For ballistics nerds, hard to categorize, bullets colliding

[darthgently]

https://youtu.be/tcQVrD7RnNI

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, darthgently said:

https://youtu.be/tcQVrD7RnNI

Saw that one, I think the reason the musket balls stuck together is that they was not spinning as shot by smoothbore guns, also the bullets was larger, often 15 mm, and they was slower. It was still an 1 in an million chance for it. 

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

Saw that one, I think the reason the musket balls stuck together is that they was not spinning as shot by smoothbore guns, also the bullets was larger, often 15 mm, and they was slower. It was still an 1 in an million chance for it. 

I also think it was likely a softer lead alloy involved combined with them meeting further along in their paths and moving slower perhaps.  I do remember reading something about current lead alloy for bullets being harder and less malleable and designed to fragment a bit more than expand (more smaller internal wound channels instead of one large one = more bleed out, or something?)

Oh, I remember, harder lead means less lead fouling of rifling in barrel mostly

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

That was cool. 

 

@magnemoe - good point about the rifling, they were clearly counterspinning and this could certainly be a factor... Except for one thing.  I went back to the video and it's a Minnie ball from 1862.  Meaning it was fired from a muzzle loading rifle. 

During the Civil War (1861-65), the basic firearm carried by both Union and Confederate troops was the rifle-musket and the Minié ball. The federal armory in Springfield, Massachusetts, produced a particularly effective rifle-musket that had a range of around 250 yards; some 2 million Springfield rifles were produced during the war

So the Smithsonian rounds would have been fired by rifled barrels, spin stabilized and thus something else has to be the key. 

I suspect they may be correct about the metal composition and velocity.  They're trying to adjust for speed with powder (the part about the long vs short cartridge) and I'm surprised they did not consider wadding in the longer cartridge to maintain a good seat (the inconsistent performance with the short cartridge is actually a sign of them creating a dangerous condition using an incorrect sized cartridge for the gun). 

As to the metal composition?  I don't know.  They used to use scrap metal back in the day, and varying degrees of alloy resulted. Tin and antimony are mentioned in the literature - but finding anything about the ductility / cold welding property of 1860s lead is beyond my Google - fu

Edited June 14, 2023 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[magnemoe]

13 minutes ago, darthgently said:

I also think it was likely a softer lead alloy involved combined with them meeting further along in their paths and moving slower perhaps.  I do remember reading something about current lead alloy for bullets being harder and less malleable and designed to fragment a bit more than expand (more smaller internal wound channels instead of one large one = more bleed out, or something?)

Oh, I remember, harder lead means less lead fouling of rifling in barrel mostly

Modern bullets are copper jacket, rounds is also supersonic even for pistols. Now these bullets was hand loaded so might be slower. 
Now I did not understand the point in the video of packing the powder. Normal rounds are not packed thigh for an reason else you could make smaller rounds packing the powder tight who would be useful because more rounds in an magazine. 

[magnemoe]

2 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

That was cool. 

 

@magnemoe - good point about the rifling, they were clearly counterspinning and this could certainly be a factor... Except for one thing.  I went back to the video and it's a Minnie ball from 1862.  Meaning it was fired from a muzzle loading rifle. 

During the Civil War (1861-65), the basic firearm carried by both Union and Confederate troops was the rifle-musket and the Minié ball. The federal armory in Springfield, Massachusetts, produced a particularly effective rifle-musket that had a range of around 250 yards; some 2 million Springfield rifles were produced during the war

So the Smithsonian rounds would have been fired by rifled barrels, spin stabilized and thus something else has to be the key. 

I suspect they may be correct about the metal composition and velocity.  They're trying to adjust for speed with powder (the part about the long vs short cartridge) and I'm surprised they did not consider wadding in the longer cartridge to maintain a good seat (the inconsistent performance with the short cartridge is actually a sign of them creating a dangerous condition using an incorrect sized cartridge for the gun). 

