Actually, if you go into a gun store and ask for bullets, you will get a box of bullets. Many shooters reload their own ammunition, and components for the activity are widely available.

It's analogous to getting a flat tire and then going into a bicycle store and asking for a new wheel. You know what you meant, but nobody else will - and you'll end up getting the wrong thing.

If by bullets, you mean those things you can stick right in your gun and shoot, then, yes, I've gotten those many times, from several different gun shops.

Thank you cycommute, now i can make love explosion without wonder if will combust somebody or am use incorrect term.

In the chemical industry such an incident is called a BLEVE - Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion. Get that cartridge hot enough and you are going to have a problem, whatever you want to call it.

The cartidge is labelled to keep it less than 120°F. It probably won't vent to around 140° at least.

They probably make the sealed end the weakest point on purpose to avoid having the shell burst with flying shrapnel.

Funny how much of this thread has been devoted to people insisting that words mean whatever they want them to mean.

Hmm...

https://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bullet

No, they'll ask you what caliber and how many grain.

We see all the time words being 'dumbed down' by rampant misuse and therefore being added in the colloquial version to dictionarys. For instance, to any materials engineer, the word 'plastic' means formable. Therefore, a thermoplastic polymer (like the polyethylene in milk jugs) can be re-formed with the application of heat (melts) whereas a thermosetting polymer like the epoxy resin used as the matrix in a carbon fiber composite bicycle does not melt. Still you get bozos referring to carbon fiber composite bicycles as "plastic" because they have equated all polymers to the common "plastic" term. It's absolutely incorrect but it's still in the dictionary and wikipedia.

You can choose to be commonly dumb or you can be technically correct. Up to you. Instead of getting indignant because somebody pointed out a minor error (in a jovial way, no less), you could go the positive route and consider yourself more informed than you were before.

Glad you got that one straight

Shrug. We're all commonly dumb in areas that aren't our expertise. Say bullet to 99% of the population they'll think you mean the whole shebang. I bet you don't call your bicycle a velocipede.

<shrug> I'm just saying, now that you know the difference, misusing it is a choice.

Back when I worked in bike shops, at least once a year someone would come in asking for a new wheel when what they really wanted was a new tire. And, just like gbiker, they'd act like it was my fault when I politely pointed out the difference. Shrug, I guess.

Same goes for rim. "I need a new rim" almost always means "my entire wheel is destroyed and I need a $29 replacement for my huffy"

So I'm confused (like perpetually). Some have said the CO2 in the cartridges is in liquid state. For some reason, I have a vague recollection from a chemistry class somewhere saying that CO2 was never liquid, it just sublimated directly from solid to gas. Though I suppose pressure might put it in an unnatural state. Any chemistry whizzes want to enlighten me?

So, if bullets are called cartridges, what are CO2 cartridges called...

If you are doing that I think have more problems to worry about than an exploding Co2 cartridge...

took me a second to get the obtuse angle ref. good one.

Liquid CO2 doesn't exist at normal atmospheric pressure. There is no temperature where it remains liquid - it will always turn into either a solid or a gas.

As you might also remember from chem, the freezing and boiling points of substances changes with pressure.



As you increase the pressure on CO2, the boiling point moves away from the freezing point creating a gap for liquid to exist.

Another interesting fact about CO2 (and similar volatile non-polar liquids) is that the pressure in a container, so long as it is not depleted (with no liquid left) or overloaded, is determined entirely by temperature, and not how much CO2 is in it. A CO2 tank at room temperature is at about 850 PSI, no matter if it is full of half empty.

Now, for the scary part, pressure increase is logarithmic with temperature. A 2x increase in the temperature of a CO2 tank results in a 10x increase in pressure, and above about 91F CO2 really doesn't want to be a liquid anymore no matter the pressure (The critical point). It's about this time when a release valve would go off if your tank was big enough to need one. Luckily small CO2 cylinders are incredibly over engineered for what they do, so you're still pretty safe.

Back when this "thread" was fun (page one) you know doing stuff that might not be the best idea but you survived, anyhow we used to play (back in the 60's) bike rodeo, tie a rope to the middle of a stick and get on your bike then twirl the thing over head like a cowboy and try to pull the other players off their bikes-the best way was to get a lucky shot that jammed the front wheel and ass over heels they (me) would go-older but no wiser.