That depends mostly on their size, as size is reduced mass decreases faster than drag. Smaller birdshot is no longer dangerous after a couple hundred yards while large rifle bullets can kill even after traveling several miles.
Comment on When will we have auto turrets mounted on plane engines to stop birdstrikes?
adespoton@lemmy.ca 2 days agoWhat’s the terminal velocity of a bullet? My guess is that it’s similar to the terminal velocity of a penny.
In other words, raining bullets are highly unlikely to directly kill anyone (although they could still sting if they hit you, or chip your windshield).
They could use ice bullets and solve that problem though….
ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
BlindFrog@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Mythbusters found the ice bullet would evaporate before it could even leave the gun barrel en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(2003_season)#E…
adespoton@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Yup… but they make noise and leave a lovely contrail.
Phil_in_here@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Terminal velocity is really only relevant for objects that go below terminal velocity and then start falling. Bullets famously come out of guns very fast, so fast they go into people.
While air will slow the bullet down, tell that to the guy over over 2 miles away from Viacheslav Kovalskyi
Now, bird shot ain’t sniper rounds, but the point stands.
adespoton@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Bullets also famously come out of guns horizontally. As they travel, their horizontal speed decreases due to friction (slowly) and their horizontal speed accelerates until it hits terminal velocity.
Now one point here is that the only place where you’d be shooting at birds is during takeoff and landing; this is near the ground, and in both cases, the aircraft is nose up — which means the bullet wouldn’t be traveling at height until it lost momentum and fell, but would instead follow an arc that would still likely preserve a lot of forward momentum as the bullet approached the surface of the earth.
But it’s not falling bullets that are dangerous; it’s bullets moving forward with velocity that cause damage.
CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 2 days ago
You are incorrect. Many people have been killed by bullets falling back to earth. There is even a law in Arizona named after a little girl killed that way.
Shooting guns in the air should result in prison and lifetime forfeiture of the privilege to own firearms. It’s irresponsible and extremely negligent.
And I’m not anti-gun. I own 3 and enjoy target shooting. What I am, is anti-gun ownership by morons.