years ago they sent kids up chimeneys , doesnt make it right . A .22rf short will kill you on its way down , if your happy with that carry on sir
Air rifles shots up in the air? FSB's team wild
- Thread starter Paul at Fechan
- Start date
Si
Well-Known Member
People drive in excess of the speed limit too.
We could tear apart every episode of Fieldsports Britain and we quite often do, but at the end of the day is it going to stop people doing it?
Just make sure you're safe and don't worry about what everyone else is doing.... Like the way George Digweed carries his shotgun, only the big man could get away with that
We could tear apart every episode of Fieldsports Britain and we quite often do, but at the end of the day is it going to stop people doing it?
Just make sure you're safe and don't worry about what everyone else is doing.... Like the way George Digweed carries his shotgun, only the big man could get away with that
palmer_mike
Well-Known Member
Will it? - not what i heard (as someone has already posted on this thread).
No it won't a pellet of that weight will not kill you on its way down .
Tom D
Well-Known Member
Its true that a falling bullet has no where near the speed, and therefore energy of one straight from the muzzle, however it could still hurt, it will still be doing between 300 and 500 Mph. And like I said earlier, if it had dinged my car I would not have been happy. The thought of it hitting a child isn't worth thinking about. The heavier the bullet, the faster it will fall...
Good old wikipedia...
Celibratory gunfire..Bullets fired into the air usually fall back at terminal velocity, speeds much lower than those at which they leave the barrel of a firearm. Nevertheless, people can be injured, sometimes fatally when bullets discharged into the air fall back down. The mortality rate among those struck by falling bullets is about 32%, compared with about 2% to 6% normally associated with gunshot wounds.[SUP][5][/SUP] The higher mortality is related to the higher incidence of head wounds from falling bullets. Fatality accrues, when the firearm is discharged at an angle, thus the bullet keeps its angular ballistic trajectory, and falls at a speed faster then at terminal velocity.A study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 80% of celebratory gunfire-related injuries are to the head, feet, and shoulders.[SUP][6][/SUP] In the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, about two people die and about 25 more are injured each year from celebratory gunfire on New Year's Eve, the CDC says.[SUP][3][/SUP]Between the years 1985 and 1992, doctors at the King/Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, treated some 118 people for random falling-bullet injuries. Thirty-eight of them died.[SUP][7][/SUP] Kuwaitis celebrating in 1991 at the end of the Gulf War by firing weapons into the air caused 20 deaths from falling bullets.[SUP][7][/SUP]
Firearms expert Julian Hatcher studied falling bullets and found that .30 caliber rounds reach terminal velocities of 300 feet per second (90 m/s) and larger .50 caliber bullets have a terminal velocity of 500 feet per second (150 m/s).[SUP][8][/SUP] A bullet traveling at only 150 feet per second (46 m/s) to 170 feet per second (52 m/s) can penetrate human skin,[SUP][9][/SUP] and at 200 feet per second (60 m/s) it can penetrate the skull.[SUP][10][/SUP] A bullet that does not penetrate the skull may still result in an intracranial injury.[SUP][11][/SUP]
In 2005, the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) ran education campaigns on the dangers of celebratory gunfire in Serbia and Montenegro.[SUP][12][/SUP] In Serbia, the campaign slogan was "every bullet that is fired up, must come down."[SUP][13][/SUP]
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Good old wikipedia...
Celibratory gunfire..Bullets fired into the air usually fall back at terminal velocity, speeds much lower than those at which they leave the barrel of a firearm. Nevertheless, people can be injured, sometimes fatally when bullets discharged into the air fall back down. The mortality rate among those struck by falling bullets is about 32%, compared with about 2% to 6% normally associated with gunshot wounds.[SUP][5][/SUP] The higher mortality is related to the higher incidence of head wounds from falling bullets. Fatality accrues, when the firearm is discharged at an angle, thus the bullet keeps its angular ballistic trajectory, and falls at a speed faster then at terminal velocity.A study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 80% of celebratory gunfire-related injuries are to the head, feet, and shoulders.[SUP][6][/SUP] In the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, about two people die and about 25 more are injured each year from celebratory gunfire on New Year's Eve, the CDC says.[SUP][3][/SUP]Between the years 1985 and 1992, doctors at the King/Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, treated some 118 people for random falling-bullet injuries. Thirty-eight of them died.[SUP][7][/SUP] Kuwaitis celebrating in 1991 at the end of the Gulf War by firing weapons into the air caused 20 deaths from falling bullets.[SUP][7][/SUP]
Firearms expert Julian Hatcher studied falling bullets and found that .30 caliber rounds reach terminal velocities of 300 feet per second (90 m/s) and larger .50 caliber bullets have a terminal velocity of 500 feet per second (150 m/s).[SUP][8][/SUP] A bullet traveling at only 150 feet per second (46 m/s) to 170 feet per second (52 m/s) can penetrate human skin,[SUP][9][/SUP] and at 200 feet per second (60 m/s) it can penetrate the skull.[SUP][10][/SUP] A bullet that does not penetrate the skull may still result in an intracranial injury.[SUP][11][/SUP]
In 2005, the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) ran education campaigns on the dangers of celebratory gunfire in Serbia and Montenegro.[SUP][12][/SUP] In Serbia, the campaign slogan was "every bullet that is fired up, must come down."[SUP][13][/SUP]
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Paul at Fechan
Well-Known Member
Are you joking? it's nothing to do with raw range. My point and obvious concern is that rifle shots of any velocity and calibre whether air rifle or upwards shouldn't be fired into the air at shallow angles where missed shots will land out of sight. How do you know such a shot is 'safe' and playing the risk game is simply irresponsibe.
