Balistics question

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Lul Thyme
It seems you are only remembering the cases you want...

Wiki says that Mythbusters confirmed that, in practice, the bullets will often keep some of their spin, reducing the effect of air resistance and keep lethal velocity. They also confirmed NUMEROUS recorded deaths from bullets fired more or less upwards in the air.

You are the one who's memory has failed. Look at the givens I was responding to. I remained in context, which is not the failing you seem to think it is.

Originally posted by Lancer
So basicly the bullet leaves the .45 and goes up until it loses all velocity and starts falling back to earth, gathering speed based on its weight minus the wind resistance it encounters. By the time it impacts our hero it has regained enough velocity to punch through his skull.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Zoid
Indeed. The case of bullets landing on their side was only the effect of them being fired at an exact 90 degree angle. And that's close to impossible to do without some form of stabilising rig like the one they used in that episode.

Except it was a given in the scenario I was responding to.

[Lul Thyme]

Lancer asked if bullets fired more or less upwards were dangerous to which you replied :

Originally posted by Aeson


No, a bullet that loses it's velocity on the way up, to the point it reverses it's course or is just "falling", isn't going to have a high enough terminal velocity to do much damage. It's essentially a penny off a skyscraper at that point.

On a less steep trajectory the bullet can maintain a lot of it's velocity and do damage when coming back down... over yonder.

later quoting Mythbusters on the subject.

Now I don't watch Mythbusters, but wikipedia says about this particular episode :


"The "plausible" result was cited because they found it was very difficult to fire a bullet in near ideal vertical trajectory, so bullets were likely to remain spin stabilized on a ballistic trajectory, and fall at a potentially lethal terminal velocity. The "confirmed" result related to their research which verified cases of actual deaths from falling bullets."


So it seems even Mythbusters (your source) found that Lancer's scenario would be potentially lethal.

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Aeson


Except it was a given in the scenario I was responding to.

Actually you were the first in the thread to assume the bullet is fired straight up so that it "reverses it's course" (your words) when it is going down.

Lancer's scenario involved was about Saddam firing a shot more or less randomly.

The post that you quoted was actually him asking if that is indeed what happens in his scenario.

[Aeson]

Lul, 11 comes before 14.

[Zkribbler]

I remember that Mythbuster [] episide.

Bullets, when fired, have a blllistic spin. It is awkward to shoot a bullet nearly vertically. Most are shot off at an angle, they fly in a ballistic arc, and come down nose-first at a lethal speed.

When shots are fired vertically or near vertically, they climb until they lose their upward momentum. Then they begin to tumble back to earth. In tumbling, they present their long side to the wind resistence, which slows them, and results in them having a terminal velocity which is non-lethal to humans.

[Lancer]

Having been unable to determine a clear verdict in this case our hero has decided to go to work, quite possibly becoming the first zombie dung collecter ever to stalk the earth.

[Zoid]

The question is if it's worse to have your brain eaten by someone covered in camel dung or not?

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by VetLegion


A nitpick: mass is not an equal part of the equation. Kinetic energy of a bullet is Ek = 0.5 * m * v^2, meaning that increasing velocity increases the energy much faster than increasing mass.

If you fell from a great height you will have as much change in kinetic energy as you fall from the force of gravity as you will from the subsequebnt electromagnetic resistive force of the ground when you splat it.

One, generally, will kill you, the other won't.

[Lancer]

Originally posted by Zoid
The question is if it's worse to have your brain eaten by someone covered in camel dung or not?

Obviously the thread is evolving from a balistics question to a query into the unlives of undead dung collectors.

My question is, might our hero not be better fertilizer than the dung he collects?

Inquiring minds want to know!