User blog comment:Willbachbakal/Singleplayer Enemies: Leadhead Splicer/@comment-1330314-20100817200722

As a matter of fact, I do know science. Do you?

Shrapnel is a piece of sharp, misshapen metal. If you stuff it into any cylindrical surface, particularly in large numbers, it'll fly in all directions inside the barrel, destroying it. If you've packed too much, the force of the explosion and the gases it produced may not even be able to escape properly, in which case the barrel will explode. If you had packed twice the mass of a shotgun shell into a barrel of equal size, it will explode no matter which precautions you take. If you make the barrel any larger, it'll just get ripped to pieces, not to mention the shrapnel inside it wouldn't go far. Also, Incinerate! does not exist in real life, unless you've conveniently invented some other pseudoscientific handheld weapon that sets things on fire spontaneously.