Sure Muzzle Velocity is the greatest amount of velocity experienced by a bullet, but it doesn’t apply to our example. The shooter sees how the bullet drops dramatically and this is caused by simple physics. As the bullet hits the top of it’s trajectory, it speeds up on the way down.
Also, drag does not take into consideration of the mass of the bullet. The mass of the fluid it is shot through is what matters. What is primarily important is the shape of the object being launched, which a bullet is a turntable object, this negating all real important air resistance.
It’s not about the complicated side if physics, just the simple side.
So basically the gravitational force applied on the bullet overtakes the horizontal velocity? For this to occur, doesn’t air resistance have to act on the bullet to slow it down? If this is not the case, then wouldn’t the bullet arrive at it’s destination at the same speed that it left the muzzle?
I said in the comment previous to my last one that air resistance is almost negligible. I never said it never existed. I implied that air resistance is minimal since the bullet is aerodynamic and small.
Think of it like this. The air resistance acting on the bullet in its horizontal motion causes the acceleration to drop a little. The acceleration caused by gravity will add more acceleration to the equation, causing an arch. Greater acceleration = greater velocity.
Edit: and what I meant by negating in my previous comment was that the acceleration of gravity canceled out the effects of air resistance on the bullet. It’s still there, but does not cause the bullet to slow down, due to it’s arch because of gravity.
But this won’t happen after 200 m rifles like the m98b only really start to droop(not a spelling error) after 900+ meters. Before that it’s just a slight drop.
But in game it seems line when you zero it it suddenly only shoots well for that distance. It changes the way the bullet travels.
There is a very small window where a bullet levels out on its trajectory, but besides that a bullet is always either rising or falling depending on trajectory. A bullet does not generate significant enough lift to keep itself aloft, so it will not fly in a straight line. The longer an object has to fall, the more it will accelerate towards terminal velocity in that direction. When you zero your scope all it does it aim the bullet on a higher trajectory so by the time it goes 400m-1km it has gone up and down on its way to the target in a very predictable fashion, exactly as my rounds do when shooting anywhere past 300 yards on my own range. The bullet drop and travel time feel more realistic to me as a daily hobby shooter which makes it easier for me and is one of the main reasons I like bf4 physics.
