Here we go again.
It NEVER ceases to amaze me that people manage to stuff gun cleaning up to this level.....
au.news.yahoo.com/worl...aning-gun/
Someone's not going to have a merry xmas.

This was on the news last night, I couldn't believe it when they said he cleaned his muzzle loader and it went off. First of all, I never knew a bullet fired from a muzzle loader could go almost 1.5 miles, if thats the case and ballistics match the bullet from his gun, than you know dam well he fired that gun at a pretty high angle to get that distance.

Why didn't he fire it into a known backstop?

I read this too. He needs to be arrested for lack of judgement. You don't fire a gun "into the air". I too find it hard to believe that a muzzle loader went that distance. A couple of years ago, some nut fired his .50-cal into the air and the bullet injured a fan at the Texas Motor Speedway which was a mile and a half from his house.

www.pegasusnews.com/ne...-speedway/

the related article says the guy with the .50-cal was 5 miles away but later details said he was 2.5 miles away. He was shooting into a home-made berm at 700 yards. Likely a richocet. Still, a muzzle loader going 1.5 miles?

the shot must have been a reeealy unlucky one.

Some years back a family friend collapsed while at an outdoor New Year's Eve party in a city in FL. She had been hit in the head by a .45 pistol bullet that some idiot had fired into the air. She lived and recovered with some aftereffects. You have to be incredibly stupid to fire rounds into the air like that!

.22 cal bullets are lethal up to a mile and a half. And really for any bullet to travel a mile or three, it doesn't have to have much angle of departure somewhere around 30 to 40 degrees. I agree that the guys should be charged with negligence at least. If you have to decharge a firearm, then make damn sure of your backstop or fire it into the ground or safety box.

Have you ever calculated how much energy a .22 LR bullet that has been shooting straight up in the air, still has when it touches the ground again? In my opinion that's not lethal. I know havier things that fall out of the air...
When a round still has some of it's initial speed, then it's another story of course.

@SJ: when a 45/70 is capable of hitting a target at 1,5 miles, then I'm sure my Parker Hale Volunteer can do the same (and better!). And think a moment about that englishman with his cal 4 shooting elephants... at what distance did he shoot completely trough the animal?
Never think "it's only black powder" !

inthedark wrote:

.22 cal bullets are lethal up to a mile and a half. And really for any bullet to travel a mile or three, it doesn't have to have much angle of departure somewhere around 30 to 40 degrees. I agree that the guys should be charged with negligence at least. If you have to decharge a firearm, then make damn sure of your backstop or fire it into the ground or safety box.

So true ITD. Even the humble 9mm pistol round, when fired at an elevation of 800 mils (45 degrees) will travel approximately 1900 metres. Doesn't have any energy left other than that imparted by gravity...but it still travels that far.

The guy that fired the rifle should be charged with Negligence Causing Death... will not only teach him a lesson, but send a strong message to any other fool who decides to "punch a hole in the sky" just for the heck of it...crazy.

Cheers, Vince

When I was in basic training back in the day, during firearms training, some of our required reading was the principals of plunging fire and of the aiming marks that we were to employ. If memory serves me right, It seems that plunging fire on an unseen enemy was up to two miles with the 7.62mm, and up to four or five miles with the .50cal. Weirys or Vince or one of you other infantrymen can help me out here.?

Terrible accident however it was caused.

Mythbusters did a show on this concept a while back. It actually was pretty good scientifically. Their results:

Quote::

busted / plausible / confirmed In the case of a bullet fired at a precisely vertical angle (something extremely difficult for a human being to duplicate), the bullet would tumble, lose its spin, and fall at a much slower speed due to terminal velocity and is therefore rendered less than lethal on impact. However, if a bullet is fired upward at a non-vertical angle (a far more probable possibility), it will maintain its spin and will reach a high enough speed to be lethal on impact. Because of this potentiality, firing a gun into the air is illegal in most states, and even in the states that it is legal, it is not recommended by the police. Also the MythBusters were able to identify two people who had been injured by falling bullets, one of them fatally injured. To date, this is the only myth to receive all three ratings at the same time.

Regardless firing in the air with anything other than a shotgun is a baaaaaad idea!.

For harrassing fire with the 7.62mm NATO we used 2000 metres...usually with the M60 or L7 machine gun. Harrassing fire is a form of plunging fire and, as the name implies, is designed to disrupt, curtail movement and lower morale of the enemy. Plunging fire can be used at any distance that is within the range capability of the gun and round. It can be from hill top to hill top, from a hill top down into an area or across flat ground at long distance using a high trajectory. All plunging fire really means is the projectiles are falling or coming from above instead of along the line of sight / line of aim. Plunging fire is not accurate fire...basically the area rounds are falling is considered unsafe to be, but that is all. The best protection from plunging fire is overhead protection.

I've used plunging as close as 250 metres with a machine gun (Brit L7) on fixed lines....it all comes down to the trajectory and the point of aim. The fire I used was basically grazing fire across open ground to my front and "into" what we considered was the most likely enemy FUP (Forming Up Place) and approach. On the back edge of the cleared ground was a creek line about 2 metres deep (dead ground), where the enemy could safely form up and prepare for an assault. We placed targets into this dead ground then fired a series of "fire missions" across the open ground at grazing fire height. I was really surprised when I saw that the majority of the Figure 11 (man sized from the waist up) targets in the dead (and supposedly safe) ground had numerous holes in them...we achieved plunging fire from grazing fire.

Cheers, Vince

I never did use plunging fire after I was at Benning. Grazing fire yes. I was always mechanized and not leg so we were always in armour doing bounding, bounding overwatch, and thunder run. In the RDF we had M60's, Maw duce, and later on the SAW but we never did plunging fire on the range training. Most of the Sargeants/Officers considered it archaic (so I'm told by my friend whom I served with for three years and called last night.)

Depending on the Battalion I was with at the time, I did foot and mechanised training. I was a qualified M113A1 Crew Commander...love the .30 and .50 BMG mounted side by side in the T50 turret.

Don't know about plunging fire being archaic mate...harassing and plunging fire used for interdiction and also as a means of denying the enemy access to ground of his choosing is a good thing. It can also channel him into ground of your choosing. Any war fighter who doesn't use any and all "tools" available to him is making his job harder.

Now if you said Volley Fire is archaic I would agree wholeheartedly.

Cheers, Vince

archaic maybe but I guess the old british square with 300 odd muskets all being fired in the same direction in rolling fire would be nearly as good today as it was back then. set all those sights to maximum elevation and some of that lead has got to hit with effect.