Re: Bullet fired into air...

"John Graeme" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> A later report said that was an exaggeration (as so often happens in
> news reports)--He was not "critically" injured.  Nor is it very likely
> that one would be by a bullet fired straight up.  The U.S. Army did
> some experiments on this quite a while ago: The terminal velocity
> (which is also the velocity when it hits the ground) of a bullet fired
> straight up is about 300 fps. They concluded that it was unlikely that
> such a bullet would cause a critical wound.

That's probably true if you're talking about a 40-grain bullet from a .22;
however, when we're talking about, say, a 230-grain bullet from a .45, 300
fps isn't such a piddly velocity.

The 9mm bullet if found in the street on New Year's Day of '91 (and which
had landed a very short distance from me the night before) had a nicely
flattened nose.  That takes velocity.

(See the NRA Factbook, and
> the question has been discussed in sci.physics a few times also, with
> the same figure)  For comparison, this is less than the velocity of a
> typical pellet handgun.

Of course, neither does your typical pellet weigh 230 grains . . .