"Do not try any of the experiments you are about to see at home." "You heard him." "Don't do it." "NARRATOR:" "On this extra-sticky episode of "Mythbusters"..." "ADAM:" "This will be, by far, the strangest thing we have ever done." "NARRATOR:" "Adam and Jamie strip down to test a classic physics conundrum..." "ADAM:" "Ohh!" "Oh, holy crap, that is slippery!" "NARRATOR:" "Can you swim just as fast in syrup as you can in water?" "Oh, my God, look at you." "NARRATOR:" "While Tory, Grant, and Kari put the bite on two bullet myths." "Your mom is in my head, and she's saying, "Don't do that."" "NARRATOR:" "Could Davy Crockett really split a lead slug on an ax blade?" "That is crazy." "Look at that." "NARRATOR:" "And could MacGyver blow open a steel door with a gun butt and the powder from six bullets?" " Brace yourself." " Fire in the hole!" "This will not be pretty." "Who are the Mythbusters?" "Adam Savage..." "Don't lick the mixing spoon!" "NARRATOR:" "...and Jamie Hyneman." "When in doubt, C-4!" "NARRATOR:" "Between them, more than 30 years of special-effects experience." "The timing was perfect." "NARRATOR:" "Joining them..." "Kari Byron..." "That was a rush!" " NARRATOR:" "Grant Imahara..." " Let's get it on!" "NARRATOR:" "...and Tory Belleci." "I'm alive!" "NARRATOR:" "They don't just tell the myths." "They put them to the test." "So, I see swim goggles." "I see a swim cap, and I see syrup." "I'm sensing a really big mess in our future." "Am I right?" "Oh, you are correct." "This is a classic physics thought experiment." "Simply stated, it is thus... that you can swim as fast in syrup as you can in regular old water." "Well, the syrup is thicker, so I would think that it would slow down your movement through it." "That might be true, but it also might be true that the thicker syrup gives you more to push against with your hands." "So, what this boils down to, then, is whether those two forces cancel each other out, right?" "That's what we got to get down and dirty and test." "NARRATOR:" "On the surface, you'd think that swimming in syrup could only end with drowning in syrup, but maybe not." "The thick resistance that slows you down might also mean you've got more to push against, increasing your propulsion." "Like Adam says, it's a classic physics dilemma, and we'll be testing it with real swimmers." "Sweet." "I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say we need to get a pool, a bunch of syrup, and start testing." "You're right, but with two notable exceptions." "One, we're not gonna use real maple syrup." "We're going to use guar gum, which should allow us to get exactly the viscosity we want." "Two, we couldn't find a pool that would allow us to fill it with syrup." "We're gonna have to make our own." "In fact, I propose we make two pools... one filled with water, one filled with heavy syrup." "Swim in each and compare our times." "It's that simple." "Well, let's dive right in." "Okay!" "Well, this may look like just a clearing in the hills of Dublin-Pleasanton, California, but by the time we're done with it, by the end of the day, when we're through digging a pair of 75-foot-long pools with these puppies," "this will be an experimental space on the leading edge of fluid dynamics, swimming, and goo." "NARRATOR:" "Before they tackle the swimming or the science, the boys need to show their blue-collar credentials." "And what do you know?" "It's poetry in motion." "ADAM:" "We are now about to line these in heavy plastic and fill them with water." "And we're using four layers of heavy plastic, hopefully to keep any leaks from happening." "We've tried to eliminate as many sharp objects on the bottom." "Perfect." "ADAM:" "Ha ha!" "Wow!" "It's freakin' dark in here!" "JAMIE:" "Okay, everybody just stay put." "Make sure you hang on to your edges." "We're ready for water." "[Siren wailing]" "NARRATOR:" "An Alameda County fire truck pumps the water." "And the plastic lining, bolstered by some hefty plywood decking, seems to be holding." "Oh, it's turned out to be a heck of a pool." "ADAM:" "Dude, this thing looks awesome." "Dig a hole, you got some plastic, you got a pool, huh?" "[Laughs]" "Ah, well, if the other trench is ready, let's make some goo and fill it." "JAMIE:" "Okay." "NARRATOR:" "It's time to get sticky for science." " What is it?" " All right." "MacGyver is on a cargo ship." "He's trying to rescue a boy who's locked behind a steel door." "He empties out six bullets and ignites the gunpowder using an empty cartridge, and then blows the lock open." "[Scoffs] I wouldn't have thought of that one." "NARRATOR:" "Mac's method is to pack the powder from six bullets inside a shred of cloth." "He stuffs that in