How close do you have to be to a bullet to hear it go by?

[shropshire 0]

WTF?



I guess hearing one go past you is better than hearing one smack into your arse.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[wayneflorida 0]

Ask Dick Cheney's hunting partner.

[Amazon 7]

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How did you hear the gunshot before the bullet going past?

Yup.. not happenin

You have obviously never been around a bunch of Iraqi's as they celebrate by shooting a bunch of rounds in the air....

What goes up must come down....

If the guy was shooting straight up into the air, it could happen. If you get hit by a round like that, it's usually not as lethal.

You're not going to hear a subsonic bullet (which your example would be) - with a supersonic bullet (virtually every rifle round out there), you're going to hear the crack of the bullet going past before you hear the report of the rifle.

Hey there are so many experts here... what would I know.

[wsd 0]

Not much!,

Now go make me a sammich and fetch me a beer!

[shropshire 0]

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Not much!,

Now go make me a sammich and fetch me a beer!

Wow brave man . Hope you get chance to hear J cock her rifle!!

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[Amazon 7]

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Not much!,

Now go make me a sammich and fetch me a beer!

How long do you want your "hot dog" cooked after its removed???

[pirana 0]

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In the army we practiced hearing the sound of the bullet whiz over head and then counting the seconds to the sound of the boom.

For example if it was three seconds between the whiz and the boom you would multiply the speed of sound (per second) times three.

You could then calculate about how far away the shooter is. You could then call in fire support to blow up the sniper.

Most grunts, during Vietnam era, got this training.

Same thing for lightning. I believe it is about 5 or 6 seconds per mile - for lightning.

I have definitely heard bullets go by at about 20 feet; but we were where they were landing, and the fluttering sound led me to believe they were tumbling. Definitely subsonic.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[wsd 0]

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Not much!,

Now go make me a sammich and fetch me a beer!

Wow brave man . Hope you get chance to hear J cock her rifle!!

She don't fool me, she likes that kind of dirty talk!

[Belgian_Draft 0]

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I'm guessing on this, but I'd say you could probably hear a high powered bullet at even sixty feet over head.

When I was a kid I was out shooting at targets. A truck stopped on the road behind me. I might add that this guy was an idiot....He started shooting at my targets. I guess he thought this was a joke or something. He was shooting well over my head. I'd say the bullets were whizzing over, at least 60 feet overhead. I could hear them clearly, (followed by the boom of his rifle).

I might add that this dip-stick missed all my targets, but I assume that is what he was shooting at.

Could be he was just a piss-poor shot and was shooting about 60 feet high.
A long time ago I watched a man stop his truck, get out, look at me through his binoculars. Since it was deer season I figured he was making sure I wasn't a deer. WRONG! He was making sure I WAS! Lucky for me his aim was as bad as his eyesight. From about 300 yds he missed by about twenty gaziilion feet to both sides. He got off 3 rounds before my screaming like a girl got his attention and he hurried on down the road. I will NEVER forget the sound of a rifled deer slug whizzing by.

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a
kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the
object we are trying to hit.

[steve1 5]

This was kind of unnerving for a 16 year old kid. I had thoughts of returning fire, (if bullets started landing close to me).

I found out later that this guy was an outcast neighbor of ours. Somebody should have gave him a good ass chewing for that stunt...

[mnealtx 0]

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Same thing for lightning. I believe it is about 5 or 6 seconds per mile - for lightning.

Same thing for sound, period - source doesn't matter.

Whether it's lightning, a firearm or a 155 howitzer, given sufficient distance you're going to see the flash before you hear the boom.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[DanG 1]

Yeah, but bullets don't travel at the speed of light.

Back to the OP: don't people hunt deer with subsonic deer slugs out of shotguns? Could that be what happened?

- Dan G

[mnealtx 0]

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Yeah, but bullets don't travel at the speed of light.

Never claimed they did - the light from the muzzle flash, however, does.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[DanG 1]

I'm not arguing with you. The other poster related how they were taught to count the time between hearing the round go by, and hearing the report of the rifle. He wasn't talking about seeing the muzzle flash.

- Dan G

[mnealtx 0]

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I'm not arguing with you. The other poster related how they were taught to count the time between hearing the round go by, and hearing the report of the rifle. He wasn't talking about seeing the muzzle flash.

I misunderstood your post, then - my apologies.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[wsd 0]

It is referred to as Flash to Bang time. (hey that could be another topic, time from flashing boobies to ending up in a trailer doing it doggy style!)

Definition: (DOD, NATO) The time from light being first observed until the sound of the nuclear detonation is heard.

[Skyrad 0]

Sounds good to me, you'll have to stand on my good side as I'm already not so good with the hearing on one side already mate.

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[wsd 0]

We may need to pull a small trailer behind us that has coolers and a grill!

[Belgian_Draft 0]

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It is referred to as Flash to Bang time. (hey that could be another topic, time from flashing boobies to ending up in a trailer doing it doggy style!)

Definition: (DOD, NATO) The time from light being first observed until the sound of the nuclear detonation is heard.

That only works when at relatively long distances from ground zero. If you are close enough your brain is vaporized before it can process the impulse from the optic nerve. No flash, no bang, no pain. You merely cease to exist.

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a
kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the
object we are trying to hit.

[JohnRich 4]

I can't answer the question, except with "Too close".

But some clarifications are in order. There are several types of sounds associated with gunshots.

One is the sound of the gun firing, and that sound travels at about 1,000 feet per second, radiating outward in all directions. It can be heard at least 1,000 yards away, absent any other noise interference. At 1,000 yards it's fairly faint.

