Shooing a rifle at 45 degrees

jimbo 22

Just wondering what people think of shooting into branches of trees at 45 - 60 degree angles at 100yrds .


I occasionally have been taking shots at grey crows from downstair in my house with a .17hmr.

I know there is nothing for a 1 mile radius where i shoot
but beyond the 1 mile mark i wouldnt be so sure:(


Where would the bullet land and if so could it be a danger to people in surrounding areas walking etc???

Also if anyone wants to comment on other cailabre 22lr .223 .234 etc

by all means share there thaughts & experiences...

Mellor

I'm not sure if you angles or distances are wrong, but if you were shooting at 45 deg at a tree 100 yards away, the tree would be 100 yards tall. 60 deg would make it even higher.


I think it is not a good idea, as you have no idea what exactly is around you or where it is going

IRLConor

It's a really bad idea. Please don't shoot unless you can guarantee the round will lodge in a safe backstop!

denashpot

IRLConor wrote: »

It's a really bad idea. Please don't shoot unless you can guarantee the round will lodge in a safe backstop!

thats true. you dont want to be up for manslaughter.

milkerman

Use this simple rule of thumb. If you cannot see where the bullet will come to rest dont take the shot.
I reckon an angle of 45 deg would send a hv .22lr more than a mile, but I never experimented.
I found an air rifle to be a great solution to these shots but would still be iffy about anything less than 60-70 deg. Come to think of it, I havent bought .22lr ammo in nearly 4 years. I buy around 10 cans (500) .22 pellets each year. Dont have to worry about accidently shooting anyone half a mile away!

baaaaaad idea - go with milkerman's advice; if you can't see where the bullet will stop, then don't take the shot.

Find a nice friend with a shotgun!

sidneyreilly

Never, ever do it. Invest in Shotgun or airgun.

bullets

Like the other posters said a bad idea. With that said.....when I read your
post I was reminded of Myth busters episode where they tried firing bullets up in the air.

http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2006/04/episode_50_bullets_fired_up_vo.html

~B

Mellor

Think that episode prove that if could happy, as long as the bullet remains straight. It will do this when fired at an angle.

V Bull

Very bad idea, irresponsible and stupid firing any kind of rifle up into the air or up into branches not knowing where it will impact / stop. It doesnt matter if there are no houses behind your house for a mile or two, you must know your backstop.

Jimbo 22, obviously you have absolutely no training in the use and purpose of firearms.

Some of you out there may think that I'm over reacting. Remember a while ago when a person was shoot in Boyle in a car park by a "stray bullet".................and that poor young child in Northern Ireland playing in a school play ground who was killed by another "stray bullet"............Think on guys..........they were both shot by .22lr's.

Jimbo 22, I would suggest that you put your firearm into its gun-safe, lock it and leave it there until you join your local gun club and learn the basic safety, handling and use of a firearm.

God I get so annoyed at this total irresposible crap.........................

pestshooter7

Bad idea!!!
Never shoot a rifle where you hav no backstop!!
Its jus too risky!!
Man was shot in england with a .22lr at 900 yrds!!
The person fired at a pigeon in a tree and missed!!
Saw it in shooting magazine some time back...
very bad practice!!
As for the 17hmr it would travel at least a mile IMO.

bunny shooter

How did you get a licence :mad:

Our man in Havana

Quite, bunny shooter. You just have to wonder.

milkerman

Aw come on guys, give him a break. At least he asked the question before pulling a trigger.
OP - NEVER fire a bullet unless you know EXACTLY where it is going.
I suspect the .22 would do more damage than the .17 at very long ranges due to the heavier projectile but would not volunteer to be at the receiving end of either.

milkerman

Oh Cr*p, Re-read the original post.
I hope crows were all you hit.

Our man in Havana

I occasionally have been taking shots at grey crows from downstair in my house with a .17hmr.

OMG! :eek:

Do you realise how dangerous it is shooting from inside a house?

Mellor

Bond-007 wrote: »

OMG! :eek:

Do you realise how dangerous it is shooting from inside a house?

Wow, I actually was so shocked at the question and got a quick response out that I missed that part. That is just as bad as the shooting up.

pestshooter7

Not alone is it out of the house it also seems that if it was a centrefire he would do the same thing judging by the last line!!
Certainly wouldnt like to be at the wrong end of a 223 or 243!!