A projectile doesn't have to travel miles or be travelling particularly fast to cause a serious injury.
Paul at Fechan
Well-Known Member
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AllThingsShooting
Well-Known Member
Surely doesn't common sense prevail...
Can't be bothered to watch the program to see what the fuss is about so I'll pass some uninformed comment anyway!!
Does anyone know how the weight of an airgun pellet compares to an acorn? These seem to fall from trees quite regularly and i'm not aware of any fatalities, having said that, maybe we should petition for all oak trees to be felled as a precaution. It goes without saying that anyone making a TV program that shows acorns falling from trees should be tarred and feathered as this plainly encourages the reckless trees to do it all the more.
Don't even get me started on Horse Chestnuts...these must be five times the weight of an acorn and spikey too. Its these mast bearing trees that give all trees a bad name.
JC
Does anyone know how the weight of an airgun pellet compares to an acorn? These seem to fall from trees quite regularly and i'm not aware of any fatalities, having said that, maybe we should petition for all oak trees to be felled as a precaution. It goes without saying that anyone making a TV program that shows acorns falling from trees should be tarred and feathered as this plainly encourages the reckless trees to do it all the more.
Don't even get me started on Horse Chestnuts...these must be five times the weight of an acorn and spikey too. Its these mast bearing trees that give all trees a bad name.
JC
www.yorkshireroestalking.
Distinguished Member
priceless.
Paul in my younger years I shot 1,000's of ferals and branching rooks. First with a airgun then a rimfire with shorts.
Everyone in the area was under the rookeries in yorkshire doing the same in may.
This still goes on now here. (i no longer have the time or the stomach for this sort of culling, though loved it as a teenager).
how many light planes are shot down here or ramblers killed by falling pellets/bullets.
I think if the shots are striaght up there is no problem, though if you have a prasending/hang glider club near you may have to think harder.LOL
They even used to have proper rook rifles in some very large calibres, sure brit will know more.
Paul at Fechan
Well-Known Member
like I said up and down is fine but those lower angle looping shots, not cool with that
Four pages of, er, 'interesting' comments, and nobody has mentioned the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 S.34 yet? 
Comply with that, check there's a safe backstop (i.e. nobody standing in line with the tree 50 yards away), you're good to go
.
I was out with Mrs TS and her mate about four weeks ago, she and her mate were driving their two ponies in a cart on a byway when we came across a gamekeeper shooting across the byway in front of us, with a .17 HMR, at squirrels 30 feet up into a tree on the other side of the byway, with no backstop. Now THAT'S stupid.
Oh, and when I suggested it might be a bit of a dumb thing to do, he said we didn't have permission to be on the (marked) byway!.........
Comply with that, check there's a safe backstop (i.e. nobody standing in line with the tree 50 yards away), you're good to go
.I was out with Mrs TS and her mate about four weeks ago, she and her mate were driving their two ponies in a cart on a byway when we came across a gamekeeper shooting across the byway in front of us, with a .17 HMR, at squirrels 30 feet up into a tree on the other side of the byway, with no backstop. Now THAT'S stupid
.Oh, and when I suggested it might be a bit of a dumb thing to do, he said we didn't have permission to be on the (marked) byway!.........
matt_hooks
Well-Known Member
What a load of utter uninformed tosh is spouted here sometimes.
"The bullet can only fall at the speed of gravity"....
eh???
