What you're saying is that a bullet will fall less than usual at a given distance. I agree that that may be the case. However, what @Sharpie actually said is that a bullet will rise, not fall. That doesn't sound possible to me.I took the 'rise' to mean that the bullet would impact higher than normal.
So if your bullet (rifle zeroed at 100m) would normally drop 4" at 200m, in the conditions discussed, the bullet would impact say 1" higher than normal (only dropping 3" from the 100m zero), so 'rise'. This would be noticeable if you dialled your scope up, or aimed off, then found the impact was indeed higher than expected on the target.
Does heavy rain effect a bullet
- Thread starter mike308
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Foxyboy43
Well-Known Member
After reading the many hypotheses theories guesses alternative views arguments since the original post, should any remaining doubt still linger (wot?) may I suggest just waiting for the rain to go off or dare I say it, narrowing the distance to a point where even heavy snow would not impact on the flight of said bullet. Of course in that latter scenario you probably couldn’t see the beast err, or could you………
It doesn't, it is a crap shooters favourite excuse. Try it for yourself. I have deliberately shot bullets through thick grass to test the effects and still hit the target.
There is also a shockwave/raised pressure in front of the bullet which is gong to deflect raindrops so impact is unlikely. Even if it did, so what. A tiny amount of denser atmosphere is not going to have an appreciable effect on the overall flight of the bullet. It's downward vector is irrelevant in comparison to the bullets vector
not that you could account for , however a wet bore or chamber will significantly raise pressure in your firearm and is a very real risk in a proper downpour
levigsp
Well-Known Member
best and true answer
Short answer? No.
All three of your assertions are incorrect. However I don't expect to convince you otherwise. Though I do agree that hitting a raindrop is highly improbable, and even if it did happen, unlikely to have any observable effect.
However I have also experimented with shooting through grass, stems, leaves, twigs and small branches, using a 223. Which were significantly deflected, when I managed to hit them, not so easy when you are trying to do it. . Also a big round straw bale which I expected to stop the bullet. It did not. Straight through and out again as if nothing in-between.
Once a guide was annoyed when I declined a shot, I didn't consider there was any backstop. He said that the "thick hedge" (A shabby scrubby neglected thing, full of gaps as well) behind was fine. I thought not, flat land, the hedge was on the boundary and anybody, unseen, could have been e.g. walking their dog on the other side. As was quite common around there. First and last time out with him.
Not being willing to wreck my chronograph in the rain my
response is conjecture, no it won't and having shot for record in tropical storm conditions no elevation changes were seen, windage was another matter.
I have seen bullets deflect in grass and weeds many times, hit the target now and then, often not, never
where directed always a deflection.
Smellydog
Well-Known Member
Witnessed it myself.
Call me a liar if you wish and I admire your black and white prognosis but if there is one thing in 40years of shooting that has become my mantra.... assume nothing!
Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.
I’ve shot things through grass no problem. I’ve also seen bullets wander well off target after hitting grass.
I think that where it hits makes a difference. Close to the target - not much of an effect. Close to the muzzle - can be a noticeable effect.
Rain - never seen anything that indicates it’s a problem, but willing to believe that IF a bullet hit a drop near the muzzle, and the shot was reasonably long, it might cause a problem.
I don’t think that is very plausible. The shockwave in front of a bullet can’t extend more than a millimetre. I don’t think it can accelerate raindrops to the supersonic speeds necessary to deflect over a millimetre or so. The rest of the comment, I agree with.
Pish.
You obviously don't have any idea about Newton''s third law. Nor even conservation of momentum.
A bullet hitting a raindrop is not like a bullet hitting a house brick. Such talk is utterly delusional. even if you believe that, what are you trying to say ?
That shooting in the rain is as random as shooting through a a curtain of falling house bricks ?
I don't think so. Please explain more clearly what you might be suggesting.
Or, I have got this completely the wrong way, and you are agreeing that it matters not, and naysayers are the delusional fools. With which I would agree. Which is it ?
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Swedish
Well-Known Member
The following vid is quite interesting, but obviously it's a controlled and 'perfect' environment to ensure a bullet does actually collide with a drop of rain. In reality the chances of hitting a raindrop are slim but nevertheless it can and does happen occasionally. A raindrop has mass and when a bullet collides with it at 1800mph then Newtons 3rd law does come into play. The reactionary forces though are obviously quite complex due to the shape of the bullet, the nature of the raindrop and the point of collision.
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Head/tail wind effects on bullet speed are minimal, particularly at stalking distances. 20mph is about 30fps...