the lock, shoves in an empty cartridge, and smacks the firing cap with the butt of his gun." "Hang on." "I thought MacGyver had an extreme aversion to guns." "True." "He took a .38" "from a guard he'd just K.O.'d." "But let's not forget." "There's a child's life at stake here." "Sorry." "Forgot that." "But, still, it's a loaded gun." "Why wouldn't he just point it at the lock and shoot it out?" "Well, he thought it would ricochet straight back off a steel door." "So, what do you guys think?" "I say let's give it a try." "Let's do it." "NARRATOR:" "It's unusual for us to start testing a myth with an alternate method, but this really is the elephant in the room." "KARI:" "If I had only a gun to unlock a door," "Personally, I would try shooting it before I would even remotely think of MacGyver's method." "So, I guess we'll see if he made the wise choice." "NARRATOR:" "Grant and Tory fix the gun just a foot shy of a similar lock stuck inside a solid steel door." "For safety's sake, they've set up the rig inside the bunker." "All right, we're hot." "We're cocked." "We're loaded." "Let's get out of here." "NARRATOR:" "Even in the drizzle, they're better off out than in." "TORY:" "Here we go." "In 3... 2... 1." "Ooh, that was a good one!" "NARRATOR:" "Turns out it was much more than a good one." "This lock was cracked with the very first bullet." "We punched a hole in the face of that lock." " What?" " KARI:" "Is it open?" "[Laughs]" " I don't accept that." " We got it open in one shot!" " Are you sure it was locked?" " I am positive it was locked." "I..." "I don't know what to say." "This never happens to us." "I fully expected us to be here all day, round after round, bouncing off the top or denting it." "NARRATOR:" "But Mac took a leaf from our book, using materials in ways that were never intended." "Now, before we jump straight to the big bang, let's test his prep." "First up, can you pull a bullet apart with your fingers?" "But he is MacGyver." "He has the strength of 20 men." "[Laughs]" "NARRATOR:" "Apparently not." "Tory has the Zen-like patience of a 3-year-old unwrapping a birthday present." "Okay, right now, your mom is in my head, and she's saying, "Don't do that."" "NARRATOR:" "So that's just Hollywood hokum." "Aah!" "NARRATOR:" "What about setting off a firing cap with the broad butt of a .38?" "Okay, so, we need to test this MacGyver scene." "We need to find out if you can set off one of these caps by hitting it with a gun." "All right." "This should be fun." "NARRATOR:" "Our guys are dedicated, but not insane." "These cartridges have all been emptied of gunpowder." " Ready." " Set." "Go." "Now, I know it looks like we're having a lot of fun, but this is very dangerous." "We're taking all the precautions to make sure everything is done safely." "Nobody should ever try setting off a bullet outside of a gun." "NARRATOR:" "It's a bust for Mac's ignition system." "Now [chuckles] I don't know about yours, but I flattened the crap out of mine, and it still didn't go off." "Why is that?" "NARRATOR:" "That's because this tiny firing cap, flush to the back of the cartridge, is designed to be struck precisely by an equally tiny firing pin." "So, for our testing," "Kari fits a similar pin in the base of the gun grip." "Grant builds a simple rig to swing the gun to smash the cap to ignite the powder." " GRANT:" "Ba-bang." " TORY:" "Bang." "That is gonna be awesome." "NARRATOR:" "But just how much gunpowder do you get from six bullets?" "Okay, so, that amount of gunpowder is only 30 grains." "That's not a lot." "Let me show you how much that is." "That is all we have to work with to blow this lock up." "I don't know if this is gonna work." "ADAM:" "It's time to fill our pool with syrup, and the role of syrup today will be played by guar gum." "It's a powdered food thickener, and somehow we've got to make 750 pounds of it with 10,000 gallons of water, and that's where this truck comes in." "Amazingly, it is uniquely custom built for mixing guar gum with water." "So, if I'm correct, you place a 50-pound bag right here, slice open the end, and it dumps in right there?" "Exactly right." "Have you ever mixed up a guar-gum mixture this thick before?" "We've never mixed it this thick before." "We're not even sure if it'll pump." "NARRATOR:" "Well, it's better breaking their toys than ours, and let's remember that Adam and Jamie will soon be swimming in this." "I'll swim first, if you don't mind." "There's your starting pistol." "There's your timer." "And, uh..." "These things are so comfy I've been wearing mine all day." "[Chuckles]" "NARRATOR:" "Jamie averts his eyes and bites his tongue, knowing he'll be the next man stripping