"A heavier bullet will fall faster"...
erm...
Look at this scientifically.
A bullet fired at a high angle will have a large vertical component to it's movement vector. This will be acted on by gravity. This will mean that a large proportion of the bullets velocity (and hence energy or "ability to do work" where that work might be for example punching a sizeable hole in your skull) is converted to potential energy, which will then be used to accelerate the bullet towards the ground, against the force of air resistance.
There is only one way that a bullet in flight loses (strictly speaking dissipates) energy, and that is by hitting stuff. If that stuff is molecules of gas in the air then it will lose energy fairly slowly. A high angle shot gives maximum time in the air for the bullet to dissipate the energy imparted in shooting.
The horizontal component is not prone to the effects of gravity, and reduces purely as a function of the friction encountered in passing through the air (aerodynamicists call this "drag")
Sooooo, a bullet fired at a high angle will dissipate more energy than a bullet fired at a low angle, due to the time in the medium.
Now, let's look at "a heavier bullet will fall faster than a lighter bullet.
Not true, not true at all. I'm sure everyone has heard of "ballistic coefficient" (Cb) relating to bullets. This is a measure of how well the bullet retains energy. Part of this is a coefficient of drag (Cd) which tells you how slippery the shape and surface of the bullet is. Now, bigger heavier bullets often have a better Cb due to a smaller ratio of surface area to mass. This often (but not always) means that a heavier bullet will achieve a higher terminal velocity.
Someone quoted a 30 cal round with a terminal velocity of 300 fps. Now your average 30 cal rifle bullet will weigh in the region of 150 grains.
A 150 grain bullet, travelling at 300 fps carries 30 ft.lb of energy, which is ample to penetrate a skull and cause fatal injuries. People die every year by being shot with sub 12 ft.lb air rifles, and the .30 will be carrying 2 1/2 times the energy.
Now, getting back to the original thread. The pellets are being fired at a LOW angle, so a large component of their velocity vector will be horizontal and therefore the arguments about "terminal velocity" are patently incorrect.
The pellet will retain dangerous energy levels for a much greater distance than you might think. A 15 gr .22 pellet with a lowish Bc of .03, starting out at just below the legal limit, will still be carrying 6 ft.lb of energy out past 100 yards.
6 ft.lb is considered the limit of lethality, and is the reason why air pistols are limited to that energy level. Of course they can still do damage at far greater ranges. The pellet may still maintain over 3 ft.lb out to 100 yards.
Now do the same calculations for an FAC running at 30 ft.lb.
I've used a heavier (21 gr Bisley Magnum) pellet for this, as you tend to in FAC rifles. This gives an improved BC of .035.
The pellet carries 12 ft.lb out to 130 yards.
At 240 yards the pellet is still carrying 6 ft.lb.
At 350 yards the energy drops below 3 ft.lb.
A Winchester sub will still be carrying 12 ft.lb at 900 or so yards.
Anyone who believes that "a bullet/pellet fired in the air isn't dangerous" needs to have a rethink.
"The bullet can only fall at the speed of gravity"....
eh???
"A heavier bullet will fall faster"...
erm...
Look at this scientifically.
A bullet fired at a high angle will have a large vertical component to it's movement vector. This will be acted on by gravity. This will mean that a large proportion of the bullets velocity (and hence energy or "ability to do work" where that work might be for example punching a sizeable hole in your skull) is converted to potential energy, which will then be used to accelerate the bullet towards the ground, against the force of air resistance.
There is only one way that a bullet in flight loses (strictly speaking dissipates) energy, and that is by hitting stuff. If that stuff is molecules of gas in the air then it will lose energy fairly slowly. A high angle shot gives maximum time in the air for the bullet to dissipate the energy imparted in shooting.
The horizontal component is not prone to the effects of gravity, and reduces purely as a function of the friction encountered in passing through the air (aerodynamicists call this "drag")
Sooooo, a bullet fired at a high angle will dissipate more energy than a bullet fired at a low angle, due to the time in the medium.
Now, let's look at "a heavier bullet will fall faster than a lighter bullet.
Not true, not true at all. I'm sure everyone has heard of "ballistic coefficient" (Cb) relating to bullets. This is a measure of how well the bullet retains energy. Part of this is a coefficient of drag (Cd) which tells you how slippery the shape and surface of the bullet is. Now, bigger heavier bullets often have a better Cb due to a smaller ratio of surface area to mass. This often (but not always) means that a heavier bullet will achieve a higher terminal velocity.
