Ricochet Sound

scope-eye

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Joined
Nov 9, 2009
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871
Location
FL
What exactly happens for it to make that sound. I know you can't have a western movie without them, I actually think there are laws against that.LOL This last weekend Some one asked me why it makes that sound and I had no answer.
I know the bullet is deflecting off of something, but it still does not explain the sound it makes.

Dean
 
Yep, a Physics major is preferred for the answer. I took three semesters of Physics in college. Had one professor who turned it into real world examples. He did not teach on bullet ricochet. He did explain polarized sunglasses and the siren doppler effect. I only remember how to explain polarized glasses.
 
Not a physics major, just a farm boy bullet maker. I am pretty sure it is the bullet tumbling very fast from the glancing impact. Bullets tumbling from instability are trying to right themselves in reverse. So not tumbling very rapidly. This not the high pitched buzz.
 
As a kid I would place a penny on the muzzle of 22 rifle, point straight up and fire. Found by placing pennies more to one side of muzzle enhanced the sounds
This was how we made the ricochet sound we heard in the westerns.
The penny spinning thru the sky made the sound of a ricochet.
 
When a projectile strikes and object and deforms but continues to transverse through a medium (air), the deformed projectile, tumbling or not, no longer has a uniform airflow around it. These turbulence points and intersecting air flows cause a whistling effect and/or a super-sonic intersection of the varied flows. Thus, the ricochet sounds differ from different velocities and style of projectiles.

The classic "pop-pop-pop" of the Huey is due to the intersecting air flows of the main and tail rotors, and the classic whip "crack" is the tip velocity breaking the speed of sound.
 
As a kid I would place a penny on the muzzle of 22 rifle, point straight up and fire. Found by placing pennies more to one side of muzzle enhanced the sounds
This was how we made the ricochet sound we heard in the westerns.
The penny spinning thru the sky made the sound of a ricochet.
Ah man I am so doing that penny trick ASAP.

Dean
 
As a kid I would place a penny on the muzzle of 22 rifle, point straight up and fire. Found by placing pennies more to one side of muzzle enhanced the sounds
This was how we made the ricochet sound we heard in the westerns.
The penny spinning thru the sky made the sound of a ricochet.

FINALLY! A penny is worth something! So what is a dime sound? Nickel? Quarter, or do you get change?
 
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