9,153fps

[Questor]

"As a matter of interest, the highest recorded velocity realized by a conventional weapon is 2,790 meters per second (9,153 feet per second), achieved in 1938 by a German experimenter named Langweiler, firing a specially-made cartridge in a reinforced 8-mm caliber barrel one meter long. The bullet weighted 0.25 gramme and the propelling charge was 11 grammes, the latter having been specially treated to increase the surface burning rate. The maximum pressure in the gun was 176,500 pounds per square inch - as a point of comparison, 40,000 lbs/in sq is about average for a modern military rifle".

From The Story of the Gun, by Hogg

[Lone Star]

The only way to get these hyper velocities with combustible power charges in near-normal formats is to use hyper pressures.  Commercial sporting cartridges with a 65,000 psi ceiling seldom exceed 4400 fps, because at that pressure the energy of the gas is too low, and the muzzle velocity of the gas pushing the bullet is only ca. 4500 fps.  You cannot have a bullet going faster than the gas pushing it.  The few cartridges which reportedly get higher velocities, like 5000 fps, do so at pressures higher than SAAMI specs or use "special" propellants.  Your reference is very interesting, thanks!  

[Questor]

Lone Star:

I posted it because I have often read that the "theoretical limit" of velocity is quite a bit slower than that.  This is the first reference I've seen to a bullet  going that fast. Half a gram is a mighty light 8mm bullet. It must have looked like an aspirin.

[NE Hunter]

I bet that baby recoiled "some"  since it's over 4 times the normal ft-lbs

[Idaho_Hick]

I would also assume that the barrell was a smoothbore, am I correct or does the book say?  It is my understanding that rifling is one of the limiting factors to the fastest theoretical bullet.

[Questor]

It didn't say explicitly whether it was a rifle.

[Reed1911]

Thanks Questor, that was a nice little read and a great advert. for the book. They should have put that on the jacket and regular advertisements.

[Lone Star]

Half a gram is a mighty light 8mm bullet. It must have looked like an aspirin.....

...and it must have had a terrible BC - was it fired in a sabot?  0.25 grams is 3.8 grains; 11 grams is 170 grains.  That's a lot of powder for such a lightweight bullet....and you'd need a lot to produce enough gas energy.

BTW, the "bullet" energy is only 707 ft.lbs., quite a bit under normal for an 8x57.  In a special 39-inch long reinforced barrel the recoil was probably not that high at all.  The muzzle blast on the other hand....   :eek:

[victorcharlie]

Man......Isn't this about the speed where the space shuttle commander says "go with throttle up?"

[mbartel]

I am very doubtful of the incredible accuracy necessary to measure that kind of velocity. I don't think that technology existed in 1938. They were still in the vacumn tube era back then. The crude (by todays standards) methods used back then (68 years ago) can't even compare to even the simplest chronograph of today. Besides a bullet that light and small would exit the muzzle as a vapor after the enormous pressures and temperatures of combustion. In fact....I don't think the bullet could offer enough mass resistence to allow the chamber pressures to get that high.  Of course.....I could be wrong..... but the internal physics just don't add up.  Now....I'm no ballistics expert, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.....

[Reed1911]

There are other ways of calculating velocity than with a chronograph (using a known weight hanging in the air with a marking device attached to it, calibrating it using various known objects at known speeds to gain your torque movements, then propelling the known weight object at it and back calculating the Ft-Lbs of energy; that was the way it used to be done before modern electronics) and there is a very simple way to calculate velocity if your chronograph will not read the speeds you are shooting (move it down range and back calculate using the ballistics; that is the poor man's way of finding out the speed of fast .17 and 14 caliber). As for offering enough resistance, weight has less to do with it than friction, and likely (at least by my calculations) it was not lead, but an 8mm (+/-) long minie ball/wadcutter made of copper.

[mbartel]

I didn't say the speeds could not be calculated......ACCURACY is the key word here.  At those velocities....the margin for error is miniscule.  Even today, I doubt that any three chronographs could  all give similar results on a bullet at over 9000 fps.  Strings and pendulams would make an interesting high school science project,  but ACCURATELY measure speeds at over 9000 fps?  Don't think so......If that mechanical accuracy existed back then,  why is it not used as a reference standard today? Besides, some of that bullet velocity is used in the deformation of the pendulam before the movement even starts. And does a 100gr wooden bullet move the pendulam as much as a 100 gr lead one? The pendulam method cannot accurately account for the deformation of the weight, or the bullet material, or the bullet deformation.  And placing the pendulam at a long distance and calculating backwards.....are you kidding? how will you hit the pendulam dead center at a distance from a smoothbore?  And will the projectile hit at a perfect right angle with no stabilizing twist?  Just because somebody 68 years ago, said a bullet went over 9300 fps,  is no reason to throw the knowledge of modern exterior ballistics aside and say....of course it happened just like they said it did!!!!!  Show me the proof.......