How High do bullets go in their flight trajectory

[flylo]

I shoot golf balls on cord & 1.5" high steel eggs with 22lr subsonic at 300 yards for practice & the bullet goes 12' high.

 

[Mram10us]

I am schooled by wind every time I shoot at 800+

 

[JustMe2]

Carstenbo, you said you are new to LR shooting, but I feel you are over thinking this problem. If you are trying to shoot through a small hole suspended 500 feet above the ground, your question may be valid. Practically speaking however, the wind will change numerous times over the length of one mile changing speed and DIRECTION. You will never be able to calculate it precisely because it changes every few seconds. This is why you calculate the ballistics to something close, shoot your calculation, see the impact, and adjust your aim point within 10 seconds. After 10 seconds, everything has changed and you need to start your adjustments over again.

 

[Carstenbo]

Thanks for good reply.
Im new to elr not lr.
Shooting 2000 meter give Max ordinate 31 meter. Roughly 60feet to one mile. With good hits.
But shooting 2miles. How High does the bullet go?
We have talked about using weaterbalons and windflags to learn to read Wind. Shooting 338lm

 

[browndcm]

Hi. This is my first post here. Like to shoot lr and starting on elr.
how to calculate how High a bullet fly on its Way to the Target. We fight and measure Wind at the Ground or near. But perhaps the Wind is stronger on lets sat 100 feet when we shoot atthe mile or longer distance. So is the a Way to calculate how High a bullet go on its path to the Target

It's a complicated calculation, when your bullet leaving the muzzle it is pulled down by gravity at 32.2 ft/sec
If your barrel is 3ft above the ground and you can manage to drop a bullet at the exact same time your bullet leaves the barrel when the bullet you dropped his the ground so will the bullet leaving your barrel
The drop to the distance to your target Is all you need to be concerned with
Then you have to cope the wind which is tricky and luck
Also whether you are shooting uphill or downhill
Good luck

 

[Mram10us]

It's a complicated calculation, when your bullet leaving the muzzle it is pulled down by gravity at 32.2 ft/sec
If your barrel is 3ft above the ground and you can manage to drop a bullet at the exact same time your bullet leaves the barrel when the bullet you dropped his the ground so will the bullet leaving your barrel
The drop to the distance to your target Is all you need to be concerned with
Then you have to cope the wind which is tricky and luck
Also whether you are shooting uphill or downhill
Good luck

They hit the ground at the same time, no matter how much that bullet is propelled thru air molecules? Not to mention aimed upward. Physics is taught in a vacuum for ease in understanding but none of the principles matter on an earth with fluidity of air, etc.
How many air molecules is the bullet hitting when dropped v the bullet flying 1000yds?

 

[entoptics]

...If your barrel is 3ft above the ground and you can manage to drop a bullet at the exact same time your bullet leaves the barrel when the bullet you dropped his the ground so will the bullet leaving your barrel
...

They hit the ground at the same time, no matter how much that bullet is propelled thru air molecules? Not to mention aimed upward. Physics is taught in a vacuum for ease in understanding but none of the principles matter on an earth with fluidity of air, etc.
How many air molecules is the bullet hitting when dropped v the bullet flying 1000yds?

Both are right and both are wrong...

As mentioned, both scenarios have the same acceleration from gravity. But unless you have your barrel horizontal, you are indeed effectively "throwing" the rifle bullet into the air vs dropping the hand held bullet straight down, and thus not dropping it from 3 feet, but some larger amount.

Regarding the air resistance, the rate at which the bullet falls is only dependent on the molecules in the vertical direction. Acceleration is a vector, and has a specific direction as well as magnitude. For the two bullets, the falling acceleration is the same (air resistance upward component, and gravity downward component).

All that being said, for the experiment to actually work you'd need to do the near impossible...

