5,280 FPS ???

[Lavan]

Has anyone ever concocted a load that does a mile a second?

One that could be shot and hit something?

Just curious.

[zoomie]

Sure, out of tanks.

[Lavan]

Are they legal for chucks?

[Jim243]

Interesting question, LOL. A bullet traveling at 3,600 miles an hour, must be made out of titanium or some such material. Depleted uranium might work, but that would be extremely expensive. The fastest I know of is a 40 grain 243 that could reach 4,000 fps, but I am sure it would burn up before it reaches one mile or 5,200 fps.

Because of air friction, all bullets will slow down at some point in their travel they will go from supersonic to subsonic during their travel so any measurement of 5,200 fps would only be at the tip of the barrel. Along with the pull of gravity downward it might be a physical impossibility to get a load that would give you the results you are looking for.

Good luck, you could try it in outer space where gravity and air friction would not apply. Stay safe and take plenty of oxygen with for your tests.

Jim

[Clark]

223 to 4200 fps with Blue Dot.

I have gone faster with H110, but the chrono would not trigger.

[F. Guffey]

Has anyone ever concocted a load that does a mile a second?

I would suggest you contact Hornady, it seemed to be about 2 months ago Hornady created a lot of drama about something that was going to revolutionize reloading. It had something to do with bullets melting. I was not excited, I am the one that would not walk across the street to watch an ant eat a bail of hay.

F. Guffey

[Colorado Redneck]

.204 Ruger firing 24gr. Hornady NTX chronied at around 4350 fps. which is about on par for the load data provided by Hodgson. H4198 was the powder.

[emcon5]

I wish I could remember the details, but there was an article in one of the gun rags a while back (well, probably 20 years ago), the writer was loading some really light handgun bullets in a magnum rifle, and got like 4600 FPS.

I think it is doable, but aside from an engineering exercise, there isn't much point.

[pctechdude]

I'd say if getting close to this would require a large case and necked down to a very small caliber. I.e. necking down a 30-06 or 338 lapua to say .20 or .17 caliber. Problem is will the bullet leave the barrel or even reach 5 feet in the air before it implodes and creates a miniature black hole lol.

[alex0535]

The navy tested a rail gun with velocities a few thousand feet per second faster than that.

But this isn't your standard rifle, if it ever sees use it will be a nuclear reactor powered electromagnetic cannon that makes velocities like 8,270 fps.

[mikld]

Yep! got my 231 Snazer Rebated Belt Magnum to do pretty close to that (I had to use my Dopler Radar to measure the speed). I used a solid Titanium bullet at 123.75 gr. over a load of 87.3 gr. Bullseye shooting it outta my custom Ted Williams rebarreled 30-06. Used a custom, diamond lapped barrel (designed by NASA) made of high speed steel with a chrome/carbon alloy sleeve (I believe it will last at least 3 shots, mebbe 4) with polygonal rifling. Wasn't able to check accuracy though, the bullet was going so fast it just moved the atoms of the paper outta the way and didn't make a hole.

Yep, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

[Archangel1972]

Google fastest bullet

Wideopen spaces dot com has a decent article talking about 8 of the top ones.

[Jim243]

The navy tested a rail gun with velocities a few thousand feet per second faster than that.

Yes they did and it does, however since it does not use gunpowder there is no load data available. Mega-Joules yes grains no.

Wasn't able to check accuracy though, the bullet was going so fast it just moved the atoms of the paper outta the way and didn't make a hole.
Yep, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

You stick with it, LOL great story.

Stay safe.
Jim

[jmr40]

I would suggest you contact Hornady, it seemed to be about 2 months ago Hornady created a lot of drama about something that was going to revolutionize reloading. It had something to do with bullets melting. I was not excited, I am the one that would not walk across the street to watch an ant eat a bail of hay.

F. Guffey

Hornady addressed 2 different things, and neither had anything to do with speed at the muzzle. It was about maintaining bullet speed downrange with much more aerodynamic bullets.

#1 They tested some existing bullets using radar to determine actual down range bullet speeds. The speeds they were getting were slower than they should have been based on muzzle speeds. They determined the old plastic tips they were using were deforming from heat and changing the bullets BC. They switched to a more heat resistant plastic tip.

#2 They also released a new line of high BC hunting bullets which maintain speeds much farther down range.

A lot of shooters fail to understand the significance, but it does make a big difference. There have been such bullets available for a while, but all were designed as target bullets. This takes hunting bullets to a new level.

A bullets speed at the muzzle is irrelevant. It is the speed at impact that matters. A 30-06 firing one of the Hornady ELD bullets will hit harder and with more speed at 250 yards than a 300 WM firing an old school 180 gr Nosler Partition. A 308 firing one of the newer bullets is a virtual tie with old school 300 WM loads at 450 yards. Both out perform 300WM at longer ranges if the 300's are loaded with older conventional bullets.

Of course the new bullets fired in 300 WM improves its performance downrange too. But being able to get 300 WM performance on game from a 30-06 or even 308 is pretty revolutionary.

