[SteveMcKing]

I wonder why the tap didn't blow first and release the pressure?

Myth Busters once tested some pressurized gas containers (they shot them with rifles). Turns out that they rarely explode - instead they become rockets and bounce all over the place as the gas jets out.

I guess heating them is rather different.

[Toby06]

Myth Busters once tested some pressurized gas containers (they shot them with rifles). Turns out that they rarely explode - instead they become rockets and bounce all over the place as the gas jets out.

Any Navy/Coastie guy knows that. it's one of the coolest videos in Basic, right up there with "Syntheltic Line Snapback"

[steveo]

I wonder why the tap didn't blow first and release the pressure?

I wondered that too. The warning on the top of a keg I have says it will rupture above 60 psi. Maybe the temperature rise and pressure increased too fast and the thing just failed.

[HOTTIEBOY]

Myth Busters once tested some pressurized gas containers (they shot them with rifles). Turns out that they rarely explode - instead they become rockets and bounce all over the place as the gas jets out.

Me and my brother once painted a room in psychedelic fashion by shooting paint cans with a .22 through a crack in the door.
"Hey man watch this"

[GSlob]

Well, once a not-quite empty oxygen cylinder [steel, full size cylinder] ended up in a fire- some wood was piled around it and ignited. There was a nice small crater left, and one half of that cylinder was later found about 300 yards distant. Second half mysteriously dissipated, after its shards passed through a couple of idiots in the immediate vicinity of that fire.

[3niner]

I wonder why the tap didn't blow first and release the pressure?

Because the valve was sturdier than the keg.

I guess heating them is rather different

Heating is rather different, because it causes a rupture by greatly increasing the pressure in the keg (it also weakens the metal somewhat). Shooting simply makes a hole. A heated container has a great deal more energy to dissipate.