Thread: Will all bullets eventaully tumble?

So another question arising from our weekend long range gong shooting. Which by the way was soo much fun. As the title says will all bullets eventually tumble given enough range to travel over and is it predictable?



Shooting my 7mm Rem Mag with a 1:8 twist barrel. Sierra 168gr Match Kings @ 2960fps. At 1615m retained velocity of 970fps 22mil dialed on and bullets impacting sideways. This was not expected should it have been? Transonic was at about 1370m. The other rifle we were shooting a 260 Rem using Lapua 139gr Scenars had the same thing happen at 1405m.



I also got my long suffering wife behind the Remington and she made a hit at 1615m as well.

Sure they are not ricochets?

Shouldn't be tumbling at those ranges with the velocity and barrel specs in the 7mm.

But then again I have seen all sorts of strange results when it comes to ballistics.

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The Transonic range is considered to start at around 1200 fps any less than that anything is possible.

It really depends on the atmospheric conditions, calibre, twist & bullet design, some pass through no dramas, others not so much....

Somewhere i have read an article in an old american rifleman mag, on precession and gyroscopic stability in projectiles. If i remember correctly at some point as the velocity drops the rpm decreases to where the bullet is no longer stable and starts to wobble around its centre of mass before tumbling properly. I will try and find it if you've interested.

Thanks for your thoughts guys. Yes it is possible that the bullets tumbled up the hill onto the target. There were a few low strikes on the ground when we went to pack up the gong. And one of the hits at 1614m was a proper star burst hit. I might contact Sierra and see what they say. It has certainly been a learning experience.