How does a rifled barrel of a weapon makes a weapon much more accurate?
In: Engineering
Set a top on its point on a flat surface and see how long it stays there.
Now spin it and watch how long it stays upright.
Hopefully it stayed upright much longer when spinning than when set on it’s point.
Or if you have a fidget spinner spin it and try moving your arm while its spinning. Notice that it’s harder to move while spinning than when it stops?
That’s because changing the orientation of a spinning object requires energy.
A bullet is moving through a rifled barrel is forced to turn, and once it leaves it continues turning. The bullet moved through the barrel quickly, so quickly it spins at a very high rate (much faster than a top–rifle bullets are often spinning at hundreds of thousands of RPM). So it takes much more energy to change the bullet’s orientation which means all the things that change between shots (like small changes in wind) have little energy compared with the energy required to make the spinning bullet reorient, so it’s more likely to follow a consistent path between the rifle and target.
Latest Answers