Hey, for both tear you apart and rip you apart, tear you to pieces etc... it needs to be "could" because it's a hypothetical threat. You can't say "can" because you can't have practical experience of ripping me apart with your bear hands, because if you had done it before, I would be dead :)
Alternatively "can" here indicates permission. Can I rip you to shreads please? I can? Oh, marvellous ! So that doesn't really figure either - Must be "could".
"I could disembowel you with my bare hands (If I tried, if I wanted to..)

I disagree. Using "can" in a situation like this is totally normal in many, (dare I say "most") English dialects. "Can" indicates having the necessary strength and other resources to execute the action. "I can jump the Grand Canyon on my motorcycle" is a normal sentence, even it's never been done and if we doubt its accuracy. "I can count up to ten thousand" is believable, and normal speech, even if neither the speaker nor the listener has ever actually done it. "Could" is also a common choice in sentences of this sort, with a slight difference in meaning. Neither choice is "right" or "wrong".

I considered this for a while before making my comment and I have to say that I absolutely disagree. The only context I can imagine such a sentence would be in some kind of fanciful poem or song listing the capabilities of some kind of godlike figure, and after all it seems to me the purpose of this site is to provide practical functional examples rather than to stretch the limits of grammatical plausibility, hence, I stand by my advice to edit.

To put it simply, in the situation I infer that these sentences are likely to be used, a threat or warning; "could" would be used.

The fact that using "can" could ( ;) ) be grammatically correct doesn't really have any bearing on it, in my humble opinion.

I take your point about the 10,000 which shows me that my argument is not quite refined, but I believe the conclusion of it is correct nonetheless.

Anyway, it's nice to debate these kinds of things, so thanks :)

I agree with you, that the goal isn't "to stretch the limits of grammatical plausibility". For the most part, we are trying to record sentences that native speakers of a language really say. So I think we are in agreement to that point. I also agree that this sentence is a threat.

Where we differ is that I think that people make threats of this kind using both the conditional and the simple present. You are saying, I believe, that only the conditional is used in this situation. To find out what people really say, it would be nice to search a large spoken language corpus. I know they exist, but I don't know how to find one. Do you? A Google search finds similar quantities of sentences for the "I could"/"I can" variations of "tear you apart with my bare hands", "rip you apart with my bare hands", "take you apart with my bare hands", with "could" more numerous in each case, but "can" also found. If we eliminate the "with my bare hands", and go with the simple "I can rip you apart", Google delivers 89,300 hits vs. 31,900 for "I could rip you apart".

The same preference for "can" shows on a Google search of "I can tear you apart" (378,000) vs. "I could tear you apart" (90,500), but reverses for "I can take you apart" (77,700) vs. "I could take you apart" (125,000).

Google isn't the best tool for finding out what people say, but these results convince me that both variations, "can" and "could", are commonly used in this kind of threat.

Hey,
I actually tried something similar but gave up after finding nothing but aggregator sites offering up the lyrics from a Slipknot song on the first few pages.
I really can't feel it, I'm afraid.
If someone came to me with such a threat, they would probably be forced into tearing me to pieces by my attempts to 'correct' them.
If it was something like "Put down your bag so I can rip you apart." that differs again.
I guess the solution is to offer up "I could.." as an alternative option.