down to his racing undies." "All right!" "Let's go!" "JAMIE:" "On your mark." "Ready." "[Gunshot]" "NARRATOR:" "This is the first of three freshwater sprints." "They'll average out the times for a comparison to swimming in syrup." "15.72." "I'll bet I'll do faster the second time." "Just got to get used to swimming in such a narrow channel." "NARRATOR:" "It really doesn't matter how fast he swims, so long as they get a good set of numbers." "14.78." "[Gunshot]" "NARRATOR:" "But Adam just can't resist showing off for the ladies." "A little bit quicker each time." "14.62." "Do you want to go?" " Did you pee in the pool?" " I did not." "NARRATOR:" "And that's good enough for Jamie." "He dons the cap and goggles and hands the gun to Adam." "I got to say, I feel less like a swimming coach than a guy defending his house in the middle of the night." "You kids get off my lawn!" "[Gunshot]" "NARRATOR:" "Jamie proves to be more of a distance swimmer, but, again, speed isn't the issue." "JAMIE:" "What kind of a swimmer am I?" "Well, I'm not very fast." "I get the job done." "That's about it." "[Gunshot]" "ADAM: 24." "NARRATOR:" "And now they're ready to swim in something that's more like treacle." "This stuff is 1,500 times thicker than water." "JAMIE:" "I know what you're thinking..." ""Of course you're gonna swim slower in syrup than you are in regular water."" "But what if you get more purchase on your paddling hands and so on in something that's thicker?" "NARRATOR:" "And here's another thought... molecular bonds in syrup like this are constantly changing." "It all depends on the temperature and the speed and the shape of a body moving through the liquid." "JAMIE:" "What is happening in syrup is that we have things known as polymer chains." "They're long strings of molecules that basically are like spaghetti noodles, like cooked spaghetti noodles, and they stick together." "When they soak up water, you've got these bunches of these polymer chains, and depending on the speed that you move through them, depending on their thickness and what exactly they're made of, they can either just part" "and let you go through this mix like water, or they can bunch up." "They can become something like the La Brea tar pits." "There's all sorts of different ways that these can end up affecting you as you're swimming in them." "NARRATOR:" "Jamie's right." "It's almost impossible to untangle the molecular physics of Newtonian fluids from Einsteinian viscosity." "But Adam has a very prosaic prediction." "Honestly, I don't see it happening." "That stuff is just too darn thick." "I think the difference we'll be seeing is much greater, on the order of like 30%, 40%, like 5, 6, 8 seconds difference." "NARRATOR:" "Adam is the first to see if swimming in syrup is faster than his freshwater freestyle." "Ohh!" "[Laughing]" "Oh, holy crap, that is slippery!" "NARRATOR:" "He looks fast, but those resounding plops tell a different story." "18.62." "That was respectably close." "That's not that much different." "That's only about 3 seconds or so slower." "This stuff feels completely bizarre." "Oh, it's like being born again." "[Laughs]" "NARRATOR:" "So let's get born again again... 18.94." "NARRATOR:" "...and again." "[Gunshot]" "JAMIE:" "Well, your slowest times are faster than my fastest times in water." "ADAM: [Laughs]" "NARRATOR:" "And there's more good news to come." "Adam's average freshwater times weren't that much different to swimming in syrup." "I'm really surprised how fast I was able to go." "I would've thought the syrup would slow me down by, like, a factor of 2, not by a factor of .2." "NARRATOR:" "But we'd like two sets of figures." "Time for Jamie to dip his doodle in that cold, cold sludge." "[Laughs]" "Ready... set..." "[Gunshot]" "JAMIE:" "I actually kind of like this stuff." "It's kind of cozy in here." "But swimming in it?" "Not so much." "No friggin' way!" "ADAM:" "Really?" "This is much heavier to me." "I found that swimming in this stuff made me a lot more tired than swimming in water." "[Breathing heavily]" "That looked like a lot of work." "NARRATOR:" "So, Jamie officially retires from competitive syrup swimming." "We'll be using Adam's averages to make the comparisons." "[Laughs]" "You all right?" "I'm fine." "I'm just glad I didn't fall in there." "JAMIE:" "Yeah." "NARRATOR:" "Tory, Grant, and Kari are ready to test if TV legend Angus MacGyver could possibly have blown the lock on a steel door using only loose gunpowder, an empty cartridge, and the butt of his gun." "KARI:" "We're back at the Alameda bomb range, which is one of our favorite places to go because we can do all the things that we can't do in the shop, like blow doors