding neck, and managed to survive thanks to his quick thinking to dig his thumb into the hole in his neck to stop the bleeding.
All this to explain why gun safety is so damn important, and why these idiot gun YouTubers who emphasize spectacle over safety enrage me so much. Demolition Ranch did not have an adequate range to safely fire rocket-propelled rounds from a Gyrojet, and they coped with the anxiety they had by overcompensating and doing even more dangerous things with the gun rather than accepting their rightful anxiousness and ceasing further range operations.
As someone who deeply respects guns and the inherent dangers they come with, it infuriates me that my curiosity about particularly rare and fascinating firearms has led me to watch some of the most irresponsible dipshits I've ever seen handling an exceptionally dangerous weapon in an unsuitable range with disgusting disregard for human life. I just want to see how the gun and its ammunition operates, I don't want to see dipshit hypermasculine Jake Paul clones risk permanent injury or death for the sake of the spectacle.
I hope to god the owner of those Gyrojet pistols recognized this and never returns to that range, because if it were me, I would never trust a single one of those motherfuckers with my fingernails let alone a firearm.
So, how do we make Demolition Ranch's range safer for firearm operation?
The first thing I'd do is clear out some of the trees in the range to reduce the likelihood of a ricochet. While not necessary in typical firearm operations, it'd be much safer considering how poor their barrel control is after a misfire. Even if better barrel control was exhibited, it'd still be a "better safe than sorry" action for me.
The second thing I'd do is fill the floor of the range with sand. There is gravel everywhere, which presents a significant ricochet risk should a projectile drop and hit the ground. A decent layer of sand over the range floor could help mitigate the ricochet risk and slow down the projectile significantly should it skip off the sand, rather than bouncing off a rock embedded in the ground and firing back at them.
The third and final thing I'd do is not point a squibbed fucking rocket at my face when a Gyrojet jams.