Would be interesting to see how long it would take to heat the rifle end sufficiently.
2-5 minutes & he can do other things as part of the stage while waiting.
From the 2012 JR:
24: There is, however, a further report that was submitted, after the Commission's decision of 25 April 2012, in which Mr Boyce set out his view as to how the rifle end could have been heated to the necessary temperature. He accepts that multiple firing would not have had sufficient effect on the temperature of the rifle barrel or the silencer. He concludes that the rifle or the silencer had to be heated artificially in order to burn. It was possible to heat a barrel on a hot plate of a cooker to 200 degrees in
less than five minutes.
25) This issue is not dealt with by the Commission, but I think it would be helpful to express a short view. There was in the kitchen an AGA. The mechanism that Mr Boyce suggests must imply the placing of the rifle barrel on a hot plate of the AGA, and by the hot plate of the AGA I mean that part that is normally used for cooking and which when it is not used for cooking can be covered by a lid. An AGA is not constructed so if a gun is leant against it, it will heat the barrel up. As Mr Boyce makes clear, it would have to be on the hot plate. It seems to me that if that further evidence had been before the Commission, although it would be a matter for them,
it would seem very improbable that a barrel would have been heated in that way.
I can't quite picture how the gun could be left on the Aga plate without holding it there?