Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Bullets Corkscrewing Along Trajectory

Dang, now I know why I missed that big buck last year.....

It's still really meaningless since it's only a few thousandths of an inch and takes place over a fraction of a second in most cases.

The context of the discussions where it always comes up is some try to claim it explains the fantasy that some rifles that aren't accurate at short range are accurate at longer ranges.

Otherwise it's just trivia for most small arms ballistics.
It may play a slightly larger role in artillery fire when distances are measured in miles rather than yards.

Interesting hypothesis. But that's all it is until someone can take Brian's money.

Some like to ponder and learn about these things while others seem to be prone to sticking their fingers in their ears while hollering so no one else can have the discussion.

I am for having the discussion and will gladly take whatever I can learn, whether it seems to have practical application or not. The world just really doesn't work the way we believe we know it works.

I'm sure I've missed at least one antelope due to the gravitational effects of Dark Matter.

No one is stopping anyone from discussing anything they want.
"Discussion" doesn't mean "nod in agreement" though.

The OP is copied from a long discussion on another site, and the context there was the claim that a rifle can be more accurate at long range than at 100 yards.

Some seemed to think this data, and some other data on barrel vibrations amounted to some sort of proof it was true.

None have actually demonstrated that on the range.

If you want to "ponder and learn" go over to Applied Ballistics and read from the source.

No one is protesting disagreement. It's every bit as much a part of discussion as agreement is. But, the subject being discussed is not whether the phenomenon is worth talking about or not, and the thread should not be sent off in that direction.

And I believe I'll ponder and learn where ever I please, but I do thank you for the additional resource.

Bravo !

We've had some good laughs over the years at
"Snippers ballistics 101" lectures and assertions.
......some of that series goes off into pretty strange territory.

wouldn't pay a whole lotta' attention to his horsechit.

GTC

Shame on you.

You know very well the the post is not copied from another site. You know very well that I posted the same material under my own name on both sites. In the context of my post at The High Road, I think my post pretty well put to rest the notion that the bullet corkscrewing along can account for someone getting much better groups at 200 yards than at 100. Those who are interested can see the whole discussion here.

Whether you believe Harold Vaughn's analysis or not is a matter of great indifference to me. It is based on sound physics. If you have a more compelling analysis, I'm sure we'd all love to see it.

I'll go put on the popcorn,.....

GTC

Interesting info Denton, thanks!

And this begs the question(s), what bullet, what twist, what rifling, what crown, and what combination thereof will minimize corkscrewing of the bullet?

Knowing the answers will help me minimize all those misses...


Casey

Interesting, I wonder how caliber, velocity and bullet type/weight affect the pictured graph.
Please excuse my ignorance.....but does a bullet rise above the line of the bore after leaving the barrel? I've heard arguments both ways, but never from someone who actually knew...just assumptions.

It's a common question.

The forces that act on an aircraft are gravity, drag, lift, and propulsion. Because you have lift and propulsion, an aircraft can rise. The external forces acting on the bullet after it leaves the barrel are just gravity and drag. There is no lift, and no internal source of propulsion.

Per the discussion of the bullet corkscrewing through the air, I suppose that you might construct a situation where a bullet momentarily gets a few thousandths of an inch above the bore line for an instant. But in general, the answer to your question is no.

I know. I have that problem all the time with my Allen pepperbox.

Is this why my 284 doesn't group well at 100 yards but 200 and beyond it groups great? Out to 1000.

One thing I used to hear from the bench rest crowd was the bullet has to "Go to sleep". Never really knew what that meant.

I believe it means it settles into a smoother form of flight and i will for lack of a better word, say it is not as erratic and has stabilized.

But I am no rocket scientist.

It's "copied", even if you posted the original there first, since the posts are identical.

You "copied" the data from another website too.

There's nothing derogatory about it.
It's just a statement of the facts.


I didn't say you thought it was proof.

I said "some" thought it was because they cherry-picked phrases and took things out of context.

Like I said before, it's interesting trivia, but really has no practical meaning.

No, it explains why what you claim isn't possible.
Bryan Litz wants to see you shoot to prove it's true.
He will pay your expenses if you can show him.

For 200,000 years most of the experts agreed that the sun rotated around a flat earth. The concept of a round earth rotating around the sun is a recent discovery in the grand scheme of things. Rifles have been in common use less than 200 years. I think it is quite possible that we don't really know everything about what is going on after the bullet leaves the muzzle. Or even before.

I don't claim to have any answers, but enjoy the debate. All I can say is that I've had quite a few incidents where a rifle would shoot no better than 1 MOA at 100 yards, yet 3/4 MOA was quite common at longer ranges. Group size at longer ranges certainly wasn't smaller. But getting 1.5-1.75" groups at 200 when no better than 1" at 100 yards does get noticed.