As you likely already know, bullets spin during flight, due to the rifling of the barrel. But, you may have asked yourself: why do they need to spin? The answer has something to do with bullet shape. In this article, I'll show you the reason behind bullet spin with regard to bullet shape. Understanding this concept is useful to understand other bullet flight behavior that … [Read more...]
So far in our discussion of external ballistics, we've covered bullet trajectory, elevation, the Coriolis effect, light effects, rifle cant, and bullet shape, but we still have one more important ballistics theme to explore: static stability. The concept of static stability is essential to precision rifle shooting; if bullets are not properly stabilized, you'll never get … [Read more...]
Wondering about what generates the spin drift? Curious to know more about the yaw of repose? In this article we will examine the reason behind this behaviors of the bullet in flight. In Bullet Trajectory part 2, we found that spin drift is a deflection generated by the gyroscopic motion of the bullet. The direction of the deflection is toward the direction of the spin, and … [Read more...]
If you want to be a proficient in long range shooting, understanding the concept of dynamic stability is very important if you want to place accurate shots at the farthest distance possible, especially if you are shooting close to the maximum effective distance of your rifle. In this article, we'll see how dynamic stabilization affects bullet flight and accuracy, and how to … [Read more...]
Lately, we've been talking about long range shooting, but what better place to start then with some ballistics theory. In the last post in this series, bullet trajectory part 1, I talked about the variables that determine the vertical component of bullet trajectory. In this article we will examine what happens on the horizontal plane. On the horizontal plane, the bullet does … [Read more...]
