HUMOR: Odd Beliefs About Rifles

[HammBone]

I found this hilarious little snippet in an old magazine from 40 years ago. Since we are apolitical, I have stripped out any reference to countries mentioned in the text. I thankfully have never encountered these misconceptions with any new shooters at the events I have worked:

An American vet, serving as captain in an Armored Cars Regiment, cited incident after incident of terrorist ineptitude. Among the most notable were: After being in country only a few weeks, the captain and his men made contact in the bush with some terrorists. After the firefight, during routine clean-up operations, the captain was puzzled as most of the rear sights on captured AK-47s were adjusted for maximum range (1,000 meters). Since most of the contacts occurred at close range (50 to 200 meters), the captain was mystified. He asked an old hand for an explanation. The answer was simple: the terrorists assumed that if setting the sights for shorter distances made the guns potent, adjusting them to maximum would make them incredibly powerful.

His next encounter with terrorist logic came a few months later. After a brief contact, a clean-up again commenced. The captain found fixed bayonets on most of the captured AK-47s. He had not heard of hand-to-hand fighting in this conflict and became intrigued. Again, the answer was simple. The bayonets served two purposes. First, they made the AK-47 longer, and thus a more imposing weapon. Second, the bayonet "guided" the bullet, thus making the weapon more accurate.

Only a few days later, after a raid on a terrorist camp, more AKs were captured. Most of the weapons were superbly maintained, which in that climate was noteworthy. But one conspicuous detail made the captain scratch his head. The bottoms of the near-new magazines were inordinately scratched and rusted. After racking his brain, he interrogated a prisoner. Again, the captain was enlightened. The AK-47, with inserted magazine, was the ideal height for use as a stool. Thus, understanding the enemy and his culture made seeming inconsistencies perfectly lucid. And very entertaining.

[Snow Snake]

 Amazing what i learn here,            thanks for the smile.

[Gus]

Love it.

Of course my favorite rifle myth is the one where the bullet rises upon exiting the muzzle.  I once got into a heated argument about that with my NCOIC at my first radio maintenance shop back in the early 80's.  He firmly believed in the notion that spin made the bullet rise. I tried my best to explain line of sight vs line of bore, trajectory......no help.  When I persisted he got mad and exercised Air Force Regulation 5-2 (his five stripes to my two) and ended the discussion.

Then I was sent out to wash the trucks.



Gus

[Sheepdog87]

I can't tell you how many times I've had the conversation with Soldiers on the qual range about zeroing rifles. As the myth goes (and I'm sure most, if not all, of you have heard this one) that rifles are zeroed to the shooter. This may be true in that some people have a slightly different sight picture, but anyone who is worth their salt should be able to hit minute-of-bad-guy with any modern zeroed rifle out to at least 300 meters. I've consistently proved this on the rifle qual range... and people still don't believe me 

[Captain]

Hey Gus, just throwing this out there to have a little fun on the forum. And although I'm sure I'm not telling anyone here anything they don't already know, there are folks that get confused when they're learning about ballistics and the "rising bullet" idea so what the heck .

Frame of reference: A bullet (unless fired straight up) is affected by gravity and starts to "fall" the moment it leaves the barrel. But that bullet is falling relative to the bore line. Since a bullet will generally be launched on an upward trajectory relative to the sight line, you could also say a bullet is "rising" after leaving the barrel (relative to the sight line and probably relative to the earth).  A bullet's flight path or trajectory (assuming it doesn't hit anything) initially rises, reaches its maximum ordinate and starts to fall - on the downward leg of its trajectory. Anyway, there are folks who will argue about this and never realize that . . . they're both right. They just need to be more specific about their frame of reference.

Aerodynamic jump: This is just another fun bit of trivia. Certainly not the kind of thing we would teach in an Appleseed KD, but we're all home for the "zombie apocalypse" so . . . A bullet will actually "rise" (have its trajectory deflected up or down) from a crosswind. As the spinning bullet tries to align itself into the crosswind component, there is some gyroscopic precession induced. So if you took your rifle zeroed for no wind, and then shot with a 20 mph (or 45 in Wyoming ) right-to-left crosswind, the bullet would be deflected left but also up! The opposite effect is observed when shooting with a left crosswind - the bullet is deflected right . . . and down! The "ballistics engines" used by many modern ballistic calculators will include this effect in the shot solution. If you're trying to make precise first-round hits out in the field, you might come up with a rule-of-thumb for your rifle/ammo such as for every 5 clicks of  "right" windage, take off 1 click of elevation. You go the other way for left-to-right crosswinds. At long range, this can even make the difference between a hit and a miss.

Fun stuff.

(Is someone procrastinating getting stuff done around the house? Perhaps )

[Rattlehead]

For what it's worth, Hornady has a pretty good graphic on their external ballistics page that pretty well illustrates the concept.

[scuzzy]

So if you took your rifle zeroed for no wind, and then shot with a 20 mph (or 45 in Wyoming ) right-to-left crosswind, the bullet would be deflected left but also up! The opposite effect is observed when shooting with a left crosswind - the bullet is deflected right . . . and down! The "ballistics engines" used by many modern ballistic calculators will include this effect in the shot solution.

So that's why some ballistics programs also ask about the barrels twist direction?

OK - true story. A good friend and former instructor who we will call Chuck worked at a gun shop. Some newbie comes in, we'll call him Joe, and wants an AR. So Chuck sells Joe an AR.

Two weeks later. Joe walks in the door and wants to talk to Chuck. He looks pissed.

Joe: This AR you sold me is defective.

Chuck: What's wrong with it?

Joe: It doesn't shoot straight. I took it out to the range and got it zeroed at 25 yards. The weekend after that I went back to the range and shot at 100 yards.

Chuck - interrupting: Wait - let me guess - it was about 6 inches or more high at 100 yards.

Joe: So you knew you sold me a defective rifle!!!

Chuck: Wait a minute. That's how trajectories work. (Then proceeds to explain bullet drop, various zeroes at different distances, etc, etc).

So Joe is still pissed and evidently doesn't understand a thing that has been said. They begin arguing.

Joe: I want my money back.

Chuck: Get the hell out of my store.

[Tennessee Beast]

For what it's worth, Hornady has a pretty good graphic on their external ballistics page that pretty well illustrates the concept.

So does page 11 of our Guidebook to Rifle Marksmanship

[Captain]

So that's why some ballistics programs also ask about the barrels twist direction?

The twist direction will also determine the direction of spin drift in the trajectory calculation.