Ram ringers

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jask
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Re: Ram ringers

Post by jask »

Snake "Bullet impact at 500 is at a steeper approach angle than the bullet impact at 200"

I do agree that the impact at 500 meters is at an angle but the question is "how much of an angle"


If you look at the drop of a typical silhouette bullet, the drop between 400 and 500 yards is around 25 inches. Gravity is acting on the bullet when it leaves the barrel and it is a rate of acceleration so the drop between 500 yds and 500 meters would be even more. So, lets say it is a 50 inch drop just to make sure it is within the window. A 50 inch drop over 100 yards is about 3/4 of one degree. You can just ignore that. It's meaningless to say that would affect the impact on a ram. The bullet probably has spiral divergence of more than that by 500 meters.

It is definitely not the angle of impact causing a bullet to "explode".

On the lighter animals, they move rapidly backwards so the bullet retains some of the forward energy but on the rams, it is like the bullet hits a brick wall. If you compare a bullet to a car hitting an object and knocking it away, the car would sustain much less damage than if it hit a brick wall.

So, how would you explain backing off muzzle velocity by 200 fps taking down more rams? Doesn't make sense unless the bullet is being damaged by the higher velocity.
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Re: Ram ringers

Post by jask »

After pondering more on "gain twist", it would continually change the rifling grooves on the bullet and that would not be good for the bullet. I also noticed that Tubb is only using "poly" barrels since 2005. Has anyone looked into that type of rifling?
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Re: Ram ringers

Post by Snake »

Jask-Generally speaking all projectiles disintegrate when they strike the 'close' targets. The 'close' targets have less mass than our ram and toppling them is not usually an issue. Gravity alone does not reduce velocity...air resistance plays a bigger role. The ballistic curve is more of a parabola than a uniform curve. The angle of approach at 500 is considerably steeper than at 400....the decent is not uniform over distance. And after 200-300 the yaw is considerably less than at say 100 and significantly less at 500 and the projectile is more aligned with the ballistic path. Simultaneously air resistance is stripping away at the velocity ...more so at the beginning than down range...that is, as the projectile is traveling down range and slowing its rate of slowing drops off. As it slows closer to the speed of sound its rate of slowing is significantly less and the projectile takes farther to go for each subsequent increment of slowing. Slowing its departure simply hastens that region where the increments of slowing are diminishing, and thus lessens the impact stress..... the bullets takes a fraction of a second longer to disintegrate and any brittleness in jackets is less significant. See Ingalls tables, the Gavre Commission study, or Mayveski's studies. Brian Litz, the ballistician for Berger has some great writings of the flight of the bullet...and some are on the net. The bullet does not glide like an airplane..it has no propulsion of its own or lifting surfaces...it follows the ballistic path.
BTW polygonal rifling has been used on Steyr Mannlicher rifles for years and Pac-Nor and I think, Lilja offer it....some far it like 'ratchet'(Shilen's offer)rifling doesn't seem to be any better than say 5RC..although polygonal apparently doesn't copper foul as easily and cleans up quickly
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Re: Ram ringers

Post by Jerry G »

Modern bullets from a smokeless case disintegrate at the rams also. I have never found anything but very small scraps of metal at the ram line. Now, black powder is a little different. There you can find pieces of lead that resemble the back of a bullet, just like at the smallbore targets.

The angle a bullet hits the ram is not very great. A drop of 10 to 12 inches from the high point to the ram is a very small angle.
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Re: Ram ringers

Post by jask »

One mil is 1/60th of a degree so even though the flight path is parabolic, it would still not be much of an angle unless the energy was really low and the bullet was near the end of its flight path at the rams. No powder charge is that low. Maybe the experiment of using less velocity was incorrect and it was only by chance the ringers decreased? I just don't believe the small angle is a significant factor in bullets not taking down rams.

What velocities and bullets are shooters using to take down rams? Are your rams only going down with high, head or rump shots? With my 7-08 162 A Max, 2500 fps, I had an area about the size up to a grapefruit that would sometimes ring. Some ranges would ring more rams than others. I didn't use different loads, same all 40 shots. I just wanted to keep it simple with one load.
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Re: Ram ringers

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Well one must incline or launch his bullet 11-15 minutes (55-75 inches)higher than his 200 m setting. The slope is steeper than the inclination at the turkey; second the ram weighs 59lbs and is broad and catches the rear wind well; third a 168 matchking starting at 2500 arrives at the ram traveling 1130 fps and the bullet path is -55 inches from the line of sight......where do you guys get your drop angle/ numbers? Yes, Jerry every hp bullet disintegrates at impact.....the issue is whether its a more uniform disintegration or explosive where all energy is dissipated across the surface. There is most certainly a 'dead' spot in the center of rams where ringers prevail.....Its an outdoor game and ringers happen. I even witnessed a 500 gr BPCR 45/70 leave one....the wind was out of the north and helping Mr Ram. Then again on another day one of our boys with a 6br with 105 gr Bergers never lost a one ( he hit 16 over 2 matches).......so 'splain it to me lucy! BTW I give away a couple of the Sierra ballistics DVD at my regional :D
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Re: Ram ringers

Post by jask »

Lets say that all of a 75 in drop on a 168 happens in the last 50 yards. Of course, that would not be true but if it did, the angle of impact on the target would only be just 2 degrees. That is a way over what it would really be. That is why I don't think the angle is significant.