IMO, the main risk with strong head/tail winds is that a very small change in wind angle can have a major effect on wind drift.
I have never experienced a point of impact change when shooting through rain - most of my rain shooting has been during F class matches, where effects tend to show up clearly. The main exception is when water gets into your chamber, normally through wet ammo. This can cause pressure spikes and a heavy bolt lift, which does seem to have a small impact on the target... but not that would make a difference at stalking distances.
IMO, the main risk with strong head/tail winds is that a very small change in wind angle can have a major effect on wind drift.
I have never experienced a point of impact change when shooting through rain - most of my rain shooting has been during F class matches, where effects tend to show up clearly. The main exception is when water gets into your chamber, normally through wet ammo. This can cause pressure spikes and a heavy bolt lift, which does seem to have a small impact on the target... but not that would make a difference at stalking distances.
I concur.
That is an unbelievably bad copy of an otherwise mildly interesting vid (look for the original). The poster didn't even bother to hide that they had pointed their 'phone or whatever at their screen, then uploaded it for sh..ts and giggles.
Dribbling water out of a sort of shower head in no way represents what real raindrops usually are. The dynamics of falling through the atmosphere limit their maximum size to no more than 4mm diameter. Usually they break apart into much smaller drops long before then. Under exceptional circumstances they can be repeatedly lifted back into the clouds from where they initially condensed and become larger, even turn into frozen hailstones (don't try shooting in a hailstorm, I'd suggest).
So, lets say the biggest raindrop to be realistically expected, might be 2mm in diameter. Radius 1mm. Thus/therefore having a volume of about 4 cubic millimetres, so weighing about 4 milligrams (or about 0.06 grains, in old money).
No, you are quite wrong about that. A brick weighs about 3 kg. A raindrop about one millionth of that. Even then, this assumes that the bullet splats the raindrop off-axis, so inducing some yaw. If the bullet is on the margin of stability already, yes, it could significantly deflect it. If however the bullet is coasting along, nicely stable, I would expect it to shrug it off.
Yet again, you seem to misquote me.
As to most shooting scenarios, bullets do first of all rise, then fall. The barrel is not horizontal, but tilted upwards. Otherwise the sighting arrangement would be useless, no better than a boresight squint down the barrel, maybe with the tired old "adjust it to 1" high at 100 yards and you are set to go, point and shoot", etc. etc.
They start off travelling upwards, and then gravity drops them. The key thing being that the point of aim should coincide with the point of impact, or near enough, over the set distance. Or whatever the 'scope might have been adjusted to using e.g. a ballistic turret and some knowledge of the the external ballistics.
Shooting downhill is a different matter, but the same exterior ballistic things still apply.
Fundamentally, if the atmospheric conditions deviate from whatever standard, so will the bullet's trajectory. Higher or lower, or several other second, third or more order effects.
Stalkers, shooting at UK distances, can pretty much ignore this, apart from the shooting uphill or downhill part, and forget about the supposed effects of rain. However wind is a very big thing once pushing distance a bit further. As also is air pressure and temperature, and to a lesser extent humidity. Some just don't get wind, how to judge it, how to offset it, this is where a bit of target shooting at extended ranges can help build experience.
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Not at all. In post #11 you said this:
and that's what I've been quoting.
It makes no sense that a bullet that would normally be falling would suddenly rise due to a change in atmospheric pressure. It defies gravity and it defies ballistics. A bullet does not "rise" at any point in it's flight. It is fired on an inclined plane (relative to the line of sight), and is falling away from its original line of flight from the moment it leaves the barrel. It may fall less quickly than usual due to a change in atmospheric pressure, resulting in the POI being higher than usual, but it is falling nonetheless, never rising.
I don't think you have yet grasped it.
In your simple World view you think that everything falls down. Which I suppose is mostly correct. But not regarding real shooty stuff, of which rifles are the probably the simplest to understand.
Fundamentals, to expect to hit anything, generally you shoot upwards, then the bullet falls down again until it hits what you are aiming at. The crossover between where the bullet (or other projectile) is on a rising trajectory, and then descending, is pure external ballistics. Mostly.
It gets more interesting when looking at artillery, mortars, guided munitions, even supposedly simple things like lobbing iron bombs precisely (yes lobbing a bomb, from a "delivery platform" is a very precise and well understood business). If you don't understand what I mean by "lobbing", well you chuck it upwards, rising, a bit like you might do to serve a tennis ball. Then it falls down to where you want it to hit, a lot of calculations go on in-between to assure that this mostly works as hoped for.
Yes, I know all that, but that's not what you originally said. Your original statement made no sense at all.
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