Firing Straight Up?

I have shot flying seagulls in farm fields with a 9mm. Sounds like I should be a little bit more careful... or wear a Stetson!
 
If you pick the highest point (Mount Everest) and shoot the more powerful +P ammo straight up, with a long barreled pistol, the air is so thin the bullet has a better chance of escaping Earths gravitational pull and could go into orbit.....thereby not coming back down and landing on your noggin.
 
he shot vertically on a calm lake. Experiment was abandoned when his assistant lost his pinkie toe to the returning bullet.
Click to expand...
The physics is the same whatever the projectile.
When I was a kid, the neighborhood dead eyes would fly kites with attached balloons in a nearby field.
Then we would all try to hit the balloons with arrows and bb guns.
Until a returning arrow nailed one guy's shoe to the ground.
Somehow it missed all his toes.
We found other ways to amuse ourselves after that.
 
It takes a bullets quite a bit of time to return back, in terms of minutes. By that time the rotation has significantly slowed down or even stopped. The bullet will mostly likely be tumbling. That further slows down its terminal velocity.

That was what the Mythbuster tests showed.

BTW, the projectiles could reach tens of thousands feet of altitude. They did the experiment in a desolate desert lake bed with prior permission from the FAA.

Fatal or not, it is a stupid and dangerous thing to shoot guns in the air. It is a direct violation to at least one of the 4 safety doctrines. Not to mention violation to the laws.

-TL
 
Rembrandt said:
If you pick the highest point (Mount Everest) and shoot the more powerful +P ammo straight up, with a long barreled pistol, the air is so thin the bullet has a better chance of escaping Earths gravitational pull and could go into orbit.....thereby not coming back down and landing on your noggin.
Click to expand...
I think you're a day late with that assertion.

The bullet would indeed have a chance to escape earth's gravitational pull - and that chance is zero.
 
Seagulls

I have shot flying seagulls in farm fields with a 9mm. Sounds like I should be a little bit more careful... or wear a Stetson!

If you are in the USA seagulls are federally protected, the fine is 10 K each.
 
"The only thing I think that is safe to shoot into the air is bird shot from a shotgun"

That's probably the reason why a shotgun range not far from me has the shooters
aiming toward the freeway. The shot has very limited range.
 
Why are seagulls federally protected (they are a migratory species) yet sandhill cranes are a game bird? Sandhil cranes are a migratory species. We have seagulls at the County Landfill year round. Must be one of those gubmint things...
 
I could be wrong, but I believe that every native bird in the US is protected.
There are only two that have no regulation or restrictions, both of which are non native species. The English Starling and the European House Sparrow.
Again, I'm wrong a lot! :o
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top