Talk:Bullet catch

Request for comment
Please take a look at Talk:Out of This World (card trick). Bovlb 2005-07-06 04:41:32 (UTC)

Method
The article says NOTHING of how this trick is actually performed, other than that the gun fires blanks. I think it's safe to assume that the most important aspect of the trick isn't that the magician didn't die (from a real bullet), but HOW the signed bullet ended up in his mouth. The method presented in the article does not answer this question at all, despite quite a detailed summary of Penn & Teller's version of this trick which makes special note of the fact that the magicians do not pass the signed bullet to each other (line drawn across the stage). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ilyag (talk • contribs) 17:32, 12 September 2005

Seconded. How is it done? --67.218.17.97 (talk) 15:12, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Missing piece of the puzzle
I'm not sure if any other performers have done the bullet catch for real, but I can assure you with first-hand experience that there is at least one person who has performed the bullet catch for real. His name is Carl Skenes, and ignoring his contributions to the bullet catch is a glaring ommission on the part of Wikipedia. Carl Skenes performed the stunt on That's Incredible in 1980, and later repeated the feat with his wife, Tina, as his sharpshooter on similar shows in Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and Japan. He wore a special tooth guard, and then placed into his mouth a small metal box with a target a little smaller than a dime in the front. A .22 rifle was then placed on 2 gun stand for steadiness, and the bullet was actually fired into the box in his mouth. So, the vast majority of "how'd they do that" can be attributed to magic tricks, distractions, and gimmicks, but at least one performer of the bullet catch uses no gimmicks or tricks.


 * You wanna reference this? -- Krash 20:47, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

He's my dad, and I was there? Does that work? Also, That's Incredible did a frame by frame trace of the bullet from the rifle to his mouth. Once my mom became his sharpshooter, I grew up watching her do target practice up and down the halls of our home, preparing for the stunt. Additionally, Mick Ayres wrote an article about Carl Skenes' performance of the bullet catch for "The Linking Ring" (the official publication of the International Brotherhood of Magicians) in 2000. I don't have the exact issue # off hand, but can provide it by tomorrow if that is helpful. Thinkingsoutherner — Preceding undated comment added 20:08, 10 November 2005


 * Cool. But this treads a fine line with respect to vanity guidelines and souce citation. I'm not trying to be a dick, just saying that without sources this could be perceived as dubious. -- Krash 21:46, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

I understand. As far as vanity guidelines, I simply assumed that if a string of magicians who faked the bullet catch (quite well, and with a great deal of entertainment value) were of note, then someone who actually did the stunt without a gimmick would be of note. Unfortunately, there just aren't a whole lot of sources on this, as most people just assumed he was faking too (magicians aren't known for their honesty and upfront-ness). Mick Ayre's article was called ""Carl Skenes: Biting the Bullet" and I have contacted both Mick and The Linking Ring editor for the exact publication issue and date. Thinkingsoutherner —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thinkingsoutherner (talk • contribs) 21:54, 10 November 2005


 * It's in The Linking Ring Vol. 80 No. 11 (November 2000): pages 62-65. Equinox (talk) 23:24, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

dime-sized
In the History section of the article: "A sharpshooter then fired the bullet into the dime-sized opening at the front of the box."

Can this be changed to something else? As something being "dime-sized" means little to non-US citizens. How big is a dime?

I don't mean to be pedantic, I am just interested in this article and I would like to know how large the opening is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.56.85.81 (talk) 18:57, 6 January 2008 (UTC)


 * If only there were an online encyclopedia where people could look up the size of a dime... Bourne 23:49, 8 October 2010 (UTC)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bourne (talk • contribs)

Method removed
I have removed the method from the article as it is unsourced. This is following the guidelines laid out in WikiProject_Magic. If the method can be properly sourced, then it can be re-added. StephenBuxton (talk) 16:34, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

NB: The material was removed in this diff and contained the following information:

I have removed the external link to a claimed method for Penn and Teller's bullet catch because the link is unsourced Michaelfeldman (talk) 09:10, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

/==Method==

No matter what speed a bullet leaves the muzzle, it must eventually come to rest. If the gun were perfectly aimed using an appropriate distance, such a trick would seem plausible. This is the line of reasoning the performer of the bullet catch encourages the audience to accept.

As is often the case with other magic illusions, there is no single way the bullet catch is performed. The method a magician may use will vary from performer to performer. It should come as no surprise that the gun or the bullet is rigged in some way. In the simplest form of the bullet catch, the gun is made to fire blanks. The target through which the "bullet" passes is set to destruct using a squib. All the performer must do is keep the bullet in his or her mouth until ready to produce it.