Two is the supersonic crack of the bullet breaking the sound barrier. This doesn't happen with subsonic ammo, as has been pointed out, but relatively very few shooters are using subsonic ammo. You have to be fairly close to hear that "crack", like pulling targets for people shooting at those targets just over your head. The pitch and loudness of the crack varies with distance, with the ones directly over your head being the sharpest. I would imagine that you won't hear the crack more than 100 yards away, given the width of target pits in which I've worked.

The zip sound of a bullet flying through the air doesn't exist in most cases, to my knowledge. Two situations I can think of to the contrary are: 1) If the bullet has already hit something and is tumbling, thereby creating a whizzing noise as it tumbles un-aerodynamically through the air. I hear these only on ricochets off of targets, like when a shot hits a wood target frame, or a plastic peg marking a previous bullet hole, or skips off the top of the dirt berm in front of you. 2) Another case would be when the bullet has dropped its velocity to where it is subsonic, in which case it no longer makes a crack sound, but it does make a brief "pfitt" sound. This is how the target puller can let a long distance shooter know that his bullets are not staying supersonic all the way to the target, because that degrades accuracy. The distance where you might hear this sound is even shorter, since it's much less loud and distinct than the "boom" or the "crack". My experience here is with rifle bullets - I don't know what, for example, what shotgun slugs will sound like.

The boom of the gunshot is heard by both the shooter and the target puller. The crack and/or whiz is heard only by the person on the receiving end. If you're shooting at a large vertical dirt berm, you can also hear the echo of your own firing boom coming back at you off the berm. Snipers in urban environments use these kinds of echoes off of buildings to confuse their enemy as to their location.

Oh, and if you're shooting steel targets, the shooter can hear the "clang" of the sound of the bullet hitting the steel, as that sound travels back to him. So he'll hear "Boom-Clang". If he misses, he'll just hear "Boom-", and then the word "Crap" coming out of his mouth.

Since supersonic bullets travel faster than the sound of the gun firing them, the time interval between hearing the crack of a bullet passing overhead, and the subsequent arrival of the boom of the gun firing from off in the distance, can indeed be used as a rough calculation of the distance of the shooter.

[muff528 3]

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I can't answer the question, except with "Too close".

But some clarifications are in order. There are several types of sounds associated with gunshots.

One is the sound of the gun firing, and that sound travels at about 1,000 feet per second, radiating outward in all directions. It can be heard at least 1,000 yards away, absent any other noise interference.

Two is the supersonic crack of the bullet breaking the sound barrier. This doesn't happen with subsonic ammo, as has been pointed out, but relatively very few shooters are using subsonic ammo. You have to be fairly close to hear that "crack", like pulling targets for people shooting at those targets just over your head. The pitch and loudness of the crack varies with distance, with the ones directly over your head being the sharpest. I would imagine that you won't hear the crack more than 100 yards away, given the width of target pits in which I've worked.

The zip sound of a bullet flying through the air doesn't exist in most cases, to my knowledge. Two situations I can think of to the contrary are: 1) If the bullet has already hit something and is tumbling, thereby creating a whizzing noise as it tumbles un-aerodynamically through the air. I hear these only on ricochets off of targets, like when a shot hits a wood target frame, or a plastic peg marking a previous bullet hole. 2) Another case would be when the bullet has dropped its velocity to where it is subsonic, in which case it no longer makes a crack sound, but it does make a brief "pfitt" sound. This is how the target puller can let a long distance shooter know that his bullets are not staying supersonic all the way to the target, because that degrades accuracy. The distance where you might hear this sound is even shorter, since it's much less loud and distinct than the "boom" or the "crack". My experience here is with rifle bullets - I don't know what, for example, what shotgun slugs will sound like.

The boom of the gunshot is heard by both the shooter and the target puller. The crack and/or whiz is heard only by the person on the receiving end.

Oh, and if you're shooting steel targets, the shooter can hear the "clang" of the sound of the bullet hitting the steel, as that sound travels back to him. So he'll hear "Boom-Clang". If he misses, he'll just hear "Boom-", and then the word "Crap" coming out of his mouth.

Since supersonic bullets travel faster than the sound of the gun firing them, the time interval between hearing the crack of a bullet passing overhead, and the subsequent arrival of the boom of the gun firing from off in the distance, can indeed be used as a rough calculation of the distance of the shooter.

You first have to know the velocity of the bullet (and assume that the speed is constant). You may have some idea of the muzzle velocity if you know your enemy's weapons. If the muzzle velocity is at the speed of sound, the bullet and the report from the gun will arrive simultaneously no matter what your distance from the shooter (if you are in range). If the bullet speed is Mach 2 (say 2000 fps) and you are 2000 ft. from the shooter then you will count only 1 second after the bullet goes by before you hear the gunshot. You better be ready with the stopwatch to get an accurate distance assessment. Compensating for the deceleration of the bullet complicates things further.

[Belgian_Draft 0]

If the muzzle velocity is exactly the speed of sound you will always hear the gun first, then the bullet. The bullet starts to lose velocity as soon as it leaves the barrel.

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a
kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the
object we are trying to hit.

[muff528 3]

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If the muzzle velocity is exactly the speed of sound you will always hear the gun first, then the bullet. The bullet starts to lose velocity as soon as it leaves the barrel.

...Hence, my first sentence and my last sentence.

[wsd 0]

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It is referred to as Flash to Bang time. (hey that could be another topic, time from flashing boobies to ending up in a trailer doing it doggy style!)

Definition: (DOD, NATO) The time from light being first observed until the sound of the nuclear detonation is heard.

That only works when at relatively long distances from ground zero. If you are close enough your brain is vaporized before it can process the impulse from the optic nerve. No flash, no bang, no pain. You merely cease to exist.

Yeah I kind of know that...

[wsd 0]

They make noise when going transonic and becoming unstable, also if it has fins or rifling such as a foster slug it could make noise do to the disturbance of the air flow.