Two identical bullets are fired horizontally with the identical velocities. One bullet is fired from a "rifled" barrel which makes the bullet spin along the axis of travel. The other bullet is fired from a smooth-bore barrel which imparts no spin. What is the downward drop due to gravity for these two bullets?

a) The spinning bullet will drop more

b) The spinning bullet will drop less.

c) Both bullets drop the same amount

d) It depends on the direction of the spin

e) It depends on the magnitude of the spin

Question

Mark Bauer

Physics

26 May, 04:31

Two identical bullets are fired horizontally with the identical velocities. One bullet is fired from a "rifled" barrel which makes the bullet spin along the axis of travel. The other bullet is fired from a smooth-bore barrel which imparts no spin. What is the downward drop due to gravity for these two bullets?

a) The spinning bullet will drop more

b) The spinning bullet will drop less.

c) Both bullets drop the same amount

d) It depends on the direction of the spin

e) It depends on the magnitude of the spin

+1

Answers (1)

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Truffles · Answer 1

c) Both bullets drop the same amount

Explanation:

When two identical bullets are fired horizontally from two different guns, one of which has rifled bore and the other one has a plain bore will drop by the same amount due to the force of gravity on them.

The rifling in the bore only affects the lateral movement of the bullet which is considerable into a long-range travel of the bullet. The clockwise seam deviates the bullet right side and vice-versa.