"The bullet was going too fast to expand"

[lineofsight]

Newton, didnt he do something with Figs?

From our friend Chuck:
Horizontal Shot. If the barrel is horizontal to the surface of the earth when fired, the bullet never rises above the barrel, and gravity causes an immediate descent.

Typical Alignment. Generally, for what we consider a "horizontal" shot, the sight alignment places the barrel in a slightly upward tilt, and the bullet starts its arc, rises slightly above the level of the muzzle, but never above the axis of the barrel, reaches a peak, then descends. Figure 2 is the graph of a centerfire rifle cartridge that stays within a 6 inch circle for a distance of about 210 yards. Sighted in at approximately 170 yards, this round is approximately 3 inches high at 100 yards and three inches low at approximately 210 yards. You must, of course, always check trajectory data for your particular rifle and cartridge combination.

Pictures at http://www.chuckhawks.com/bullet_trajectory.htm

sbtennex, keep your rifle ammo away from my 9mm ammo, its seems contagious.

 

[Suputin]

remember the guy called Occam?

Didn't he have a razor?

 

[John Y Cannuck]

I shot three deer one year, with the 30-30, and the then new Barnes X hollow point. Same size hole in, as out. Deer died of multiple holes.
Must have been going too fast right?

 

[sunray]

"...missiles would penetrate without detonating..." He's right. Anti-ship missiles penetrate then explode depending on the war head. Boats sink. Tanks just stop.
"...Never could understand what the heck they were talking about!..." S'ok. They didn't either. Bullets need a minimum velocity to expand at all.

 

[mbogo3]

The mini-14 with it's 1-10 twist 180-181 series ,the Hornady SX's wouldn't even make the paper at 100 yards! Same as running them out of a Swift...............Harold

 

[horseman2]

Spotting for a guy shooting a 300 Win Mag. who missed the target at 100 on his first shot. The second was one inch High. "So where is it at 200?" "Oh it is 1" high at 200, and dead on at 300. Last year I shot a running deer in the head at 500 yards - held on the top of its head and just off its nose". He then sighted in his dad's gun, and it may as well have been a miss but that was good enough for dad.

 

[rem338win]

Bullet failure happens with some fast calibers like 223 if pushed too far with too fast of a twist. 7:1 does it, bullet will fall apart from cetrifugal forces immediately upon exiting muzzle.

Missiles or artillery shells flying right through barns or other soft targets without detonation is known fact.

I agree with you on all points except the reason for the bullet tearing apart. Centrifugal force is two opposing, rotating forces on the same plane. This doesn't happen in this application. There is only one rotating force involved.
That with the friction and the fast rotation, you can create the terminal force that causes the seperation.

 

[Murf]

Centrifugal force is known as a fictitious force but it explains what is happening in an easier to visualise form than the full explanation.

The centrifical force can be thought of as the force moving in one direction and wants to maintain that direction . The molecules of lead in the spinning bullet are travelling similar to the way an object laying on the dash board of a car which is taking a fast corner. The car actually turns out from under the object which is trying to maintain its direction. The actual motion of the object at any given moment is on a tangent to the cars path. The car stays on the curve because of the grip of the tires on pavenment (Do enough high speed cornering and see the wear on your tires.)The material in the bullet reacts the same way as an object on the dash, wanting to maintain its rotation which at any given moment is an path away from the bullets center. When objects are spinning very fast such as bullets this force is very powerfull. It is also related to the distance from the center of rotation . The outside surface of the bullet is travelling at a greater speed than that of the center. It must be going faster to cover the increased distance around the center due to the greater diameter of the outside . If one rotates a pulley on an axle the outside will cover a much greater distance than the inside. At high enough rotational speeds these forces are great enough to cause bullets to fly apart with indivdual pieces flying out sideways or perdendicular to the bullets path. In order to stay together at such speeds there must be a counter force which I believe is the surface tension or cohension of the bullets jacket.

This is why older reloading manuals list slow muzzle velocities for the older style .22 Hornet bullets when ;oaded in hot .22 centerfires. As muzzle velocity increases in any given barrel twist the rotation speed applied to the bullet also increases.

 

[John Y Cannuck]

I shot three deer one year, with the 30-30, and the then new Barnes X hollow point. Same size hole in, as out. Deer died of multiple holes.
Must have been going too fast right?

Just checking to see if you were awake.

The deer above died of multiple holes.

Multiple rifle shots, and fragmentation.

Every one of them had broken off petals in the chest cavity.
Classic bullet failure. Then base exited fine, a nice 30 cal hole.
One buck took four hits.
Barnes has since reworked these bullets, as it was a common problem with the early 30-30 X point. I've not tried the new ones, but I understand they work fine.

 

[guntech]

On high velocity quick twist barrels the lead becomes molten and if the jacket deforms the bullet will disintegrate without reaching 100 yards...

I was privy to some private testing involving high velocity and long bullets with a twist not quite fast enough to stabilize the bullet... they wanted the bullet to tumble... the pictures showed a small lead splatter out of the nose of the hollow point bullet as it tumbled through paper at about 12 yards...

 

[limit time]

Some One Should Call Mithbusters , To Check These Out!!

 

[stubblejumper]

The bullet was going too fast to expand"

The scary part is that some people still believe that foolishness.

My bullets DO in fact rise after leaving the muzzle.

Of course they rise,whenever the muzzle is aimed at any angle above horizontal.Anti aircraft guns have shot down a lot of planes.

 

[Camp Cook]

I have had a 180gr Scirroco out of a 300RUM @ 3380fps muzzle velocity hit a deer in the chest @ 40 yards and not exit totally disintegrated when the bullet hit the spine.

I mean completely disappeared with absolutely no trace that I could find and I looked forever trying to find that bullet.