Where do you do your gun training?

cornbb

Sparks wrote: »

It's not against the odds, it's impossible (And has been tested in practise as well as explained in theory).
Thing is, you fire vertically upwards in completely still air; the bullet goes straight up, slows, eventually stops, then falls back. It reaches terminal velocity the same way any falling object in a medium does and does not accelerate past that speed, which for a bullet in air, turns out not give enough kinetic energy to do harm. It's like the whole "penny dropped from the empire state building" urban legend.

Isn't there some basic principle of physics that says that, apart from energy lost through friction (which would be negligible) the bullet would have the exact same energy (in the form of velocity) when it comes back to the ground as it did when it left the barrel of the gun?

Sparks

No, there isn't.

ScumLord

So if you drop a penny from the empire state building it can't kill someone?

Sparks

Or to be more expansive, when the bullet leaves the barrel, it's been accelerated by the action of the expanding gas behind it; with that gone, it behaves as a rigid body in free flight. Your leaving cert physics/applied math equations apply to determine how high it goes, but it's descent speed is limited by the drag forces on it as it falls. That's why a skydiver doesn't accelerate all the way to the ground.

Wertz

So a piece of lead doing terminal velocity (200 mph? I forget) isn't going to injure? Interesting. It'd have to be like getting hit with a slingshot or something though, no?
My comment on odds was more about the odds of it actually hitting anyone, given that a person presents a much smaller target from above (unless they're out sunbathing )...

cornbb

Sparks wrote: »

No, there isn't.

My grasp of physics in this case is probably flawed alright. But there doesn't seem to be a definitive proof that a bullet returning to earth won't kill or cause serious injury. The top 5-10 results here all make contradictory claims, mostly backed up by dubious proofs.

Sparks

ScumLord wrote: »

So if you drop a penny from the empire state building it can't kill someone?

Not by landing on them, no. It's been tested (Mythbusters, Oct 17, 2003 - even firing the penny from a rifle didn't give it enough kinetic energy to penetrate a human skull, let along letting it just fall at terminal velocity).

Of course, you might distract them with it, and looking to see where it came from, they might back up out onto the street only to be hit by a bus, but I don't think that should count.

Sparks

Wertz wrote: »

So a piece of lead doing terminal velocity (200 mph? I forget) isn't going to injure? Interesting. It'd have to be like getting hit with a slingshot or something though, no?

Terminal velocity for a .30 calibre bullet is about 320 feet per second; but that's shaped to be streamlined. For a penny, it's much less; try half that. For a .22lr bullet, it's going to be about the same as for the penny - the bullet's very, very small.

Terminal velocity is a function of the drag coefficient, which varys according to the surface presented to the relative wind, so it's not really a simple number, of course - but those figures are in the right ballpark at least.

Mind you, I wouldn't want to be looking up lest it hit me in the eye - you'd probably be blinded by it...

Pherekydes

cornbb wrote: »

Isn't there some basic principle of physics that says that, apart from energy lost through friction (which would be negligible) the bullet would have the exact same energy (in the form of velocity) when it comes back to the ground as it did when it left the barrel of the gun?

No. It's never going to go beyond its terminal velocity.

Drag increases as the square of the velocity so sooner or later the drag would equal the weight and the object would cease to accelerate.

Tests were performed by the US army and their results showed for a particular round with a muzzle velocity of 2700 feet/sec the terminal velocity was only 320 f/s.

In short, the energy lost through friction or drag is quite substantial.

Jackz

Surely shooting, my god.

Fad

i shot a M16 in 'nam (i really did i was in vietnam last febuary and a the cu chi tunnels visitors site you have a choice between a big aray of gun)

cornbb

Slow coach wrote: »

No. It's never going to go beyond its terminal velocity.

Drag increases as the square of the velocity so sooner or later the drag would equal the weight and the object would cease to accelerate.

Tests were performed by the US army and their results showed for a particular round with a muzzle velocity of 2700 feet/sec the terminal velocity was only 320 f/s.

In short, the energy lost through friction or drag is quite substantial.

The original question was whether it could kill someone though, I don't think anyone has disproved that... There's an excellent balanced article about it on the Straight Dope: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a950414b.html

For further insight, we turn to Hatcher's Notebook (1962) by Major General Julian S. Hatcher, a U.S. Army ordnance expert. Hatcher described military tests with, among other things, a .30 caliber bullet weighing .021 pounds. Using a special rig, the testers shot the bullet straight into the air. It came down bottom (not point) first at what was later computed to be about 300 feet per second. "With the [.021 pound] bullet, this corresponds to an energy of 30 foot pounds," Hatcher wrote. "Previously, the army had decided that on the average an energy of 60 foot pounds is required to produce a disabling wound. Thus, service bullets returning from extreme heights cannot be considered lethal by this standard."
...

