.38spl Long Range Ballistic Stability
- Thread starter B. Lahey
- Start date
I have fired a fair amount of .38 Special from a 3" Model 36 at 100 yards, and the holdover is great enough that I very much doubt that anyone could deliberately aim at a person at 500 yards with a handgun. The shooter would have to aim a lot (20 feet?) over the person's head.
I wonder is we are dealing with a very high angle shot, which could account for the bullet tumbling when it comes down.
Jim
I wonder is we are dealing with a very high angle shot, which could account for the bullet tumbling when it comes down.
Jim
Guy fires a gun into the air. The bullet comes down 500 yards away and hits someone. Not all that rare unfortunately.
On the yaw. There is actually no way to tell what caused it. You can guess but it's just that. It may not have yawed in flight till it struck. It may only have yawed the last 100 ft. and then not much. It may have begun to yaw 50 yards from the muzzle. Take your best guess and that's all you have to work with.
You don't know what angle the bullet was fired at or what angle it descended at. You don't know the charge. Did it pass through tree branches? Was it raining? Was it windy? Did it hit a bumble bee? ya don't know.
It also don't matter.
Ya got the gun, ya got the bullet and the case, so likely you have whoever fired the gun. That matters.
tipoc
On the yaw. There is actually no way to tell what caused it. You can guess but it's just that. It may not have yawed in flight till it struck. It may only have yawed the last 100 ft. and then not much. It may have begun to yaw 50 yards from the muzzle. Take your best guess and that's all you have to work with.
You don't know what angle the bullet was fired at or what angle it descended at. You don't know the charge. Did it pass through tree branches? Was it raining? Was it windy? Did it hit a bumble bee? ya don't know.
It also don't matter.
Ya got the gun, ya got the bullet and the case, so likely you have whoever fired the gun. That matters.
tipoc
Bullets do in fact "key hole".
I have many (and have many) 168 SMKs key hole at 1000 yards. That being the same load that shoots quite well at 600.
I've had 535 Gr bullets out of a 45-70 Keyhole at 800, 900, & 1000 yards do to the bullet being cast too hard and too much velocity.
The same bullet using pure lead, kept to 1100-1200 FPS being quite accurate.
All bullets are different, and I can assure you it would not be unreasonable for a 38 to become unstable at 500 yards. I haven't shot 38s at that distance but I have seen some keyhole at 100 which other wise would be quite accurate at 50.
I've done some CSI work (still certified to teach it) and I can tell you I've seen some bullets do some weird, unexplainable things.
One thing you can take to the bank ref: Firearm Investigation, is no two bullets from the same gun fired into the same media will react the same way.
The same with the bullet in flight. Take the 168s mentioned above. I've shot several at 1000 yard matches from M14s. You can get some that shoots like you want and then you'll get keyholes, or flyers.
Out of a 22" barrel with a MV at 2550, its subsonic at 1000. On the 308 you need to remain super sonic at 1000 to have any success.
Then as to the 45-70 black powder load, if you use hard cast bullets and try to put them to 1500+ fps it will become unstable, where as using soft lead, limiting the velocity to less then 1200 fps, they can be quite accurate.
The whys and why fores are difficult to explain, and very.
To understand why some bullets do certain things study:
Understanding Firearm Ballistics by Robert A. Rinker
Gen J. Hatchers writings
and Bryan Litz of Berger Bullets has written several books on the subject.
Check out Litz's latest book "Modern Advancements in Long Range Shooting"
He has a good section on How Stability affects bullet flight.
Just understand nothing about bullets and bullet flight is sure and certain.
That's what I thought as well, and is why the obvious yaw puzzled me, and sent me looking for explanations.
I very much wish that reality did not contradict your instinct on this one.
From my (very) rough calculations, a shot fired at a close target, which sailed a few feet too high, seems to be the more likely trajectory of this shot. A 20'+ holdover at 500 yards is only a few additional degrees of elevation at the muzzle.
I looked at the x-rays last evening, and the wound track seems to show little if any sign of a downward angle.
The severe yaw of the projectile at the time of impact makes the high-angle shot a possibility, though. I don't know the exact position the victim was standing in when they were struck. I guess they could have been standing in a weird posture, leaning back or something, that made the wound track not reflect the severe downward angle of a very high shot.
