.223 ballistics?

[44minimum]

Is there a ballistics calculator somewhere on the net for anybody to use or can one of you run a standard 223 55 grain bullet at 3200 feet per second load through your super duper ballistic calculator? I would like to know how far it could possibly go if it was fired at a 45° angle, and about how much drop at 1000 yards if fired level. At the Lake I go to it is approximately 1 3/4 miles across to the other side where there are a few houses and I'm wondering how safe it would be to shoot at turtles along my side of the shoreline. I don't think that it could possibly go that far from a ricochet but I would be interested to hear some input or experiences.

[Ricochet]

A bullet can skip like a rock a pretty long way across smooth open water. I don't think a ballistics program could calculate that.

And due to air drag, maximum distance of a bullet is achieved at something like 35° elevation, not the 45° that gets it the farthest in a vacuum.

[44minimum]

OK then, I have already been enlightened somewhat. How about a 223 round fired upward at 35° angle, what is the maximum range? And I don't see how a ballistics calculator could figure out a ricochet either, too many variables.

[44mag1]

Thats 3000 yards. Id say theres still enough energy to break a window or sting the piss out of someone. My brother and I used to hunt rabbits with our pellet guns when we were kids. We didnt ever think that little pellet could do much past 100 yards or so. Well sure enough he missed a shot and the pellet ricochet off into never never land, or we thought. An older man came walking up on us and demanded we come look at his wifes leg that had been struck by a pellet. He thought we were shooting at them deliberatly. Sure enough about 300 yards from where the shot was taken this lady got hit. Be carefull!

[cbrick]

Across a lake where there could possibly be people? If I were positive it couldn't possibly go that far I wouldn't do it. I was wrong once and that would be a really poor way to make it twice.

Rick

[SierraWhiskeyMC]

According to Department of the Army Range Safety Pamphlet (DA PAM 385-63), Table B-1, page 175, for M193 ball ammo, distance is 3,100 meters.
Source:
http://www.marines.mil/news/publications/Documents/DA%20PAM%20385-63.pdf

[GabbyM]

It would skip that far over dirt more less water.

Use 50 grain blitz type bullets for any varmint work. Hornady V-max or Sierra Blitz & Blitz King.

M-193 ammo will hit hard ground at 400 yards then hit again at a mile or so. Take heavy caliber deer hunting type soft points and it's way more of a problem. I've seen a 25-06 heavy bullet hit a prairie dog mound a quarter mile out then hit ground way up in top of my binocular field of view on the next mile section over.

Our rifle range at Windsor , IL got moved because a barn over a mile down range had hundreds of holes in it. That was from idiots whom were not members coming out with their AK's to chase cans on the ground not knowing the fmj bullets would skip over the back stop to hit over a mile away.

[SierraWhiskeyMC]

Just to clarify and compare, 3100 meters is 10,171 feet or 1.93 miles.
In Hatcher's Notebook, he mentions maximum range tests for .30 caliber ammunition.
M2 ball ammo, which was 152gr flat-bottomed spire points @ 2700fps had a maximum range of 2 miles.
They also tested 172gr boat tail rounds @ 2640fps; they had a maximum range of 3.2 miles.

Rounds will skip off the surface of water if the water is smooth and the angle of entry is small. The FBI did some testing with 9mm ammo and found that if the angle were 6° or less, the rounds would skip; more of an angle and they would destabilize. Of course they didn't mention the specifications of the bullets used in the test.

However, a buddy of mine was hunting around a decent-sized lake in the NW somewhere with his M1A. He took aim at a critter on the shoreline from a ways away, missed the shot, and then realized his truck was on the opposite side of the lake. No big deal, he thought - until he got back to his truck and found a .30 caliber hole straight through it, from the direction he was shooting. Since he was firing downwards, he could only conclude that the round had skipped off the surface of the water.

[AZ-Stew]

You might consider loading some of Barnes Varmint Grenade or MPG bullets. They are extremely frangible. That said, you may still need a relatively high attack angle to keep them from ricocheting. Give Barnes a call (435) 856-1000 and ask them how steep the angle has to be over water to get them to fragment.