On further investigation, it appears the 60 foot-pound injury threshold cited by Hatcher may be misleading--a falling bullet's kinetic energy (foot pounds) alone is not a good predictor of the speed it needs to inflict a wound. B. N. Mattoo (Journal of Forensic Sciences, 1984) has proposed an equation relating mass and bullet diameter that seems to do a better job. Experiments on cadavers and such have shown, for example, that a .38 caliber revolver bullet will perforate the skin and lodge in the underlying tissue at 191 feet per second and that triple-ought buckshot will do so at 213 feet per second.

Mattoo's equation predicts that Hatcher's .30 caliber bullet, which has a small diameter in relation to its weight, will perforate the skin at only 124 feet per second. It's easy to believe that such a bullet falling at 300 feet per second could kill you, especially if it struck you in the head.

Manic Moran

Steyr wrote: »

Its impossible to mix live with Blank to be honest.

Impossible or not, I've seen it happen a few times. If you're interested, it goes right through the BFA.

Don't know if I'd stretch to heading off to EE to do it...unless prices here warrant that. I know it was cheap enough in the 'states but most places were members only.

You just went to the wrong ranges...

The advantages to Eastern Europe are the variety you can shoot, which is generally greater than in the US, let alone Ireland. Irish clubs are limited to what the local Garda Super thinks people should have. Western Europe also has a generally greater variety than the US (People tend not to realise this, confusing proliferation with legal variety), but the laws on full-auto and "coming-off-the-street" use are much tighter, making it very difficult to go shooting in Germany on vacation, for example.

NTM

Donny5

Steyr wrote: »

Its impossible to mix live with Blank to be honest.

Live Examples:

Blank Examples:

I'm sure it is ;D nudge, nudge...

Kernel

Manic Moran wrote: »

And it's unacceptable that he wishes to restrict our abilities to enjoy ourselves in the second-most-popular recreational sport in the world. (The first is fishing, apparently)

NTM

Whoah back up there Charlton Heston! I enjoy shooting on occasion myself, although I don't own a firearm, but the Minister's point here is very valid. The country is enjoying an epidemic of cocaine fueled criminal gangs at the moment. Is it really a good idea that they can pop off to Czech Republic or elsewhere and receive tactical anti-terrorist training by former commandos? No, no it isn't.

SimpleSam06

Sparks wrote: »

It's not against the odds, it's impossible (And has been tested in practise as well as explained in theory).
Thing is, you fire vertically upwards in completely still air; the bullet goes straight up, slows, eventually stops, then falls back. It reaches terminal velocity the same way any falling object in a medium does and does not accelerate past that speed, which for a bullet in air, turns out not give enough kinetic energy to do harm. It's like the whole "penny dropped from the empire state building" urban legend.

In the Philippines, many people were injured by bullets fired into the air falling to earth this new years. The authorities are trying to crack down on it, but its almost impossible since a lot of people over there are heavily armed. On a semi related note, I do firearms training in Manila, which is quite an experience. Also see here.

"Most of the injuries were superficial and there were no deaths. This is most gratifying," Duque said in a statement.

testicle

Steyr wrote: »

Its impossible to mix live with Blank to be honest.

Live Examples:

Blank Examples:

My testicle it is.

I can see you've learned absolutely nothing about weapons safety in the FCA.

Have you ammunition at home? Those photographs are from your personal photobucket.

testicle

Wertz wrote: »

I've always wondered about live rounds fired in the air...I mean they're nowhere near escape velocity nor have enough momentum, so must return to the ground, probably doing a fair clip on the way back down. Would suck a lot to be injured or killed by someone celebrating up the road, even though it's against the odds...

Seen The Mexican?

FunkZ

Yis should have a boards battle... we can all get guns off of eBay, maybe?

Sparks

Kernel wrote: »

the Minister's point here is very valid.

No, it isn't.

The country is enjoying an epidemic of cocaine fueled criminal gangs at the moment. Is it really a good idea that they can pop off to Czech Republic or elsewhere and receive tactical anti-terrorist training by former commandos? No, no it isn't.

Leaving aside the somewhat humourous take that maybe if they could shoot straight you wouldn't see too many innocent bystanders shot, there's the minor point that the eejit is suggesting that we restrict travel of our citizens to a foreign country within the EU on the grounds that they might engage in something perfectly legal there.

Care to suggest how you could legislate to stop that? Or are we going to invade the Czech Republic and change their legislation to make it illegal to have firing ranges there to allow tourists to shoot?

FFS people, this is Gay Mitchell we're talking about here. The man reacted to September 11 by demanding that Ireland get a squadron of jet fighters to defend the Dail against possible suicide attack by terrorists hijacking aircraft flying out of Dublin Airport! He's Fine Gael's answer to Willie O'Dea's mustache!

