Guns and Magnets

To bad these would not work with a GLOCK cause we all know they are made of ceramic

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I can fry eggs, and sharpen an axe on the slide. I used it as a hammer to build my shed too

Slightly tangential, but a few years ago worked with an NMR quite a bit. The door to the room had an article taped to the glass about a young child who was taken in for a scan...someone had forgotten not to bring his O2 tank into the room with him, and once he was secured to the table it managed to get close enough for the field to grab...it ended up impacting the side of his head and killing him instantly. They were somewhat strict about metal in that room...

They also passed out this website to look at:
http://www.simplyphysics.com/flying_objects.html#

Just figured I'd drop this in here for anyone questioning MRIs yanking onto things

Now here's a question for you:

Would a steel core .45ACP round, fired from a gun impacting an MRI machine, have sufficient velocity to escape the intense magnetic field, or would the field snatch the bullet right out of the air and pull it back to the machine before it hit a wall?

Magnetization won't effect the operation of a gun at all. Filings and particles will stick to a strong enough magnet, but I don't think many people shoot their guns in that kind of environment. At any rate, they make demagnetizers if you want to be careful.

perhaps safe for guns but magnets & anything battery powered...illuninated reticles, red dots, flash lites, lasers, range finders...may be affected. And the battery.

"An external magnetic field cannot penetrate to the interior of a magnetically permeable object such as a carbon steel gun. "

Not correct.
It depends completely on the strength of the field and the permeability of the metal.
If the field strength is high enough the material will saturate and any field above the saturation value passes unattenuated.
It is VERY difficult to reduce a magnetic field to zero, particularly a static field. Time varying fields can be canceled a little better if the shield material is a very good conductor.

There is a marginal chance that some portion of the pistol could become magnetized and then collect metallic dust from either the guns operation or from the environment. If you notice that happening clean it.

Someone could try this. Get your milspec or other sensitive compass and get a rifle. See if the rifle effects the compass as you bring them close together.

brickeyee . . . I stand corrected. I should have remembered about saturation.

An MRI versus 'rare earth magnet' is like a 155mm pack howitzer versus a salt shaker.

Of course, if the rare earth magnet had the kind of power of the MRI, you could pull a Darth Vader on any BGs you encounter - as their gun flies through the air into your hand, and say:
"We would be honored if you would join us."
If they balk, put 'em in carbon freeze.

Note to self no packing in the MRI. Not really an option but WOW! I would like to see this on Mythbusters. I think I will suggest it.

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When I went through my MRI training when I worked for a hospital, they showed us these pics, and recounted the story of the firearm that was pulled off the officer's hip.

The expensive part is what happens after. If you scram the magnet, you can plan on spending about $250K to get it running again. Not to mention, many small hospitals only have one MRI machine, so you're also depriving people of an essential diagnostic test while it's down.

On a side note, I have a keyring that is still (as far as I know) stuck to the side of the NRM in the chem lab at my college.

Yes, the gun pulled into the MRI and discharging was real. It was reported by CNN, as well as being published in a medical journal. It's somewhere the THR archives. IIRC, the gun discharged due to HARD impact with the machine that overcame the force of the firing pin return spring. Edit: Link to article on gun sucked into MRI machine from American Journal of Roentgenology.

http://www.ajronline.org/cgi/content/full/178/5/1092

I couldn't find the video I had seen before of a hammer being pulled through a piece of plywood into an MRI machine, but here's one of an oxygen cylinder being pulled in. The force involved is quite impressive. Notice the rate of acceleration as the bottle is pulled in.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=7g5UVrOt2CI

Also, here's a long video on "MRI Safety" from General Electric, an MRI machine manufacturer. It demonstrates in great detail why you don't want to be in between an MRI machine and a ferrous metal object. Skip to about 4:10 in if you want to get right to the action.

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-3911691380555981564

We have the magnet attached to the wall in the gun shop that I work in,
displaying a unloaded and securely mounted Smith & Wesson .40 caliber
Sigma~! Yes, these magnets do work; but even a weak person should be
able to free the gun up rather quickly without any problem.