How Far?

Well, Christmas is just around the corner, which makes today the perfect day to talk about everyone's favorite subject...Ballistics! Have you ever wondered just how far a bullet can travel across a flat plain before hitting the ground? Well, it is actually pretty simple to figure out. I heard on the radio that if you shoot a bullet from a level gun barrel (lets call it a 155 grain bullet) on a flat plain with no objects to stop the bullet other than the ground, and you also drop a 155 grain bullet from the same height, both will hit the ground at the same time! This means that if the bullet takes 1/2 second to hit the ground, you just have to divide the velocity (feet per second) by 2 and that will give you the distance the bullet can travel. So if it takes a half second to hit the ground and has a velocity of 1800 feet per second, then the bullet can travel 900 feet. That's equivalent to 3 football fields. Please keep in mind that this is not at all an exact method of determining distance traveled as a bullets velocity will vary based on the length of your gun barrel as well as other variances. This is just a good way to determine where your backdrop needs to be to make sure there is no one off in the distance to get in the way of your rogue projectiles. It also helps to determine bullet drop for hitting distant targets.

Shoot Safe,

Ruben