How stupid can people be?

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Episode 50: Bullets Fired Up
Adam and Jamie set out to solve another high caliber conundrum: Can celebratory gunfire kill when the bullets fall back to earth? With the help of some dead pigs, they worked out the terminal velocity of a falling bullet ... and the results may sting you! Meanwhile, Grant, Tori and Kari quench their thirst with another round of "Vodka Myths."

ahh forget it I can't remeber
 
aha! found it it can be lethal

The "all of the above" ruling on the bullets fired into the air myth was a new one for MythBusters. All of their tests showed that if you fire a bullet perfectly straight up into the air, it will not kill you as it will fall down on its side and have too low of a terminal velocity to kill, much like the Penny Drop myth. However, it is very difficult to fire perfectly straight into the air and they even found an international expert in falling bullets who was able to confirm for them that people have died from bullets fired up into the air
 
how many realize objects shot skyward come back down with near equal force?
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Where did you get that idea? Objects fall at their terminal velocity, which is considerably less than muzzle velocity. For standard rifle or handgun bullets that's about enough to raise a welt. You run into problems when you fire bullets at an angle and they maintain ballistic trajectory and a greater velocity than terminal. Into the ground is fine, and straight up isn't going to hurt anything. It's the angles in between that give rise to problems.

As far as this case, why not go over to ask the guy if he's shooting live ammo or blanks? If live, show him how to pull the shot.
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Cosmoline is correct. A bullet is fired with a gun powder blast serving as its propellant and travels through (if a pistol or rifle) a rifled tube which spins the bullet as it is projected upwards resulting is a very areodynamic path upward. As it travel up it is being acted upon by gravity until it reaches its zero velocity point. Then it begins to decend with gravity now acting as its accellerent. A notible difference is that, unlike when the bullet was shot upwards through the rifled barrel, now it tumbles as it falls on its downward path making it much less aerodynamic and now more affected by air resistance. As Cosmoline said, it will continue to accelerate downward against air resistance until it reaches its terminal velocity (my guess is between 160mph and 180mph). The force this has could still be enough to cause some injury if it is a large enough projectile. However, small bird shot would be more like hail falling (which actually falls from a much greater altitude that the shot will reach).
 
so if you had a baby laying on its back it would be ok for said pellets from a shotgun to land in its face?
 
so if you had a baby laying on its back it would be ok for said pellets from a shotgun to land in its face?
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Probably...though it's generally not a good idea to leave your baby laying around in the yard. :neener: Comparing bird shot to hail is a very good example...they're basically the same thing. The only hail that kills people is golfball sized or bigger. I wouldn't leave a baby in a hailstorm either...but that doesn't mean anything bad will happen.

Sure, the right bullet fired at the right trajectory could hit someone and kill them, but honestly, what are the chances of that? How often does it really happen? There are thousands, if not millions of americans shooting bullets into the air tonight. I'll bet $100 nobody has to go to the hospital because of it. If you're scared of that then you need to be 100 times more scared of the freeway. People die there every day.
 
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zen21tao

Objects fall according to their highest tractectory. That's why comets and meteors are a threat to this planet. As the old saying goes, the taller they are, the harder they fall. High school physics makes this obvious, as did Newton and the apple. Where were you when the ducks were falling? Learn about falling bodies to truely appreciate the 4th of July and New Year's Eve. Your contention spells out the ignorance some believe about wayward missles. We need to teach our children; if we don't future generations will continue to be misinformed, as are you.

Happy New Years!

wb
 
Ballistics and physics aside, I don't want myself, my family, my house, or my vehicles to get hit with any lead projectile going 160+mph tonight. That's like getting whacked in the shoulder with a riccochet and some guy you don't know going "don't worry dude, it's just a .22".
 
Pitty-patter-pit-pat

The-Fly

dumb question: if you using a real small shot, like #8 or #9, how much of a danger is that coming back down?
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Not such a dumb question. I've done it on a number of occasions, usually to demonstrate time of flight. Sounds like rain falling through the trees. Occasionally hits my nearby vehicle. Zero damage.

wildburp

Yes, everyone knows what goes up must come down, but how many realize objects shot skyward come back down with near equal force?
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Not really. Sorta depends on the weight of the projectile and whether you are firing upwards in a vacuum. In air, a .30-06 fired vertically at a velocity of around 2700 fps has a return terminal velocity of about 300 fps more or less. Cosmoline is right.

