Ricochet noise. .
Spent the afternoon shooting my 25 Cricket at 45yds, at those tiny “eco-friendly” water bottle caps. I could hit them with a very satisfying consistentcy.
The caps were perched on a cheap plastic patio table, often after passing through the cap, the pellet would also hit the table. This caused at least half a dozen ricochet sounds.
Its a very distinct sound, and in this case it sounded the exact same every time.
It made me wonder what the pellet is doing that produces the distinct sound. Is it that the pellet is still moving extremely fast but causing a lot of disturbance from tumbling?
Not the most thrilling topic for a post, but still interesting.
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Sure it is no longer stabile after it hits something and keeps flying and sometimes wobbles in the final spin. Actually a non-rifled projectile can get spun on impact and make the noise too.
“A “rifled” barrel means a barrel that has grooves that twist around the internal surface of the barrel that cause a bullet traveling down it to spin (like a gyroscope) to stabilize its orientation as it passes through the air once it leaves the barrel (otherwise it might tumble, which causes it to lose speed more quickly and to go astray and lose its accuracy). All sorts of guns have rifled barrels … pistols, rifles, cannons, etc.
When a bullet hits a surface at a non-90° angle (ie, skims a surface), the tip may be pushed to the side and/or upward, but the bullet still has the momentum to spin about it’s original axis. So now the bullet is wobbling, and this wobbling creates the distinctive “ricochet” whining sound.
For example, a bullet leaving a barrel with a “1:24” twist (that is, 1 turn in 24 inches) will cause the bullet to spin one turn for every 24 inches (or two feet) of travel. If it’s traveling at 3,200 feet per second, then it’s spinning at 1,600 revolutions per second. If it ricochets, it would wobble at 1,600 turns per seconds, which should produce a ricochet whine at 1,600 cycles per second (that is, 1,600 Hertz). “
I shoot allot at my shop. The parking lot has a cement curb about 20 yrs out and then 50 yards of open grass land and then woods.
If I hit the horizontal part of the curb just in front of where it curves up there is this ricochet whistle as the pellet goes vertical.
I can see the tracks left on the concrete. Very cool, I can hear the whistle source climbing vertical.
I guess when the pellet hits the concrete at such a low angle that the pellet is not smashed but starts somersaulting and
it’s the hollow skirt that makes the whistle. I am going have to try to find some of the pellets next time.
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The sparling pellet actually makes quite a loud sound as it exits the muzzle and travels through the air in general, the sound is caused by air dispersing from high and low pressure areas of the pellet.. a ricochet just enhances this sound as the pellet is deformed in shape causing different air pressure dispersion..
Heres a vid I took of some different cal pellets shot over 100 meters.. its not till the movie is slowed down that you hear the different pitches of pellet once the muzzle blast sound has gone.. I caught a few good ricochet sounds of the steel pipe also:
http://youtu.be/npxyChJWIkk?list=UU2IPmu-O9ahuxqdG1halidg