Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Max Dangerous Range 22LR when shooting upwards for Racoons etc

Would a bullet from a Mach 2 rimfire be less lethal if fired at a 30 to 45 degree angle than a .22? The Mach 2 uses a 17 grain bullet.

Yes but only on Tuesdays in the months that end in R.......any thing past 46 degrees will kill, always !

Christmas Day ‘69 I was supporting troops engaged by NVA just a few miles north of DaNang in mountainous terrain. They were taking fire from a large bunker about 30 yards upslope from their position. Tree cover and proximity made the Cobras of little benefit. I came to a hover over the friendlies with a narrow view of the bunker openings. Lit up the minigun with 3 x 3 second bursts into the bunker. There were no survivors in the bunker. Our troops were quite animated about how hot the brass was that I rained on them.

Their CO thanked me later.

Checking the roof for hail damage one
year in January, I found a bullet embedded
in the shingles near the peak from these
hood rats chooting in de air for new year's.
The roofer has also found em while doing
a repair a while back.
My bronco had a big bullet dent in the top
of the tailgate from celebratory gunfire,
and this truck I have now has a bullet
dent in the hood still.

It happens no question

I remember reading about terminal velocity tests done by Julian Hatcher. He tested everything from .22 short and LR to 150 and 180 gr. .30-06 and when fired straight up they all came back to earth at velocities between roughly 150 and 350 fps. I also remember in his testing a falling .22 short bullet hit a pine board when it came down and only dented it and bounced off.

What ever happened to "Be sure of your target and what lies is behind it"? A responsible person obeys all 4 rules all the time.


mike r

No, not really. Bullets tend to lose forward velocity fast, but rotational velocity much more slowly. For most purposes it isn't an issue, but there are times when it is. It was first noticed after modern long-range rifles artillery, when point-detonating shells were noticed to have a high incidence of "blinds", as they were actually not hitting point first at extended range. At extreme ranges the same can occur with rifle bullets - they land like an aircraft coming in with flaps extended, rather than nose first, as the bullet axis remains more or less aligned with the axis of departure.

It is yet another example of the bullet axis not following the path of travel, which is why I mentioned it.



On the contrary, they mean exactly that. The bullet is indeed travelling sideways. Think of vectors - do they teach that in high school? As well, the bullet axis is not aligned with the direction in which the bullet is travelling. In the case of wind drift, for example, the typical bullet will be facing its nose into the wind as it drifts.

Hawk,

Thanks for letting me know that I'm not the only one who ever pondered on that issue. During the air raid videos, on major cities, you see tremendous amounts of tracers going upwards and if the old formula I was given was correct, that there are approximately 4 non-tracer rounds for every tracer you see, then there were a whole lot of bullets going up that had to come down somewhere. ( I just reread that sentence and the brilliance of that deduction is truly staggering...)

Anyways, it would have been beneficial to keep one's head down during the war.

Repeating that won't make is so.
The projectile remains aligned point first with it's path of travel during it's entire arc.
They never go "sideways".[/quote]













On the contrary, they mean exactly that. The bullet is indeed travelling sideways. Think of vectors - do they teach that in high school? As well, the bullet axis is not aligned with the direction in which the bullet is travelling. In the case of wind drift, for example, the typical bullet will be facing its nose into the wind as it drifts.[/quote]

You still just keep repeating yourself and going off on unrelated tangents like "artillery" and "wind drift".

They have nothing to do with the context of what I said.
At no point during it's flight does a normal projectile turn sideways to it's direction of travel.

Snyper

You've made rather a mess of your quoting, attributing things others said to me and attributing things I said to yourself, so it is a bit hard to follow. Maybe that was your intention. However, the salient facts are these. You said:



This is not true. I explained why it is not true, with concrete examples. It has been known not to be true for over a century.



The fact that you think these are unrelated tangents demonstrates that you simply do not understand what you are talking about. As well, using "tangent" unironically in this context reinforces that point. I used the example of artillery because it was with early rifled artillery - which are just a bigger rifle - that the phenomenon of projectiles not remaining aligned point first with the path of travel during their entire arc was noted. Our understanding of wind drift - that it causes the pointed bullet to turn into the wind - is another good solid, well-documented example of the bullet nose not remaining aligned point first with the path of travel.