Fastest bullet ever fired
What was the muzzle velocity of the fastest bullet ever fired by a gun?
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USING an experimental gun about 60 feet long, scientists at Sandia National Laboratories have blasted a small projectile to a speed of 10 miles a second, which is thought to be the highest velocity ever reached on earth by any object larger than a speck of dust.
In announcing the achievement, Sandia said its new gun, the Enhanced Hyper Velocity Launcher, would enable engineers to measure the effects of a micrometeorite or chunk of space debris colliding head on with an orbiting space station at a combined speed of 36,000 miles an hour. The gun will also help engineers to design and test protective shields for orbiting communications satellites.
In an earthbound application, projectiles fired by the gun will be used to study the transitions that gases and other materials undergo when subjected to immense pressures, pressures normally found only in the cores of giant planets like Jupiter.
To break the projectile speed record, Dr. Lalit C. Chhabildas (pronounced cha-BILL-dahs) and his colleagues at Sandia, in Albuquerque, N.M., invented a modification that greatly increased the muzzle velocity of projectiles fired from an existing laboratory gun, which had previously achieved a record velocity of nine miles a second, or 32,400 miles an hour. Leaving Bullets Behind
The record speed, established this month, measured by flash X-rays and other devices, is approximately 27 times as great as that of a bullet fired from a high-powered rifle.
Dr. Chhabildas said in an interview that microscopic dust particles had been accelerated electromagnetically to close to 30 miles a second (108,000 miles an hour), but that the Sandia gun was the first to accelerate projectiles weighing up to one gram (0.035 ounces) to such "hypervelocities."
Gas guns used by laboratories that study high-velocity projectiles generally have two stages. At Sandia, a federally financed national laboratory that develops nuclear and conventional weapons systems, the research gas gun has two barrels placed end to end, about 60 feet in total length.
In the first barrel, 3.5 inches in diameter, a charge of burning powder drives a heavy plastic piston down the bore, compressing hydrogen gas in the chamber ahead of it. When the hydrogen reaches a pressure about 10,000 times that of the atmosphere, a barrier disk ruptures and the hydrogen blasts into the second barrel, one inch in diameter, to drive another piston.0 -
DEPENDS on what you term a gun and if you are talking about what we normally refer to as a Gilding-Metal projectile with smokeless gun powder as the propellant. 0 -
WOW
That's almost as fast as that question was answered.
I'm impressed.
I love this forum0 -
I don't recall their exact velocities, but I recall several years ago Israel working on sniper rifles chambered in .50 BMG necked down to 7.62 and 5.56.
They both moved out pretty darn quick.0 -
220 swift 0 -
The 22 Eargesplitten Loudenboomer was pretty quick. 105 gr. bullet at 4600 fps. It was basically a 378 Wby. necked down to 22. Ackley's Handbook Vol. 2 has a little info on it. I think I remember hearing that the gas cutting killed the barrel after about 6 shots or something like that. 0 -
Rail gun steel rod 20000fps? 0 -
The steyr ACR asault rifle fires Fachetts at over 4900 feet per second.. Thats almost a mile a second..
The steyr ISW200 15.2x169mm Antimaterial/sniper rifle fires a discarding sabot 308 grain tungston alloy dart at 4800 FPS.
Pretyy nifty, huh?0 -
Don't sabot rounds from smoothbore tank rifles proceed very quickly ??
Doug0 -
Doug- yes, they do. The fastest FACTORY load for a RIFLE (FIred from shoulder) at one time was the Remington Acclerator in 30-06, with a muzzle velocity slightly over 4500 fps. There is a theorectical upper limit based on the expansion of smokeless powder, probably somewhere around 56-5800 fps. but before that point you start to have bullets coming apart from the very high spin rate.
which is why the really fast tank rounds are for a SMOOTHBORE cannon. No spin on projectile.0 -
For the shoulder held firearm that uses smokeless powder, I believe the honors goes to Roy weatherby. testing was being done for the US military, using the 30-378, long before it was standardized. Word has it, using a special alloy sabotted bullet, he reached over 6000 FPS. That is getting it done!. 0 -
Back around WW II the army experimented with a 50 BMG case necked to .30 and as I reall was achieving about 5500 fps. No sabot, no special bullets. Barrel life was a problem. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by tsr1965
For the shoulder held firearm that uses smokeless powder, I believe the honors goes to Roy weatherby. testing was being done for the US military, using the 30-378, long before it was standardized. Word has it, using a special alloy sabotted bullet, he reached over 6000 FPS. That is getting it done!.
that is amazing, I wonder if anyone is tinkering with the same tech and the 338lapua.. there is a swedish sniper rifle that fires a similar 7.62x51 round, 4300fps.0
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