open with gunpowder." "Get in there!" "Somebody go get MacGyver!" "All right, so, that is 30 grains of smokeless powder." "GRANT:" "That's six bullets' worth?" "TORY:" "Yeah, I know." "Doesn't look like much." "Do you think that's gonna blow the lock open?" "Hey, it worked for MacGyver." "Yeah, I doubt it." "I think the hardest part is gonna be getting that into the lock." "I know." "All right, let's do it." "NARRATOR:" "Kari does manage to stuff the cloth in the lock." "That's the first real thumbs-up for this myth." "Okay, that should be it." "NARRATOR:" "Then the boys attach Grant's custom rig to the doorframe." "GRANT:" "So, our lock is right behind here." "It's got the bit of bandana with the powder in it." "This is our cap, and this is our mechanism to swing the gun." "It's a little more complicated than just hitting it, but for safety's sake, we need something to do it remotely." "TORY:" "Do you want to put tension on the string, see if it holds up?" "GRANT:" "Yeah." "Go ahead." "Perfect." "Okay, this is "MacGyver Gunpowder in Lock,"" "test one." "You guys ready to have your minds blown?" "Yeah." "Here we go." "In 3... 2... 1!" "NARRATOR:" "No smoke, no fire, and no boom." "I realize the earplugs are more for your countdown than the actual popping." "GRANT: [Laughs]" "NARRATOR:" "The pin on the gun grip did strike the cap, but it didn't ignite the powder." "Yeah, it went off, but the powder didn't." "So, what's the next step?" "The obvious thing is that the cap is not coming into contact with the powder because of the cloth." "Maybe what we do is we put a hole in the cloth so that we have the cap in contact with the powder." "All right." "Well, let's give that a shot." "NARRATOR:" "So Tory sensibly spreads the gunpowder all the way back to the ignition cap." "GRANT:" "Here we go." "3... 2... 1." "NARRATOR:" "Silence is deafening." "Mac's mini-hostage wouldn't even know that someone was trying to rescue him." "TORY:" "It didn't ignite the powder, and that was in contact with the cap." "I'm starting to think that, no matter what, a cap going off isn't gonna ignite the gunpowder." "NARRATOR:" "But Grant has found a loophole that might just save this stunt and salvage Mac's reputation." "GRANT:" "Now, the type of gunpowder that we're using is smokeless gunpowder, which is found in modern ammunition." "But at one time, the .38-caliber round had black powder, which has a bit more punch than the smokeless." "My prediction is, this is not gonna work." "But I'm optimistic." "NARRATOR:" "This might be their last chance to blow the lock like Mac did." "3... 2... 1." "[Cheering]" "It ignited." " That was cool." " That was cool." "All right, let's see if it opened that lock." "No." "NARRATOR:" "The lock is intact, though it still looks real good on the high-speed." "GRANT:" "It looks just like it did on the episode." " TORY:" "Yeah." " Except for that part where the door opens." "NARRATOR:" "So, this door-busting myth, as seen on TV, is busted." "But Grant still has faith in the general principle." "Just for the sake of argument, let's say that MacGyver had a lot of black-powder bullets." "Yeah!" "Let's fill the whole thing!" "Fill the lock with black powder and then see." "NARRATOR:" "So they do, all the way up to the keyhole." "TORY:" "And I've measured out 600 grains of black powder." "That's 120 bullets worth of black powder." "Now, that's a lot more than MacGyver had." "Is that gonna be enough to blow the lock open?" "We're about to find out." "NARRATOR:" "And their best chance for a big result is to forego the cartridge cap for an electric igniter." "How it works is you apply a battery to this end, the current flows through the wire, heats up a little piece of wire here at the end that heats up a chemical, and... phht!" ".." "Instant ignition for our gunpowder." "NARRATOR:" "Now Kari's prepared to make a prediction that's crystal clear." "KARI:" "I think there's gonna be a nice colorful boom, but I don't think that we're actually gonna explode this lock, because I think that the keyholes are gonna let all of that pressure out." "NARRATOR:" "You can't fault the theory, but this ain't over till they've blown the gizzards out of it." "All righty, boys." " Yes, girl." " [Chuckles]" "This is lock, half full of black powder, electric igniter, just for the heck of it because we can." "Well, if it does explode, it could open that door." "I don't know about that." "We'll see." "All right, in 3... 2... 