Regards,

Stew

[JIMinPHX]

I think that I recall reading on a box of Remington factory .223 ammo that they claimed the ammo was dangerous out to 5 miles. I haven't done the math myself on that one.

[SierraWhiskeyMC]

I think that I recall reading on a box of Remington factory .223 ammo that they claimed the ammo was dangerous out to 5 miles. I haven't done the math myself on that one.

I remember the old Remington "green box" .22 LR having a warning on the end flap of the box that it was dangerous within 1 mile.

Some old Remington Silvertip .30-06 ammo I had years ago had a "dangerous within 3 miles" on the end flap.

You might very well get 5 miles out of a Remington factory .223 cartridge, but you would probably have to be shooting out of the co-pilot's window of a C141 flying at 45,000 feet...

[JIMinPHX]

The Federal .22LR boxes used to say dangerous within 1-1/2 miles.

I'm not claiming that these numbers are true (or not true), I'm just reporting what I've read. Like I said before, I haven't done the math on this myself yet.

[watkibe]

Back in the Stone Age when I took a hunter safety course to get my first hunting license, one of the safety rules was: "Never shoot over or across water".

No offense is intended, but why would you shoot at turtles anyway ? They surely aren't fast enough to be a challenge, they are useful in the lake ecosystem, they aren't destructive varmints that need to be controlled, plus I would be surprised if it weren't actually illegal.

I don't think a ballistics program is needed to tell that this isn't a good idea, but if you are still interested anyway, here is a link to one :

http://ammoguide.com/cgi-bin/bcalculator.cgi?sn=BqFgaIaBjN

Go to the bottom of the page and click on "AmmoGuide Shoot"; then you can download a pretty good free calculator.

[Heavy lead]

Back in the Stone Age when I took a hunter safety course to get my first hunting license, one of the safety rules was: "Never shoot over or across water".

No offense is intended, but why would you shoot at turtles anyway ? They surely aren't fast enough to be a challenge, they are useful in the lake ecosystem, they aren't destructive varmints that need to be controlled, plus I would be surprised if it weren't actually illegal.

I don't think a ballistics program is needed to tell that this isn't a good idea, but if you are still interested anyway, here is a link to one :

http://ammoguide.com/cgi-bin/bcalculator.cgi?sn=BqFgaIaBjN

Go to the bottom of the page and click on "AmmoGuide Shoot"; then you can download a pretty good free calculator.


I don't get the turtle thing either. If you're eating them that's one thing, if they are a pest, that's one thing as well. But as far as just shooting them. I'm no PETA loving anti-hunting freak either, but WTH?

[LowPE]

When I was a youngster, we shot turtles on the farm pond (that we stocked with bass, catfish, crappie) because the fish agent said they were really destructive towards the fish -- eating eggs I guess.

They were really difficult to hit with only their heads out of water.

[44minimum]

I will be disregarding this idea and stick with a 22 long rifle for turtle blasting. We're at an elevated position and a 22 long rifle will not ricochet unless the water is smooth and you aim a way out into the lake to decrease the angle and then when it ricochets it only goes 200 or 300 more yards and then tumbles into lake. I don't think a 223 would ricochet but I guess I will never know. I don't really hate turtles but they always eat the worms off of our hooks.

[JIMinPHX]

a 22 long rifle will not ricochet unless the water is smooth and you aim a way out into the lake to decrease the angle

I find that hard to believe. I don't know it to be false for a fact, but it would surprise me if that were true.

[JIMinPHX]

they aren't destructive varmints that need to be controlled,

I guess that you didn't grow up near any snapping turtles that were over a foot wide.

[GabbyM]

The rim fire will ricochet worse than a 223. Just a fact their.
As stated above. Shoot a Blitz or SX typed bullet. I've shot thousands of Sierra Blitz King bullets at prairie dogs from 223 and never seen a ricochet. Hard bullets like standard soft points or the worst M-193 ball will spin off with a audible whistle more often than not. The white dirt on South Dakota and Colorado dog towns are bad about ricochet for sure. About like shooting over concrete.

I think my cast boolits in 22 caliber may work but have never tried them over water. For sure would be better than a 22 rimfire.

