Bullet Tractability And Barrel Twist Rate
BY Herschel Smith
5 years, 6 months ago
Wirecutter has this video up on barrel twist rate. Go to his place to see it.
I don’t think the author of the video understands the basic concept and what’s going on here. This is a screen shot of the video I linked on barrel twist rate.
Bullet tractability is the degree to which the nose of the bullet follows the trajectory. In the screen shot above, it doesn’t. This can indeed happen if the bullet is overstabilized, something we concluded in our assessment of this.
In the video (screen shot above) it is explained that this doesn’t usually happen at closer distances, but rather towards the end of the flight path. In the case of the 5.56mm flight path, we’re looking at around 500 yards effective distance.
The author of the video Wirecutter gave us is shooting at 100 yards. Basically, I’m saying he has proven nothing at all. He’s a decent shot, but he hasn’t tested what he thinks he has tested.
And by the way, the twist rate, if you’ll remember, of 1:7 was meant to stabilize the tracer round. But most twist rates for common ammunition should be fine. The testing conducted by the Army on both older and newer 5.56mm ammunition involved 1:8 accurized barrels.
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