1." " Ohh!" " Ohh!" "Yeah!" "Wow!" "We blew the door open!" "Blew the door open!" "Why am I always wrong?" "Yeah!" "KARI:" "I grossly underestimated the power of black powder in this lock." "I thought there was no way in heck that door was opening and it's wide open, and I hate it when Tory's right and I'm wrong." "I hate that." "As much fun as I had today, I'm a little bit disappointed." "Why?" "'Cause every prediction you had was wrong?" "Yeah." "A little bit." "But, I mean, guys, we busted MacGyver." "Yes, but we proved that the general principle is sound." "You just need a lot more gunpowder." "And we even proved that you could set off gunpowder using an empty cartridge by hitting it with the butt of a gun." "I'm very impressed." "But we did have a clear demonstration on how this was supposed to have worked from the TV show using only 6 bullets worth of powder, and we didn't come anywhere close to that." "All right, so this one is busted." "Busted." "Busted." "Well, you know what?" "It's not MacGyver's fault." "It was the writer's fault." "Good point." "MacGyver is real." "Yeah." "So is the tooth fairy." "No, that's a myth." "No, he's real, too." "No, Sasquatch is a myth." "NARRATOR:" "We all love syrup on pancakes." "But Adam and Jamie are dipping into some complex physics to see if they can swim in syrup just as fast as they can in water." "Blaah!" "[Laughing]" "Well, the results are in." "We both swam significantly slower in syrup." "It's not looking good for the myth." "I know, but I'm not willing to let this one go." "I'm starting to believe that we might've gotten this whole viscosity thing all wrong." "How so?" "Nobody would deny that we were swimming in syrup." "Right." "But it was an average Joe's interpretation of syrup, and it was 1,500 times more viscous than water, and this myth has its origins as a physics thought experiment." "To a physicist, something that's only twice the viscosity of water could be called a syrup, and we might get very different results with a material like that." "NARRATOR:" "Back in the trenches, it's time for a full-scale refill with a brand-new recipe." "This should be perfect." "Let's let her rip." "All right." "Let's bring on the water." "So, we have, in order to test this, scaled back our syrup swimming pool, all the way down to something that's only between two and five times as viscous as water." "But rest assured, to a physicist, this is a significant difference from regular water." "Now the question is..." ""Will there be a significant difference in my swimming time?"" "NARRATOR:" "But first, we'll have to re-rate Adam in regular water." "After all, it's a new day, and he could be a few seconds slower or faster." "Adam's first effort shows that getting a new set of figures was a prudent move." "JAMIE:" "You're there!" "13.43." "Damn!" "I was worried that I was out of shape, but that's pretty darn good." "Let's go for another one." " JAMIE:" "Go!" " [Gunshot]" "NARRATOR:" "The average time for all three swims is a full second faster than the day before." "Why don't we take a quick break and then move into the syrup?" "Why don't we take a little bit of a reasonable break, and then I'll swim in the syrup?" "Okay." "NARRATOR:" "While Adam takes a well-earned soak, let's reflect on the practical benefits of learning to swim through syrup." "Somebody is gonna be wondering what possible real-world application this is gonna have." "That person would be ignoring the fact of the great 1919 molasses flood in Boston, in which a massive vat of molasses broke free." "Molasses poured into the streets and killed 21 people, who presumably had no idea how to swim in syrup." "Well, it just goes to show, you got to collect those skills to be ready for anything, right?" "Yeah." "NARRATOR:" "Meantime, back at Club Mud..." "Aah!" "It's cold." "Okay, here we go." "Whoa!" "Aah!" "Ooh!" "JAMIE:" "Okay, Adam in syrup twice as thick as water." "[Gunshot]" "NARRATOR:" "...Adam strikes out again..." "You're there!" "NARRATOR:" "...and sets a really fast time." "14.02 seconds." "Nice!" "You know what that is?" "That's significant data." " Let's go again." " Okay." "NARRATOR:" "Adam's next two laps are both well under 15 seconds." "JAMIE:" "You're there!" "14.62." "Ah, it looks like I'm getting tired and slowing down." "JAMIE:" "A little bit." "NARRATOR:" "At the very least, this comparison looks like a close call." "JAMIE:" "Do you want to know how you did?" "ADAM:" "Lay it on me, coach." "JAMIE:" "Okay, well, in the heavy syrup, you swam 27% slower than you did in water, but in the light syrup, you swam 2.8% slower than you did in water." " Wow." " That's a big difference." "Yeah, I mean, I'll wager there's a difference between any three of my times in either of the water or either of the syrups was greater than 2.8%." "Yeah, that's less than half-a-second variation." "That's well within the margin of error." "That's a really