I have definitely seen ram ringers with distinct radial spokes from the center of the hit. IMO, those were bullets that expended a significant radial force. Those bullets were 308 168 match kings using my short chambered 308.
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Re: Ram ringers

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jask wrote:I'm more than a little lost here. Why would a higher velocity cause more lateral dispersion of energy than a lower velocity? Velocity has dropped a lot by 500 meters so why don't we see huge splotches on chickens and pigs where the velocity is even higher?
jask,

Splotches are bigger on rams because they weigh a heck of a lot more than chickens or pigs, even though the bullets are going slower at rams. They stand there and take it, so to speak. Put some chickens on the ram line and shoot them off the bench and have a friend with a top-quality scope record what the splotches look like. Do the same with the rams. You will see a "splotchy" difference.
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Re: Ram ringers

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Snake wrote:...a) angle of approach and velocity--too fast and too steep and ram busting percentage goes down...

Na, the trajectory at the ram-line is very small. For example, if we launch a 7mm, 162 A-Max at only 2,200 fps, quite low, the trajectory angle at the ram-line is about 6/10ths of a degree.

A fella that I knew was so annoyed by losing rams he thought that by annealing his bullets he could reduce the influence of jacket flaws. He used to cook 175 7mm in the oven at 275 degrees for 4 hours...

It takes a temp of over 800 F to anneal gliding metal, bullet jackets.

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Re: Ram ringers

Post by DanDeMan »

Snake wrote:jask----part of the answer to the 'splotch' question is the angle of approach. At 500 meters the target is struck at a steeper angle than say a chicken.....
Na, the splotch is from an unstable bullet going somewhat sideways into the ram. I've done a boatload of bullet stability testing with SB, HP and BPCR bullets over the past 35 years. Any time a splotch like that is seen, it is the result of an unstable bullet. The trajectory angle at the ram-line is way to small to cause the splotch jask saw.

I've pulled many a target when guys were shooting Black Powder Cartridge rifles from the 1,000-yd line. You'd think all the holes would be oblong in the vertical plain, not a chance. If the cast bullets are stable, the holes are round. If the bullets are not stable, the holes are randomly oblong. I actually ran a test from the 1,000-yd line shooting two difference BPCR's to measure the trajectory angle at the targets. An article was published about the experiment in the Black Powder Cartridge News. The short version is, even a 45-70, launching a 502-gr bullet at 1,227 fps had a trajectory angle of only 4.3 degrees below horizontal at the target when fired from the 1,000-yd line. That result shocked the heck out of just about everybody because they all though the bullets were coming down like mortars at the targets, when the rifles were fired from the 1,000-yd line.

Another thing to keep in mind if shooting HP silhouette, when it looks like the bullets are "dropping out of the sky" though a spotting scope, they are falling that far over the course of about the last 240 meters to the ram-line. It's an optical illusion.
Last edited by DanDeMan on Thu Feb 12, 2015 11:23 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Ram ringers

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jask wrote:...Would annealing the jackets make them more or less prone to damage? Does fast twist damage the jacket more?...
jask,

There is no way a jacket can be anneal without melting the core. One can heat-treat HP bullets if their core has 2% or more antimony. A 1-hour soak in a pre-heated, 400F oven, followed by quenching in cold tap water will do it. The bullets need to age-harden for about a week before shooting them. I went down that path big-time years ago. With Sierra, 6mm, 107 SMK's the ram knock down doubled with the heat-treated bullets. However, accuracy deteriorated. When testing off the bench at 100 yards, the non-heat-treated bullets' group was, IIRC, about 1/4 MOA. The heat-treated bullets' group opened up to about 3/4 MOA.
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Re: Ram ringers

Post by DanDeMan »

jask wrote:...That is an interesting statement. A drop in velocity gets less ringers? Barrel stayed the same. Bullet stayed the same. Doesn't make sense unless you assume the extra velocity was damaging the bullet in some way that affected the impact velocity/force...
jask,

The most effective MV for a given bullet is a function of how tough the bullet is. A soft bullet will knock more rams down when launched at a lower MV than a tougher bullet. If the bullet blows up to quickly upon impact with the ram, the dwell time is too short to effectively transfer its momentum to the ram. The bullet splatters too quickly. The perfect bullet would be one that bounces straight back off the ram without splattering. When that happens it's an indication of maximum momentum transfer to the ram. Oh, forget about using "energy" to compare anything in HP silhouette, momentum is the useful metric.
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Re: Ram ringers

Post by DanDeMan »

Snake wrote:...third a 168 matchking starting at 2500 arrives at the ram traveling 1130 fps...

Na, a 7mm, 168 MK launched at 2,500 fps arrives at the ram-line going 1,630 fsp. Almost none of our bullets are in the transonic region at the ram-line. The transonic region is from 1,350 fps down to 900 fps.
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Re: Ram ringers

Post by DanDeMan »

That was fun. Thanks for the mental workout guys. Exterior ballistics sure is an interesting subject.

Ta ta for now...back to lurking once in a while.
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Re: Ram ringers

Post by jask »

Hi Dan, nice to read your input. I have met you when I used to shoot with Manny all the time.

You make one statement that I might comment on.

" With Sierra, 6mm, 107 SMK's the ram knock down doubled with the heat-treated bullets. However, accuracy deteriorated. When testing off the bench at 100 yards, the non-heat-treated bullets were, IIRC, about 1/4 MOA. The heat-treated bullets' group opened up to about 3/4 MOA."

I seriously doubt the accuracy of the bullet changed but it could have. What would have changed is the resonant point of the load. The jacket would have been totally different in relation to the rifling so the timing of the bullet/muzzle exit would have changed and would need another load work up completed. If you did attempt another load workup, then you may have had some inconsistency in the hardness of the jacket as a result of the heat treating.

Do you have any examples of good hard bullet for Rams? I am open as to what rifle to build, 6, 6.5 or 7mm.
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