If you shot a handgun straight up in the air....
 

how high would the bullet go, say a 9mm.

My 6yo just asked me if it would go "higher than a mountain" :) so I am googling it to keep up his belief in his all knowing father but thought some gun freaks on here might know or have tried it. :glugglug

a mile +/-

last time i checked mountains come in different sizes.

Not when you're six, silly!

why don't you tie a tape measure to the end of a bullet and find out

feed your kid some Draino tonight and see if he asks you anymore crazy questions you cannot answer.

1 mile 27 1/2 feet 3.3 inches.

Of course, you might want to remind your six year old that what goes up must also come down... ...somewhere... :upsidedow

Tell him to mind his business.

Or tell him it depends on the wind.

when i was hunting i done that and the cool thing is the gun made no noice till like 5 secs later i would hear the noice.

wtf? noice?

dumbass.

That's a cute question from your kid OzMan :)

But would it go higher than a mountain? Who knows really. In my apartment, if I shot, it wouldn't go higher than the butt of my fat bitchy upstairs neighbor :Graucho

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/que...php?number=617

might help figure it out

:1orglaugh

a handgun bullet can travel around 2 miles

Interesting link, air resistance is a bigger factor than I had thought.

Thanks for the replies, I also figured about a mile straight up but now thinking maybe it's less.

Yes I did inform my son that mountains do come in various sizes :winkwink:

And about the what goes up must come down, haven't you ever wondered with all the guns shot in the air for NY Eve, July 4 or just for the hell of it, why you never hear of them hitting someone when they come down?

LOL are you serious about that?

It happens all the time, actually.

deadly serious, I know the chances are very small but I don't remember ever seeing a news report about it.

a more intresting question would be if that bullet would be lethal if it came down on somebody

When i worked for a newspaper south of Denver....
 

the bullet shot into the air.. did come down. Right into a kids head.

It would make a hole in your head. The speed would be 9.8 meters per second (32 feet per sec).

Give him a gun and tell him to test it out for his next school project.

yeah I am sure it wouldn't be as fast because of air resistance but like chrome said above apparently it is still fast enough to be lethal.

There is that old story about a penny dropped off the Empire State or wherever being as deadly as a bullet by the time it gets to ground level. :glugglug

no that is the acceleration due to gravity without factoring in air resistance

When fired from a Beretta 92S, the standard issue US Army pistol, a 9 mm Parabellum bullet has a muzzle velocity of 335 m/s. (google)

0 = 335^2 + 2(-9.81)d
d = 5719m
= 5.7km

amateurs

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a950414b.html


Read this :)

you live in a vaccuum? :winkwink:

Yeah, I realized that after the 3 minute edit time had passed :)

thanks :thumbsup

the velocity at the distance from the ground where the bullet was fired is the same up as it is down..

so if u were standing right under a gun as its fired up, the bullet would go up, come down, and it would strike u with the same speed as though the gun were pointed at your head directly in the first place

this is assuming no wind or air friction tho

http://van.hep.uiuc.edu/van/qa/secti...0310160956.htm

300 ft/sec is pretty fast.

3 mins over and i couldnt edit it :)

but i dont see how it would be that big a difference

holy fuck man...

"...i done that..." ???
"noice" ???

Jesus fucking christ...I cannot believe you just typed that without thinking that you sound like a complete fucking waste of skin...You ought to be ashamed of yourself...Do you even have a Grade 2 education?

JESUS CHRIST!!! I'm ashamed to be Canadian after reading that...

J.

That is pretty good question.

they do hit people. I know a girls uncle who was killed on new years when a bullet that had been shot in the air came back down and struck him.

i'd tell you more stories by 24 is on, lol

thats fuuuuuuuuuuuccccckkkkkkkkeeeeddd up.

i know im from the south, and we get a little hot easyer then most, but them there is fightin words where im from

I would have to agree with about 1 mile

csi did a show where someone got killed doing a stunt like that.

how far it would go would depend on a lot. assuming no wind factors elevation would play a big roll, as would the amount of gunpowder in the bullet - the weight of the bullet, the shape, material, and amount of tristing the bullet would get from the barrel, etc.

Also explain to him that if you fired that 9mm round straight ahead of you perpindicular with the ground with one hand and at the same time with the other hand dropped a 9mm slug, they would both hit the ground at the same time. (in theory) minus a few variables like earth curvature etc..

im not so sure it would be lethal falling down again....hail falls from much higher up and isnt lethal...also the bullet would have to come straight down on its tip for it to acheive maximum velocity....aerodynamic drag is dependent on surface area in contact with some scientific constants that i dont recall...gamma is one of the varibale i beleive...butanyway...300ft/s im not so sure about that. force = mass x acceleration and its acceleration is roughly 9.8m/s^2 if there is no aero drag and the mass is very very low seeing as Newtons is measure in kgm/s^2. so it may fall fast but i doubt its lethal

Hail can be lethal ... also a bullet is very dense compared to hail - likely experience less air resistance and furthermore likely to do inflict *more* damage/injury than a hail stone of similar size.

Ron

it is lethal
http://www.galleryofguns.com/shootin...es.asp?ID=6619

that math gave me a killer headache man. lol

If you know the speed of the bullet then there is an equation you can calculate the distance it will travel while it loses 9.8 meters a second. At its peak it will be at a standstill for a split second and then it will start to speed up at 9.8 meters per second as it drops. Assuming the bullet lands in a spot with the exact elevation that it was shot from it will be traveling at the same speed on impact as when it was fired.

If the bullet was fired horizontally it would travel at a constant speed it left the chamber at (assuming no wind resistance) until gravity pulls it down to the ground at a rate of 9.8 meters per second.

stray gunfire isnt perfect though. those deaths could by bullets boucning and deflecting off close walls etc. i doubt anyone shoots 100% straight up and if they did i still dont think it would be fatal. most stray bullets arent coming down, they are still going out. :2 cents:

shut the fuck up newbie

just make up some shit, its more fun that way.

very very high

It has happened many times.

dont waste perfectly good draino on his intestines, just mix the draino on a bottle with some tin foil, there's more fun to be had :thumbsup