Firing Straight Up?

S

sixgunnin

New member
I have often wondered if it is safe to fire bullets straight up in the air. Based on whether or not they could injure or kill falling at terminal velocity. Based on a 9mm what do you think?
 
a bullet fired perfectly vertical will decelerate, come to a stop while still spinning to keep it stable and fall back side down accelerating to its maximum or terminal velocity which is substantially slower than when it was fired from the gun.
It can injure a person and, in some unlikely events, cause death. (however unlikely) It will not land in the same place it was fired from even if there are no winds along its trip. The bullet, under perfect conditions, will land to the west of where it was fired due to the rotation of the earth.
 
"will land to the west of where it was fired due to the rotation of the earth."

Only in the northern hemisphere. Opposite if you are south of the equator. ;)

Hatchers Notebook covers this topic - he shot vertically on a calm lake. Experiment was abandoned when his assistant lost his pinkie toe to the returning bullet. Good thing he was shooting a small caliber - if it was 45 ACP, I am sure the assistant would have been knocked off the boat, and drown. You see all those heavy cloths they wear back then??
 
Since this is obviously a question for today, I'd note that if you fire it into a cloud, it will stay.

Or see mythbusters.

(Happy first of April.)
 
Dave P "will land to the west of where it was fired due to the rotation of the earth."

Only in the northern hemisphere. Opposite if you are south of the equator.
Click to expand...

As far as I know the earth rotates from west to east in both hemispheres...??
Being a spheroidal shape the north and south hemispheres rotate in the same direction, The sun "sets" in the west whether you are in Australia or Spain.
 
Now if you were shooting from one of the axial poles the bullet could land where it was fired from....excluding the influence of the bullet flipping over on the way down due to losing enough spin to destabilized.
 
Just imagine standing on tall building and dropping a bullet on a person down on the ground. Will it hurt? Yes for sure. Will it kill someone? Unlikely.
 
Will it kill someone? Unlikely.
Click to expand...

That is probably true, but a bullet fired straight up from a firearm will travel much higher than any building.

The maximum or terminal velocity that it reaches on its descent, (while not even close to the velocity of it's ascent), is nothing that I care to be in the path of.

Depending on where it impacts you, it could in fact kill you... but that's part of the thrill right? ;)

Try it if you wish, but give me a enough time to vacate the premises by at least a couple miles before you do, and for the love of pete... wear a helmet! :p
 
Technically firing straight up and having the bullet fall straight down shouldn't have enough speed to kill, maybe injure. But that is all but impossible to do, any arc on the bullet will leave it with enough energy to wound or kill for quite a distance.

You hear of people being hit by celebratory gunfire fired into the air on New Years Eve quite often. A girl was hit in the leg a few years ago right about midnight while attending a college bowl football game.

This girl was killed from a muzzle loader fired into the air from 1.5 miles away.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/316511
 
Probably has the potential to hurt someone but not kill. If a spark plug won't kill a falling 9mm may not even be noticeable. As a kid I thru a spark plug so high I had time to walk around some. Landed on my head and the.blood soaked my hair down to my neck. No medical at all. The other guys parent took him away and closed the door.

I'm still here.
 
Probably has the potential to hurt someone but not kill. If a spark plug won't kill a falling 9mm may not even be noticeable. As a kid I thru a spark plug so high I had time to walk around some. Landed on my head and the.blood soaked my hair down to my neck. No medical at all. The other guys parent took him away and closed the door.

I'm still here.
Click to expand...

Your "sparkplug" never had a chance to reach terminal velocity. Duh
 
This is not limited only to bullets fired as closely to straight up as is humanly possible... but.....

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7996596


A quote from the article that linked me to that study:

According to the doctors, a spent bullet falls back to Earth with a speed of between 90 and 180 metres per second. A bullet travelling at less than 60 metres per second can cause a fatal skull injury.
Click to expand...

Just sayin... gimme a head start to move very far away... and a helmet too! :p
 
jmr40 said:
This girl was killed from a muzzle loader fired into the air from 1.5 miles away.
Click to expand...
If it hit her 1.5 miles away it obviously wasn't fired straight up in the air.

A human body in free fall maxes out around 130 mph, or about 190 fps. I doubt a bullet goes much faster.

Anecdotally I've been on quite a few rooftops in high-crime areas in Chicago, and I often find bullets on them. I've never seen one that penetrates a roof, they're just laying there on top of it. Occasionally you'll find one laying nose-down, just the tip of the bullet embedded in the tar. But bear in mind that tar gets soft on a hot sunny day.

The real-life problem, of course, is that most often a gun fired in the air isn't fired straight up, but at a slight angle. In those cases it comes down far faster than if fired straight up. That's when you hear about the person killed a mile or 2 away.
 
A human body in free fall maxes out around 130 mph, or about 190 fps. I doubt a bullet goes much faster.
Click to expand...
A tumbling bullet falls at around 150fps (102mph). That's probably the most likely scenario for a pistol bullet. I wouldn't stand under one for fun, but it's unlikely to kill or seriously injure an adult.

If the bullet remains spin-stabilized and falls back base-first, as some rifle bullets did in Julian Hatcher's testing, terminal velocity can be much higher--perhaps 350fps (237mph) or even higher. A rifle bullet moving at 350fps sounds pretty unhealthy.

If the bullet isn't shot straight up and describes an arc, then the velocity at impact can be much higher and the potential for lethality isn't really even in question since there are many documented deaths.
 
If you shoot it straight up in a forest and nobody is around to see or hear it, it will fall back down to earth and fall back through the barrel. It will reload itself on top of the next round and then you'll have double the weight and penetration on the next shot.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top