Plenty of recorded hits at 25,000 yards in the 1940s... while bouncing on ocean waves... aimed at a moving target...
Posted on 04/02/2019 5:17:37 AM PDT by w1n1
It must have been crawling by the time it hit the target.
The word is “spent”.
So, 6 seconds if max v were maintained, which of course, it is ‘t. I found the Speed at 2500 yards...1227 fps. If that were the average speed, it would take about 15 seconds.
Here’s a link to Cuttingedge bullets tech data:
https://cuttingedgebullets.com/amfile/file/download/file_id/5455/product_id/482/
They are claiming some impressive BCs for their bullets, however, the BCs for their 550 grain bullet is not listed. For their 472 grain bullet, they are claiming a G1 BC of .87.
What are your numbers if using .87 as the BC?
That 6 seconds (6,000 yards x 3 feet divided by 3,000 feet per second) is only good if the bullet were to maintain that speed the whole flight. It doesn’t. With wind and air resistance, the speed constantly decreases through the flight. Watch the video of the target with sound pickup near the target. The sound of the shot reaches about 3 seconds before the impact is seen (my simple counting estimate, but the gap is obvious and about that much). So the sound was faster than the bullet at that 6,000 yard mark. Sound travels at 1,125 feet per second, so the bullet by that time HAS to be slower than 1,125 feet per second, already about 2,000 feet per second slower than it left the muzzle. So it makes sense that it takes many more seconds to reach the target than the computed 6 seconds. The guys there doing it MEASURED it at 17 seconds or so, you got that, right?
A good estimate for what the bullet speed is at the target is difficult—too little data to use for the estimate, not knowing where the audio pickup is in relation to the gun and the target, and the firing sound hits the audio pickup directly, but the target impact sound comes from the impact bouncing back from the target, so there’s an extra time delay for audio pickup of the target impact. I don’t know if there was a chronometer close to the target, but I’m not aware of any big enough to cover such a large target.
However, if the shot were TO AVERAGE 1,000 feet per second for the whole flight, then the flight time would be 18 seconds (6,000 * 3 / 1,000), close to the measured 17 seconds. Using the 17 seconds, the AVERAGE speed would be 1,059 feet per second, also less than the speed of sound.
Why is that final speed important? The kinetic energy with which the bullet hits depends mostly on the speed (KE=(0.5)(mass)(velocity)(velocity)). The venerable .45 caliber handgun has a muzzle velocity of about 850-1,150 fps, with a big fat bullet, and it’s a relatively effective close quarters weapon, but no good for long range (more than a few hundred yards), as the bullet never reaches the target with enough energy to do any damage (breaking the skin requires a velocity of about 220 fps). So this long skinny .416 caliber bullet hits at 6,000 with ? 1,000 fps, so yeah, it can still kill effectively. It’s nothing like it would be at less than 500 yards, of course, but it would still be useful. Wish there had been a close-up image of the target showing how much dent was made from the impacts. (I didn’t go looking for any more text or video on the shooting, if it was linked in the post.)
So I agree, it’s basically small-bore artillery.
Agreed. Wind is not constant over the bullet path. Shooter could have fired 500 rounds before making a hit. Density alt is not a constant (but close).
Article is unimpressive as written.
BC makes a huge difference. I dropped the elevation down to sea level
Using a ballistic coefficient of .87, for a 6000 yd shot with a 550gr bullet, at sea level standard day (more like high desert), to get ~17 seconds of flight time, you need ~3400 ft/sec muzzle velocity. You are supersonic out to between 2600 yards, and subsonic beyond that. The total bullet drop is ~3500 ft. The last 2000 yards the bullet is basically in freefall at only 600-800 ft/sec. ~535 ft.lbs. energy at impact.
You only need 3100 ft/sec at 2000’ elevation.
You see, this is the problem today… too many people garner their entire stockpile of knowledge of shooting from first-person shooter games like Black Ops! In those games, you just put your crosshair over the target, and voila… the target goes down like a sack of potatoes! Distance, elevation, gravity, bullet weight, winds, hysteresis effect… pshaw! Those are outdated and unnecessary concepts or factors when it comes to real life shooting.
But, don’t take it personally. The media thinks the same way. They believe that a scary black gun with lots of plastic pieces, and one that looks menacingly “militarily assault-like” automatically takes these factors into consideration, simplifies things for the uninitiated…, and therein lies the danger in such weapons. Henceforth, any fool can pick one up and do grievous harm against unarmed sheep, and too often if does happen.
If only people with little or no knowledge of the subject only took the time to educate themselves a little bit in the ways of ballistics and weaponry, maybe they wouldn’t be so “a-skeered” of guns. Then again, knowing there’s people out there that do have knowledge… only tyrants need be “a-skeered”.
Still give You a Nasty Bruise.
A 3 mile shot is over 15,000 yards. Not 6,000 yards.
Something doesn’t square up.
You need to rethink.
Maybe that’s new math.
There are 1,760 yards in a mile, 5,280 feet in a mile. 3 miles is 5, 280 yards and 15,840 feet. The article mentioned 6,102 yards, therefore 18,306 feet.
Hitting a 6000 yard target is easy. Hitting a target at 6000 yards is hard. The broad side of most barns is a lot smaller that 6000 yards.
I think he has his feet and yards mixed up! lol
I’ve shot a lot at 1000-1300. Anyone hitting something the size of a car at 6000 is pretty much accidental, no matter how good they are! Makes a good story however.
Plenty of recorded hits at 25,000 yards in the 1940s... while bouncing on ocean waves... aimed at a moving target...
I think I’ve done that with a .22 short. I could be wrong. My memory is a little fuzzy.
When does doing too much Math make shooting this gun not any fun?
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