Why do longer barrels mean faster bullets, if the pressure decreases the longer the bullet stays in the barrel?
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The easiest way to think about it is that energy is equal to force times distance. Yes, the force decreases as the bullet moves along the barrel, but there is still force being applied over a distance, so more energy is being added. This only stops being the case when the pressure behind the bullet is equal to atmospheric pressure (ok, a bit more since friction exists). I don’t think any real guns use barrels long enough to extract all energy from the powder, since you reach a point of diminishing returns pretty quickly.
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