Max Altitude Rifle Bullet?

[bluetopper]

Best guess.
If you shot a common, modern caliber rifle cartridge bullet straight up in the air, how high would the bullet go? I know there are slight variables in accordance to caliber but you all know what I mean.

 

[fireman 9731]

I have often wondered the same thing. As a kid, my friends and I would shoot BB guns straight up into the air and wait for them to come back to earth. We still have all of our eyes, but my buddy did crack his dad's windshield when a BB came back down and landed on it.

Seems like it took at least 10 seconds after the shot to hear it bounce off the barn roof or splash in the pond. That was with a Red Rider.

Edited to add: I found this which is very interesting: http://www.exteriorballistics.com/ebexplained/5th/37.cfm

The lowly 45acp can travel 8/10ths of a mile vertically, a 300 Magnum over 2 miles!

 

[Load Master]

Ballistic Calculator LINK

One other good LINK

 

[4thPointOfContact]

http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2006/04/episode_50_bullets_fired_up_vo_1.html

Based on the failure of the ballistics gel experiment, they used a computer simulation program to calculate how high the bullets would travel up into the air. The calculations:

.30-06 10,000 ft 58 seconds
9mm 4,000 ft, 37 seconds

 

[444]

Sort of off topic but...................

I used to shoot a match where you shot at steel plates out to 800 yards using milsurp rifles, as issued. The match was out in the middle of no-where and if you got there the day before the match, you could shoot as much as you wanted to at the targets used in the match.

I was trying to get my sight dope for the 800 yard stage but I didn't have a spotter (everybody was shooting). So, I started firing tracer out of my M1 at the 800 yard plates (this was not an issue, nobody cared and most people at some point shot some tracer at something during the weekend which is why I had it with me). I was amazed at how high the bullets arced on the way to the target. I had no way of measuring it but it was WAY higher than I ever imagined.

Again, I realize this isn't what you were asking about but I found this very interesting. I believe at the time, I found a website that told the highest point of the arc at various ranges for various rifle calibers.

 

[lysanderxiii]

British and German testing of .303 Mk VII and 7.92mm S Patrone, respectively, both yielded similar results.

The bullets topped out at approximately 9,000 feet and took about 19 seconds to reach maximum altitude, with a total flight time of about 55 seconds.

Hatcher's experiments along the same lines did not attempt to calculate or measure the maximum altitude, merely how dangerous the bullets would be falling from the sky, however, the total time of flight was in line with the British and German results.

And yes, ricochets can gain altitude

 

[LoneGoose]

Lysander, that picture reminds me of the night I was in Kosovo (before the real shooting began) and Serbia won a soccer championship. Full auto AK fire erupted in the neighborhood (celebration firing) and a few of us stepped outside to watch the tracers streaming into the night sky. Until our security guy came to the door and said, "What goes up will come down." We all scrambled back inside.

 

[Goosey]

According to Lapua drag files:

.22 LR = 3,100 ft (40 LRN, 1073 fps)
.223 Rem = 4,900 ft (55 FMJ, 2887 fps)
.308 Win = 7,500 ft (150 Lock Base, 2789 fps)
.308 Win = 9,900 ft (175 Scenar-L, 2625 fps)
.338 Lapua = 12,700 ft (250 Lock Base, 2952 fps)
.50 BMG = 15,100 ft (750 Bullex-N, 2789 fps)

 

[RecoilRob]

Hatcher did this testing during the War: https://archive.org/stream/Hatchers_Notebook/Hatchers_Notebook_djvu.txt

I think the answers are in there somewhere...but I just spent a couple minutes looking for it (third chapter according to what I read in the first section) and couldn't find the definitive answer. Memory says it was something around 10,000ft for 30 caliber and 12,000 for 50...but that might not be right...though it'll be pretty close.

 

[Hardtarget]

This is very interesting. All numbers are a little more than I expected...especially the pistol calibers!

Makes you think about shooting into the air!

Mark

 

[rodregier]

Mythbusters also did testing for pistol projectile danger after they fell back to earth.

 

[MachIVshooter]

Most of those numbers are about what I'd have guessed for mid bore high powered rifles; 2 miles, give or take. A little surprised that the 5.56 doesn't quite hit a mile, while the .50 does almost 3, though.

Mythbusters also did testing for pistol projectile danger after they fell back to earth

I seem to remember they could never get it to land where they wanted...

Bullets falling back to earth from true vertical trajectory are obviously dangerous, but terminal velocity is generally too low to be lethal until you get into the big boomers, as they'll tend to tumble or fall base first, creating a relatively high drag coefficient. Just a little bit of angle, however, changes things dramatically.