How did they do that?

[FSTC]

Penn and Teller do this trick.

I have a friend who was at one of their shows, they gave her the bullet and case as a souvenir.

She signed the bullet with her initials, and drew a heart on the case. she loaded it into the chamber.

Here is a video of a similar performance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK0-ImFaSG4

How did they do it?

The case and bullet.


The bullet appears to be a 115g 9mm


Internal case measurement

 

[Love Machine]

In the past they've admitted that there are about 5 ways and they vary them from performance to performance.

 

[rcoolbaugh]

I find it hard to believe that the case mouth is .005" smaller than the bullet after firing ....

 

[OCB]

Isn't it obvious? IT'S MAGIC!

 

[warwickben]

Measuring in side home with verniers like that gives you a small number . The edges hit the radius.

 

[terraformer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_catch

 

[FSTC]

Measuring in side home with verniers like that gives you a small number . The edges hit the radius.

The very edge ID is .351

Outside edge is .472

 

[Jim85IROC]

Based on the sound of the gun firing, combined with the fake recoil in that video, I have to assume that the real ammo was replaced with some shells using the wax bullets like mentioned in the wikipedia article, and probably fired just with the primer.

 

[RImike]

Is there rifling on the bullet? Is there powder burns on the base?

 

[FSTC]

Is there rifling on the bullet? Is there powder burns on the base?

There is rifling on the bullet

 

[Len-2A Training]

Allegedly describing how Penn & Teller did it.

https://web.archive.org/web/20130909153605/http://www.foreworks.com/bullet2.html