If I fire a rifle straight up into the air, what happens to the bullet?
As a Police Officer I can say, the bullet speed will increase until it reaches its terminal velocity. The bullet reaches terminal velocity when the air drag equals the pull of gravity or stating it another way, the bullet weight and drag are balanced. Once this velocity is achieved the bullet will fall no faster. Wind can have a dramatic effect on where a vertically fired bullet lands. A 5 mile per hour wind will displace the 150 gr. bullet about 365 ft based on the time it takes the bullet to make the round trip to earth. In addition the wind at ground level may be blowing in an entirely different direction than it is at 9,000 feet. It is no wonder that it is so difficult to determine where a falling bullet will land.
************ I think that I need a clarification here. A couple of people have already failed to read the entire answer and down rated me because the obviously misunderstood what I was stating. I am not saying that firing a gun in the air is not potentially deadly. I am addressing narrow case of shooting straight up. The Mythbusters actually tested this. Their methodology was sound and showed that a bullet fired STRAIGHT up will not come back down at a velocity that is even sufficient to break skin. So, please read THE ENTIRE ANSWER befor you rate it or leave a comment stating that I don’t know what I am writing about. ************ No one here has gotten the right answer. A bullet fired straight up will not come back down with enough force to do any serious injury. This is because as it goes up its spin will slow and it will begin to tumble on the way back down. This tumble will prevent the bullet from achieving a dangerous velocity on the way back down. However, very few people are ab
On a body with no atmosphere, such as the moon, the rifle bullet would go straight up, reach a peak determined by the muzzle velocity and the strength of the gravitional field, and then begin to fall to the ground. When it passed by the muzzle, it would be moving at it’s muzzle velocity, but in the opposite direction. On a body with an atmosphere, such as Earth, as the bullet travelled, air esistance would slow down the spin of the bullet around its axis, destabilizing it. Any kind of wind would also destablize the bullet and change its path. Also, as most rifle bullets tend to be tapered in one direction, when it reached its peak the combination of the slowing down of its rotation and the fact that the bottom of the bullet is flat would likely cause the bullet to begin to twist and turn randomly as it fell, dramatically decreasing the terminal velocity from a rifle bullet that is both facing the correct way and spinning. The bullet would impact the ground in the vicinity of its launch