Hatcher's Notebook has a whole chapter on this subject.

For those having interest, and a crying need to go bang on 01 Januarys or 04 Julys I discovered a long time ago that about 1/2 to 2/3 of a case full of Unique or Bullseye in a bottlenecked rifle case makes a grand blank. No wadding or case crimping needed. And what a brilliant white flash! And pressures, as judged from the primers, are very much lower than a bulleted round. I did this routinely on 04 Julys when I lived in the outskirts.

Having said all that I offer the disclaimer that I agree that firing air-ward in anything like a populated area with a bulleted round is the height of stupidity... although I've done it on the Pawnee National Grasslands with a .357. Took several shots to get it to come down close enough to hear it falling and strike the ground. Made sort of an ululating whirring sound as if it were tumbling and then a faint plop.

But that was when I was young and foolish and immortal.

As opposed to now, when I am old and foolish.
 
Objects fall according to their highest tractectory. That's why comets and meteors are a threat to this planet.
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Objects inside the atmosphere are retarded by the force of air resistance which places a top limit on what speed gravity can accelerate them to. Objects which started their "fall" from outside the atmosphere can attain much higher velocities.
High school physics makes this obvious...
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The problem with high school physics is that people remember the simplified equations and information but forget that they're simplified. As the old saying goes, it's just enough information to be dangerous.

chipp,

The Mythbusters episode had some good information and some not so good information. Their experiment showed that 9mm pistol bullets tumble and therefore have a terminal velocity of around 150fps which is pretty low to be dangerous. It would certainly hurt badly and probably cause a minor injury but would be VERY unlikely to cause a fatality. They never recovered a FIRED rifle bullet so they assumed it would tumble too. The problem is that they didn't research enough--the data collected by Hatcher indicates that at least some rifle bullets remain stabilized and fall base first. Since a bullet falling base first is much more aerodynamic than one that falls while tumbling, one could expect a much higher terminal velocity. Hatcher calculated around 300fps. Now we're getting into the range where a lucky hit could cause damage.

Falling birdshot is not going to be dangerous unless you catch one directly in the eye. The terminal velocity is much lower than a tumbling 9mm bullet. Think of it as sleet or very small hail. It might sting, but unless you happen to be staring up into the sky at the wrong moment, you're not going to be harmed.

AGAIN, I am NOT advocating shooting firearms of any kind into the air at random. I'm just pointing out that a shotgun (unless loaded with slugs or very heavy shot) is not dangerous in this scenario. That (and the difficulty level) is why people shoot skeet and birds with shotguns instead of rifles. Shot is not dangerous when it falls back to earth. Even if the trajectory is more depressed (shot upwards at an angle instead of straight up), shotgun pellets are generally considered to be harmless at 400 yards or so from the muzzle while rifle bullets can be deadly for miles.
 
STOP FIRING! There are BABIES LYING in the YARDS at MIDNIGHT!
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OMG!

I had no idea. :uhoh:

<respositions shotgun at low ready>

AGAIN, I am NOT advocating shooting firearms of any kind into the air at random.
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Me either, of course. But this is an interesting lesson in physics,
and way more interesting than most NYE parties I was invited to.

Happy New Year
<here only 13 minutes from now>
__________

This thread supports my hypothesis:
THR members are a bunch of social misfits:
It's new years eve, and we're here posting instead of toasting. :p

Mea culpa, of course. :uhoh:

:D
 
Objects fall according to their highest tractectory. That's why comets and meteors are a threat to this planet. As the old saying goes, the taller they are, the harder they fall. High school physics makes this obvious, as did Newton and the apple. Where were you when the ducks were falling? Learn about falling bodies to truely appreciate the 4th of July and New Year's Eve. Your contention spells out the ignorance some believe about wayward missles. We need to teach our children; if we don't future generations will continue to be misinformed, as are you.

