This is physically impossible!

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Ok so let's get one thing straight. Gunpowder makes a pretty crappy explosive and/or fire accelerant. It burns up way to fast. That's why it's used primarily as a propellant. To get it to give any kind of an explosion, you have to compress it, a lot. Even if the door of the house was closed during the gun fight, it's doubtful that the house would be enclosed enough to give a large explosion. You'd probably end up with a bit of a bang and a small fire (assuming anything managed to light). And this is all assuming that being laid in front of the fire provided enough radiant heat to get the gunpowder to its combustion point. This article sucks!

But surely vast quanities of it, particually if 'hanging in the air' would be extremely hazardous. Maybe not such a big explosion, but certainly enough to burn people to death.

No. Go on youtube and search black powder. Chances are there'll be hundreds of idiots showing vids of them playing with it. The black powder gives a very quick burst of flame, pretty much all of which goes upwards and which is over in less than a second. The only thing it's good for is giving off hot gases, hence its use in firearms. And it wouldn't hang in the air. It's heavy stuff.

I agree gun powder should only be used, well for what it's made for "GUNS" Also I think that not only that but it does cause little to no damage if lit on fire. I have tried something in school were we did gun powder and lit it on fire and it just popped! nothing special.. even though it did make that cool gun noise

Exactly. I'm in the middle of a Fire, Explosions and Firearms module at uni and that's part of what we covered. It's a terrible explosive and terrible accelerant and really shouldn't be used in guns either. It leaves huge residue deposits amounts in the barrel which means that if you fire it a lot without cleaning then the gun becomes more and more inaccurate

Mythbusters did 'somewhat' blow up a barrel with Just using gun powder, (in regards to the Wyle E Coyote), and yes due to gravity, it was somewhat compressed. They stated that it was because of the rapid change of temperature and pressure that caused the 'explosion' effect, but it merely just warped the barrel.

It wasn't until they added more components to the black powder that they actually got the explosion that they were looking for. As with most failed myths, they recreate what WOULD'VE happened, and then demonstrate what they would need FOR it to happen.

In a barrel it will explode a bit. Outside of the barrel it would. It needs to be put in a very enclosed space. The idea is that the hot gases push outwards causing an explosion.

Yup, that's what I was saying.

Ok. It just wasn't really clear. Anyways I'm calmer now. Lots calmer.







Not really

Looks pretty self explanatory to me?

I had the same problem for ages when I first joined. I knew what I was saying but everyone else got confused.