The intent of the person who fired the gun in this case matters quite a lot to at least one person. If the shooter shot high in the air not intending to hit anybody, that is significant compared to them trying to hit a person close to them, missing high, and hitting somebody else far away. It's called transferred intent:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/transferred_intent
I will try to update this thread with more info after our client's case has resolved. There is one other thread on here from years ago that I will be updating soon where I also asked for help on a ballistics question, but these things tend to drag out a very long time.
I appreciate everyone's help with this.
I just ran the numbers:
The standard 38 round at 850 fps, sighted in at 25 yards (normal for revolver) when fired at 500 yards would have a mid range trajectory of about 725 feet or 60 feet.
I wrote a paper a few years ago that tells you how to find the angle of return of a given bullet which should give you an idea the angle you would get upon a target.
If interested, PM me and I'll give you a copy.
The standard 38 round at 850 fps, sighted in at 25 yards (normal for revolver) when fired at 500 yards would have a mid range trajectory of about 725 feet or 60 feet.
I wrote a paper a few years ago that tells you how to find the angle of return of a given bullet which should give you an idea the angle you would get upon a target.
If interested, PM me and I'll give you a copy.
Without reading through the thread, here are my thoughts.
Could be that it was marginally stabilized in the first place--maybe a heavy bullet from a very short barrel.
Could be that it hit something insubstantial that was enough to cause it to yaw. It wouldn't surprise me terribly to find that hitting a paper target might cause the bullet to destabilize way downrange.
Maybe a combination of the above two factors.
Perhaps the rifling in the gun was badly worn or the barrel was leaded badly enough to cause keyholing. That doesn't sound very plausible to me because you say the rifling impressions are clear and deep.
Could be that it ricocheted off of water. That could cause it to yaw and wouldn't deform it.
Could be that it was marginally stabilized in the first place--maybe a heavy bullet from a very short barrel.
Could be that it hit something insubstantial that was enough to cause it to yaw. It wouldn't surprise me terribly to find that hitting a paper target might cause the bullet to destabilize way downrange.
Maybe a combination of the above two factors.
Perhaps the rifling in the gun was badly worn or the barrel was leaded badly enough to cause keyholing. That doesn't sound very plausible to me because you say the rifling impressions are clear and deep.
Could be that it ricocheted off of water. That could cause it to yaw and wouldn't deform it.
Just adding to what kraigwy was saying about key holing/bullet tumbling and the unpredictability of bullets. I have BFR with a 10 inch barrel chambered in 460. When I first got it I was experimenting with 45 Colt loads through it. Using a 255 gr lead bullet, if I used Unique powder(any charge weight allowable) the bullets were tumbling soon after leaving the barrel. At 20 yards, I couldn't put a bullet on paper(off a bench, with a scope!). Occasionally one would land on the target just out of pure luck. They would hit unpredictably within about a 12 foot diameter circle at that range.
Here's a good picture of my 20 yd keyhole.
Every other powder I used worked perfectly fine and I could just about sink them all through the same hole.
So a lot of variables come into play here. At 500 yds with a 38 Sp, there's no telling what will happen. I'd wager that you could find a load that's somewhat accurate at that range(although you'd have arc them up pretty high). And there are others that may not even make it that far.
Here's a good picture of my 20 yd keyhole.
Every other powder I used worked perfectly fine and I could just about sink them all through the same hole.
So a lot of variables come into play here. At 500 yds with a 38 Sp, there's no telling what will happen. I'd wager that you could find a load that's somewhat accurate at that range(although you'd have arc them up pretty high). And there are others that may not even make it that far.
bamaranger
New member
"Long Shooters" of Peewee Valley
I have here an article from the "Gun Digest" 1997, written by one Jim FORAL.
In it he describes, along with photos of a gun club in Kentucky that held live turkey shoots around the turn of the century, out to 300 yds, with special tall iron sighted, long barreled .38 revolvers.
BAck in the day, a reference to their shoots stirred a bunch of controversy with many, including an officer in the NRA, as to whether or not their accomplishments were genuine, and not simply dumb luck.
Get this, it was done, off hand, apparently single handed. Its a 10 or 12 page article, I'm not going to churn through it for details, but accurate long range shooting can be done with the .38 it seems. At least minute of gobbler.
I have here an article from the "Gun Digest" 1997, written by one Jim FORAL.
In it he describes, along with photos of a gun club in Kentucky that held live turkey shoots around the turn of the century, out to 300 yds, with special tall iron sighted, long barreled .38 revolvers.
