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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Photo of two bullets collided mid air


Hywyn

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On 23/07/2015 at 10:08, Martin Feledziak said:

I have posted this before but it is relevant here.

 

 

 

A few years ago I took this photo of a display in a small WW1 museum at Notre Dame De Lorette. Mostly French items.

 

 

 

I know absolutely nothing about it but just thought it was interesting.

post-103138-0-22442900-1437642513_thumb.

I've seen litteraly 100drs like that when digging out the back stops on tne range, I use to take a bucket full at a time to melt the lead antimony core out to cast pistol bullets. That one looks like a 8m Lebel

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Not improbable to have one bullet transecting another already embedded in the stop butt of a firing range. Not impossible to find something similar on battlefield either, the one already embedded in a glacis or similar. But to find and prove a case of two actually meeting in mid-air, well certainly possibly, but how does one prove it?

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5 hours ago, trajan said:

Not improbable to have one bullet transecting another already embedded in the stop butt of a firing range. Not impossible to find something similar on battlefield either, the one already embedded in a glacis or similar. But to find and prove a case of two actually meeting in mid-air, well certainly possibly, but how does one prove it?

 

For the OP's case, it's vanishingly unlikely that the integrity of either bullet would survive a direct mid-air collision at battle ranges where both still carry thousands of ft.lb. of KE. All there'd be is a scatter of lead dust and flaked jacket metal, and it's very hard to visualise how they could remain stuck in each other. A near-spent round at long range randomly striking a live one in a box or bandolier is vastly more credible.

 

With the Lebel bronze bullets, (Balle Ds I think) your stop-butt or battlefield explanations look very sound.

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I am still of the opinon that two bullets meeting one another in mid air could NOT penetrate and stay together considering the speed they are traveling & the angle they might meet

Edited by Retlaw
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Maybe, but it needs two lots of gunfire at almost right angles to each other and with one past maximum velocity to achieve the effect. That aside, having seen German X-Rays of how bullets fragment when hitting bone even, welll... 

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16 hours ago, Retlaw said:

I am still of the opinon that two bullets meeting one another in mid air would penetrate and stay together considering the speed they are traveling & the angle they might meet

No, I'm still struggling with that.

 

If you're talking of Martin's pic of 2 bronze bullets amongst some holed coins, consider the penetrating bullet pointing obliquely away from the camera. If that had had a couple of dozen more ft.lb. energy it would've completed its perforation of the bent bullet, very likely breaking it, and there'd've been no 'trophy' to photograph - just a bullet plus some bits among all the other battlefield debris.

 

So it must've been close to its very last gasp when the collision occurred. Therefore either it must have penetrated a lot of inches or a few feet of mud, sand or timber before the encounter, or be at the end of a thousands-of-yards free-flown trajectory. Either way the prior presence of a stationary bullet to be struck by it is vastly more likely.

 

I can't see any rifling marks on either bullet in the pic (maybe they're very shallow in 8mm Lebel?), so the possibility still exists that a shot-through unfired bullet was found on a battlefield and another dismantled bullet was suitably distressed, then force-fitted or soldered into it.

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2 hours ago, MikB said:

No, I'm still struggling with that.

 

If you're talking of Martin's pic of 2 bronze bullets amongst some holed coins, consider the penetrating bullet pointing obliquely away from the camera. If that had had a couple of dozen more ft.lb. energy it would've completed its perforation of the bent bullet, very likely breaking it, and there'd've been no 'trophy' to photograph - just a bullet plus some bits among all the other battlefield debris.

 

So it must've been close to its very last gasp when the collision occurred. Therefore either it must have penetrated a lot of inches or a few feet of mud, sand or timber before the encounter, or be at the end of a thousands-of-yards free-flown trajectory. Either way the prior presence of a stationary bullet to be struck by it is vastly more likely.

 

I can't see any rifling marks on either bullet in the pic (maybe they're very shallow in 8mm Lebel?), so the possibility still exists that a shot-through unfired bullet was found on a battlefield and another dismantled bullet was suitably distressed, then force-fitted or soldered into it.

You will never convince me that that wasn't staged, fired bullets ar traveling at a heck of a speed and rotating hundreds of revs per min, two round spinning objects in flight would bounce off one another. As I've said before you can find buckets full in range back stops. maybe some embeded in the battle fields, but for that to occur in flight would need the skills of Paul Daniels and beyond.

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15 minutes ago, Retlaw said:

You will never convince me that that wasn't staged, fired bullets ar traveling at a heck of a speed and rotating hundreds of revs per min, two round spinning objects in flight would bounce off one another. As I've said before you can find buckets full in range back stops. maybe some embeded in the battle fields, but for that to occur in flight would need the skills of Paul Daniels and beyond.

Looks like we're misunderstanding each other. To me, what you just wrote seems to contradict what you said in post #30.

 

I think they'd effectively destroy each other - the remains might bounce away at some vector to the original flight path.

I'd agree that such collision in flight is immensely improbable. The sheer quantities fired mean that it likely did happen occasionally, but I don't think it would leave such an identifiable trophy if and when it did.

 

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2 hours ago, MikB said:

Looks like we're misunderstanding each other. To me, what you just wrote seems to contradict what you said in post #30.

 

I think they'd effectively destroy each other - the remains might bounce away at some vector to the original flight path.

I'd agree that such collision in flight is immensely improbable. The sheer quantities fired mean that it likely did happen occasionally, but I don't think it would leave such an identifiable trophy if and when it did.

 

Sorry about that, I've edited post 30 to read what I meant. again two spinning objects at bullet speed, a collisions as shown is impossible, military rifle bullets are still traveling at the speed of sound at 1000 yards, and spinning like crazy.

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