As to the metal composition?  I don't know.  They used to use scrap metal back in the day, and varying degrees of alloy resulted. Tin and antimony are mentioned in the literature - but finding anything about the ductility / cold welding property of 1860s lead is beyond my Google - fu

You are correct, I thought the Minnie ball was also used with smoothbores and they was still used in 1862 during the civil war.  Fun idea that if the guns was rifled in opposite direction  I assume rotation speed would be slower than in modern guns anyway.
Saving on the powder might be to reduce fooling who is an serious issue with black powder, so then the range closes you don't need the full power shots anymore and if could give a couple more shots before you had to stop an clean it before it was baronet time. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

34 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

I did not understand the point in the video of packing the powder

Consistency of results.  If the powder effectively fills the cavity you get a consistent burn pretty much every time which equates to predictable performance.  

[farmerben]

Minnie balls from rifles in the American civil war stuck together many of times.  I've seen several examples at the GAR museum in Springfield, IL.    

 

edit: GAR stands for Grand Army of the Republic, it was a veterans organization of Union soldiers.  Another type of artifact they have in abundance are judges gavels with embedded Minnie balls, made of wood scavenged from the battlefield by veterans.

Edited June 15, 2023 by farmerben

[darthgently]

3 hours ago, magnemoe said:

rounds is also supersonic even for pistols

Mostly not.  There some few supersonic pistol rounds but most are not.  Barrel length matters also for velocity, so...

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, darthgently said:

Mostly not.  There some few supersonic pistol rounds but most are not.  Barrel length matters also for velocity, so...

My bad in that case. I know that machine pistols from the sten gun the MP5 fire supersonic and need special ammo to be subsonic for real silent shooting but they has longer barrels. 
No experience with pistols so just stuff I heard. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

14 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

My bad in that case. I know that machine pistols from the sten gun the MP5 fire supersonic and need special ammo to be subsonic for real silent shooting but they has longer barrels. 
No experience with pistols so just stuff I heard. 

Different ammo, caliber and barrel length combos determine the chamber pressure and muzzle velocity.  Adding a suppressor tends to increase chamber pressure and can have an effect on the round - so if you are firing suppressed and want to keep the round from cracking through the air, you get a round that won't go supersonic just because you increase the chamber pressure.  I.e. Two subsonic rounds 290m/s and 270m/s.  The 290 is more accurate with better terminal ballistics. Fire both from the same suppressed gun, and the 290 is noticeably loud b/c increased pressure means it's now over 300m/s.

But if you take the same rounds and fire the quiet without the suppressor, you get pretty bad (inconsistent} performance.  But with the suppressor?  They're magically better. 

If you want a real rabbit hole, try to figure out why the M-4 is hot garbage (despite all the fan Bois saying it looks so kewl and the *gasp* Rangers carry them). 

All the post-2003 reports are why militaries are searching for 5.56 alternatives... Which, despite the fact that the full length rifle performance was perfectly fine, it just isn't kewl 

[magnemoe]

12 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Different ammo, caliber and barrel length combos determine the chamber pressure and muzzle velocity.  Adding a suppressor tends to increase chamber pressure and can have an effect on the round - so if you are firing suppressed and want to keep the round from cracking through the air, you get a round that won't go supersonic just because you increase the chamber pressure.  I.e. Two subsonic rounds 290m/s and 270m/s.  The 290 is more accurate with better terminal ballistics. Fire both from the same suppressed gun, and the 290 is noticeably loud b/c increased pressure means it's now over 300m/s.

But if you take the same rounds and fire the quiet without the suppressor, you get pretty bad (inconsistent} performance.  But with the suppressor?  They're magically better. 

If you want a real rabbit hole, try to figure out why the M-4 is hot garbage (despite all the fan Bois saying it looks so kewl and the *gasp* Rangers carry them). 

All the post-2003 reports are why militaries are searching for 5.56 alternatives... Which, despite the fact that the full length rifle performance was perfectly fine, it just isn't kewl 

Yes an suppressor kind of extend the barrel increasing the velocity, another thing I did not think about. 

But the 5.56 replacement is more about much better trained troops with good optic and probably sights with tank level fire control computers down the line so you can engage at much longer range.
Iraq and Afghanistan also had lots of long ranged firing compared to Vietnam. 
Also body armor starts to get common and you want to defeat it at long range. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

But the 5.56 replacement is more about much better trained troops with good optic and probably sights with tank level fire control computers down the line so you can engage at much longer range.
Iraq and Afghanistan also had lots of long ranged firing compared to Vietnam. 
Also body armor starts to get common and you want to defeat it at long range. 