Jonty

To the OP, even if you connected with your target, where did you think the bullet would go? And don't say it expanded inside the birdey. I think that kind of behaviour brings the sport down and paints us all with the one brush:mad:

It is a good rule of thumb never to fire without a safe backstop!!!

meathstevie

The only set of circumstances when you can fire at that sort of elevation is when you're at the foot of a very high backstop ( i.e. at a fox halfway up a steep hillside with you flat on your belly ), even when you miss completly your round is still going to slam into a solid backstop. Don't do that sort of stuff without a relaible backstop. When shooting at that sort of elavation you should think of your bullet as a miniature artillery round. The worst thing is that a good few people who do this kind of thing are probably doing this without being aware of the potential dangers. Granted, 9999 times out of 10000 your bullet is probably not going to hit or hurt anyone but you don't want to find out about the one time when it's going to go wrong.

jimbo 22

Ok point taken apologies


As a rule of i never fire low without a backstop



Is it not acceptable to shoot at 90 degrees.

I know lots of people who lamp wood pigeon with 22lr at nite?

Rovi

jimbo 22 wrote: »

Is it not acceptable to shoot at 90 degrees.

I know lots of people who lamp wood pigeon with 22lr at nite?

That's not going to meet with universal approval either, I'm afraid.

As Hatcher and MythBusters have demonstrated, even under laboratory conditions it's very difficult to shoot at exactly 90 degrees, and expecting to be able to deliberately do it freehand under a tree is purely an exercise in self delusion, in my opinion.
A projectile fired exactly vertically will return to earth at its terminal velocity, which is unlikely to do serious damage; with any sort of horizontal vector (anything other than exactly vertical) though, it's going to retain some of its muzzle velocity and the danger factor goes up dramatically.

While the chances of hitting anything of consequence within the theoretical maximum range (1.5 miles or thereabouts for .22LR, we're led to believe) may be minuscule, so are the chances of any one individual winning the Lotto, and that gets won every few weeks or so.
There are 2 examples already quoted in this thread of people on this little island getting hit by 'stray' bullets, so it does happen in the real world, and to be quite frank, the shooting community doesn't need publicity like that.


In my opinion, lamping pigeons with a rifle is lunacy.
That's what shotguns and airguns are for.

Mellor

Rovi wrote: »

A projectile fired exactly vertically will return to earth at its terminal velocity, which is unlikely to do serious damage;

Just to point out, Even at terminal velocity, it will be travelling at 100 MPH, I imagine this will sting a little.

Jonty

Rovi wrote: »

In my opinion, lamping pigeons with a rifle is lunacy.
That's what shotguns and airguns are for.

Seeing as pigeons now have a season and therefore not vermin is it not an offence to either

1. Shoot them under a lamp??

or

2. Shoot them with a rifle??


Any Thoughts?

Our man in Havana

Correct on both points.

Mellor

Jonty wrote: »

Seeing as pigeons now have a season and therefore not vermin is it not an offence to either

Alot of people seam to think that this pigeon season is new, its been around for over 20 years. suppose that off topic,
you're spot on about other points

DeVore

Shooting *anything* at 90 degrees is probably a really bad idea without a hard hat.

Learning about angles and geometry is probably a good idea, one I think Jimbo could act on

Not being a shooter I've often wondered about shooting at 45 degrees. I know the math so if someone can tell me the muzzle velocity of the bullet I can do some simple math on it and tell you how far it will go.

Anything with that amount of energy thats not in controlled environment is probably a Really Bad Idea.

DeV.

It wasn't me!

From the chart posted the other day, average muzzle velocity of a .22lr is 1138fps, and muzzle energy is 97 foot pounds.

cavan shooter

Looks like this will turn into an applied maths class:D

Never discharge a rifle into the air, bullet will land somewhere, or on someone, something

QED

sidneyreilly

Here's one dealing with subsonic:

.22 cal bullet
(Calculated using Ingalls' table)
Bullet Weight ......... 40 grains Bullet Caliber ........ 0.224
Sectional Density ..... 0.114 Coefficient of Form ... 0.791
Effective Bal. Coeff... 0.144 Bal. Coeff. at STP .... 0.144
Cross wind ............ 10.0 m.p.h. Altitude .............. 0 Ft.
Atmospheric pressure .. 30.00 in. Temperature ........... 60.0 F

Range Velocity Energy Momentum Mx. Ord. Defl. Drop Lead Time
yards f.p.s. ft-lb. lb.-sec. in. in. in. in/mph sec.
0 1000 88.8 0.1776 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.000
239 771 52.8 0.1370 32.8 18.8 120.3 14.5 0.824
478 611 33.1 0.1085 169.2 76.9 577.2 32.9 871
717 484 20.8 0.0860 493.9 183.3 1568.1 56.2 3.192
956 383 13.1 0.0681 1146.7 350.7 3402.4 85.5 4.860
1195 304 8.2 0.0540 2370.1 595.1 6563.6 122.6 6.966

Cant seem to get this legible- 8.2 foot pounds at 1195 yards velocity 304fps.