cool result." "NARRATOR:" "In the heavy treacle analog," "Adam's times were 28% slower than they were in water, so that's myth busted." "Then, again, his times in light syrup were much the same as swimming in water, so that's myth confirmed." "Obviously, there's a threshold between the two, and I'd like to find where that threshold exactly is... i.e., something that the layperson would call syrup, yet you can swim just as fast in it." "Why am I chopping wood, you ask?" "Not because I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay, but because we're about to test a myth that comes from one of America's greatest legends..." "Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier." "Now, apparently, he would take his ax and throw it against a tree." "And then he would take his trusty musket, Betsy, fire a shot at the ax head, and split the bullet clean in half." "And that is what we're gonna test to see if it's really possible." "NARRATOR:" "Back in the early 1800s," "Davy Crockett gained fame as a U.S. Congressman and a fearless frontier type." "Self-described as half horse, half alligator," "Davy had a reputation for, well, embellishing the truth." "He once boasted the prettiest sister and the ugliest dog in the country." "So, look, this guy was real and a huge part of American folklore." "Yeah, back in the '50s, almost every kid had one of those Davy Crockett coonskin caps." "But he did tell a lot of whoppers." "He used to say that he could grin the bark off a tree." "And that's just one tall tale." "With all these crazy stories, it casts a lot of doubt on this myth that he could split a bullet by hitting an ax head." "Fortunately, I couldn't agree more." "NARRATOR:" "It's an old-time myth you just couldn't test with modern firearms." "200 years ago, the guns were slower and the lead bullets were rounder and softer." "But rest assured, the axes were sharp." "All we have to do is shoot the ax head with a bullet and split it in two." "How hard can that be?" "What are we gonna do with the rest of our day?" "[Laughing] I don't know." "KARI:" "I'm always looking forward to the historical myths, and this one is extra fun because I really, really am into Davy Crockett." "I love all of the cap-and-ball musket shooting." "It's gonna be a good day." "NARRATOR:" "That's the spirit, Kari." "Unwavering optimism in the face of yet another myth that beggars belief." "There you go." "Pin the tail on the coonskin cap." "TORY:" "Hitting our target with these muskets is gonna be tough." "They're heavy." "They're not as accurate as a modern-day rifle." "So we thought maybe if we dress up like Davy Crockett, maybe that'll give us an advantage to hit our target." "Maybe we channel him." "Davy, Davy, help me hit my target." "But I doubt it." "NARRATOR:" "Now, most folk wouldn't take advice from a man who shot his own hat, but I wouldn't say that out loud to Jim Mitchell." "Jim's an expert on antique American firearms." " Jim!" " Good to see you again." "Good to see you." "KARI:" "Jim's outfit terrifies me." "I feel like his hat is gonna bite him at any moment or just, like, crawl up on me." "I see you got a couple of .58 calibers there with you." "Are you comfortable with them, shooting them, loading them?" "Maybe you should give us a little refresher course." "NARRATOR:" "It sure couldn't hurt." "These old-time rifles aren't exactly user-friendly." "First thing, you load up your powder." "Measure your powder out into the measure." "KARI:" "It's quite a procedure loading up a musket." "First, you've got to pour the gunpowder directly into the barrel." "Then you've got, like, a lubricated little patch that you stuff a lead ball on, and you have to stuff it all the way down." "I mean, can you imagine loading that thing over and over and over, if you had to be a quick shot?" "NARRATOR:" "But shooting these guns is just as tricky." "They all need practice, and here's Kari's tip for making fruit salad in less than a tenth of a second." " GRANT:" "Nice!" " [Laughter]" "NARRATOR:" "Grant shoots a soda bottle." "[Gunshot]" "TORY:" "Yeah!" " KARI:" "Nice!" " Ha ha!" "NARRATOR:" "And Tory terminates a tomato." "Get it." "Get that tomato." "That's what you get for not being organic!" "Whoo!" "TORY:" "Right now, we're just hitting the targets just to see if we can sight these guns in, and they seem pretty accurate." "The tricky part now, though, is to be able to hit that ax blade dead center with the bullet so we get it to split, because if it hits a little bit to the left or a little bit to the right," "it might just deflect and stay one bullet." "We need it to hit right in the middle so we see two pieces after the bullet hits the ax