March 17, 2016, 09:16 PM | #1 |
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Rain affecting bullets
How much will rain, fog, or heavy moisture in the air effect small high velocity bullets such as a 22-250.
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March 17, 2016, 09:50 PM | #2 |
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A tremendous amount at long range.
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March 17, 2016, 10:01 PM | #3 |
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Some reports I have seen say the opposite, little or no effect even on light bullets. Now rain may be accompanied by wind and that will certainly affect bullets, but ordinary rain seems to have little effect since the actual drops are separated by both time and space.
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March 17, 2016, 10:57 PM | #4 |
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I have only been called on to shoot in the rain a few times.
I found that the rain affected me a lot more than it did the bullets. When I could ignore the rain, I got a center hit. |
March 17, 2016, 11:46 PM | #5 |
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Denser air will slow the bullet and cause greater drop, can't say how much. Range is the bigger factor in the equation.
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March 17, 2016, 11:58 PM | #6 |
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I've never seen rain cause a problem.
And most people that have studied the concept conclude that the aerodynamic shockwave will disrupt the raindrop with little to no impact on the bullet's flight. A few years ago, I did the math for the odds of hitting a rain drop in a two-inches-per-hour rain storm. My conclusion (assuming constant velocity): A .308" diameter bullet traveling at 2,100 fps to a 100 yard target has just a 0.0139% (1:7175) chance of hitting a rain drop. The smaller the bullet, the better the odds. The faster the bullet, the better the odds. A .224" bullet traveling at 3,900 fps has only a 0.0054% (1:18,323) chance of hitting a rain drop in a two-inches-per-hour rain storm. And the jury is still out on whether or not the rain drop would even matter. High humidity... I honestly don't know. Instinct tells me that a denser atmosphere will cause more drag and slow the bullet more quickly; but ballistic calculators spit out higher velocities (and subsequently less bullet drop) with higher humidity levels.
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March 18, 2016, 05:45 PM | #7 |
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Out in the real world, there's probably going to be more stuff in the way of the bullet than rain drops.
If you ever take a shot and are mystified why nothing hit the target, check to see if there's maybe a hard to see tree branch or something in the flight path. Since we live in an area of very high summer humidity, about the only thing the humidity seems to cause is being able to sometimes actually see the bullet in flight. Very cool.
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March 18, 2016, 06:39 PM | #8 |
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Well dang, almost forgot the funny story about having things in the way of the shot.
At a rifle match with targets at an undeclared distance, one poor guy was having a heck of a time. He keeps adjusting and readjusting his scope and getting absolutely nothing on target. All the while the RO who is viewing everything through a very large spotting scope is chuckling away every time this fellow takes a shot. After awhile the RO moseys over to the guy and kind of casually asks how he's doing. After hearing all the fellow's complaints about his malfunctioning scope or crappy ammo, he takes pity on the guy and invites him to take a look through the spotting scope. It turns out there's a good sized tree blending in so well with the background that it's practically invisible. And it's right in the path of every shot the guy has been taking and stopping or deflecting every shot. Tree scored 100, target scored 0.
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March 18, 2016, 06:51 PM | #9 | |
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The question has come up many times. Here is my answer from several years ago:
http://thefiringline.com/forums/show...9&postcount=26 Quote:
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March 18, 2016, 07:42 PM | #10 |
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Brilliant answers guys.
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March 18, 2016, 08:44 PM | #11 |
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Rain has a tremendous effect on shooting. None on the bullet.
So, calculations show that the odds of hitting a raindrop are tiny teeny small. Odd on ran affecting your ability to see, and sight on a target are huge.
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March 18, 2016, 11:59 PM | #12 |
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You know it's raining too hard when your holster fills up to overflowing with water.
But heck it's still only water. Now on the other hand, if there's a huge flock of geese flying overhead.........
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March 19, 2016, 02:57 AM | #13 |
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I have hunted in steady downpours but never shot during a rain like that. I would have to wonder about shooting in a downpour. I have shot in freezing rain and could not see a difference. As far as figuring things out with math, there are to many variables to trust the result as written in stone.
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March 19, 2016, 08:11 AM | #14 |
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While rain doesn't do anything on shooting a small bullet short distances it's interesting in what it does to a high speed interceptor missile fired in a storm. At 6000 ft/s it looks like the nose is getting sandblasted, losing fractions of an inch in material.
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March 19, 2016, 09:00 AM | #15 |
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I would have to think that snow is a different matter all together.
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March 19, 2016, 09:13 AM | #16 |
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I think it's affect is less than all the other variables involved in a typical hunting (not bench rested) shot.
I also think Frankenmauser's statement about the aerodynamic shock waves affect on the rain droplets seems entirely possible.
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March 19, 2016, 09:45 AM | #17 |
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Thanks for the answers guys. The reason I ask is the other day it was raining hard and I took a shot at a coyote 150 yards away and missed him. I thought it was a clear shot just raining, but i guess I just flat out missed him.
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March 19, 2016, 09:56 AM | #18 |
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Driver error?
If we're honest, it probably accounts for more missed shots than anything else. But in an emergency, any excuse will do nicely.
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March 19, 2016, 10:38 AM | #19 |
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I've shot a couple matches out to 600yds through a downpour. The targets start sliding down the face of the cardboard when the paste loosens up. The bullet holes get enormous when the cardboard is saturated. It can pile up on the front sight and fill the rear aperture. Pretty easy to see the wake of the bullet as it heads downrange, but the rain makes no difference on where the bullet goes.
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March 19, 2016, 11:05 AM | #20 |
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I was the driver lol and the shot was pretty hasty because he was on the move so I guess I just missed lol.
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March 19, 2016, 11:13 AM | #21 |
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How about this? Put a tube of .500 diameter at .5 ches per hour, how often do you expect a bullet that travels for maybe two seconds to actually strike a drop?
Any time that the air density is extremely off average your velocity at long ranges. I can't pretend to know the actual effects. One fact is that if the air is much denser it will absorb more energy as it displaces the air. |
March 19, 2016, 11:58 AM | #22 |
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Rain effects the shooter, not the bullet.
Same with snow. Humidity does effect the bullet, but not the way more people think. Humidity actually helps the bullet, doesn't retard its flight.
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March 19, 2016, 12:01 PM | #23 |
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For some reason I was just thinking that small of a bullet going that fast that any little thing could knock it off target.
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March 19, 2016, 12:48 PM | #24 |
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I've just never had as good of luck with a 22-250 as I have with larger calibers. But it's also rare that I get good shooting conditions usually I am in the feed truck shooting at coyotes that are running the other way.
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March 19, 2016, 01:35 PM | #25 |
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The thing to know about rain is that even when it's raining hard, there's very little of it actually in the air. An insanely fast rainfall is roughly 1"/minute of accumulated water - if it rained like that for 3 minutes, it would be a world record. Rain drops fall at about 40 mph, or 42,240 in/minute. That means during the hardest rain you'll never ever see the air is still 99.998% not water.
If you do get very unlucky and your bullet hits a raindrop square on, the bullet will be deflected. The desnsity of water is about 1/11th that of lead, so there's enough mass there to push the bullet around a bit. |
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