Just to clarify, I'm pretty sure they're saying that the bullet left the muzzle at 3,300 fps and had decelerated down to 600 fps at time of impact, not that it was moving vertically at 600 feet per second. So the fact that it was moving faster than a BB gun isn't really shocking.

After four miles, it's a little shocking to me.

And I'm into shooting sports.

> ...of a 422-grain copper bullet...

> The shot was made with a custom-built rifle chambered for the .416 Barrett cartridge

That's a huge bullet that was specifically designed for low-supersonic drag and extreme long range. It has a huge amount of energy at the muzzle... (8,767.4 ft-lb or 11,887 J according to wikipedia[1]) so ~600fps down range, even at 4.4 miles, is not that surprising.

The only surprising feat here is they managed to actually hit a target... which is quite incredible.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.416_Barrett

For the non-gun people in here that is an absolute chonker of a bullet.

The .556 (very common AR round) is 112. 9mm common in handguns is around 115.

422 grain = 27.35 grams / 0.9646 ounces.

> .556

Do you mean 5.56mm, the NATO standard small arms round iirc? i.e. as an imperial measurement it'd be about the same as a .22, not .556.

Yeah. lol, I was thinking about how it's said "five five six" and paid no attention to what I wrote.

0.556 cm ;)

... touché!

5.56 is 45 - 75 gn, typically 55 or 62.

Doing the exact math, a 422-grain bullet shot at 3300 feet/sec is 13,833 joules of kinetic energy (.5 * mass * speed*2 = energy)

Right before hitting the target it slowed down to 600 feet/sec, meaning it lost 97% of its kinetic energy during the flight.

> BC (Ballistic Coefficient) ≈ 1.103

Wow.

Assuming the bullet is traveling on a purely ballistic trajectory, no weird aerodynamics, calculator is saying it will have a vertical delta V of -235 m/s at 24 seconds. So more like -700 ft/s. But friction is real so I don’t know the real number.

I’m quite surprised they didn’t have the barrel pointed higher. Was the shooter on a plateau?

The article briefly mentions towards the end that the shooter was on a ridge above the target

Interesting. I wonder if laws against firing a gun into the sky were a factor in that decision.

The angle between the barrel and the scope is already pretty extreme for a rifle. Can’t imagine it being particularly pleasant to shoot with the scope mounted at the sort of angle you’d need for the shot you’re describing.

I would doubt Wyoming has such a law?

I doubt we do. That would take out all forms of bird hunting. Most firearm owner's and hunters I know would say "Shooting in the air is a waste of ammunition and stupid - unless there was a target there."

They would also be impressed. I am. I never thought this would get to HN. Really nerding out on some of the math and insight that has been commented on here.

If they just put that weapon in a bench rest and kept firing, how tight a group would it shoot?

At these ranges, wind, heat, humidity and more play huge factors into the bullet's trajectory. I highly doubt even a bench rest would yield anything resembling a group at this range.

At those ranges you'd likely have to take into account the Coriolis Effect as well.

The Coriolis effect would be constant and wouldn't affect your grouping.

Could you build a smarter bullet that could actively compensate?

It's been tried, but I'm not sure how successful they are/were. Modern day military artillery has "smart shells"[1] as well, which can move small deflection surfaces to "steer" the shell towards it's target.

I do not know the limits of these systems... and of course they would be exceedingly expensive for your average sport shooter.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M982_Excalibur

The U.S. has apparently sent M982 Excalibur shells to Ukraine, according to leaked budget documents: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-08/most-accu...

AFAIU, Russia doesn't have any munitions comparable to these guided artillery shells or even the guided HIMARS rockets. Arguably these deployments in Ukraine may inch Russia a little closer to resorting to tactical nukes. Their military doctrine relies on tactical nukes as an answer to conventional weapons beyond their own capability, and that's part of the reason Russia has so many tactical nukes deployed (at least at sea).

> The U.S. has apparently sent M982 Excalibur shells to Ukraine, according to leaked budget documents

The DOD straight up announced that a recent military aid package included 1000 M982 Excalibur rounds. Another thing the US has been providing is M1156 PGK. It's a kit used to make unguided rounds more precise by adding GPS guidance and it dramatically reduces long range CEP.

Anecdotally I have noticed a large increase the frequency single shot artillery strikes on Russian tanks appearing in Telegram videos. Previously it would take a few shots to adjust fire. Now it's often boom! tank gone with no previous impacts evident.

