Ricochet Sound

[itchytriggerfinger]

My thought is the sound is created by the bullet becoming deformed and or tumbling at a very high rate of speed.
I know I've had bullets make that noise pretty consistently when shooting at a hard target with subsonic 308 Win loads.
With the can on and no supersonic crack, you can really hear the ricochet upon impact and the bullet changes orientation/direction.
This possibly could have been increased by the fact that I was shooting a long, 180 grain round noise flat based bullet.

 

[longgun505]

When a projectile strikes and object and deforms but continues to transverse through a medium (air), the deformed projectile, tumbling or not, no longer has a uniform airflow around it. These turbulence points and intersecting air flows cause a whistling effect and/or a super-sonic intersection of the varied flows. Thus, the ricochet sounds differ from different velocities and style of projectiles.

The classic "pop-pop-pop" of the Huey is due to the intersecting air flows of the main and tail rotors, and the classic whip "crack" is the tip velocity breaking the speed of sound.

Could not have said it better. I concur

 

[nkyshooter]

I'm not a physics major but did have a lot of physics as part of my electrical engineering degree ...

The change we hear in the sound is due to the doppler effect ... Just like the sound of a siren seems to change when an ambulance that is approaching us passes by and is then getting further away ...

 

[nkyshooter]

I'm not a physics major but did have a lot of physics as part of my electrical engineering degree.

The change in the sound we perceive is due to the doppler effect ... Just like how we perceive a change in the sound of an ambulance siren that is approaching us and then passes by and is then getting further away from us.

 

[meatyrem]

It's not necessarily a deformed bullet but the bullet tumbling or spinning lengthwise instead of centrifugal spinning (how it normally supposed to spin from the rifling) and the tumbling causes much more disturbance in the air than standard flight.

 

[LRNut]

Yep, a Physics major is preferred for the answer. I took three semesters of Physics in college. Had one professor who turned it into real world examples. He did not teach on bullet ricochet. He did explain polarized sunglasses and the siren doppler effect. I only remember how to explain polarized glasses.

This reminds me of something my college physics professor said when it came to a charged particle traveling through a magnetic field. He was discussing the right hand rule, but he said, "After you graduate you will never have to apply this. However, it is a great way to remember which way to turn a screwdriver - point your thumb in the direction you want the screw to move and turn the handle in the direction your fingers are curled around the handle."

I can still picture him telling us this and apply it all the time, but mostly when it comes to adjusting my scope. If you use the right hand rule, you never have to look at your scope turrets - take your right hand, point your thumb in the direction you want to the bullet to move, curl your fingers, and turn the knob in the direction of your curled fingers.

 

[Lycanit]

It is the combination of doppler shift as it travels away from viewer/hearing perspective. The sound itself is the yaw rotation of the projectile. The unique aspect of this is that the pitch drops from a combination of slowing rotation and doppler shift while the volume drops as a combination of distance and falling velocity.

 

[Reelman1]

Sound was 10 for 10 shooting 22 at 45 degree angle at flat rock. Yes, I cleared and was backstopped. Gets to be mesmerizing.

 

[Ranger Rick]

 

[ntsqd]

A penny on the muzzle sounds pretty tame after a friend did the same with a live .25 Auto that he found.........
That Red Rider BB gun was never the same after that.

 

[Dr. Richard Gray]

If you hear a richochet it means you missed!

 

[pacowboy]

What exactly happens for it to make that sound. I know you can't have a western movie without them, I actually think there are laws against that.LOL This last weekend Some one asked me why it makes that sound and I had no answer.
I know the bullet is deflecting off of something, but it still does not explain the sound it makes.

Dean

I would say the bullet tim long is correct t but you have to add in that there are most likely now sharp edges from the impact which cause the air disruption to make the "whistling" or siren sound effect.

 

[Calvin45]

I don't know about that, I have put some really heavy bullets in some very slow twist barrels. And have seen the sideways profile of the bullet in the target cardboard from tumbling, and they never made that sound.

Dean

I never thought of this. I do know that that sound is caused by an deformed and unstable projectile still moving very fast through the air, the turbulence sounds.

it never occurred to me before to wonder if unstable projectiles pass through the air louder than stable ones when fired. But I doubt you'd be able to hear that sound over the boom of the gunshot and the sonic boom of the bullet. But maybe someone could fire a deliberately super unstable subsonic round through a suppressed weapon and listen...maybe it sounds weird.

 

[Lycanit]

I never thought of this. I do know that that sound is caused by an deformed and unstable projectile still moving very fast through the air, the turbulence sounds.

it never occurred to me before to wonder if unstable projectiles pass through the air louder than stable ones when fired. But I doubt you'd be able to hear that sound over the boom of the gunshot and the sonic boom of the bullet. But maybe someone could fire a deliberately super unstable subsonic round through a suppressed weapon and listen...maybe it sounds weird.

The hiss from a marginally stable seemed louder than the completely stable. Suppressed AR and heavy weight 9 twist. Passing overhead.