[carpetman]

If you figure the distance based on muzzle velocity and whatever the optimum angle is ( I guess 35 degrees) that is your max distance and a ricochet is going to decrease that---not increase it. When it hits the water to cause the ricochet that will slow it---not speed it up and you probably would lose that 35 degree angle. Using a cast bullet 1000 fps slower would decrease the range considerably, (good luck getting cast to shoot in .223--I never did) but using the .22 rimfire you mentioned would decrease it even more. The .22 rimfire might ricochet more often---but max distance travelled would be decreased as you are trimming another 1000 fps off and using a lighter bullet.

[Vly]

You would need to keep a sharp eye out for people in boats, as well.

[Tom Myers]

Is there a ballistics calculator somewhere on the net for anybody to use or can one of you run a standard 223 55 grain bullet at 3200 feet per second load through your super duper ballistic calculator? I would like to know how far it could possibly go if it was fired at a 45° angle, and about how much drop at 1000 yards if fired level.

Standard ballistic and trajectory calculators cannot accurately calculate trajectories that are angled more than 5 or 6 degrees. They are not programed to take into account the velocity retardation due to gravity on the upward leg of the trajectory and the acceleration due to gravity on the downward leg of the trajectory.

Some years ago, I worked up a crude but highly accurate numerical integration calculator that included the gravity vectors and also the density of the atmosphere at varying altitudes. It takes trial and error and then interpolation to finally get the launch angle and downrange impact distance, but here are the last 4 screen shots of the process for a Remington 62 grain HP match bullet with a ballistic coefficient of 0.2049, a muzzle velocity of 3,200 fps and launched at an angle of 33.5 degrees. The bullet will travel approx 3,099 yards and impact at an angle of 69 degrees.

If you were standing on the edge of a high cliff and fired the bullet horizontally level, the bullet would drop 723 inches at a range of 1,000 yards.

Hope this helps

Respectfully,
Tom Myers
Precision Ballistics and Records (http://www.uslink.net/~tom1/)


Initial input
http://www.tmtpages.com/LinkSkyImages/forum_images/High%20Trajectory/Initial%20input.gif


Midrange~Maximum Ordinate point
http://www.tmtpages.com/LinkSkyImages/forum_images/High%20Trajectory/midrange%20output.gif


Max Range interpolation data
http://www.tmtpages.com/LinkSkyImages/forum_images/High%20Trajectory/max%20range%20interpolation.gif


Final Data
http://www.tmtpages.com/LinkSkyImages/forum_images/High%20Trajectory/final%20output.gif


1,000 yard Bullet Drop
http://www.tmtpages.com/LinkSkyImages/forum_images/High%20Trajectory/1000yd%20drop.gif

[35remington]

The following site allows you to use various drag functions, bullet coefficients from the list provided or you may enter your own, adjustments for atmospheric pressure and altitude at which the bullet is fired, including temperature and other factors to arrive at an answer.

http://www.jbmballistics.com/~jbm/cgi-bin/jbmdist-5.0.cgi

Using Tom Meyer's numbers, but running it through this calculator, a maximum range of just under 3000 yards is obtained.

The major trouble is relating the shape of the bullet to the exact drag function, as no drag function is an exact representation of a particular bullet unless it happens to be the projectile the drag function is calculated upon - many of these are for artillery shells, larger caliber bullets, and what not.

So any range calculation is an approximation based on the approximation of the proper drag function, but the result is "close enough for government work." Users may argue that their own particular model is more accurate than another's, but the trouble is that the drag function, chosen from a table, is an approximation, so their model may have some inherent error as well, which is impossible to remove entirely.

So all range estimation programs have inherent error. One must admit that "the devil is in the details" but those devily details cannot be reproduced perfectly for every small arms bullet.

But the answer is "good enough" when those details are not exactly known. Variance between this calculation and Mr. Meyer's is about 130 yards, or "close enough."

Scroll to the home page to see the other functions this ballistic calculator performs, and have fun with it. Real life will vary slightly, but this will get you in the ballpark.

[44minimum]

Now there is some interesting information. Thank you gentlemen.