head." "NARRATOR:" "Tory, Grant, and Kari are testing the myth that Davy Crockett could hit two targets with one bullet by splitting it on an ax blade." "So, now it's our chance to do this myth for real." "Now, legend has it that Davy Crockett could do this trick from 40 yards." "So we're gonna measure out 40 yards and give it a shot." "NARRATOR:" "But that's looking a long, long way off." "And... 40 yards." "That's kind of far." "TORY:" "I'm gonna take a shot." "I doubt I'm gonna split it on the first one." "But who knows?" "Maybe I'll get lucky." "Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good." "NARRATOR:" "Now, we should get some idea of just how sharp the shooting has to be." "Not bad at all." "Let's try a take two." "KARI:" "Still a little to the left." "Tory has got one more shot before the others get their chance." "Confirming the two-target myth means splitting a bullet in half." "That's as tough as anything these guys have ever attempted." "KARI:" "Lookit." "1, 2... pa-ching!" "...3." " Whoa!" " I hit the blade." " That's great." " That is crazy." "Look at that." "It just hit here." "I was maybe an eighth of an inch off from hitting it dead center." "KARI:" "I think with a little practice, you could hit that." "Yeah, if you practiced, you'd be able to hit this all day." "But we're not looking at accuracy." "We're looking at whether or not you could split the bullet." "All right, well, let's split the difference." "Come in 20 yards and then try it again." "All right." "NARRATOR:" "They bring the mark in, because this myth is more about if a bullet can split in two, than where you took the shot from." " Hey, nice shot." " Wow!" "NARRATOR:" "Kari goes close." "Whoa!" "NARRATOR:" "Then closer, as she grazes the handle." "GRANT:" "Look, you can see the burn mark." "Nice shot!" " Thank you." " Good one." " Give me one more." "One more." " All right, one more shot." "NARRATOR:" "Hard to say no to a girl with a gun." "KARI:" "Close, but no cigar, as my dad would say." "Look at that." "Just grazed the ax." "To be able to hit the blade by shooting off hand, it's gonna take a long time and a lot of practice." "NARRATOR:" "Daylight is fading, so Grant gets to shoot off a sandbag." "This could be the shot that confirms the Crockett myth." "This ax don't stand a chance." " You hit the blade." " Look right here." "Skimmed it." "You're real close." "TORY:" "So you've just got to go over just, like, an eighth of an inch to the right." "Like a hair." "NARRATOR:" "The shots are almost perfect, but for this test, "almost" just doesn't cut it." "You know what?" "It's incredibly difficult, even off the rest." "So I'm gonna give it one more shot." "NARRATOR:" "And Grant can see Coyote Jim waiting in the wings." "GRANT:" "No splits." "If Davy Crockett could do this, he was quite a shot." "TORY:" "Now, before we move on to the expert, how would you guys feel about me taking one shot from the bench?" " Sure." "Go ahead." " Knock yourself out." "I'm dying to do it." "NARRATOR:" "And we're dying to see if this split-bullet myth is just another tall tale." "Someone needs to step up and hit that blade with perfect precision." "[Laughter]" "Ha ha!" "NARRATOR:" "Tory has done it." "One-half of the bullet went left, and the other went right." " You did it!" " I can't believe it." " It actually worked." " KARI:" "Both sides." "Look." "Right there, that's where it hit." " Chink, chink." " Yeah." " GRANT:" "It's confirmed." " TORY:" "Totally confirmed." " Who thought that?" " Davy Crockett didn't lie." "So, we showed you can split a bullet and take out two targets at once." "Yeah, that was using an ax, ammunition, and weapons from Davy Crockett's time." "And a little bit of mojo from Davy Crockett." "The outfits." "So, this one's confirmed." " Confirmed." " Confirmed." "NARRATOR:" "Jamie and Adam are testing if the extra thrust you'd get from swimming through syrup might just counteract the added resistance." "So, now they'll mix up one last batch with a texture that's more like good old maple syrup." "[Horn blares]" "Not too thick, not too thin, but just right." "That's the Goldilocks myth." "We're mixing up a batch right now, and, soon, we'll be putting it to the test." "NARRATOR:" "It's a blend that should meet any definition of syrup..." "500 times thicker than water." "JAMIE:" "So, these are Adam's last three swims, and given how fast he swam in the light syrup, his times in this stuff should be really interesting." "What's my time?" "14.34." "Yeah!" "[Laughs]" "JAMIE:" "That goofy-looking scum on top we call fish eyes." "It's just clusters of guar gum." "Adam actually seems to enjoy swimming in it." "13.81." "[Laughs] Yeah!" "Whoo!" " Good