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echo: guns
to: DAVID R. NORTON
from: VERN HUMPHREY
date: 1996-05-15 06:43:00
subject: Re: .22 Rifle

DRN> GB> Are you familiar with the concept of 'terminal velocity' as applied
DRN> GB> to objects falling in an atmosphere?
DRN> I don't think a bullet will go high enough to fall far enough to reach
DRN> terminal velocity, if it did the calculations would be real easy,
DRN> wouldn't they!
It depends -- I've stood under a tree and had Number 6 shot rain down
through the leaves, where someone else had shot at a squirrel only about
a hundred yards away.  Those Number 6s had reached terminal velocity
rather quickly.
A quick rule of thumb is this -- for equal shapes, drag increases with
the cross section (i.e., with the square) while momentum increases with
the mass -- which is directly proportionate to the volume (i.e., the
cube.)
So if a given projectile has a known terminal velocity of, say 500 fps,
a projectile of equal shape, but twice the diameter would have a
terminal velocity of 1,000 fps (the cube divided by the square, with the
diameter of the smaller projectile being 1.)
Let's say these Number 6s had a terminal velocity of 50 fps.  A
spherical projectile 10 with times the diameter of a Number 6 would have
a terminal velocity of about 500 fps.
Of course, when the terminal velocity is near or above the speed of
sound, this rule no longer holds.
--- PCBoard (R) v15.21/M 2
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* Origin: LGC-BBS - ON*TARGET Communications (1:271/145)

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