Mellor

Might as well work out supersonic rounds too.
2500 - 3600 fps
Range anyone


Sydney, does the above take into account the anlge, what angle? Its kind of hard to read

If someone wants to PM me the math, I can set up a little program / excel sheet that will calculate this. I may even be able to factor in a graph! (I am an economics student, we love graphs!)

IRLConor

Much easier to use a pre-made calculator:

http://www.eskimo.com/~jbm/calculations/traj/traj.html

It's complicated enough, but takes the aerodynamics of the bullet into account. (This is really important, the applied maths techniques tend to work on point masses with no air resistance which makes a big difference.) That calculator will even tell you the energy of the round at various distances.

ivanthehunter

V Bull wrote: »

Very bad idea, irresponsible and stupid firing any kind of rifle up into the air or up into branches not knowing where it will impact / stop. It doesnt matter if there are no houses behind your house for a mile or two, you must know your backstop.

Jimbo 22, obviously you have absolutely no training in the use and purpose of firearms.

Some of you out there may think that I'm over reacting. Remember a while ago when a person was shoot in Boyle in a car park by a "stray bullet".................and that poor young child in Northern Ireland playing in a school play ground who was killed by another "stray bullet"............Think on guys..........they were both shot by .22lr's.

Jimbo 22, I would suggest that you put your firearm into its gun-safe, lock it and leave it there until you join your local gun club and learn the basic safety, handling and use of a firearm.

God I get so annoyed at this total irresposible crap.........................

that kid in the north lived!!

Victor

Apparently the maximum range from artillery is about 44 degrees. I'm not sure of the discrepancy from 45 degrees, but I imagine air resistance and earth curvature have an effect.

Bond-007 wrote: »

Do you realise how dangerous it is shooting from inside a house?

Is this because someone might walk past the door / window?

ivanthehunter

thought i read it somewhere as 38.5 deg

foxshooter243

christ a guy asks a question and he is bombarded by experts- how fortunate we are to have such a huge an amount of ballistic experts available on hand............



:(:(:(:(

DeVore

I know the difference between centrefire and rimfire (I think!) but I'm confused as to two things:

1. Why is it bad to fire from inside a house (is it the lack of field of view?)?

2. Why is centrefire worse then rimfire in this situation?

DeV.

DeVore

foxshooter243 wrote: »

christ a guy asks a question and he is bombarded by experts- how fortunate we are to have such a huge an amount of ballistic experts available on hand............



:(:(:(:(

To be fair he asked the question "what do people think" in the OP... and he got told. Along with being soundly scolded there is a lot of useful information for the interested, in this thread...

DeV.

foxshooter243

yeah , he asked what people think..... he was looking for advice not to
be taken apart by people thinking hes foolhardy...:(

DeVore

I would have worded my responses differently then others here, that much is true. But I dont think I should protect him from the anger of people who think he is foolhardy.
I also dont think he has been "taken apart" unless his browser has some disturbing extensions I'm not aware of ... I'm guessing he'll live.

DeV.

foxshooter243

as he said " what people think" hes looking for advice:eek:

foxshooter243

DeVore wrote: »

I would have worded my responses differently then others here, that much is true. But I dont think I should protect him from the anger of people who think he is foolhardy.
I also dont think he has been "taken apart" unless his browser has some disturbing extensions I'm not aware of ... I'm guessing he'll live.

DeV.

funny, but i thought that a shooting forum was there to support shooters
or hunters or anyone trying to enter into any of the sports that this forum would encompass, but if someome cant ask for support or advice without the risk of being critcised whats the point.

DeVore

Others may want to heed your advice. I'm not actually here to make everyone hug each other, only to ensure that things remain somewhat civil and avoiding legal arguments.

I hardly think the OP is traumatised but as I said, I would word things differently.

DeV.

dresden8

May I suggest that if you want every post finished with "Hugs" you should head over to Personal Issues.

People who are doing something stupid that ends up with everybody else's rifle confiscated deserve to be torn a new one occasionally.

jimbo 22

Im no batestic expert as you have already gathered,

Critisim or scoulding as one one person put it is'nt a bad thing.

id rather get a rollicking from you guys than cause an accident heaven forbid

Ive learned a lot from this forum and will continue to do so.

