Muzzle Velocity (was: High resolution sleep (Linux)

[Hendrik van Rooyen]

"Dennis Lee Bieber" <w..d at ix.n,..m.com> wrote:

> On Sun, 6 May 2007 10:15:26 +0200, "Hendrik van Rooyen"
> <m.. at mi..p.co.za> declaimed the following in comp.lang.python:
> 
> 
> > A rifle bullet can travel at around 5000 feet per second.
> 
> You've got some fast rifles over there...

LOL - true - I stand corrected - I was aware that:

 1) All the animals were slaughtered, and the American Civil
War fought with rifles of muzzle velocity around 1800 fps.
This was before bullets were jacketed - if you try to push a 
lead slug through a rifled barrel faster than this, it strips and 
fouls the barrel

2) That the old NATO round (.308 Winchester) travels at 
around 2500 fps. - and this was some forty years ago, 
when I did my stint of military duty.

So being an idle bugger, I just naturally assumed that the
speed would have doubled in the intervening time since
I was last involved in this subject. - hence the 5000.

Did you know that the first military smokeless powder
round was for the French Lebel? - It threw a bronze 
ball, and could punch through a single brick wall.

Battlefields were suddenly far more dangerous places.

- Hendrik