Body armor proliferation, yes... it's a factor.  Urban fighting becoming commonplace features in the discussion as well.

But before you think about tank level fire control in battle rifles - understand that 'down the line' is quite a number of years away.

Far better to have rugged and reliable than high speed and finicky.

Mind you, there's this story floating around about an investigation after Fallujah (when the ACOG was first fleeted) of too many head shots... the story is basically you take guys who are perfectly capable of 500m shots on a point target with the Mark 1 eyeball and iron sights and give them a 3x magnification?  Things are gonna happen.  That's after just 2 weeks of training.  The computer used was wetware.

No need for fancy systems for anything under a kilometer away, tbh.

[steve9728]

My level of knowledge of American history before 1900 isn't particularly deep - broadly speaking my knowledge can be summed up in these:

Taken by me from Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds. 

10 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

both Union and Confederate troops was the rifle-musket and the Minié ball.

Were these lever-action magazine rifles too expensive for both sides?

 

Add: If I remember correctly, several years ago MythBusters did an episode about this. The result was they really have two bullets just like the 1862 one.

Edited June 15, 2023 by steve9728

[TheSaint]

13 hours ago, darthgently said:

https://youtu.be/tcQVrD7RnNI

I love Smarter Every Day. One of my favorite channels.

10 hours ago, darthgently said:

I also think it was likely a softer lead alloy involved combined with them meeting further along in their paths and moving slower perhaps.  I do remember reading something about current lead alloy for bullets being harder and less malleable and designed to fragment a bit more than expand (more smaller internal wound channels instead of one large one = more bleed out, or something?)

Oh, I remember, harder lead means less lead fouling of rifling in barrel mostly

Probably a combination of velocity and alloy. Looking at the Springfield rifle (the standard Union rifle in the Civil War) the average muzzle velocity was around 1,200 ft/sec, which is much lower than modern rifle cartridges. It's actually more in line with modern pistol cartridges. As far as the alloy goes, Minie ball rifles had to use soft lead alloy for their bullets. The whole point of the Minie ball was that it was under-caliber, it just slid down the barrel of the rifle when it was loaded from the muzzle. But then when the powder charge went off behind it, the pressure of the charge filled the hollow space at the base of the Minie ball and the hollow base expanded to engage the rifling in the barrel, thus allowing the bullet to spin as it exited. So if the bullet alloy was too hard it would not expand (or it would crack), thus defeating the entire purpose of the system. So Minie balls were made of pure lead rather than alloyed lead. 

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

If you want a real rabbit hole, try to figure out why the M-4 is hot garbage (despite all the fan Bois saying it looks so kewl and the *gasp* Rangers carry them). 

All the post-2003 reports are why militaries are searching for 5.56 alternatives... Which, despite the fact that the full length rifle performance was perfectly fine, it just isn't kewl 

Really? The M-4 is hot garbage because of bureaucracy. Army procurement went back to Colt in the early 1990s and wanted a shorter, lighter rifle that would be easier for troops to manage while they were getting in and out of the M2/M3. Colt submitted a design back to them, but the bean counters came back and said, "Well, this won't work. The distance between the gas block and the muzzle is too short. It won't fit our existing stock of M7 bayonets. Please resize the gas system." So, Colt had to rework the entire gas system to make the Army happy so they could reuse their existing stock of 40-year-old bayonets, just in case their soldiers had to fix bayonets for a charge on the nuclear battlefield of the 21st century. They tried to horse around with the gas port diameter, but you can only do so much with that. So the damn rifle is over-gassed because the gas port is too close to the chamber. And then they added insult to injury by requiring that stupid wasp-waist cut for the M203. Which is why every civilian who knows anything buys a mid-length AR rather than an M4-profile AR.

5.56 performance is "bad" because they switched from a 20-inch barrel to a 14.5-inch barrel, with the corresponding loss of muzzle velocity and terminal performance. When they say they want a "better" round what they're saying is, "We want a round that will give us the terminal performance we expect at the ranges we expect out of a barrel that our half-wit troops can actually manage to get out of an IFV without injuring themselves or their teammates."

1 minute ago, steve9728 said:

Were these lever-action magazine rifles too expensive for both sides?

