Though I know nothing about bullets, I believed 'blanks' meant just that- like in a starting pistol. Last night, on UK's Derren Brown plays Russian roulette programme, the army shooting instructor was teaching them how to shoot, and to show the dangers, fired a blank into a bottle, and it went straight through.
Apart from contradicting my idea of waht a blank is, surely the English was incorrect. Anything that goes in a gun and is fired out the other end isn't blank, it's a bullet.
Shooting experts please help-

1) How can a 'blank' come out the end and damage something?

2) If that sort of blank isn't blank, then what do they put in starting pistols, which have to have no projectile, for obvious reasons, and is that also called a blank ?

satguru,

A 'blank' is not really blank; it contains powder, and packaging (cardboard/paper), and these, combined with air pressure would do the damage. They probably have a damage range of about a metre or so. The difference between them and a real bullet, is that it contains no shot or pellets.

A starting pistol does not have a barrel, as such- it is more like a heavy-duty capgun.

I used to own a starters pistol. The blank copper .22 caliber cartridge contained only gunpowder and was crimped at the end where the bullet normally is placed.
When fired, the crimping opened up and emitted only gas and sound.

In 1984, Jon-Erik Hexum, an actor on a defunct TV spy show "Cover Up", playfully shot himself in the head with a prop blank pistol. This action proved fatal. The cotton wad at this range penetrated his skull, and the concussion also fragmented his skull and drove pieces into his brain.

Regardless of whether or not cardboard or cotton wadding is used in the blank round, the area immediately beyond the muzzle still contains superheated gas expanding with explosive force. The same physics that projects a bullet from the barrel still holds sway in this "muzzle-region", and the gas can still impart tremendous force, and obviously can still prove fatal.

Also, starter pistols usually chamber .22 blanks, which are little more than glorified caps. They can be crimped shut without danger. However, larger calibers are usually not crimped because there is a greater danger of metal shards tearing loose and escaping the barrel. The metal is more dense and would conserve more momentum at longer ranges than more commonly used cotton or cardboard wadding, which rapidly loses speed due to lower mass and greater air resistance.

Crikey, Uroborus- it's lucky I saw the programme before I ever got hold of a pistol loaded with blanks- shows it's a commonly held illusion really!