Stray bullets/ falling bullets - Man shot Rifle in air

[Sakobav]

Another reason why we keep on requesting info regarding rules. Check the second snippet, this person had rifle and 50 bullets. Probably read some old rule bulletin..

http://www.samachar.com/showurl.htm?rur ... ~on~flight
Target nilgai, victim man

Kanpur (PTI): A 65-year-old man was killed after being hit by a stray bullet fired by some people who were allegedly poaching a nilgai in a village near here.

Four persons — Anwar Ahmed, Mahmood Ahmed, Sajid and Mati Ahmed — who went to Ashrafpur village on Sunday night to hunt the protected antelope have been arrested.

Police said the suspected poachers shot at the nilgai but the bullet hit Chhotelal, who has agricultural land in the area. He died on the spot. The four have been held on the charge of attempt to murder, the police said.

The nilgai, a species of Indian antelope with a bluish coat, is listed in the protected schedule of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.

Rifle on flight

Chennai (PTI): A passenger from Frankfurt has been detained in Chennai airport after he was found carrying a rifle and cartridges.

Thomas George had flown to Frankfurt from Los Angeles to take a Lufthansa flight to Chennai. The rifle and 50 cartridges were found in his luggage.

[Vikram]

I read the news,Navee. I think that man may be legit. Let's lookout for later developments on this case.

Best-
Vikram

[badshah0522]

I have seen same kind of incident Happened in front of my eyes in a marriage party in Kanpur,ppl were firing shot guns & Rifle in air ,A shot gun accidently fired while closing the breach,the pellets reflected from the road and hit 4 person standing there,in which 2 were small children.Around 60-80 pellets penetrated the face & Head of an old guy..
LAstly party ended at the police station.

[Bhargav]

Rifle on flight

Chennai (PTI): A passenger from Frankfurt has been detained in Chennai airport after he was found carrying a rifle and cartridges.

Thomas George had flown to Frankfurt from Los Angeles to take a Lufthansa flight to Chennai. The rifle and 50 cartridges were found in his luggage.

First of all how did he clear the Rifle and live cartridges from Los Angeles to Frankfurt??
As per the Firearms rules he has to declare the same to the airline staff and then the TSA officer will check the firearm to confirm that its not loaded and the ammo and the firearm are stored seperately. Moreover he cannot carry the firearm in his checkin luggage, airline staff will take care of it and the same will be handed over to him on arrival at his destination.

Moreover he will be allowed to carry the firearm only if its legal at the destination location or else not?

e.g. i can carry a 9mm gun from Los Angeles to Seattle but i cannot do the same from Los Angeles to Bombay(India) coz 9mm is not allowed to civilians in India (*i Suppose*).

well nobody will deny for carrying, at the start location, it will be a problem only at arrival, so we can say the customs at the destination can detain his weapon but not him coz he never entered into the country with the weapon.

so its hard to believe this news

[Bhargav]

Many a times even our police does the same mistake of firing a round in the air to disperse the crowd and we come across this many a times that a stray bullet killed a person.

Thiis is because a bullet is a projectile and whenever its fired in air it comes down with equal momentum. because of its shape and angle of fire, it will always travel with its head down i.e. point towards earth.
Since the point is down, it experiences minimum air resistence and hence maximum velocity.

this can kill somebody easily.

[mundaire]

Thiis is because a bullet is a projectile and whenever its fired in air it comes down with equal momentum. because of its shape and angle of fire, it will always travel with its head down i.e. point towards earth.
Since the point is down, it experiences minimum air resistence and hence maximum velocity.

This is not entirely accurate, though firing in the air is indeed dangerous! Bullets when fired in the air will travel up to the point where the forces of gravity and air resistance slow it down to zero velocity. Then the bullet tumbles back to earth. It has been experimentally shown that when tumbling back to earth the bullet actually comes down bottom end first. This means that the air resistance it faces on the way down is more than it had on the way up PLUS there is also a horizontal component to the bullets flight, which will take up some energy as well.

When the bullet finally hits the ground it has no where close to the energy it had at muzzle when it was fired. It is still dangerous enough to cause injuries though and in rare cases death.

You can google for more information on this, also this topic was discussed (at length) on the old IFG yahoo group.

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[eljefe]

Couple of recorded instances of death due to 303 MMG cases from Spitfires/hurricanes, during the battle of Britain, when dogfights in the air had an enthusiastic crowd cheering on the ground...

