Bullet Temperature

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have scotty lock on to it in mid flight. we have seen how objects in motion are frozen in the teleporter. mccoy can safely take its temperature and spock can message us here in 2008 using the guardian of forever.

we need a real man here to catch it with his bare hands so we can stick a thermometer up its backside.
anyone know clark kent's e-mail address?

that water 'vaper' trail may not be from boiling. rather from condensation. compression of the water suspended in the air: as the path is cleared by the bullet the air moves away easier and faster leaving the water behind bunched up and visible.
 
Vincent Di Maio reported on some experiments where bacteria were placed on the surface of bullets. The bullets were recovered from the target medium and the bacteria were successfully cultured from those fired projectiles.
So certainly these projectiles are not hot enough to be sterilised upon firing. I think the temperature of these rounds is often over-estimated.
What he said. I think part of the over estimation may be due to shooters letting rounds sit in a hot chamber soaking up heat.
 
Cool link Old Grump.

As far as molten lead goes, I've recovered many bullets, .223, even .45 ACP which were "squished" in a piece of wood which stopped their travel and deformed them.
 
Scrat says lead starts to melt at 600 degrees. 320c comes out to 608f. If the rifling portion of the .30 cal has exceeded 600f, and I realize this is not perfect, is the lead now molten?:confused:
 
I think we have a few factors working here. The surface of the bullet is all that can be measured and that temp was caused by burning gas and friction. It takes a finite amount of time for the high temp to penetrate to the core of the bullet and the time of flight of any fired shot except at long ranges is short to say the least. After the lead reaches the temp it still takes a small amount of time to change from solid to liquid, I am betting that the flight is over and the bullet has stopped and is now busy cooling off with a good book and an adult beverage.
 
(Note: Calories with a capital "C" are "kilocalories," that is, 1000 times the heat energy of the "calories" with a small "c" which we use to measure the energy in foodstuffs. I think nowadays they use "kC" for this same "kilocalories.")

Nitpick: the "calories" in nutritional facts are indeed kilocalories. The human body requires a surprising amount of energy, and a calorie is not too terribly much energy.

Another relevant question is how much of the heat from aerodynamic drag ends up in the structure of the bullet. For aircraft this can be a significant problem.
 
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