job." " Thank you." "You're done." "You can get out now." "I'm officially done." "NARRATOR:" "Adam's times were nice and steady, but it stands to reason that a better swimmer would be even more consistent, and that makes for better science." "Enter this fine specimen." "Nathan Adrian was a gold-medal winner at the Beijing Olympics." " Hello, sir." " Hi." "How's it going?" "Oh, my God, look at you." "[Laughs]" " Hi, Nathan." " Hi." "How are you doing?" "That's perfect." "You feel like running some tests for us?" "Absolutely." "I'd love to." "NARRATOR:" "Let's start him off in a bent pool filled with straight water to set a baseline time." "ADAM:" "This surprise of Jamie's is proving extremely fruitful." "Not only is Nathan fast, which I expected." "He's super consistent." "All of his times are within a half a second of each other." "My times had about a one-second spread, so it just means that the data is that much more precise." "9.81." "Can we let him get out?" "Let's let him get out." "NARRATOR:" "Now it's time for this sports hero to swim in something gooey and slippery." "[Spitting]" "ADAM:" "On your mark!" " Get set!" " [Gunshot]" "JAMIE:" "Nathan, just... pretend that you're one with the syrup." "Almost dead on the money." "10.87." "Is that funky or what?" "It's so weird." "NARRATOR:" "You can bet this wasn't part of Nathan's post-Olympic dream." "JAMIE:" "Just think about it like you got to swim faster to get out of it quicker." "[Laughs]" "[Gunshot]" "NARRATOR:" "A man with the right stuff, forced to wallow in some very wrong stuff." "ADAM:" "Awesome!" "I can tell you're starting to get into it a little bit." "It grows on you after a while, doesn't it?" "[Laughter]" "ADRIAN:" "As far as resistance goes, when you're swimming at speed, it doesn't feel all that much different than water, truthfully." "NARRATOR:" "So, Jamie tries to make sense of the stats." "Nathan was a full 9% slower in medium syrup than water." "More surprisingly, while his water times were super consistent, his syrup swims were much less consistent than Adam's." "And with Adam swimming just 5.4% slower in syrup than water, which is almost within his margin of error, this myth could still go either way." "JAMIE:" "Do you think that you were slower because the goo was offering more resistance or because it was messing with your technique?" "I'd have to say it was definitely messing with my technique and how comfortable I was in the water." "It's such a huge disadvantage to be in such a foreign environment with the goop and everything." "NARRATOR:" "None of which seems to bother our boys, but given Nathan's erratic times," "Adam is prepared to drop a bombshell." "We're gonna throw out Nathan's swim times in the syrup." "See, we brought him in... being an Olympic swimmer, one of the best in the world, we thought it was gonna eliminate swimming time as a variable." "But because what he does for hours every day is swim in a clear-water pool, following a line, going as fast as he can, the syrup threw his technique out the window." "Mine prove the point much better than his do." "That's pretty cool." "So, how are we gonna wrap this one up?" "The simple fact is that you swam just about as fast in the medium, or Goldilocks syrup, and the light syrup as you did in water." "Well, so, I'd say that makes it solidly plausible." "You can swim as fast in syrup as you can in water." "Plausible, depending on the viscosity of the "syrup."" "NARRATOR:" "So, that's a wrap for swimming in syrup, but there's still some unfinished business on the MacGyver set." "GRANT:" "Well, we Mythbusters have never been ones to leave well enough alone, and we have a door here that we just don't want to take home." "NARRATOR:" "And with a little help from J. D. And some C-4, they won't have to." "The question is..." "do you want to do a surgical kind of an entry around the lock, or do you want to just blow the crap out of it?" "NARRATOR:" "Hardly worth asking the question, really." "Blow the crap out of it." " Let's blow the crap out of it." " Yeah!" "I guess we'll be in the bunker, then." "NARRATOR:" "So, our guys duck for cover." "J. D. Sets the charge and bellows out his four favorite words." "Fire in the hole!" "Fire in the hole!" "Fire in the hole!" "In 3... 2... 1." " KARI:" "Whoa!" " Whoa!" "That's what I'm talking about!" "NARRATOR:" "To borrow a phrase from the poet of plastic explosives, Jamie Hyneman, bye-bye, door." "[Laughs]" "Screw black powder." "That is incredible." "That's like 70 feet away from the blast site." "[Laughs]" "GRANT:" "Now, personally," "I think that if MacGyver had carried around a lot more C-4, he could've gotten through a lot more doors a lot easier."