Determining the maximum distance of a particular cartridge?

[Stand_Watie]

This has a practical application for me as I have a pest problem that requires dealing with and I need something very inexpensive to deal with it. .22 ammunition seems to be my only affordable recourse. I've tried the .22 ratshot and they don't kill (or even seem to have any effect on) sparrows at the range of 25 to 50 feet. I live in the country with neighbors about 200 yards away on one side, about 3/4ths of a mile on two sides and about 2.5 miles to the nearest houses on the remaining side. I don't want to fire regular .22 ammunition at an upwards trajectory in any direction.

I thought maybe some of you math whizzes on here could tell me how to go about determining just how far a .22 "CB cap" will fly if fired upwards at the optimum angle to fly the farthest to determine in which, if any, direction it is safe to shoot.

I bought a box of Aguila 'super colibri' shells and a box of CCI 'CB long' shells yesterday, and did a little testing this afternoon. Here's the results so far.

35 yards

Colibri ------- 4 inches low average
CCI --------right on the money


50 yards

Colibri --------18 inches low average
CCI --------2 inches low average

75 yards

Colibri --------36 inches low average
CCI --------11.5 inches low average

100 yards

Colibri -------- Unknown/off target completely
CCI ---------29 inches low average

Incidentally I emailed Aguila requesting the maximum range of their cartridges and didn't receive any reply (probably afraid of liability), CCI makes a "range 1.5 miles" claim on their ammo box which I don't believe for a minute.

So - any ideas for further testing?

 

[P95Carry]

No great suggestions to add right now but .. IIRC the Colibri bullet is a mere 20 grains .. which is not quite the weight of three air rifle pellets . I am sure total distance achievable is probly considerable but that small projectile falling at terminal velocity will not have much energy to do serious damage. probably no heavier than a hailstone.

It would be interesting to to extrapolate and find out it's max ... I'd guess .. pure guess .. it might be really pushing things to make 1,000 yards.

My last place of abode, there was a large pond almost exactly 200 yds from my basement door to its near edge. I fired a ''1,000'' fps air rifle (actual was 950) that way many times and to get a shot to land in the water at the far end ..... which was perhaps 300 plus yards .. required quite extreme elevation. So max range I'd think was in region of 400 yards.

 

[Moparmike]

Under proper conditions, a .22lr will travel 1.5mi. In the direction of your 2.5mi houses, you are fine, but if there isnt a sufficient backstop on the 200yd house, I wouldnt do it. A shotgun with birdshot, however, will be just fine.

 

[Jim K]

Hatcher, possibly the best source, says .22 LR max range is 1500 yards, or .85 miles. I doubt the 1.5 mile figure, though.

Still, I think about any .22 bullet would probably go 200 yards at maximum elevation. From your viewpoint, you would not have to have the bullet penetrate or have enough velocity left to do any damage. All you would need would be to have a bullet plop down in someone's backyard barbeque and you would be in trouble.

I think I would try to stick with the shot.

Jim

 

[Coltdriver]

Take two targets.

One at 50 yards, the other at 100 yards.

Zero your scope to hit one inch high at 50 yards. Figure out where that same zero hits at 100 yards.

Then go to one of the free ballistics software pages and determine the ballistic curve of your round.

A CB Cap is going to have a ballistic curve very similar to a pellet rifle. The bullet only flys out at around 700 fpm.

 

[Chuck Dye]

When in doubt, don't shoot.

I went to Aguila’s web site and their spec sheet for rimfire ammo. The Colibri is listed as having a muzzle velocity of 375fps and 100 yard velocity of 114. My ballistics program calculates a B.C. of 0.0122. The calculation for the Super Colibri yields a B.C. of 0.0117. Both are rounded to 0.012 by the program when plugged into the trajectory calculator.

When I attempt to get a max range for the Super Colibri, I keep running into a limitation of the program: the velocity drops below the minimum between 130 yards and 140 yards out. The 130 yard velocity is 107fps. The drop is -424 inches at 130 yards.

The Colibri falls off the chart between 100 and 110 yards. The 100 yard velocity is 112fps, the 100 yard drop is -323 inches.

I suspect that the program is optimized for much faster bullets of much higher B.C.s and that these numbers are even more approximate than usual for such calculations. Also, the Aguila page says nothing about barrel length, so muzzle velocity is also suspect.

 

[carpettbaggerr]

Wouldn't poison be easier? You aren't going to eat sparrows, are you? And while you may want to experience the thrill of the hunt, the proximity of your neighbors would seem to contraindicate the use of firearms.

 

[Stand_Watie]

Wouldn't poison be easier? You aren't going to eat sparrows, are you?

Actually a lot of folks have recommended that. I'm certainly not going to eat them, but my dogs likely will. Also I have poultry, and I also am not willing to poison my songbirds that would also eat the poison.