A bullet fired in zero wind straight up will stop momentarily, begin to fall to earth and in 7 seconds or less reach terminal velocity owing to simple air resistance.
The highest speed the bullet will achieve by simply falling is maybe 10% or less or what it has emerging from the muzzle after the initial shot.
Any person killed by one of these those was either only extremely unlucky or unlucky and killed by a TOTAL IDIOT who couldn’t pull off even a proper celebratory gunshot (not shooting straight up, or shooting at an angle UP A HILL occupied by people fussy about their skulls, etc).
And owing to its angular velocity (spin), it will most likely come down base first.
So are you saying that standing at sea level, if I fire my rifle straight up with a 3,000 fps muzzle velocity, that it will attain a terminal velocity of 2,400 fps?
I don't think so. There is no correlation between muzzle velocity and free fall terminal velocity.
So are you saying that standing at sea level, if I fire my rifle straight up with a 3,000 fps muzzle velocity, that it will attain a terminal velocity of 2,400 fps?
I don't think so. There is no correlation between muzzle velocity and free fall terminal velocity.
“A bullet fired in zero wind straight up will stop momentarily, begin to fall to earth and in 7 seconds or less reach terminal velocity owing to simple air resistance....”
But it will not land on the shooter - not even close.
Air is never still.
The atmosphere near the ground (below 15,000 - 20,000 ft above sea level, or so) is composed of many layers. They mix only a little, and often contain winds that blow in directions very different from adjacent layers. Temperature and pressure vary surprisingly: all these factors heavily influence the displacement of the bullet (or any object transiting a layer).
Terminal velocity of the bullet returning to earth also varies: temperature, humidity, barometric pressure vary greatly and all affect the air resistance the falling bullet encounters.
Greater uncertainty is introduced when a bullet traveling above the speed of sound loses velocity to the point where it drops below the sound barrier. Above the speed of sound, shock waves trail the bullet; when it goes subsonic, the shock wave dissipates. This affects the bullet in unpredictable ways and can cause it to veer unpredictably.
US Army Ordnance conducted experiments after the First World War to determine the maximum altitude attained by a US issue 30-06 bullet succeeded in recovering only a couple bullets out of many fired when the gun platform was aimed straight up. Maximum altitude was determined to be something above 9000 ft; these experiments were conducted on the Atlantic coast of Florida near Daytona, and details were set down in print by Julian S Hatcher, Maj Gen, US Army Ordnance, in _Hatcher’s Notebook_.
The TV series Mythbusters attempted to recover bullets fired vertically, from a launch site in the middle of a dry lake bed. They failed to recover a single bullet. Their calculations never took account of atmospheric layers and varying wind directions limited to layers.