From: bercov@bevsun.bev.lbl.gov (John Bercovitz)
Newsgroups: rec.guns
Subject: Re: Long Range Handgun Ballistics
Date: 25 Jul 92 00:29:36 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, California

In article <9207210921.aa26819@claudius.pica.army.mil> erudnick@pica.army.mil 
(FSAC-SID) writes:

#Is anybody on the net with a decent handgun/small arms ballistics program,
#one that takes into account ballistic coefficient and sectional density as
#well as bullet mass, diameter, and muzzle velocity, willing to do the 
#following in a quick 'n' dirty manner?

#Conditions:
#Standard atmospheric conditions
#5" barrel
#9mm - 124 gr. FMJ at 1300 ft/s
#.45 ACP - 230 gr. FMJ at a velocity corresponding to +P pressure [I don't
#     have a number for this - anyone?]

#For both cartridges, compute inches of bullet drop at 100 yard increments
#out to 900 yards (or 100 meter increments out to 800 meters). Residual
#velocity/energy and degrees of superelevation of the bore above the line
#of sight to hit point of aim at each increment would be of interest.

I don't know what a +P 230 FMJ does so I ran it for 900 and 950 fps.
I presume +P would lie in there somewhere.  I used the Sierra program
and I used the 125 gn Sierra FMJ and the 230 gn Sierra FMJ.  (The 
program also does Hornady, Speer, etc bullets.)  It doesn't calculate
angle between bore line and bullet departure but you could plug this
stuff in a spreadsheet if you wanted.  I set it up for flat fire - the
bore is horizontal.  But by the rule of conservation of trajectory, all
you have to do is divide the bullet drop by the range to get the tangent
of the angle between sight line and line of departure.

***Please note that the range is given in meters and not in yards.***

Sierra 125 FMJ @ 1300 fps
range	vel	kin E	drop	time of flight
meters	fps	ft-lb	inches	sec
0	1300	469	0	0
100	1033	296	15	0.289
200	917	234	68	0.628
300	837	195	171	1.002
400	771	165	332	1.411
500	714	141	563	1.854
600	662	122	875	2.333
700	616	105	1282	2.850
800	572	91	1801	3.408

Sierra 230 FMJ @ 900 fps
range   vel     kin E  drop    time of flight
meters  fps     ft-lb   inches  sec
0	900	413	0	0
100	832	353	26	0.380
200	774	306	112	0.789
300	723	267	267	1.228
400	676	234	501	1.698
500	634	205	826	2.201
600	595	181	1256	2.739
700	558	159	1804	3.314
800	525	141	2488	3.929

Sierra 230 FMJ @ 950 fps
range   vel     kin E  drop    time of flight
meters  fps     ft-lb   inches  sec
0	950	460	0	0	
100	871	387	24	0.361
200	807	333	102	0.753
300	752	289	244	1.175
400	704	253	459	1.626
500	659	222	757	2.110
600	618	195	1152	2.627
700	580	172	1657	3.179
800	545	152	2287	3.770

So tell us what your off-line discussion was about and what your conclusions
are based on the above, if we may be so bold as to pry.  8-)

And lastly, my neighbor's brother came down from Idaho on a visit last week and 
he told me that they've been having a big problem with a coyote population
explosion up there.  The coyotes have been attacking and killing their sheep 
in huge numbers.  So the little farm town where he lives had a meeting to 
decide whether to poison the coyotes, trap them, shoot them, or all of the 
above.  One of our Berkeley expatriates showed up at the meeting; she moved up 
there a few years ago to get away from it all I guess.  Anyway, she showed up
in her Birkenstock shoes and raised holy hell.  She insisted that they use the
same population control technique on the coyotes up there that the animal 
rights folks down here wanted to use a few years back for the excess deer 
population on Angel Island out in our bay: namely she wanted to round up
all the male coyotes and castrate them.  After she said that, some old
codger stood up and said, "Lady, I think there's something you don't under-
stand here.  The coyotes is _killing_ our sheep; they ain't raping 'em."

My neighbor's brother might have been pulling my leg but I didn't have the
heart to ask him.  8-)

John Bercovitz     (JHBercovitz@lbl.gov)