The dropped bullet would have to be in the same horizontal orientation and spinning at the same rate as the shot bullet (150,000ish rpm), so the air resistance (horizontal B.C. so to speak) would be the same. The rifle barrel would have to be perfectly horizontal, so no up/down vector is introduced. I'm still not sure it would work, as there's probably going to be some sort of vertical acceleration in the fired bullet due to aerodynamic lift/drop, if the bullet isn't pointed perfectly straight into the oncoming air.

Too bad MythBusters was cancelled...

 

[Mram10us]

I disagree that both are right and wrong. Is it close, yes, but it isn't the same. I think you'd have to take into account the entire column of compressed air from both bullets, Then add in ground effect. What about p-factor/spin drift, etc. Like you said, it would be impossible to test this.

On a deployment we all argued this because we had a college kid that had just taken physics and wanted to argue all sorts of stuff. AirDrop shows physics 101 n
leaves a lot to be desired outside of a vacuum.

 

[dfanonymous]

I'd argue, unless you have balloons with wind meters spread from you to the target, you cannot accurately find a solution. Wind does not vary much at even 100ft in flat areas. Anything other than flat ground is just a guess

If there's a wind there, you really have two options, don't do something about it, or do something about it. I've legitimately taped a spare kestrel to a long *** stick to measure up in around max ord.
I mean I get you might not be able to do all this when hunting, but in that case, don't take that type of shot if you're not prepared to do the work.
Everything is a prediction in a solution, so "wind guessing" is just a part of that and involves whole lotta times seeing, understanding and writing things down and having a good ballistic validation on wind call. If you use a mph gun chart in anyways, what I would mean is where you're .1 mil jumps occur for ballistic calibration. Not all of us get to shoot in flat areas. This is the flattest it gets for me, and there's a mountain to the rear about 1500 and hill to the left, with all the shrubs through out, that don't blow with what's happening in reality.

 

[Blancoalex]

We shoot long range for fun at rocks, so I can agree with taking the shot to learn from it. Especially if where your at you can see an impact signature. By doing this practice we have gone from 2-300 yds confidence to 5-600yds and working to increase this distance.

 

[Ranger Rick]

Hi. This is my first post here. Like to shoot lr and starting on elr.
how to calculate how High a bullet fly on its Way to the Target. We fight and measure Wind at the Ground or near. But perhaps the Wind is stronger on lets sat 100 feet when we shoot atthe mile or longer distance. So is the a Way to calculate how High a bullet go on its path to the Target

Hi. Barrel design allows elevation gain (not anti-physics rise). Zeroing distance also impacts Try a ballistics/trajectory app or website to check out many factors. Gud velsigne dig

 

[WAMBO]

Like Ranger Rick suggested use a ballistic/trajectory app or website, I do that quite often.
If you input your intended distance you want to shoot, let's say 1760 yards and use that as your zero when using the JBM trajectory calculator you can see what the highest point of the bullet is.
Using my 338 LM Imp as an example shooting the 300gr Berger at 2900 fps it shows the high point being 345.8" at 990-1000 yards.

 

[dfanonymous]

Like Ranger Rick suggested use a ballistic/trajectory app or website, I do that quite often.
If you input your intended distance you want to shoot, let's say 1760 yards and use that as your zero when using the JBM trajectory calculator you can see what the highest point of the bullet is.
Using my 338 LM Imp as an example shooting the 300gr Berger at 2900 fps it shows the high point being 345.8" at 990-1000 yards.

It's not. Again, you are looking at total drop. That is not the max ord of the bullet. If you have 345 inches of drop your max ord is between 70 and 80 inches above line of sight.

 

[milo-2]

It's not. Again, you are looking at total drop. That is not the max ord of the bullet. If you have 345 inches of drop your max ord is between 70 and 80 inches above line of sight.

No, his total drop may be over 1000 inches, what he is saying reflects the bullets path.
Here's a 7 saum, 100 yard zero, 180 hybrid,, 1st pic plain dope, 2nd pic set with 1760 zero.