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Hi guys,
I recently bought a Mini 14 Tactical and had a chance to shoot it briefly last weekend at the family farm. I was mostly punching paper with it and getting it sighted in with a few different kinds of ammo (all of which shot flawlessly). I took it out to the club with me for our monthly dinner tonight and we were plinking with it outside at the rifle range. I put a 20oz plastic soda bottle out at about 50 yards standing straight up. I shot the bottle with open sights at 50 yards standing and got nothing. I changed my POA and still nothing. I tried sitting, nothing. Handed the rifle over to a friend, nothing. Anyway... The range went cold and I walked down to retrieve the stupid bottle so I could bring it in and set up a paper target to try my luck with sighting the rifle again (I thought I mucked something up and didn't sight it in properly). Well lo and behold, that bottle was RIDDLED with holes. I don't know exactly how many of the 20 rounds contacted the bottle, but there were at least 2 dozen holes in it (entry/exit tells me about 12/20 hit the bottle). I did a little research and I was shocked to see that the rounds I was shooting were rated at 3270 fps muzzle velocity (2800 and change at 100 yards). Apparently it's such a small round at such a fast pace that it passes right through the bottle without disturbing it at all.
I'm really new to rifle shooting (I only have the Mini 14 and a Ruger 10/22) and have never researched ballistics or velocity.
It's got my curiosity up. I see me renting a high speed camera at some point and playing Mr. Scientist at the range. I just HAVE to see what a bullet does to a bottle at that speed at about 1000 frames per second slow motion.
Sorry for the random post, but I'm sort of geeking out about it at this point. I need to crunch some numbers, I think...
I recently bought a Mini 14 Tactical and had a chance to shoot it briefly last weekend at the family farm. I was mostly punching paper with it and getting it sighted in with a few different kinds of ammo (all of which shot flawlessly). I took it out to the club with me for our monthly dinner tonight and we were plinking with it outside at the rifle range. I put a 20oz plastic soda bottle out at about 50 yards standing straight up. I shot the bottle with open sights at 50 yards standing and got nothing. I changed my POA and still nothing. I tried sitting, nothing. Handed the rifle over to a friend, nothing. Anyway... The range went cold and I walked down to retrieve the stupid bottle so I could bring it in and set up a paper target to try my luck with sighting the rifle again (I thought I mucked something up and didn't sight it in properly). Well lo and behold, that bottle was RIDDLED with holes. I don't know exactly how many of the 20 rounds contacted the bottle, but there were at least 2 dozen holes in it (entry/exit tells me about 12/20 hit the bottle). I did a little research and I was shocked to see that the rounds I was shooting were rated at 3270 fps muzzle velocity (2800 and change at 100 yards). Apparently it's such a small round at such a fast pace that it passes right through the bottle without disturbing it at all.
I'm really new to rifle shooting (I only have the Mini 14 and a Ruger 10/22) and have never researched ballistics or velocity.
It's got my curiosity up. I see me renting a high speed camera at some point and playing Mr. Scientist at the range. I just HAVE to see what a bullet does to a bottle at that speed at about 1000 frames per second slow motion.
Sorry for the random post, but I'm sort of geeking out about it at this point. I need to crunch some numbers, I think...