bcla
On our rugged Eastern foothills.....
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2012
I know very little about ballistics. Surely this man was simply raining down lead on the poor people below; no accuracy was needed? Would gravity help maintain velocity? I've heard that under pressure certain rounds simply enter the victim's body and simply ricochet around, doing maximum damage; does muzzle velocity matter much here?
Just thinking out loud.
I thought about it (it's been a while since I've thought of energy calculations), and the amount of energy from gravity would be minimal compared to the muzzle energy. A .223 Remington bullet might have a muzzle energy of maybe 1700 joules - just a number as there are a variety. If it weighs 3.6 grams (also variable) and came down from about 130 meters, I think the potential energy via gravity (with the gravitational constant as 9.8 N/kg) is the following:
0.0036kg x 130m x 9.8 N/kg = 4.59 joules.
So it's pretty obvious that the energy added by gravity isn't much relative to the energy from the charge.
Still - if it's got 10-25% of its original energy remaining, that's still about as powerful as many common handgun rounds at point blank.
Certainly he wasn't worried about accuracy from that distance using bump stocks. There were thousands of people there. Whether or not someone survives or not after getting hit (even with much reduced energy) may be a matter of chance - where it hits, if it penetrates, etc.