http://www.logicsouth.com/~lcoble/dir5/xd.txt
X. Miscellaneous
D. Hatcher's Notebook on Falling Bullets
typed by Norm Johnson (
[email protected])
From Hatcher's Notebook:
"Among the many experiments carried out at Miami and Daytona, was this same one of vertical firing. It was desired to find out how fast a bullet returned to earth and how dangerous such a bullet would be if it struck a soldier after dropping from a great height. Many interesting things were learned from this test, and they are given in detail in the "Official Report of Vertical Time Flight for Small Arms Ammunition," in the files of the Ordnance Department. Much of the information given below is from that source.
"At Miami the firing was done from a platform built in the shal- low water of a protected inlet, where water was often calm. A frame was built to hold a machine gun tripod so that the barrel pointed vertically. Instruments were provided to check the angle of the barrel, and the tripod controls permitted any necessary changes in the barrel inclination to be made with ease and preci- sion.
"Out of more than 500 shots fired after adjusting the gun--only four shots hit the platform. One of the shots was a service 30.06, 150 grain flat based bullet, which came down base first...it left a mark about 1/16 inch deep in the soft pine board.
"Two more bullets struck in a pail of water and left only a perceptible dent in the bottom of the pail. One struck the edge of the thwart (seat across a boat, used by an oarsman) in the boat, and left a shallow indent...The last two bullets were 175 grain boat-tailed.
"It was concluded from these tests that the return velocity was about 300 feet per second. With the 150 grain bullet, this corresponds to an energy of 30 foot pounds. Previously, the army had decided that on the average, an energy of 60 foot pounds is required to produce a disabling wound. Thus, service bullets returning from extreme heights cannot be considered lethal by this standard.
"Most .30 caliber bullets seem to attain this final velocity, and it doesn't make any difference how far they fall. Even if a bullet was fired downward from a very high plane, it would still reach the ground at the same velocity. That is because the resistance increases very rapidly with increases in air speed. If the air resists the motion of the bullet a certain amount at 300 feet per second, it will resist three times as much at 600 feet per second and nearly nine times as much at 1000 feet per second.
"A 150 grain bullet weights .021 pounds, and when, in falling, it reaches a velocity where the air resistance balances the weight, the velocity of the fall will no longer increase.
"For a .30 caliber bullet of standard experimental shape, having a pointed nose of two caliber radius, the air resistance on the nose at 2700 fps. would be about 2.3 pounds; at 2000 fps. 1.5 pounds; at 1500 fps. .89 pounds; at 1000 fps. .17 pounds; at 500 fps. .04 pounds; at 350 fps. .025 pounds; at 320 fps. .021 pounds, balancing the weight of the bullet and stopping any further increase in velocity in the case of a falling bullet."
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This supports the observations of those who wrote during WW2, that after a heavy battle, a number of bullets were found slight- ly embedded in tar rooftops, all pointed towards the sky.
God Bless!
Norm
http://www.kpho.com/Global/story.asp?S=1648055
By ERIC TALMADGE,
Associated Press Writer
Mon Feb 16, SAMAWAH, Iraq - Eight-year-old Zehra Kadhum was outside near her family's garage playing, when she saw her parents kneel to pray. As she bent down to join them, she felt a sharp pain.
"I thought my sister had kicked me," she said from her hospital bed Sunday. "But I was bleeding and I heard my family shouting and my mother was crying."
Zehra had been hit in the back by a bullet dropping out of the sky.
Like many places throughout Iraq (news - web sites), there is a gun in virtually every household in this desert city, some 230 miles southeast of Baghdad. The sound of weapons — from AK-47 rifles to small-caliber pistols — is as much a part of the evening din as is the chanting of the daily prayers.
Along with offering protection in an unstable country, the guns are a means of self-expression. Men fire off shots to celebrate, to mark funerals or just to beat the monotony of life in the country.
But so many shots are fired that the returning rain of bullets — not stray rounds, but bullets simply falling back to earth — sends an average of one or more people to the hospital each month.
"It's terrible, the governing council in Baghdad has to do something about this situation," said Dr. Ali al Azawi, who removed the bullet from Zehra at Samawah General Hospital last week.
The girl is in stable condition.
"We suffer from this especially here in the south, because everybody has weapons in their house," he said. "It is especially unforgivable at this time, when we lack medicine and health care."
It's easy to get a gun in Samawah.
Ghazi Fahid Wali, who runs one of the many small gun shops here, said he sells from two to four weapons a month, mostly machine guns, but also pistols and old hunting rifles. A Kalishnikov automatic rifle goes for about US$110, he said.
"Among Arabs, we believe that if a person owns a gun nobody will harm him," he said. "Looters will stay away, troublemakers will stay away."
Wali said he had heard of several incidents in which people in town had been injured by falling bullets, most often around especially festive times.
But he wasn't particularly concerned.
"It happens," he said with a shrug.
"Bullets fired into the air can climb as high as two miles before plummeting to the earth at speeds of 300 to 500 feet per second. A speed of 200 feet per second is sufficient to break bone and penetrate the skull, according to a 1995 study by Martin Luther King/Drew Medical Center."
Source: KABC News
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/news/123002_nw_gun_fire.html <<-deadlink
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a950414b.html
Datum 3. Still, the question isn't how many people get injured or killed by falling bullets, it's whether such things are possible at all. On further investigation, it appears the 60 foot-pound injury threshold cited by Hatcher may be misleading--a falling bullet's kinetic energy (foot pounds) alone is not a good predictor of the speed it needs to inflict a wound. B. N. Mattoo (Journal of Forensic Sciences, 1984) has proposed an equation relating mass and bullet diameter that seems to do a better job. Experiments on cadavers and such have shown, for example, that a .38 caliber revolver bullet will perforate the skin and lodge in the underlying tissue at 191 feet per second and that triple-ought buckshot will do so at 213 feet per second.
Mattoo's equation predicts that Hatcher's .30 caliber bullet, which has a small diameter in relation to its weight, will perforate the skin at only 124 feet per second. It's easy to believe that such a bullet falling at 300 feet per second could kill you, especially if it struck you in the head. In fact, maybe I need to rethink my dismissive comments about the danger of throwing a penny off the Empire State Building, although I still think the penny's tumbling in the updrafts would render it harmless.
So, Middle Eastern men, gang bangers, etc., listen up! It has been scientifically shown that firing guns into the air for entertainment is not a good idea. Please stop right away. Also knock off with the holy wars and random violence. Thank you.
--CECIL ADAMS
Something that may or may not have been brought up.
Folks seldom shoot straight up - but rather towrads the sky - so the bullet describes an arc, and is travelling fast enough to hurt someone a couple miles away.
As a few threads I looked up pointed out - the many coroners reports would seem to indicate that stray bullets can and do kill people.