Mellor

DeVore wrote: »

I know the difference between centrefire and rimfire (I think!) but I'm confused as to two things:

1. Why is it bad to fire from inside a house (is it the lack of field of view?)?

2. Why is centrefire worse then rimfire in this situation?

DeV.

I would say field of vision is a big part of it. Its just not safe.

Centre fire is worse as they (in general) are nore powerful and therefore the range is further.

funny, but i thought that a shooting forum was there to support shooters
or hunters or anyone trying to enter into any of the sports that this forum would encompass, but if someome cant ask for support or advice without the risk of being critcised whats the point

He was doing something wrong/unsafe and was told so. What answer would you of given, the snap response was due to the seriousness of the issue,

Compared to other forums here on boards, the OP got away with a light tickle.

DeVore

DeVore wrote: »

2. Why is centrefire worse then rimfire in this situation?

DeV.

Centrefires are much bigger round with a lot more powder behind them.
I am sure that Rovi will be able to give a much better example but basically;

Rimfire are lighter rounds and have less of a charge behind them

.22lr will drop a rabbit
.177hmr (or something like that), smaller round but it packs a greater charge so it has a longer range. Good for foxes and the like.

After that you get in centrefires such as .223, .308 etc. These are serious rounds with big bullets and a lot of powder behind them. Used for deer etc.

A centrefire will generally travel further and pack more of a whallop then a rimfire, hence firing one into the air is worse then a .22 as it will go further and land harder.

Rovi

Did I hear someone call my name?


zaraba's pretty much nailed the important stuff, but here's the TechGeek version:

Using Sierra's [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Infinity Ballistics software with relevant data gives the following results-[/FONT]

(Note- I used the data here: http://extorian.co.uk/shooting/pellets.html and here: http://www.compasseco.com/blog/2007/...efficient.html to get weight and Ballistic Coefficient data for airgun pellets, so they're very much 'ballpark' figures, but should be close enough for this)

Airgun
.22 airgun pellet (20grain, 0.020BC) @ 800fps:
The maximum range of your Custom .22 airgun pellet 20gr at 800 Feet per Second is:
374.5 yards at an elevation angle of 26 degrees.

Rimfire
.22LR hollowpoint bullet (40grain, 0.110BC) @ 1300fps
The maximum range of your Custom .22LR hollowpoint bullet 40gr at 1300 Feet per Second is:
1602.4 yards at an elevation angle of 27 degrees.

Centrefire
Remington .172 dia. 17 Rem, 20 gr. AccuTip
The maximum range of your Remington .172 dia. 17 Rem, 20 gr. AccuTip at 4250 Feet per Second is:
3030.7 yards at an elevation angle of 26 degrees.

Remington .224 dia. 223 Rem, 50 gr. AccuTip
The maximum range of your Remington .224 dia. 223 Rem, 50 gr. AccuTip at 3300 Feet per Second is:
3455.1 yards at an elevation angle of 28 degrees.

Remington .224 dia. 220 Swift, 50 gr. V-Max
The maximum range of your Remington .224 dia. 220 Swift, 50 gr. V-Max at 3780 Feet per Second is:
3617.5 yards at an elevation angle of 27 degrees.

Remington .243 dia. 243 Win, 95 gr. AccuTip BT
The maximum range of your Remington .243 dia. 243 Win, 95 gr. AccuTip BT at 3120 Feet per Second is:
4556.3 yards at an elevation angle of 30 degrees.

Remington .308 dia. 308 Win, 165 gr. AccuTip BT
The maximum range of your Remington .308 dia. 308 Win, 165 gr. AccuTip BT at 2700 Feet per Second is:
5132.8 yards at an elevation angle of 31 degrees.

I'm very much open to correction on the above, but I think it's a decent enough illustration of the differences between the various projectiles.
According to the software, these are maximum ranges at optimum firing angles; obviously raising or lowering the firing angle will decrease the range.

Mellor

Geek, I answered it in a single sentance, speed is of the essence

bunny shooter

DeVore wrote: »

I know the difference between centrefire and rimfire (I think!) but I'm confused as to two things:

1. Why is it bad to fire from inside a house (is it the lack of field of view?)?

2. Why is centrefire worse then rimfire in this situation?

DeV.

1. As a rule you don't fire anywhere near a house or buildings, either at or from

2. Centrefire are more powerful and have a longer range capacity, larger bullets