Whistling balls

[The Crisco Kid]

Be careful how far you pursue this topic!

https://arizonadailyindependent.com...blow-up-bowling-ball-faces-decades-in-prison/

 

[ResearchPress]

Having been in the target pits with Whitworth rifles shooting from the other end, I can vouch for the fact that they have a unique and unmistakeably whirring whistle, probably due to their shape.

I’ve been in the target pits many times with Whitworth rifles being fired and never encountered any distinct sound. They come in faster and can be differentiated from Minie bullets, but not to my ears from any other .451 bullets fired from differently rifled barrels. I’ve seen tales of this in reference to the Civil War and wondered if it was more associated with Whitworth artillery.

I’ll have to listed more intently at my clubs annual 600 yard Whitworth rifle match later this year.

David

 

[TFoley]

I’ve been in the target pits many times with Whitworth rifles being fired and never encountered any distinct sound. They come in faster and can be differentiated from Minie bullets, but not to my ears from any other .451 bullets fired from differently rifled barrels. I’ve seen tales of this in reference to the Civil War and wondered if it was more associated with Whitworth artillery.

I’ll have to listed more intently at my clubs annual 600 yard Whitworth rifle match later this year.

David

Feel free to do so. I'll admit to listening with electronically-augmented hearing, so perhaps my senses are acting like a time-machine, and hearing the sounds that Sedgwick's own troop so readily identified as distinctly different from a regular Minié projectile.

...the enemy opened a sprinkling fire, partly from sharp-shooters. As the bullets whistled by, some of the men dodged. The General said, laughingly, “What! what! men, dodging this way for single bullets! what will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.” A few seconds after, a man who had been separated from his regiment passed directly in front of the General, and at the same moment a sharpshooter’s bullet passed with a long shrill whistle very close, and the soldier, who was then just in front of the General, dodged to the ground. The General touched him gently with his foot, and said, “Why, my man, I am ashamed of you, dodging that way,” and repeated the remark, “they couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.” The man got up and saluted, and said, good-naturedly, “General, I dodged a shell once, and if I hadn’t dodged, it would have taken my head clean off. I believe in dodging.”
The General and some of the men in the rifle pits who had heard that remark laughed, and the General replied “all right my man; go to your place.”
Another of the same kind of bullets passed while I was standing talking to the General in a low voice, about something which I have never since been able to recall.

Here, in Brett Gibbon's facinating Youtube movie about the Whitworth rifle, is the sound I'm talking about - @11:00 - onwards....



In any case, I don't think it's worth coming to blows about - either you hear it like that - I do - or you don't. You don't.

 

[SolidLeadSlug]

Sounds quite interesting

 

[ResearchPress]

. . . . . in Brett Gibbon's facinating Youtube movie about the Whitworth rifle, is the sound I'm talking about - @11:00 - onwards....

Yes, I’m familiar with Brett’s video and had similar thoughts when first played - I didn’t recognise the sound. Whitworth bullets as they pass overhead when pulling targets haven’t sounded any different to my ear than other same calibre bullets - and no long shrill whistle as has been noted in some Civil War texts. I can generally differentiate .577 passing through the target and into the butts from .451. However, Whitworth, Henry, Rigby, Metford, Kerr and others I haven’t been able to distinguish between - nothing distinctive from the Whitworth. That’s just my personal observation.

David

 

[Celticstoneman]

Fellas, having served 3 years in Uncle Sams reserves in a ten inch self propelled howitzer battery there is a whole dad-burned range of whistles I no longer hear.
John