If you're serious about reducing armed crime and drug crime in this country, fund the Gardai. End of story, really.

kowloon

Wouldn't like to be hit on the head by a shotgun slug falling back to earth, it has a bit of mass to its advantage.
A fair few people have been killed by AAA fire being enslaved by the laws of physics and falling back to earth.

Lesson: It's not a good idea to shoot into the air.

Anyway, back on topic: Everyone knows that real terrorists train through airsoft and paintball :rolleyes:

Them with their laser scopes and sawn off ak16 assault machinegun blasters.

Wertz

While I worry about gun crime as much as the next citizen, the fact is guns are here already and have been here for a long time...whether the f*cks who use them with criminal intent can pick off a headshot or not doesn't really matter; any idiot can pull a trigger, and if they think they're inept enough to miss they'll just close range to be more sure.
Training in automatic weapons isn't nearly as worrying as the fact that criminals can get their paws on them almost as readily as our forces of law and order.
We can't be insular as part of the EU, we (well most of us, and the government) are quite happy to take the good aspects of expansion into EE, like low cost labour, new markets, property investment and cheap holidays, but want to close out all the bad stuff...and as I mentioned above, there are plenty of young men arriving in this country who've been well trained in the use of weapons, who may well have a criminal record that we have no way of knowing about.
It's like trying to stop a guy from heading off to holland for a weekend of hookers and weed, just because we have legislation against such things here...okay not the same safety concerns, but the same principle.
I can see the point about at least monitoring the movement of people with serious criminal records to country's with laxer gun controls, maybe some sort of endorsement on their passport, that could flag them at POE...I'd certainly like to see that for people coming to our country, but pre-empting people's intentions of what they'll do upon their visiting those countries by prohibiting them visiting it entirely, is unfair and unworkable.
The fact that the EU doesn't already have such a system for overseeing the movement of felons across borders (that I'm aware of) is rather shortsighted. We also have little in the way of real police force integration, past major international crime.
I don't particularly want a federal type system for the EU, but that's the way most of the EU governments want to go...measures like I've mentioned would need to be a cornerstone of any such system, not an afterthought...

Steyr

testicle wrote: »

My testicle it is.

I can see you've learned absolutely nothing about weapons safety in the FCA.

Have you ammunition at home? Those photographs are from your personal photobucket.

Look who crawled out of the woodwork, since when did you see live ammo being issued with blank ammo? Il tell you when, never.

Seeing as your not internet savvy about uploading pictures you will note that Photobucket is used to upload pictures so i used "photobucket" to upload pictures from the Internet to Boards, easy peasy. And no i do not have ammunition at home son. The reason for posting those pictures is clear enough but you obviously didnt cop on as to the reason, so here you go....look at the heads on the Bullets. Enough said.


Not although Blank ammo is dangerous it has to be said that the blank cartridge has no projectile. The case mouth is closed with a seven-petal rosette crimp.

astraboy

If people want to go to another country and enjoy target shooting, so what. I have done it many times myself in the U.S, even bought my friends for a day out to the range when they visited last summer. Everyone enjoyed it. I hate the way anything to do with firearms is painted as obscure and evil and only enjoyed by people without normal social skills. Yes firearms are dangerous in the wrong hands, so is a golf club.

Our overly restricted licensing system makes it near impossible to go and do a days handgun shooting in Ireland. If people travel to Poland or wherever for a weekend and decide to do it, thats their business. If they only want to go shooting because they have seen too many movies, that also is no worry once they are shown basic safety and follow the procedures of the range. Again, this is an example of the majority being punished for the sins of the few. A day at the range is a fun thing to do and everyone of sound mind that wishes to enjoy it should be allowed do so.

civdef

Look who crawled out of the woodwork, since when did you see live ammo being issued with blank ammo? Il tell you when, never.

Every single time blank is used, there's ball knocking about too, think about it. (HINT:the colour white).

It has been mixed up on occasion, sometimes with tragic results.

Dyr

gay mitchell was once described as "appearing to become aroused at the sight of microphone". he's legendary for spouting wont-somebody-think-of the-children nonsense like this, i dont think anyone pays attention to him anymore.

testicle

Steyr wrote: »

Look who crawled out of the woodwork, since when did you see live ammo being issued with blank ammo? Il tell you when, never.

Who does security?
Can you see the tip of the round in the dark?

Mixing of live and blank can and does happen with tragic consequences, and you are very very naive if you think it doesn't.

As for photographs, I just link to the original photo from whatever website i get it from. Just like this one.

Neamhshuntasach

In the jungles of southeast Colombia

Donny5

testicle wrote: »

Mixing of live and blank can and does happen with tragic consequences, and you are very very naive if you think it doesn't.

It really does happen, no matter what anyone else says. Testicle is bang on the money.

The Al Lad

there's a great place in tallaght to do gun training, its called Jobstown