Someone quoted a 30 cal round with a terminal velocity of 300 fps. Now your average 30 cal rifle bullet will weigh in the region of 150 grains.
A 150 grain bullet, travelling at 300 fps carries 30 ft.lb of energy, which is ample to penetrate a skull and cause fatal injuries. People die every year by being shot with sub 12 ft.lb air rifles, and the .30 will be carrying 2 1/2 times the energy.
Now, getting back to the original thread. The pellets are being fired at a LOW angle, so a large component of their velocity vector will be horizontal and therefore the arguments about "terminal velocity" are patently incorrect.
The pellet will retain dangerous energy levels for a much greater distance than you might think. A 15 gr .22 pellet with a lowish Bc of .03, starting out at just below the legal limit, will still be carrying 6 ft.lb of energy out past 100 yards.
6 ft.lb is considered the limit of lethality, and is the reason why air pistols are limited to that energy level. Of course they can still do damage at far greater ranges. The pellet may still maintain over 3 ft.lb out to 100 yards.
Now do the same calculations for an FAC running at 30 ft.lb.
I've used a heavier (21 gr Bisley Magnum) pellet for this, as you tend to in FAC rifles. This gives an improved BC of .035.
The pellet carries 12 ft.lb out to 130 yards.
At 240 yards the pellet is still carrying 6 ft.lb.
At 350 yards the energy drops below 3 ft.lb.
A Winchester sub will still be carrying 12 ft.lb at 900 or so yards.
Anyone who believes that "a bullet/pellet fired in the air isn't dangerous" needs to have a rethink.
ALL objects in flight are under the influence of gravity - EVEN a bullet in horizontal flight. It is only the energy/velocity of the bullet that enables it to resist the effects for a while.
Any object in free fall (such as a bullet) will only achieve a maximum speed of around 170mph regardless of the bullets weight/mass, or even the height that it descends from.
Any object in free fall (such as a bullet) will only achieve a maximum speed of around 170mph regardless of the bullets weight/mass, or even the height that it descends from.
,,,what,,are you supposed to just let them sit there??...Matt a object fired vertically in the air cannot increase it's velocity after reaching it's apex, and a heavier bullet will have a greater mass not a greater speed. Now a bullet fired at a angle is different matter as it's velocity decreases then it will fall at a greater speed than gravity, but at sometime if fired high enough it will fall to the ground at the speed of gravity.
matt_hooks
Well-Known Member
Teabag, absolutely true that all objects in flight are under the influence of gravity. The difference is in how MUCH of the initial velocity is susceptible to the effects of gravity.
I'm afraid your assertion regarding terminal velocity is incorrect. A streamlined object will achieve a far higher terminal velocity than a non-streamlined one. A bloke free-falling has a much higher terminal velocity than a bloke falling under a parachute n'est ce pas?
Energy and velocity are two very different concepts and can't be lumped together. Sure, for a fixed mass, the energy is linked to the speed (not necessarily the velocity) of the bullet, but the terms are NOT interchangeable.
And Taff, yes, it's true that a bullet cannot increase it's velocity after reaching apex, as long as you follow the convention that up is positive. It CAN however increase it's speed.
By definition, in a fixed gravity situation, a greater mass equals a greater weight. That's a trivial and meaningless point. A heavier object MAY achieve a higher terminal velocity depending on the coefficient of drag and the cross sectional area of the item. Then again it might not achieve a greater terminal velocity. A screwed up tissue falls faster than a flat sheet of A4, even though the tissue weighs less.
Please stop using "speed of gravity". It's completely meaningless.
I'm afraid your assertion regarding terminal velocity is incorrect. A streamlined object will achieve a far higher terminal velocity than a non-streamlined one. A bloke free-falling has a much higher terminal velocity than a bloke falling under a parachute n'est ce pas?
Energy and velocity are two very different concepts and can't be lumped together. Sure, for a fixed mass, the energy is linked to the speed (not necessarily the velocity) of the bullet, but the terms are NOT interchangeable.
And Taff, yes, it's true that a bullet cannot increase it's velocity after reaching apex, as long as you follow the convention that up is positive. It CAN however increase it's speed.
By definition, in a fixed gravity situation, a greater mass equals a greater weight. That's a trivial and meaningless point. A heavier object MAY achieve a higher terminal velocity depending on the coefficient of drag and the cross sectional area of the item. Then again it might not achieve a greater terminal velocity. A screwed up tissue falls faster than a flat sheet of A4, even though the tissue weighs less.
Please stop using "speed of gravity". It's completely meaningless.
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