Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 10,000 FPS Velocity, It Is Possible

I got a nice old relaoding manual from BGunn by Phillip Sharpe. He discusses many pioneering concepts of relaoding here is one for Ultra Hi velocity...

I think it was O'Connor who surmised that a BB moving some 12,000 fps would simulate the energy of a standard 180 grain 30-06 load. I don't recall that he thought it was necessarily possible at the time he whote those words however.

I have a buddy who wants to neck down an office waste paper can to take a needle....

I hope someone is near with a camera when he touches that off. It would be like the monkey trying to put the cork back in from an old playground joke...

I read the Navy's rail gun only does 8,000fps.

Image of a crater from a 23,000 fps penny

The main gun on an M1 Abrams is 5,500 ft/s... Half way there..

A friend of mine gave me a tank round off of whatever tanks he was playing with on one of his reserve weekends. I think it is a 37mm, but I am no expert on tank ammo.

Its bullet is deeply relieved and made of some sort of Aluminum alloy. Probably pretty darned fast, I am guessing.

I think he was joking, to make a statement... Well, maybe....

I read somewhere that somewhere in the 5000fps range is the maximum that can be achieved with gun powder because thats as fast as the powder burns and the gas expands. Rail guns don't use powder but electricity IIRC.

So - just neck that sucker down to a .30 cal TTSX....

By God!

Now imagine the possibilities !!!!!

X3 or 4 !!


Glad you like the book !! It's a fun read.
Check out the .357 Mag. pistol, it's TOO POWERFUL , and to dangerous to reload


We could always "Hollow-Point" that penny too!

Small 2-stage light-gas guns can reach 10km/s, or 32810 ft/s. No typo, almost 33 thousand feet per second. I suspect the record is now a bit more.

I ran a larger one, 38mm bore, for much of my professional career. Fastest I remember shooting was about a 40 gram slug of plastic at about 5km/s, about 16000 ft/s. (a 40 gram slug of plastic isn't much in a 38mm bore.) 10000 ft/s was a virtual piece of cake.

Before you go to calling bs on me, google up 2-stage light-gas gun.

-Gun Doc

The 37mm hasn't been used as a main armourment on American tanks since WW2 and even then it was obsolete..

Not sure what calibre of the penetrator is in todays 120mm tank shells, but they are made from something a little harder than aluminium alloy!

Depleted Uranium...

Article I read said velocities from 5,000 fps to 33,000 fps... that thing has got some 'gitty-up'.

Which is a wee bit harder than aluminium alloy!

Tungsten is also used. At those impact velocities hardness is fine, but density is more important. Both Tungsten and Uranium are quite dense.

The Ames Vertical Gun Range (AVGR) was designed to conduct scientific studies of lunar impact processes in support of the Apollo missions. In 1979, it was established as a National Facility, funded through the Planetary Geology and Geophysics Program. In 1995, increased scientific needs across various disciplines resulted in joint core funding by three different science programs at NASA Headquarters (Planetary Geology and Geophysics, Exobiology, and Solar System Origins). In addition, the AVGR provides programmatic support for various proposed and ongoing planetary missions (e.g. Stardust, Deep Impact).

Using its 0.30 cal light-gas gun and powder gun, the AVGR can launch projectiles to velocities ranging from 0.5 to nearly 7 km/sec. By varying the gun’s angle of elevation with respect to the target vacuum chamber, impact angles from 0° to 90° relative to the gravitational vector are possible. This unique feature is extremely important in the study of crater formation processes.

Many projectile types including spheres, cylinders, irregular shapes, and clusters of small particles can be launched. They can be metallic (aluminum, copper, iron), mineral (quartz, basalt), or glass (Pyrex, soda-lime). Soda-lime spheres, for example, can be launched individually (for sizes ranging from 1.5 to 6.4mm diameter - 1/16 to 1/4 inch), in groups of three (0.2 to 1.2mm), or as a cluster of many particles (2 to 200-?m).

The target chamber is approximately 2.5 meters in diameter and height and can accommodate a wide variety of targets and mounting fixtures. It can maintain vacuum levels below 0.03 torr, or can be back filled with various gases to simulate different planetary atmospheres. Impact events are typically recorded with high-speed video/film, or Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). The Facility uses the same arsenal of light-gas and powder guns as the HFFAF to accelerate particles that range in size from 3.2mm to 25.4mm (1/8 to 1 inch) diameter to velocities ranging from 0.5 to 8.5 km/s (1,500 to 28,000 ft/s).