range of a .58

[wszumera]

One thing I was told about large caliber bullets is that they all fly very very straight, the downside is of course that the bullet's weight keeps dragging it down a lot quicker than smaller calibers

Bullets fall just like if you dropped them at arms length. Light or heavy, they hit the floor at the same times.

But out of a rifle, how much distance they cover while slowin' down and the angle of departure from muzzle relative to ground confuse the issue.

Clutch

 

[Zonie]

"One thing I was told about large caliber bullets is that they all fly very very straight, the downside is of course that the bullet's weight keeps dragging it down a lot quicker than smaller calibers"
__________________
Sorry, but if dragging it down means slowing it down, I can't agree.

The larger calibers maintain their velocity better than the small calibers do for any given range.
This is because the Area of the ball (read "drag")is a function of the square of the radius, while the volume of the ball (read weight*) is a function of the cube of the radius.

Putting it in terms easier to see, the following data gives the velocity of three different size balls, each fired at 1500 FPS muzzle velocity along with their velocitys at 50 and 100 yards:

Diameter, Muzzle Velocity, 50 yards, 100 yards
.310 dia, 1500, 988, 786
.390 dia, 1500, 1042, 859
.530 dia, 1500, 1114, 947

As you can see, the .310 ball looses 714 FPS at 100 yards while the .530 ball looses 553 FPS at 100 yards.


* Yes, I know, it is actually mass but in any terms it weighs more.

 

Zonie, do you have a chart that compares the foot pounds of energy retained for various calibers at various ranges with the same FPS at the muzzle?

 

[Zonie]

To get the results I posted above, I ran the free Ballistics program I downloaded from our forum.

The program is in this link:
ROUNDBALL BALLISTICS CALCULATOR

A link to the Muzzleloading post that talks about it is:

BALLISTICS PROGRAM POST

Use the first link to get to the downloadable program. The link in the Program Post page didn't work for me a few minutes ago until I modified it.

Anyway, using this program you tell it the caliber, velocity, sight range, crosswind speed etc and it tells you the results.
Using it to compare velocitys and energys at a single muzzle velocity is easy. Just plug in the velocity and caliber and poke "f" (for "fire" to start the program.) Then enter the new caliber and poke "f". It shows the data in the wink of an eye.

The only other information I have is in the Lymans BLACK POWDER HANDBOOK & LOADING MANUAL .

It gives a lot of loads for muzzleloaders along with the energy at the muzzle and at 100 yards.

The only common caliber they don't list is the .40.

 

Thanks Zonie, a tip a the hat to ye. :hatsoff:

 

[TANSTAAFL]

Not the same story, one I read was of an engineer.