> AFAIU, Russia doesn't have any munitions comparable to these guided artillery shells or even the guided HIMARS rockets. Arguably these deployments in Ukraine may inch Russia a little closer to resorting to tactical nukes. Their military doctrine relies on tactical nukes as an answer to conventional weapons beyond their own capability, and that's part of the reason Russia has so many tactical nukes deployed (at least at sea).

What, Russias nuclear doctrine is to use nukes against the threatening of their own sovereignty and borders, not against conventional weapons that are better than theres.

What kind of pathetic military has a nuclear doctrine to drop nukes because the other country has modern technology?.

It doesn't matter anyway because Russias nukes are just for sabre rattling, Russia knows full well the any use of nuclear weapons, tactical or not in Ukraine will bring an overwhelming response that will likely just straight up end the war in Ukraines favour.

I think you might be confusing tactical and strategic nuclear weapons. As far as I know strategic weapons are only for protecting their sovereignty and the use of tactical weapons is potentially more flexible.

> I think you might be confusing tactical and strategic nuclear weapons. As far as I know strategic weapons are only for protecting their sovereignty and the use of tactical weapons is potentially more flexible.

I don't believe their doctrine makes a distinction, because the rest of the world would not make a huge distinction.

Im happy to be wrong thought if you could link a primary source.

I’m only directly aware of speculation with regard to there being a possible distinction such as https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60664169

I don't see that as being a distinction but more Russia just rattling the nuclear sabre.

They have been doing it since the start of the war and do it about every single large shipment of weapons to Ukraine.

I suspect its mostly for a internal audience but also to make the west scared to send weapons which clearly hasn't worked.

Russia (and before that, the USSR) viewed nuclear weapons as just another form of artillery. The US did as well, between Davey Crockets, SADM, Pershing 2 and GLCM.

The US doesn’t differentiate between those two cases, and thus a “tactical” strike from the Russian pov would lead to a massive escalation.

Putin should remember that US doctrine explicitly approves massive nuclear first strikes when a situation appears to be escalating to nuclear conflict. Plus the US actually has thousands of mission-ready nukes and only two cities to hit.

Russia has the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krasnopol_(weapon_system), which is quite comparable and was used in the war already.

Strongly disagree about tactical nuclear weapons; I consider it extremely unlikely that these will be ever used by anyone- way to much escalation for very little gain.

Russia has laser-guided weapons, which have been around for decades. GPS-guided artillery and rockets are relatively new. According to Wikipedia, they were developed because laser-guidance turned out to be too cumbersome in Afghanistan, where the Taliban might be too well concealed or too far away for convenient laser targeting. Perhaps drones and fancier features (e.g. top attack flight modes) make laser guidance more effective than before (presuming the Russian versions can benefit from such technologies), but M982 GPS-guided shells have a range of 25+ miles, and HIMARS GPS-guided rockets 50+ miles (up to 120), which provide huge advantages in distance in addition to not needing a laser designator on the target the entire time.

There's also Strix[1], a self-guiding anti-armor mortar round. Not actually sure when it was taken into use, I recall hearing rumours about it being in development in the late 80s, and the Swedish model designation (m/94) indicates it was accepted in 1994.

But, 120 mm is a lot bigger than anything I'd be comfortable firing from a rifle.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strix_mortar_round

Smart bullets exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_bullet

Here's a live-fire video of the EXACTO: https://youtu.be/YoOaJclkSZg

All the available information is several years old, now. I figure either the EXACTO (or successor) has secretly been deployed, or it proved impractical.

It may have fallen into the category of weapons too big to lug around, and inferior to vehicle-mounted systems. That's happened before. About 10 years ago, the USMC was trying out an "automatic mortar". This accepted fire direction like artillery - forward observer designates target, data is passed to weapon, weapon duly clobbers target. Worked OK, too heavy for infantry, and there are vehicle-mounted systems already deployed which can do that job.

There shouldn't be any limit to the distance of a rifle shot along a parabolic trajectory if someone builds an appropriate cannon and can shoot many times aye? Artillery shoots much further...

Is there a restriction which prevents a motivated team that can manufacture their own barrels from building a rifle/howitzer hybrid?

This record is only somewhat a record because it’s done with a rifle firing an ammunition sized for a rifle. By the standard of artillery, there is nothing remarkable here.

The criteria used here are very arbitrary. That’s why they can beat their own record by 43% years after setting it. No one is really interested in doing what they are doing because that’s not really interesting.

It was freefalling for 24 seconds. 600fps downwards isn't even remotely surprising to me.

What does a BB gun have to do with this, why are you making that comparison?

It’s a reference point.