As some of you may already know, I pay my bills by combining my love of art with my love of the outdoor industry – most often firearms – as a graphic artist. I don’t have much to complain about. I can work almost anywhere I can find an internet connection and I get to see and do some pretty exciting things…like the recent Midnight 3-Gun Invitational put on by Crimson Trace. But the graphic art biz isn’t without its speed bumps...

Often left to my own devices to find appropriate and usable image assets, it never ceases to amaze me at what I can find on the Internet when forced to troll for royalty-free images of firearms. So I thought I’d take this opportunity to make the majority of you snicker, while giving a few of you a brief recap on the science of projectiles, a.k.a. ballistics. (Yes, I realize those who need this refresher course are most likely not reading this any more).

As most of you know, when the trigger’s pulled on a firearm, the firing pin strikes the primer at the base of the cartridge (please do NOT use the word bullet here) causing the chemical compound within the case to ignite. The pressure created by this rapid combustion inside the cartridge forces the bullet down the bore and out the muzzle of the barrel without the case. I repeat, WITHOUT the case.

So there you have it folks. Please stop littering the Internet with images of these magic cartridges! Only in bad foreign films will you ever see the cartridge leave the barrel in tact, which is indeed movie magic…as are bulletproof tables, which seem to be readily available these days according to Hollywood. But that gripe is for another day.

Originally Published: Posted on The Truth About Guns 8/1/12