[T. O'Heir]

The Rheinmetall 120 mm smooth bore gun in an Abram has a MV of 5200 to 5700 fps. Bit heavy for the PBI though.
I do seem to recall reading something, somewhere(some magazine I think) about an experimental necked down(forget to what) .50 BMG that was hitting 5,000 FPS.
Ti is too light. Not dense enough to make decent bullets. DU maybe. 68.4% denser than lead.

[emcon5]

Here you go:

http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/...erger-bullets/

From the link:

Some people think 5000+ fps is mythical. Well just thought I’d let you guys know that I got 5239 fps a couple weeks ago shooting 30-grainers with my 224 McDonald, a wildcat cartridge based on an improved 6BR case necked down to 224. (This case is very similar to a 22 Dasher.) The bullet used is the 30gr Berger. (The 40s run fast too — about 4800 fps.) The rig is a Rem 700 with a 30″ Hart barrel. Below is the case before and after forming. As you can see it has a 40° shoulder and far more case capacity than a 22 BR (a 22 Dasher case holds about 41.0 grains H20). My most accurate loads are with 50-52gr bullets, with bugholes the norm at 4200 fps. The 40gr bullets will do 4800+ fps.

[Jim243]

a load that does a mile a second?

Are we talking about distance or speed?

Are they legal for chucks?

That must be one heck of a scope that lets you see ground hogs at a mile away.

Just my thoughts, stay safe.
Jim

[Clark]

My father was one of the zillions of arms industry people paraded past the Reagan star wars rail gun that would do 10,000 fps.

Gun powder cannot do that.

Later, ~ 1994 at an amateur lab in a warehouse, some guys had some surplus rail gun capacitors. These were high Voltage, high capacitance, low ESR [effective series resistance], and low ESL [effective series inductance].

At first they tried to make steam guns, but eventually the crowd pleaser was magnetically shrinking coins. By the time I got there, they had welded together a shroud to keep bits of flying wire from shooting holes in things. So I shrunk some coins. It sounded like dynamite. The same magnetic field lines crowding and pushing out on the conducting puck in a rail gun can be used to push in on the sides of a coin.

[bedlamite]

[Lavan]

Yep! got my 231 Snazer Rebated Belt Magnum to do pretty close to that

What page of the Lyman manual is that dope on?

[4runnerman]

Load 1200 in caliber .22-250 Ackley Improved

LoadID 1200
Bullet Berger MEF
BulletWeight 35 grs
Powder Vihtavuori N135
PowderWeight 46 grs
Primer
Brass Make Remington
Barrel Length (inches)
C.O.L (inches)
Velocity 5130 fps
Group 0.929 (inches by 3 shot at 100 yds)
Submitted Date 3/18/2002 1:25:00 PM
Submitted By
Gun Info
Comment

Energy 2041 ft-lbs
TKO 5.69
OGW 248 lbs
IPSC PF 1147


Bullet Berger HP MEF
BulletWeight 30 grs
Powder Alliant Reloader 15
PowderWeight 50 grs
Primer Federal 210
Brass Make Winchester
Barrel Length (inches)
C.O.L (inches)
Velocity 5278 fps
Group 0.554 (inches by 3 shot at 100 yds)
Submitted Date 3/18/2002 1:06:00 PM
Submitted By
Gun Info
Comment

Energy 1852 ft-lbs
TKO 5.02
OGW 198 lbs
IPSC PF 158.34


Jim243-- my 8-32 x56 can see a 3 inch circle at 1400 yards very good.

[Longshot4]

That picture looks like it would be the style in Akleys load books.
I believe I came across such a load with your 5200>fps. speed in a webb sight that had all kinds of wild cat case specs. Although that was in my crashed hard drive. I my self don't see any thing practical use around here for that type of load. I bet it can be real hard on the ears.

[wpsdlrg]

The US Army did testing, many years ago, with ultra high velocity cartridges, out of rifles. I don't know a lot of the details, but I remember that something like 7000 fps was achieved.

Though interesting, nothing of practical value was obtained. Plus, the barrels on the test rifles, if I remember correctly, only lasted a few hundred rounds, at most.

This came from the Guiness Book of World Records....many years ago.

[Tony Z]

Think the "Eargesplitten" cartridge was spoken of (and maybe pictured) in one of the Dean Grenell's "ABC's of Reloading".

My interest in velocity is at the opposite end: what can be done at the lower end of velocity and sound (quieter is better), with effectiveness. Why? Maybe the constant ringing in my ears, that I attribute to my stupidity in not wearing hearing protection when I was young (plus the .357 mag loads, w/WW 296 loads cracking, etc.)

[45_auto]

Originally Posted by jim243

Because of air friction, all bullets will slow down at some point in their travel they will go from supersonic to subsonic during their travel so any measurement of 5,200 fps would only be at the tip of the barrel. Along with the pull of gravity downward it might be a physical impossibility to get a load that would give you the results you are looking for

The max speed measurement of ANY bullet on earth is at the tip of the barrel. They all begin slowing down the instant that they leave the barrel.

The pull of gravity has nothing to do with the velocity of a bullet fired level on earth. However, if you fire the bullet upwards it will slow down slightly faster, if you fire the bullet downwards it will take slightly longer to slow down.