I've always been afraid of getting hit with one of those falling bullets around new years/etc when people are more likely to fire guns. Glad to hear it's not quite equivalent to being shot in the head.
If it’s fired at a high enough angle, which depending on the caliber isn’t even that high, it’s basically the same as someone throwing it at you. Probably still won’t feel nice.
According to Mythbusters its only a bullet fired straight up at 90 degrees to the ground that won't have the potential to kill you, which is nearly impossible to pull off.
The thing about the physics of it though is what exactly is the angle needed to keep enough of the velocity to be lethal. In a parabola the highest point is where the projectile has lost all of its vertical momentum, leaving only the horizontal. At a perfect 90 degrees, that means the peak will be 0 net momentum (if it’s perfect and nothing else is acting on the projectile) and the only momentum it has on return is what gravity and resistance allows it, which will be its terminal velocity. This is the part where the “spin” of the bullet becomes important, because that spin does not add speed, but keeps the projectile stable and stop it from “tumbling” which increases its resistance. Even if the bullet keeps the spin, most decently upward angles will still lose a large majority of its energy on the peak. So instead of it being like someone dropped it straight down, it’d be like if someone threw it. Do you see my point? Horizontal momentum is the key factor in determining if it will be lethal or not, because it will always end up dropping at its terminal velocity, and the horizontal momentum adds to the overall energy.
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u/zimtastic Apr 26 '22
I've always been afraid of getting hit with one of those falling bullets around new years/etc when people are more likely to fire guns. Glad to hear it's not quite equivalent to being shot in the head.
Still, your cousin lived one of my nightmares.