What happens to a bullet when you fire it straight up ?

Question

So what happens to a bullet shot up ?
How long does it take to fall ?
And why we don't see many reports of people dying from them if the fall exactly as they went up ?

Answer 1

Some have tried vertical shooting, but very few have had any luck hearing the bullet come back and strike the ground. When a bullet is fired vertically it immediately begins to slow down because of the effects of gravity and air drag on the bullet. The bullet deceleration continues until at some point the bullet momentarily stops and then it begins to fall back toward earth. A well-balanced bullet will fall base first. Depending on bullet design, some bullets may tumble on their way down and others may turn over and come down point first.

The bullet speed will increase until it reaches its terminal velocity. The bullet reaches terminal velocity when the air drag equals the pull of gravity or stating it another way, the bullet weight and drag are balanced. Once this velocity is achieved the bullet will fall no faster.

In 1920 the U.S. Army Ordnance conducted a series of experiments to try and determine the velocity of falling bullets. The tests were performed from a platform in the middle of a lake near Miami, Florida. The platform was ten feet square and a thin sheet of armor plate was placed over the men firing the gun. The gun was held in a fixture that would allow the gun to be adjusted to bring the shots close to the platform. It was surmised that the sound of the falling bullets could be heard when they hit the water or the platform. They fired .30 caliber, 150 gr., Spitzer point bullets, at a velocity of 2,700 f.p.s. Using the bullet ballistic coefficient and elapsed time from firing until the bullet struck the water, they calculated that the bullet traveled 9,000 feet in 18 seconds and fell to earth in 31 seconds for a total time of 49 seconds.

As a comparison, the .30 caliber bullet fired in a vacuum at 2,700 f.p.s. would rise nearly 21.5 miles and require 84 seconds to make the ascent and another 84 seconds to make its descent. It would return with the same velocity that it left the gun. This gives you some idea of what air resistance or drag does to a bullet in flight.

Wind can have a dramatic effect on where a vertically fired bullet lands. A 5 mile per hour wind will displace the 150 gr. bullet about 365 ft based on the time it takes the bullet to make the round trip to earth. In addition the wind at ground level may be blowing in an entirely different direction than it is at 9,000 feet. It is no wonder that it is so difficult to determine where a falling bullet will land.

Out of the more than 500 shots fired from the test platform only 4 falling bullets struck the platform and one fell in the boat near the platform. One of the bullets striking the platform left a 1/16 inch deep mark in the soft pine board. The bullet struck base first.

Based on the results of these tests it was concluded that the bullet return velocity was about 300 f.p.s. For the 150 gr. bullet this corresponds to an energy of 30 foot pounds. Earlier the Army had determined that, on the average, it required 60 foot pounds of energy to produce a disabling wound. Based on this information, a falling 150 gr. service bullet would not be lethal, although it could produce a serious wound.

Many other experiments have been made to find the amount of air drag on a .30 caliber bullet at various velocities and it was found that the drag at 320 f.p.s. balances the weight of the .021 lb. (150 gr.) bullet and terminal velocity is achieved. For larger calibers the bullet terminal velocity is higher since the bullet weight is greater in relation to the diameter. Major Julian Hatcher in his book Hatcher’s Notebook estimates that a 12 inch shell weighing 1000 pounds and fired straight up would return with a speed of 1,300 to 1,400 feet per second and over 28 million foot pounds of striking energy.

Answer 2

Law of gravity, what goes up must come down.

How long does it take to fall, depend on the velocity of your bullet and the weight, although you can think that it goes staright up, but actually since the earth is also moving, by the time the bullet come straight down, it will not land in the same location, but at some distance.

You didnt see report does not mean they do not happen, in area where you have lower population densities, the chances of the buller coming down and hitting someone is small. Specially in field or farm area.

But if you are in a higher population densities area, chances are the stray bullet will hit someone and can be fatal. Note that although the bullet weight only few grams, the falling object added the velocities coming down, when it hit an object, the bullet can either penetrate the object or lodge into the object.

Answer 3

Mythbusters did a great episode on this.

If a bullet is fired straight up (90 degrees), the atmospheric changes cause the bullet to tumble on its way down to earth. When a bullet is tumbling, its terminal velocity is generally not enough to cause death. It will hurt, but probably not kill you.

If the bullet is shot at any sort of angle, the bullet follows a flight path. Rather than tumbling, it tends to fly straight, as it normally would (think of a football thrown with a good spiral). The bullet will tend to lead with the point. Even at low velocities, a bullet hitting you point first will do some damage.

Think of a nail. If you throw the nail in the air and it is tumbling, chances are if it hits your arm, it will hit on a side and not really hurt. Take the same nail, and stab yourself with the point side first, it will hurt, even if it is going slower than the tumbling nail.

As to how long does it take to fall? That I do not remember.

One of the reasons there are not more "falling bullet" related injuries is because they never hit anyone. Statistically speaking, if a bullet randomly falls to earth, there is little chance it will hit anyone (think how much surface area there is on earth, and how little of that area is actually occupied by a person out in the open)

Answer 4

The bullet has less velocity when it falls than when it was shot into the air. The worst that happens is much like being hit by a thrown rock or falling hail.

Answer 5

If you stand absolutely still without moving the gun barrel even a fraction of an inch, and wait exactly 24 hours and 2 seconds, the bullet will fall back into the barrel of the gun you shot it from after the earth has completed one revolution around the moon and gravity has reversed itself.

Answer 6

Bullets are irregular, and often tumble, and may curve some in flight. A ball shape would tend to go up, be slowed and eventually stopped by the earth's gravity, and then fall stright down a 32ft/sec^2. And irregular shape would react to differing air pressures and be less predictable as to where it lands.

Answer 7

You learn that when you shoot in the air you do it at an angle of 30 degrees, so that it doesn't come back straight down on you. It will come down exactly where you shot it if you shoot straight up in the air.
The reason you don't hear reports about people being killed from this kind of shooting, is because (hopefully) gun owners are not completely dumb.

Answer 8

Because if you shoot straight up...it could come straight down...or it could Ric-a-shay off of something resulting in an accident......or who know.s?.but as you know it is incredibly dangerous...the newspaper is not able to print all the dying people that something Ric-a-shayed off of something...i am sure it is a lot of people who are wrongly shot....i do not know the exact seconds it takes to fall...that is why it hits innocent people!! sorry!

Answer 9

1.It will come bacC down
2.Im not sure lol
3.Because people dont really care if they died because "great people" dont own guns and they are not important enough to be on the news

I know thsi because some guy down the street died on new years of this year for fireing off his gun and it shot him straight on the middle of his head

Answer 10

It comes down again. But very few people point 'straight' up. The sky is a big target, and choosing your trajectory is very iffy.