Watching the bullets fly

[.5mv^2]

Last week, my wife and I were shooting at a gong about 200 feet away. She was sitting on my left shooting her 40 glock. I thought I was seeing the brass eject but it didn't seem right so I stood up. Sure enough what I was seeing was the bullet headed down to the target. She had noticed the same thing.
Besides her glock we shot a HP carbine and a 45 revolver. All were spitting the bullets out. It was brief but consistent and the timing was about right, a fraction of second.

Our range points north and the sun was in the southwest as it was in the mid afternoon. Perhaps the sun was the just right, I don't know. We have another range that we shoot south and really never have seen this before on either range.

Has anyone else seen their bullets consistently?

[I'll Make Mine]

If the sun is fairly low and behind you, it isn't uncommon to see pistol-velocity bullets in flight. You're almost directly behind the bullet, so its apparent speed is pretty low; if it's well enough lit to see against the background, it'll be almost like a tracer.

[.5mv^2]

Yes it looked a bit like a tracer. Might be fun to see if we can illuminate them in the dark with a spot light.

Really thought they should be moving faster but once you calculate it takes more like a 1/4 of a second.


If the sun is fairly low and behind you, it isn't uncommon to see pistol-velocity bullets in flight. You're almost directly behind the bullet, so its apparent speed is pretty low; if it's well enough lit to see against the background, it'll be almost like a tracer.

[nodda duma]

Yep I've seen them fly. Shooting my Beretta 92 FS with friends and saw them fly to target. Sunny day

[azrednek]

Slower moving bullets from like a 45ACP are much easier to see when the sun is just right. About a year or so ago. A shooter at an outdoor range was shooting 9's and 45's with what he claimed was a red colored sticky dot placed on the backside of the slug. The 45's were easy to see but with my 61 year old eyes I could only spot about 50% of the 9"s. The shooter's teen aged daughter claimed she could see every one.

[44man]

I shot 100 .44 magnum bullets just to watch them when the sun was right. It is great fun shooting tracers without actual tracers.
I was shooting a 1911 yesterday and could see little flashes from the ejection port too. First time I seen that.

[ReloaderFred]

When lighting conditions are right, you can even watch rifle caliber bullets travel downrange. I've watched many a .30-06 and .308 go downrange to the target. On long range targets, you can watch the arc of the bullet.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[David2011]

When shooting steel matches in South Louisiana we saw the boolits go downrange all the time. Almost everyone but the open shooters shot light loads with cast boolits. The berms were covered with dark green vegetation and the targets were to the west. The morning sun lit the bases of the boolits beautifully. Don't think I ever saw a j-word going downrange drom a .38 super at around 1500 fps, though.

David

[BeeMan]

I saw bullets in flight when shooting IHMSA if the conditions were right. A friend even showed me how to adjust the spotting scope so they were easier to pick up. The trajectory of an RCBS 357-180 bullet from a 357 magnum makes a pretty good arc when the target is out at 200 meters.

[fcvan]

Back in 1990, I was working the rifle range during a rain storm. When officers were shooting the Mini 14, you could watch the rain moved by the sonic wave. From behind the shooter it was like shooting through a 4" tube. With all of the rain coming down the target line was blurry but you could see the target clearly through the 'tube.' When we switched to the 9mm carbine you could watch the sonic wave open up the tube, see the bullet strike, and then watch as the tube collapsed. 14 hours on the range that day and didn't stop raining the whole time. The only thing good about it was being able to watch the sonic waves affecting the rain. Frank

[.5mv^2]

For some reason it is rarely talked about. Fast as bullet is not that fast.

[I'll Make Mine]

It's mostly geometry -- there's no way you could see the bullet in flight if you're standing alongside the range, but from behind, the bullet appears to almost stand still; given a transit time slower than the eye's reflex (which is about a quarter second to capture and follow movement), all that's really needed to see the bullet from behind is lighting that make the bullet brighter than the background. I'm told that the same is true of cannonballs and even 16 inch rifle bullets fired from battleships (at about twice common rifle velocity) -- from behind, they're not all that hard to see.