BAck in the day, a reference to their shoots stirred a bunch of controversy with many, including an officer in the NRA, as to whether or not their accomplishments were genuine, and not simply dumb luck.
Get this, it was done, off hand, apparently single handed. Its a 10 or 12 page article, I'm not going to churn through it for details, but accurate long range shooting can be done with the .38 it seems. At least minute of gobbler.
nixterdemus
New member
"I have fired a fair amount of .38 Special from a 3" Model 36 at 100 yards, and the holdover is great enough that I very much doubt that anyone could deliberately aim at a person at 500 yards with a handgun. The shooter would have to aim a lot (20 feet?) over the person's head.''
The fella that dropped the hole in one from 200+ yards was aiming at the pin.
Regardless of skill level if you point in that direction and let 'er fly the possibility extends well beyond the probability.
The fella that dropped the hole in one from 200+ yards was aiming at the pin.
Regardless of skill level if you point in that direction and let 'er fly the possibility extends well beyond the probability.
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The op mentioned earlier in this thread that the assumption is the fella who shot the gun was not aiming at a person 500 yards away. The assumption is that, if he was aiming at anyone or anything, it was much closer to him (normal shooting range) and that the person struck by the bullet was hit unintentionally. That's my understanding of what B. Lahey said.
I'm not sure why it's important to "know" why the bullet was tumbling. That's another story it seems.
But as folks have said there are any number of reasons it could have tumbled. It also could have flown straight and true but apparently didn't.
Remember Bob Mundan with the 200 yard shots with a snubby 38 Spl.
tipoc
I'm not sure why it's important to "know" why the bullet was tumbling. That's another story it seems.
But as folks have said there are any number of reasons it could have tumbled. It also could have flown straight and true but apparently didn't.
Remember Bob Mundan with the 200 yard shots with a snubby 38 Spl.
tipoc
okay, I am going to my long range spot tomorrow, I have targets set-up from 25yrds all the way to 600yrds. I will be armed with a 38spl snubbie and a 20" 38 carbine. I will attempt a 500 yard shot with the snubbie, no promises, but I will attempt on paper and see how the bullets are hitting. I give it good 100 rounds and if I cant do it after that ill switch to carbine which I shouldn't have too much of problem with. have we decided on the bullet shape? I have pretty much any shape to choose from, let me know what I should be trying with.
I would think that any bullet would (never heard the term before) "yaw" once it stopped spinning, so its more about whether they stop spinning before they stop going forward. Most bullets would reach their final destination before they stopped spinning, but I can see where airbourne, slow moving, cartridges from limited rifling barrels might stop spinning before they drop to the dirt.
Would probably be helpful to hear the entire detailed story, as I'm not sure what you are trying to prove or disprove with your original question.
If somebody is accused of dliberately, fatally shooting a person at 500 yards with a short barreled .38, I'd have to say I've never met a shooter that talented in my lifetime, and it was a one in a million freak accident. Even if he deliberatly fired "at" the person, while he may have been negligent, he could not have had any realistic expectations of making the shot, and then it being fatal. I speak as long time pistol hunter, with extensive experience and experientation with my .38 snubby carry weapon.
Yes, I could "see" a human at 500 yards, but trying to put iron sights on them is not plauisble.
Would probably be helpful to hear the entire detailed story, as I'm not sure what you are trying to prove or disprove with your original question.
If somebody is accused of dliberately, fatally shooting a person at 500 yards with a short barreled .38, I'd have to say I've never met a shooter that talented in my lifetime, and it was a one in a million freak accident. Even if he deliberatly fired "at" the person, while he may have been negligent, he could not have had any realistic expectations of making the shot, and then it being fatal. I speak as long time pistol hunter, with extensive experience and experientation with my .38 snubby carry weapon.
Yes, I could "see" a human at 500 yards, but trying to put iron sights on them is not plauisble.
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Unless they're shot on a very high trajectory, bullets won't lose any significant spin before they hit the ground. If a bullet is marginally stabilized, it might lose just enough spin to destabilize at long ranges but it will still be spinning--just not spinning fast enough for stabilization.
I believe the case is about negligence, not intentional assault.
Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see anything on the angle of departure that such a gun and cartridge would need to impact above the ground at 500 yards. I would think it would be just under 45 degrees, pretty well ruling out any kind of aimed shot.
Under those circumstances, I would think along the lines of negligent homicide or reckless endangerment.
Jim
Under those circumstances, I would think along the lines of negligent homicide or reckless endangerment.
Jim