What happens to bullets if they don't hit anything?

Question

If you fire a gun with a range of say 400 meters, at 399 meters would you be able to see the bullet slow down and fall to the ground?

Answer 1

Part of Newton's First Law of Motion states that "an object in motion will remain will remain in motion at a constant velocity unless acted upon by an unbalanced force." If you were to fire a gun on the moon, the speed of the bullet at impact would be essentially the same as its muzzel velocity, or speed at which it left the barrel. On earth, of course, the bullet is slowing down as soon as soon as it exits the barrel because of friction as the bullet pushes its way through the air. As another answerer pointed out, and in spite of what you may have seen in that awful movie "Pearl Harbor," bullets, like any other projectile, follow a parabolic path as they are pulled downward by gravity: air resistance will not cause them to suddenly drop to the earth at a particular distance.
You may also be confusing a weapon's maximum effective range with its maximum range. For example, a rifle may be able to be accurately aimed and used to kill game, or used in combat, at a distance of say, 460 meters, but if that same rifle were fired at an angle of 45 degrees, the bullet would travel much further. Finally, a bullet is relatively small and, in spite of air resistance, is still going to be moving at a very high rate of speed even after travelling hundreds of meters. This being the case, you shouldn't expect to be able to see the bullet at all once the rifle has been fired, unless the bullet were a tracer round.

Answer 2

A bullet will always hit something, usually the ground if it misses it's target. The bullet would probably still hit the target at 399 meters if it has a 400 meter range. It would also depend on the initial height the bullet was fired out of the gun and the height of the target. If the bullet was fired off a bipod a foot off the ground and it's target is 399 meters away but the target is 15 feet off of the ground, it most likely wouldn't hit if it had a "400 meter range." A bullet like any other object fired or thrown horizontally will start to fall immediately because of gravity's force. You have 3 forces acting on the bullet when it is fired. The forward motion or velocity from the gun. The downward force of gravity and the upward force of the air resistance. You would not be able to see the bullet fall to the ground at this range unless it was a very low velocity such as a pellet gun. A typical rifle can have a velocity of about 2800 ft/sec. or even faster. To give you an idea, that's about half a mile in one second. Even if the bullet slows down to a 1/5 of this speed, you're still not going to see it.

Answer 3

I think you need to understand the ballistics of the bullet. As soon the bullet leave the barrel of the gun gravity effects it and it drops at the same rate as if you dropped the bullet from your hand. This means that the speed of the bullet would make it travel 400 meters before hitting the ground. It would still be travelling to fast for you to see it hit. The size of the bullet make it hard for your eyes to see. That is why there is tracer ammo in use. There are things like wind and the temperture of the air the effect the speed of the bullet but Gravity is a constant force and will pull the bullet to the ground at the same speed as if just dropped from your hand. Regardless of its forward momentum. Bullets tend to hit the ground long before the forward momentum has slowed it done so you could see it. If you look at the links provided you may see the answers to your question. The first is myth and fact, the second a picture of tracer fire hitting the ground and the third showing you the effects of gravity. Hope that helps answer your question.

Answer 4

bullets follow a trajectory the same as anything else. When fired from a gun a bullet will fly at great speed in the direction the gun was aimed (all being well). Gravity acts upon the bullets velocity from the moment it is fired though and thus as a bullet progresses it will get nearer and nearer to the ground in an arc until it hits it.

The mathematics behind this is simple classical mechanics and is easy to understand (though not practical to explain in a yahoo answers box). Simply search for information on trajectories or look through a classical mechanics book.

The famous example for trajectories is the monkey jumping out of a tree... a novice shooter takes a shot at a monkey in a tree and aims right at it - but it is at the limit of his guns range (this is the point where accuracy deteriorates as the trajectory has been altered too much by the force of gravity) if the monkey remains still the bullet will miss and the monkey will be fine. The marksman's bullet will arc beneath the monkey and come harmlessly back down to Earth - though he may fluke a kill on an unlucky rabbit.

If the monkey had jumped out of the tree though he would have been much more likely hit as he fell into the arced trajectory of the bullet.

Answer 5

Actually no
the moment the bullet leaves the gun it starts losing speed and height due to earth's gravity. So its not like it will suddenly stop and fall down at 399 m. The descent is very gradual. As someone before me said it is just like darts. Another good example is throwing a ball into the air towards some distant point

Answer 6

Some of the answers are wrong. It depends on the height it is fired from. A gun with a 400m range may well send the bullet op to a kilometer. If you fire it from a great hieght it would hit the ground vertically at 90 degrees.

It's a combination of terminal velocity due to air resistance and gravity.

Answer 7

The bullet will travel in a parabolic arc. It will continue forward with pretty much constant speed as there is very little air resistance, but all the time it will be accelerating towards the ground at 9.8 m/s/s due to gravity. So eventually it will hit the ground. I don't know how fast bullets travel, so I can't tell you how far it will travel. But it will reach the ground at the same time as if you had just dropped it. Because when you drop it it has no forward motion. The forward motion does not affect how long it takes to fall to the ground, just how far forward it travels before it does.

Answer 8

theroically the bullet should be affected by gravity an fall to the ground but its a gradual decent it wont just suddenly fall to the ground.

Also you would not be able to see at 399 meters if you had shot the bullet unless you have super eyes

Answer 9

Yes bullet falls down if it does not hit anything due to the force of gravity. You will not be able to see the bullet because it is too small to be visible by naked eye at a distance of 399 m.

Answer 10

1) Bullets do not "fly."
2) Bullets start "falling" as soon as they leave the gun barrel
3) The bullet will NOT slow down. It will hit the ground at nearly the same velocity as it had when it left the gun.
4) Bullets ALWAYS hit something.

Friendly fire isn't
Tracers work both ways.