Happy New Years!
Click to expand...

I don't want to hijack this thread with a scientific argument but I am very familure with falling object. I happen to have a BS in Physic from UF. Altitude does matter in that it determines the amount of time an object has to fall and thus experience acceleration. Yes, the greater the change in distance the object covers the greater the velocity will be but that is only to the extent that the objects terminal velocity is met. Once an object is allowed to reach its terminal velocity that is the fastest it will fall. If two identical sized bullets are fired upwards, one reaching a higher altitude distance than the other before they both fall and the both reach the same terminal velocity on their downward path, they will both impact with the same force as they both will have the same velocity upon impact.

As for comets and meteors, they enter the earths atmosphere already being propelled to much greater velocities than they would reach being propelled by gravity alone as if they were droppend from a high altitude. That would be like shooting a gun off a high building towards the ground and claiming that a bullet simply dropped from that same hight would have the same impact.
 
My Man...this isnt even the dumbest thing Ive seen someone do TODAY...the stupidity of people KNOWS NO BOUNDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The only part of the above that has changed is my response to the above statement. Im a bit more cynical now.
BTW...sub zero Jaeger is the way to go on new years...HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!
 
Ok, poked around and found the formula for terminal velocity, the drag coefficient to run the formula for a sphere, the density of lead sphere and ran the numbers for various shot sizes to find the kinetic energy of the pellets when they are at terminal velocity.

There's a good bit of slop in the drag coefficient, but the bottom line is:

1. Don't shoot buckshot into the air. It may not be lethal but it's gonna do more than sting when it comes back down.

2. Don't worry about shooting birdshot (#6 or smaller) into the air but realize that this could conceivably cause injury if it hits someone right in the eye. In other words, the rules about not shooting firearms in populated area are a good idea. (I hope that's not a big surprise to anyone).

You don't have to run the numbers to realize that slugs definitely have the potential to be fatal.
 
2. Don't worry about shooting birdshot (#6 or smaller) into the air
but realize that this could conceivably cause injury if it hits someone right in the eye.
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Corollary 2A: When the fireworks are going off, don't look up!
 
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i guess

all the amatuer physicists and the one semi pro with "the bs in physics" never saw the pics i the thread where the guy has the rifle bullet through his foot that he picked up sitting at the go cart track. looked like it smarted a bit.
 
Nothing (?) to worry about? I don't think so!

“Don't worry about shooting birdshot (#6 or smaller) into the air but realize that this could conceivably cause injury if it hits someone right in the eye.” --JohnKSa

I wouldn’t put it quite like that. My brother and some of his idiot friends made a game of this sort of thing. Firing at a high angle with the intention of raining birdshot on each other. No one got hurt but it generally left lead spawling on blue steel. They thought it was funny until someones $4,ooo.oo shot gun was seriously disfigured.

If I saw my neighbor fire a gun of any kind and then saw an impact on my vehicle or anyone else, whether it was birdshot or a .45-70 slug, I would be knocking on his door with a uniformed officer in tow.

It’s illegal to discharge a weapon in city limits for very good reasons.
}:)>
 
blaaablaaablaaa sand in the vaginas everywhere in this thread :rolleyes:
terminal velocity this and babies in the backyard and whatever. The point is:

Discharging a firearm in the air in retarded for any reason unless its an emergency or there is a target at the receiving end. Come on, its basic gun safety. Follow the basic rules and expect the same of others, if not sell your guns so I don't have to worry about being accidentally shot by you.

Do not point your weapon at anything you do not intend to destroy
you gonna destroy the sky or something?
know your target and what is beyond it
what is your target? :confused:

Don't be dumb and stop trying to justify stupidity.
 
great!

"Don't be dumb and stop trying to justify stupidity."

that says it all!


of course you need to remember that for some folks this gross infringement on their constitutional rights is just the first step in a secret plot by an evil government to enslave them
 
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has limits.


There's no assurance that the Einstein who fired the shotgun had the gun vertical at the time of the shot.

I've been peppered by shot when pheasant hunting, at least until I stopped going on opening weekend. I wasn't hurt, but I considered it a very big deal, and made my feelings clearly known.
 
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