Can bullet cause any harm on the ground if it is fired into the air at a 45 degree angle?

Answer 1

Yes. Any falling object will eventually reach a velocity where its air resistance equals the acceleration of gravity. At that time, it will continue to fall at that velocity, its terminal velocity. A bullet shot up into the air will fall back at less than its original velocity because of air friction. It might or might not reach its terminal velocity before returning to the ground.

Answer 2

Yes. Upon reaching the ground, it still has enough horizontal velocity to injure or kill a person. A bullet fired straight into the air will return to the earth with only the velocity due to gravity. It would be the same as if it were dropped from the top of very tall building. This veocity is usually not enough to do serious damage but can cause injury.

Answer 3

Yes. The optimum range angle, in other words to get the bullet to go its furthest is usually around a 35-40% angle of firing which will get it to travel around 3000-5000 yards depending on how fast it started and its ballistic coefficient(ability to resist drag/air resistance).

Upon hitting the ground at that range the average speed will be 300-500fps generally.

So it will lose about 80% of its velocity but will still have plenty to cause you harm.

Answer 4

Yes it can. Stray bullets kill lots of people around the world, even in countries with super strict gun laws. Check out this link.
http://www.gunpolicy.org/Topics/Stray_Bullet,_Gun_Death_And_Injury.html

As another already said a bullet at that angle can go a long way, miles in fact. And hit with enough energy to kill. I worked with a guy who’s wife was hit in the leg by an 8mm Mouser rifle while she was mowing the yard. The fool who shot her was trying to shoot a bird off a telephone pole next to his house 7 miles away! The police were able to back track the bullets flight to his farm house. The bullet went through her mail box and lodged in the bone of her leg. If it had hit her in the brain she would have died.
Here is one where a passenger on a commercial airliner was hit by a stray bullet!
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE2DA1331F931A35752C0A961948260


This is just another hunter safety issue.
NEVER shoot rifles or handguns in the air, they make shotguns for that.

Unless you want to give anti-gun people more ammo against gun owners, AND MAYBE KILL SOME ONE; BE SAFE!!!
PLEASE people take a gun safety or hunter safety class. If you own a gun you MUST learn how to use it safely.

Thank you for asking this question it shows you want to learn.

Answer 5

ANY bullet fired in the air can come down with enough velocity to cause damage to property and death to people.

Answer 6

Yes, and depending on what calibre it is, that can be a long way away. In hunters ed. they taught us to think that a .22 goes 3 miles and anything larger goes 7. These ranges change with exact details about the rounds and the gun, but this is a good guide to use while you are out.

Answer 7

The U.S. Army did extensive testing on this in the 1920's. You can find all the details about it in the book "Hatcher's Notebook" by Gen. Julian Hatcher. He was in charge of the tests. The book covers alot of the research he did with the Ordnance Board.

Answer 8

Yes. Fairly significant damage. And good luck determining EXACTLY where it's going to land at the time of the shot.

Answer 9

your question, can be answered by answering this question.

can an airplane, traveling at 400mph cause damage, if it crashes into the ground , at a 45 degree angle ?

same answer, just more damage

Answer 10

Yes, Mythbusters on Discovery did this already.