If the gun is to be loaded in front of the audience, a wax bullet is loaded into the firearm. The spray of liquid wax from the barrel of the gun is enough to break the pane of glass. A good magician is able to use misdirection to exchange the marked bullet with one made of wax and place the marked bullet into his or her mouth. There are also electronic guns, which will simulate the sound, smoke, and flash of a firing, but not actually affect the bullet. Another method when loading in front of the audience or by an audience member is to have a small magnet attached to the ramrod; the magnet then removes the bullet immediately after loading. When the magician takes the stick, he removes the bullet, and holds it in his or her mouth until producing it. In that case, the gun is always gimmicked; it only simulates a shot. This method is now of course somewhat obsolete, given that modern firearms do not use a ramrod.

In cases where the bullet is marked by an audience member, the marked bullet is then transferred to the magician through sleight-of-hand, or a similar bullet is duplicated by an off-stage assistant and transferred to the magician.

The gun that Soo used was set to fire a blank in an adjacent barrel. When the gun malfunctioned, the bullet that had been loaded into the main barrel was accidentally fired into Soo's lung.

Carl Skenes used no gimmicks in his performance. The .22 rifle was mounted onto a number of gun stands to keep it steady, and the protective gear and target box he placed into his mouth were put in as part of the performance.

Despite frequent rumors to the contrary, in a radio interview with Penn Jillette in February, 2006, magician Criss Angel seemed to indicate his unaired performance of the bullet catch was an illusion, saying that it "was so believable" that television network A&E barred it from airing. In Angel's performance, his musician friend Jonathan Davis appeared to fire a high-powered rifle into a titanium cup custom-made to fit into Criss' mouth.

Editors are encouraged to restore the material when they find appropriate sources, or to restore the content if the original removal of the material was in error, and to correct any errors in the method described. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:24, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

A Couple of Quick Revisions
I added Ben Robinson since he literally wrote the book on it (well at least the history) and performed it a couple of times. And removed a few of the internal links that were now dead (the ages on two of the "famous" performers had been removed by Wikipedia). And to those of you here using this for a discussion of the potential techniques... it's supposed to be for talk about updates and issues, not for the discussion of possible methodologies. SamKamin (talk) 00:11, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

No gimmick?
The history section mentions a few cases where the trick was purportedly performed "without a gimmick". Why is this presented as fact? Certainly there's no proof, and the performers themselves certainly are not going to explain the gimmick if they've developed a new version of it! It's especially funny when the section ends with the Myth-busters example that shows how dubious those claims are.

Surely it can't be policy to accept a performer's claims about a magic trick at face value? APL (talk) 00:46, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 21:46, 30 August 2012 (UTC) (non-admin closure)

Bullet Catch → Bullet catch – Improper capitalization of this page. Need someone to replace the old page, which exists. The page was improperly moved on April 1st last year. I like to saw logs! (talk) 05:52, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Support Improperly capitalized. Rather uncontroversial.--Labattblueboy (talk) 13:12, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Method
The method was recently removed because it was unsourced.

I strongly suspect that the method explanation is taken from on of the non-inline sources, but I don't have them handy so I can say for sure. If somebody could please source that section and put it back, that'd be appreciated. ApLundell (talk) 21:21, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Maurice Rooklyn shot
The entry referring to Maurice Rooklyn being shot in the 1950s is incorrect. He was shot in 1934; whether this was genuine or partly a publicity gimmick is not known. Refer to my article http://sydneymagic.net/HISTORY/ROOKLYN/rooklyn.html based on original source material from the Rooklyn collection. Kblackmore (talk) 23:11, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Famous Performers
Curious -- what are the little symbols after some of the listings? they look like crosses. i haven't ever seen this symbol/icon used in other lists on WP, nor any other place on WP where death is involved. but i have seen that symbol used, sometimes, to denote that there is a "footnote" of sorts on the page. that isn't the case here.

if this is some religious thing, then i'm wondering if they should all be crosses. my guess is "no." there's a very good chance that the icon after dr. epstein's listing should be something else. and really, i'm wondering if they should be there at all, then. but maybe it's something else—something unique to WP that i don't know about. in which case, i'd be grateful if someone could explain it! Colbey84 (talk) 14:03, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It looks like they indicate people who died performing the trick. If that's so, it should be clarified. ApLundell (talk) 18:51, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * With my last edit I removed the crosses (and cleaned up some of the list). They were never explained and duplicated text that was already there. MikeHfuhruhurr (talk) 03:26, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

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