[Bhargav]

This is not entirely accurate, though firing in the air is indeed dangerous! Bullets when fired in the air will travel up to the point where the forces of gravity and air resistance slow it down to zero velocity. Then the bullet tumbles back to earth. It has been experimentally shown that when tumbling back to earth the bullet actually comes down bottom end first. This means that the air resistance it faces on the way down is more than it had on the way up PLUS there is also a horizontal component to the bullets flight, which will take up some energy as well.

When the bullet finally hits the ground it has no where close to the energy it had at muzzle when it was fired. It is still dangerous enough to cause injuries though and in rare cases death.

You can google for more information on this, also this topic was discussed (at length) on the old IFG yahoo group.

Cheers!
Abhijeet

Mundaire, When i said, the bullet comes down with equal velocity .. that was just a comparision of the dangerous flight of a projectile back to earth i didn't mean that it will come down with that velocity which equals the muzzle velocity at the time of fire , a free falling projectile can never attain that velocity unless an external force acting on it.
Moreover, i don't think the bullet will come down as base down but will soon turn upside down as the pointed part plays a major role in the flight. if we compare a bullet with a shuttle cock, no matter how hard you hit a shuttle cock it will surely travel with its pointed part pointed towards the direction of travel. The same thing goes for the bullet and hence sometimes this free falling bullet is fatal, when hit.

Thanks.
Bhargav

[mundaire]

Moreover, i don't think the bullet will come down as base down but will soon turn upside down as the pointed part plays a major role in the flight. if we compare a bullet with a shuttle cock, no matter how hard you hit a shuttle cock it will surely travel with its pointed part pointed towards the direction of travel. The same thing goes for the bullet and hence sometimes this free falling bullet is fatal, when hit.

Thanks.
Bhargav

Bhargav,

A bullet is not a shuttlecock The discussion thread on the old IFG forum on yahoo is no longer available (as yahoo groups shut down) but the gist is as follows:

1. What goes up must come down - Simple enough, unless an object attains "escape velocity" (which is not the case here), it will return back to earth.

2. The bullets come down base first - This is aerodynamically stable for that shape without spin stabilisation, but many assert that it returns base first due to still being spin stabilised in a similar orientation to when it went up. Either way, it does come down base first.

3. Theoretically an object fired into the sky (at a perfect 90 degree angle) will come down with the EXACT SAME velocity with which it left the ground. But this is true only in a vacuum, which isn't the case here. Factors like air-resistance, wind velocity etc. will also be acting on the bullet. What we need to look at is something called terminal velocity. The bullet will leave the gun at a certain muzzle velocity; this multiplied by its mass will give you the figure for muzzle energy. Much of this energy will be dissipated by air resistance, some will be used up by the horizontal component of its flight path (a shot fired at a perfect 90 degree angle being rare) and the rest would be used up combating gravity.

Eventually the bullet will reach its maximum altitude, a point where its velocity is zero and begin "falling" back to earth. When something is falling, it reaches a terminal speed where the losses of energy caused by air friction equal the gain in energy through acceleration caused by gravity. This is the "Terminal velocity" of the bullet and is considerably slower than the original muzzle velocity of the bullet.

4. Even if a gun were fired at an angle of exactly 90 degrees, even relatively low wind speeds would cause the bullet to drift and the chances of it returning to the exact same point from where the gun is fired are remote. This has in fact been experimentally proven to be true.

5. The US Army conducted some experiments during the 1920s to determine the speed of falling bullets. They fired .30 calibre, 150 grain, Spitzer point bullets, at a velocity of 2,700 f.p.s. during these experiments. Based on the results of these tests it was concluded that the bullet return velocity was about 300 f.p.s. For the 150 grain bullet this corresponds to an energy of 30 foot pounds. Earlier the US 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 grain service bullet would not be lethal, although it could produce a serious wound.

The key to the US Army's determination of falling bullets as not having enough lethal force is based on the muzzle velocity, calibre & weight of the bullet, the exact angle at which the gun is fired, prevailing weather conditions, the angle at which the bullet strikes the victim and of course the exact area of the victims body that is struck.

From the above it is safe to conclude that given the right conditions; falling bullets can cause injury, in some cases serious injury and in rarer cases even death.

Other relevant links are the Load Ammo article and the usenet discussion


Cheers!
Abhijeet