Is shooting up into the air safe?
Adam made me wonder, but if you’re taking a shot at a crow in a tree and you’re pointing at like a 60 degree angle, would that bullet be dangerous while it’s falling? 🙄
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hmm was messing with the calculator too….i dont thinks its calculating the right answer as it will set pellet weight to zero when it should be 0.00xxxxxx
was calculating out from JSB
16 grains =0.00228571429 (first mistake of the calculator is it sets weight as 0
.22 diameter = has a radius of .11 its allmost a sphere so 4 * PI * (.11 * .11) = 0.152053084 sq inches = 0.00105592419 sq feet
anyhow fell over this page
http://cybersloth.org/airsoft/trajectory/01-A-01.htm where he calculates the terminal velocity(maximum speed in free fall) to be under 70 fps
when shooting up to medium sized pellets into the air, i dont think their terminal velocity will be much more than a bb falling, considering a pellet also has a skirt to further increase resistance as its falling.
sure 70 fps and 16 grain will probably hurt if it hits bare skin…but it is only .174 fpe, i doubt it will be able to break the skin..of course should you hit an eye….
thats one of the cool things about airguns, it is quite “safe” to shoot into the air….dont get me wrong…but you can shoot into a tree after squirrels without worrying too much about where the pellet will come down…as long as your not using the heavy stuff, cause then we are approaching .22lr bullet bc in case of the slugs that Emouse where making…and these and other pellets will retain energy much much further, still i doubt that if fired directly into the air will have much danger to them comming down, however on a balistic trajectory say fired at a 25 degree angle….the pellet will return to the surface quite fast, and it will probaly be dangerous.
wonder if i could make a gun fire a pellet at 70 fps….and test it on stuff
one can download the calculator….its has the code in java there…will see if i can get wife to mod it so that it doesnt round off the variables
You’ve got more chance of winning the lottery than being hit by a falling pellet. Describe a circle around a shooter with it’s circumference denoting the maximun range in feet of a pellet fired in an arc. Calculate the total area of that circle, in feet. Now imagine a human occupying an area of one foot (his head or upturned face, the only vulnerable parts). Populate that circle with as many humans as would represent the population of a dense urban conurbation (and pretend they’re all outside their house) and calculate their total area. Subtract that from the area of the circle. Cancel-down and you have the odds.
Or something.
A 7 grain .177 Pellet has a frontal surface area of 0.000683581375 square feet and a mass of 0.001 pounds.
I do not know what the Drag Coefficient is…. But the formula here allows values between 0.001 and 5
Entered into this calculator (height set at 1000ft) –
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/termv.html
Using a Drag coefficient of 0.001 it would have a velocity of 294fps.
Using a Drag Coefficient of 5 it would have a velocity of 13fps.
Someone please correct me if I took liberties with that calculator.
Wouldn’t it be great if all their shooting into the air took care of our little terrorist problem? 😉
This is exactly what we are arguing. Not if its safe to be in front of the gun, or golf tee, but after its been in the air and drooping.
I think we all know saftey here and that its never… NEVER… a good idea to shoot into an area that doesnt have a safe backstop.
I still stand behind the fact that a pellet on the fall wont kill a person if its shot in the air. What we really need to find out is the Terminal Velocity of a pellet.
look, this hole debate is getting pointless, the bottom line is you do not take a shot at any time unless you know dam well were you shit is going, I dont care if your shooting your red rider or a bmg, you just don’t do it! period.
as for tiger and the spectators getting hit, that just goes to show you just how intelligent the human race is. please go to the driving range and put you theory to the test, there is no way in hell I would put myself in a position to be hit in the head with a golf ball off the tee. as it is drooping in to the fairway it has lost probably 90* of it’s energy and yes your right that wont hurt a sole
Ok before anybody tells me that I am not responsible ar anything – THIS IS JUST FOR ARGUMENTS SAKE!!! I AM NOT ENCOURAGING ANYBODY TO SHOOT WILDLY INTO THE AIR!!!
Ok, I am shit at maths but taking into account of how light pellets are and the bad ballistic coeficient I doubt that a pellet falling at terminal velocity would be able to go over around 200 to 300 fps and that would only give you abozt 5ft/lbs MAX, I bet most people wouldn’t even notce a pellet dropping on them.
I am sure somebody can do the maths but I just do not believe that falling pellets can do much damage.
I’ll just bet I could not only knock you out with a baseball but If I ty hard enough it you’ll be corkeyer than you are now for life, or just plane dead. want to try it with a golf ball?
People get hit every weekend at pro golf events. Tiger is one of the worst at hitting people. If it were really a problem we wouldnt have gallery of people standing so close to the fairway.
I’ll just bet I could not only knock you out with a baseball but If I ty hard enough it you’ll be corkeyer than you are now for life, or just plane dead. want to try it with a golf ball?
Yes but getting hit by a 60mph fastball is aprox 37fpe but it isnt going to kill you. Probably knock you out if its in the head, but not lethal.
I’ll summarize for those who are having a hard time following.
YOU SHOULD ALWAYS ENSURE YOUR HAVE AN ADEQUATE BACKSTOP BEHIND YOUR INTENDED TARGET SO IF YOU MISS OR YOUR PELLET PASSES THROUGH THE TARGET YOU DO NOT RISK INJURY AND/OR DEATH TO YOURSELF OR OTHERS.
If “I” were to shoot straight up in the air as was the example for this case and get hit by my own pellet, then no I wouldn’t beat myself up over it….
I still think it would be an exceptional fellow that would dismiss getting shot by someone else’s shot. Frankly, when it happened to you I doubt you really would ‘shake it off’.
And I hope you investigate a bit more before you try shooting yourself by shooting straight up. Wind and other factors being what they are it’s going to come down randomly in a wide area sort of like what I’d expect your groups at 400 yards to look like.
As long as you control your shotfall, there’s no issue. But that’s not what the question was abot, right?
Doug Owen
Your debating an imaginary argument it seems – Have fun with yourself.
You’ve taken a few sentences of my prior posts, mixed in some of what Langa has said and then came up with your own scenario…..
Do you work in the Media?
Oh, no thank you. Please don’t. Like I assume you do, I want honest posts and to not promote anything that isn’t safe.
Doug Owen
If “I” were to shoot straight up in the air as was the example for this case and get hit by my own pellet, then no I wouldn’t beat myself up over it….
I still think it would be an exceptional fellow that would dismiss getting shot by someone else’s shot. Frankly, when it happened to you I doubt you really would ‘shake it off’.
And I hope you investigate a bit more before you try shooting yourself by shooting straight up. Wind and other factors being what they are it’s going to come down randomly in a wide area sort of like what I’d expect your groups at 400 yards to look like.
As long as you control your shotfall, there’s no issue. But that’s not what the question was abot, right?
Doug Owen
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thats going to be really hard – rather try throwing it through the chrony and see what you get