During the American Civil War, lever-action rifles were bleeding-edge technology. They were extremely expensive, and, for the most part, untrusted. When used, however, they were effective. IIRC, the quintessential quote from the Confederate soldiers about the Henry lever-action, which was adopted by the Union Army in small numbers: "That damned Yankee rifle that they load on Sunday and shoot all week."

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

22 minutes ago, steve9728 said:

My level of knowledge of American history before 1900 isn't particularly deep - broadly speaking my knowledge can be summed up in these:

Taken by me from Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds. 

Were these lever-action magazine rifles too expensive for both sides?

Repeating rifles and revolvers really first started making their appearance during the time of the American Civil War.  After it, no respecting gun slinger would be caught dead (well, maybe caught dead) with a muzzle loader.

 

The thing with militaries is that procurement is extremely expensive, and often cool tech lags deployment by a few years.  So what you should look at is when the Springfield rifled muskets were acquired, and especially in what numbers to see why the armies were equipped with what they had.

The other piece of the equation that no one ever looks at is logistics.  Far easier to keep people in the fight if they're all using the same kit.  If you suddenly need to provide supply in a variety of calibers to different people - it gets complicated quickly.

Spencer repeating rifles did show up on the Union side - especially for use by cavalry regiments - but did not replace the muskets issued to line troops.

Rifled muskets were still standard issue until the Model 1873 - which was a breach loader.  AFAIK it was chosen for reliability and because someone high ranking did not trust the new fangled repeaters.  We did not start fielding bolt action guns until the 1890s.  Pretty sure we were still using bolt action in the First World War - 1903s and Enfields, which if I recall correctly fired a thirty-aught-six cartridge (which is a big damn round that will punch holes at a thousand yards, and bruise your shoulder if you don't know what you're doing).  Semi-autos were already invented by then and still were not common, and certainly not standard issue.

 

8 minutes ago, TheSaint said:

5.56 performance is "bad" because they switched from a 20-inch barrel to a 14.5-inch barrel, with the corresponding loss of muzzle velocity and terminal performance. When they say they want a "better" round what they're saying is, "We want a round that will give us the terminal performance we expect at the ranges we expect out of a barrel that our half-wit troops can actually manage to get out of an IFV without injuring themselves or their teammates."

This.

11 minutes ago, TheSaint said:

so they could reuse their existing stock of 40-year-old bayonets, just in case their soldiers had to fix bayonets for a charge on the nuclear battlefield of the 21st century.

Actual laughter!

Edited June 15, 2023 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[TheSaint]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Rifled muskets were still standard issue until the Model 1873 - which was a breach loader.  AFAIK it was chosen for reliability and because someone high ranking did not trust the new fangled repeaters.  We did not start fielding bolt action guns until the 1890s.  Pretty sure we were still using bolt action in the First World War - 1903s and Enfields, which if I recall correctly fired a thirty-aught-six cartridge (which is a big damn round that will punch holes at a thousand yards, and bruise your shoulder if you don't know what you're doing).  Semi-autos were already invented by then and still were not common, and certainly not standard issue.

After the Civil War, falling block actions were the rage. The "trap-door" Springfields in the United States were the standard issue, but the real star was the Martini-Henry over in the UK. Amazing rifle, for its time. The first bolt-action in US service was the Krag, in 1892. And .30-40 Krag spawned .30-03, which spawned .30-06, which is still a common cartridge today, and also spawned .308, still in service. These chains of development aren't as long as we imagine them to be.

[steve9728]

7 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Pretty sure we were still using bolt action in the First World War - 1903s and Enfields

If I remember correctly, the poor Marines were still using WWI weapons at the beginning of WW2 

Just looking back at the photos I took from the museum in Leeds. Looks like those Brits had a pretty positive attitude toward something new - there are lots of iconic weapons and something owned by someone f* rich. Typical Britain museum which shows something pre-1950.

6 hours ago, TheSaint said:

but the real star was the Martini-Henry over in the UK

Just at the back of the American weapons

Spoiler

But tbh, what impressed me most was this:

It said it's for hunting waterfowl. Sir, do you have any problem with those poor birds?

 

Edited June 15, 2023 by steve9728

[farmerben]

7 hours ago, steve9728 said:

 

Were these lever-action magazine rifles too expensive for both sides?

