the speed of sound

[Phillip Allen]

Some of you are aware of my shooting endeavors. My rifle of the moment is a single shot chambering a 40-65 cartridge. It is an old black powder era cartridge which fires (for me) a 400 grain bullet at about 1150fps. The rifle is pleasant to shoot and has been fired by a short, 15 year old neighbor girl with a great deal of enthusiasm with no problems. In the last few days I’ve been shooting a 45-70 with 350 grain bullets at maybe 1500fps. It is punishing. It seems odd to me that it should be so unpleasant to shoot when the bullets are so much lighter. It occurs to me that slowing the bullets down to the same speed as the 40-65 will likely be back in the pleasant shooting category.

The speed of sound; exceed it at your peril

[purri]

^ You are correct. In part because the transition of the projectile from super to sub sonic affects accuracy. Another is that there are different effects from the recoil over time vs burning rates between BP and NP.

I saw some time lapse pics of such a few decades back, most informative.

Mr S should weigh in here.

[JimD]

what you need to do is only use the weapon under water. In water sound waves travels over 4 times faster, so you could significantly increase the size of the cartridge and still remain sub sonic.

[Phillip Allen]

what you need to do is only use the weapon under water. In water sound waves travels over 4 times faster, so you could significantly increase the size of the cartridge and still remain sub sonic.

that almost sounds bassackwards

[JimD]

See, from my perspective its the title of the thread that is bassackwards. You might have just called it 'The speed of bullets' because that's what its really about. Of course then I probably wouldn't have opended. But since you did, and therefore I did, I thought as long as I'm here I might as well try being helpful.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

what you need to do is only use the weapon under water. In water sound waves travels over 4 times faster, so you could significantly increase the size of the cartridge and still remain sub sonic.

Water can be problematic as it has strange effect on both optics and gunpowder.

A Hydrogen rich atmosphere however - could be explored.

[David W Pratt]

KE=M8v*V^2
The velocity term gets squared, so kinetic energy goes up as the square of velocity, but you knew that

[Phillip Allen]

fun is where ya find it

[JimD]

fun is where ya find it

I think PISN was kidding about the hydrogen thing. Promise us you won't try it.

[Phillip Allen]

I think PISN was kidding about the hydrogen thing. Promise us you won't try it.

I am occasionally foolish... but NEVER stupid