[jimb16]

And if the weather conditions are just right, you can also see vapor trails caused by the passage of the bullet! I've seen it twice; once with a .30-06 and once with a .223.

[LtFrankDrebbin]

We do a lot of hunting via spot light from the ute, it's quite common to see .22 bullets in flight. .357mags and the 32-20 are awsome to see on longer shots.

[Jack Stanley]

You got my attention I'll make mine , what is the normal velocity for a sixteen inch rifle bullet ?


Jack

[jameslovesjammie]

To really see some good vapor trails, go shoot your rifle at long range in the rain. It's really cool. Oddly enough, the rain doesn't seem to change accuracy.

[429421Cowboy]

I love waching bullets fly! Sometimes conditons are just right to see pistol boolits duing the day, which can be very educational. Also it is very easy to see a bullet in a strong spotlight at night, they almost seem to glow. I also have noted that like you said, for all we talk about velocity, even the fastest rounds seem slow when you're watching them!
The vapor trail left by rifle bullets is another fun thing to watch as well, really helps to understand wind doping! On my range we take turns watctching the rifle plates at long range as we shoot, it is something to see the bullet not only make an upward arc, but with the proper wind doping, start out off-line with the target and arc right in for a hit.

[I'll Make Mine]

You got my attention I'll make mine , what is the normal velocity for a sixteen inch rifle bullet ?


Jack

Well, I'd been assuming a high muzzle velocity based on the range I recalled of around thirty-five miles at what I understood to be a maximum of 15º elevation -- but a quick Wikipedia lookup shows the 16"/50 cal Mark 7 rifles on the Iowa class could elevate to 45º and fired at "only" 2690 ft/s on 660 lbs of large grain smokeless (I guess those bullets held velocity a tad better than the .308 boat tails most of us are more used to). This elevation doesn't jibe with a story I recall about a commander intentionally grounding his ship in Korea in order to gain elevation and deliver rounds further inland in support of troops -- but that might not have been an Iowa class ship.

Seems as if the figure I remembered was that given by the 1960s vintage rocket-assisted projectiles (same muzzle velocity, but a rocket in the bullet base added considerably to the range). I also seem to recall the last generation of bullets for those rifles were sabots with in-flight guidance that could deliver to around sixty miles (presumably using some glide to extend range) at a rate of fire that, for a full broadside, beat any missile launcher then extant by a large margin.

[Snapping Twig]

45 acp is fun to watch, makes them seem like they're slow - but they're really not.

What was an eye opener for me was watching a guy shooting a Weatherby .30-378!

I was able to observe the shockwave when the conditions were just right. The bullet left a visible wave in its travel. Impressive.

[Jack Stanley]

Thanks I'll Make Mine , I used to work with a guy at the shop who was a forward director ( or whatever the guy is that directs gunfire) in the Navy . I can remember him telling me about directing Naval rifles and Marine howitzers as well .

Some of my cast bullets I sometimes see a brief trace of , depending on the light it's either bright or just a dark dot .

Jack

[rintinglen]

When I was Marksmanship Instructor, I used to see bullets in flight all the time in the summer on Range 204 at Camp Pendleton. I used to befuddle some of my shooters by calling the score before the target was marked. Looking through Binoculars from behind the shooter, even the 5.56 stuff was visible when the sun was right. The 7.62 stuff was visible even to the naked eye.

[Whistler]

I shot 400gn bullets out of my .444 Marlin revolver with 7.5" barrel last summer. At 200 yards you could not only see the bullet, but could actually see the spiral it made in the air as it destabilized and wobbled. In the spotter's scope it looked like it came in on the steel ram curved like in that lousy action movie "Wanted".

[DLCTEX]

One day in high humidity I saw the vapor trail of both 22-250 and 30-06 bullets, it looked like a tunnel.