 

 

Lever action was a brand new invention when the ACW started.  The 1860 Spencer is a clunky action, extremely primitive compared to 1870's guns.  The Henry lever action was an improvement.  Buford's cavalry used Henry's at Gettysburg, delaying an overwhelming rebel approach to the town by half a day.   In the Atlanta Campaign a unit of mule mounted dragoons with Spencer's played a decisive role several times.

At the start of the war a decision was made to equip all infantry with rifled muskets.   They needed massive numbers of guns and knew how to produce these.  Cavalry units were allowed to experiment with newer guns.  Many weird variants of single shot cartridge guns were made and used.  Not only were these expensive, there were no production lines set up.  The inventors hoped to win a contract then build a factory.  A few won the contracts and had difficulty producing in great numbers.  

 

Edited June 15, 2023 by farmerben

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, steve9728 said:

But tbh, what impressed me most was this:

It said it's for hunting waterfowl. Sir, do you have any problem with those poor birds?

Punt gun.  More of a very big shotgun used to harvest multiple fowl in one shot.  Not legal any longer, and good thing as a conservation measure, lol

7 hours ago, TheSaint said:

I love Smarter Every Day. One of my favorite

Same here.  His series at the Kodak plant is great.  I delivered and picked up a few loads there when driving truck

[farmerben]

On 6/14/2023 at 1:23 PM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

 

As to the metal composition?  I don't know.  They used to use scrap metal back in the day, and varying degrees of alloy resulted. Tin and antimony are mentioned in the literature - but finding anything about the ductility / cold welding property of 1860s lead is beyond my Google - fu

They were actively mining the mineral galena to get silver and getting lots of lead and a little zinc as a byproduct.  Lead zinc alloy is said to resemble bronze.  There was almost certainly no tin mixed with it as that would be valuable enough to mention. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galena

[Scotius]

Question: Could colliding musket balls release enough heat to partially melt, thus welding themselves together?

[TheSaint]

47 minutes ago, Scotius said:

Question: Could colliding musket balls release enough heat to partially melt, thus welding themselves together?

Absolutely. When projectiles impact an object and come to a dead stop like that almost their entire kinetic energy store is converted into material deformation and heat. When we set up our steel targets out on the range, we have to make sure that we set them up in areas where there is little or no dry brush, because when the bullets shatter against the steel targets the fragments that fly off are extremely hot and can actually start fires.

The problem (as demonstrated in the video in the OP) isn't having enough energy, it's having too much energy. Even bullets moving at slow pistol velocities shatter when they strike each other head-on. My personal theory about the two Minie balls fused in the museum is that they were fired at a very long distance from each other, so they slowed down considerably from their initial muzzle velocities before they impacted each other. A staggering improbability, but there aren't a whole lot of other ways to explain it.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 hours ago, TheSaint said:

A staggering improbability, but there aren't a whole lot of other ways to explain it.

Law of large numbers - or some other way of saying monkeys and typewriters. 

[Codraroll]

4 hours ago, Scotius said:

Question: Could colliding musket balls release enough heat to partially melt, thus welding themselves together?

@TheSaint made a great reply already, but let's do the math anyway.

So a Minié ball weighs approximately 1.14 ounces, that's 32.3 grams or 0.0323 kg. It flies at approximately 1200 ft/sec or 400 m/s. That gives it a kinetic energy of 2584 Joules.

As far as I can tell, those balls were mostly made of iron, which has a specific heat capacity of 0.451 J/(g*K). That's at room temperature, but we assume it stays somewhat constant. At 32.3 grams, the heat capacity of the ball is 14.57 J/K.  We can assume all 2584 J of kinetic energy are converted to heat. That ought to be enough to heat the ball by 177 degrees K. Of course, that assumes uniform heating across the entire ball, and the impact happens at such a short time span that that won't happen. If the impact only heats, say, a tenth of the ball, that tenth would briefly be heated by 1770 K. Then its temperature would go from battlefield temperature (~300 K) to the melting point (1811 K) in a flash, still with some left over to account for the bullet slowing down before collision or fragments shooting away with some of the kinetic energy. It's likely that spontaneous welding would happen in such an event.

Of course, there's more energy than that involved in the collision between two moving balls, but there's also twice as much mass to heat, so you can just assume symmetry and disregard the other ball entirely.