Ep. 034 - Bullet Drag & Ballistic Coefficient 

These podcasts with Jayden are gold. He’s great at breaking down really complicated concepts into something that folks can understand. I love physics so I could listen to this stuff all day. This is something that no other manufacturer does, thanks for bringing it to us!

Finally!...some visual aids. An absolutely stunning amount of information. Thanks.

You guys are awesome educating us in this series!!! Whoever came up with this series idea topic, I applaud them!!! Keep it coming please!!!😄👊🏽❤️

For many of us, who reload and shoot to gain the highest level of accuracy, these videos are outstanding. You are helping by teaching what causes us to scratch our head and say, why did that happen. Keep the education coming our way.

Keep these coming please! Brilliantly educational - plain speaking without dumbing it down.

Finally somebody who takes their time and really slows it down and put it in layman‘s terms and explains formulas so every day people can understand how do you figure out drag coefficient and how they figure out bullet velocity’s or any other formulas. and he basically is helping in layman’s terms figure out other formulas he’s given a blueprint how to figure things out after this. I commend them both for helping every day man very calm and rational and soft-spoken he did not talk down once he was very open and honestAnd talked to each other it was very nice and I do appreciate this whole thing thank you

I am not a Ballistician. I am a Physicist. And even though there are a couple things here and there that I would change for the sake of consistency with physics notation, that’s just me wanting to put things into standard notation and ways of talking about things (e.g., the “p” in that equation isn’t actually the letter “p”, but rather it’s the Greek letter “rho.”). But all of the things I would change about this discussion are me nitpicking, and don’t affect the meat and potatoes of this discussion. Thank you both for this excellent discussion; you have quenched the thirst of all kinds of different nerds that love guns, science, and freedom. Cheers!! 🍻

There’s so much things to learn from this video for me. D square represents area just not in mm square but proportional. Bullet drag changes at different Mach number but change in bullet design also changes it so BC changes between different mach number is calculated at. So one can calculate at muzzle velocity and adjust trajectory calculation to it until error starts to show. So many thing to learn. This video is so great.

Loving this Ballistic series... absolutely fascinating and educational Thank you

Thank you! Been handloading 46 yrs - We - some 40 yrs ago - had to figure this out ourselves! Cheers to you!

Hi. I'm here in Wyoming studying for my Wilderness First Responder in the hope to get a job as a guide eventually.. just wanted to say how much I appreciate listening to this podcast not only for the information that it offers but for the passion and appreciation that you men bring to the association of the field, thank you for the service and fraternity as good fath you are all providing with as I see it proper standing and valuable reason. Sincerely, Z.J.*H.

I view myself as being at a quite advanced level of knowledge coming to ballistics, and I must say, I think this is hands down the best video I have seen concerning drag and ballistic coefficient. I tip my hat gentlemen, awesome job! And, Jayden, you are an excellent educator. I use to follow Bryan Litz, but I'll add you to the leading voices out there!

Just phenomenal material and the presentation! I cannot thank you all enough, and please keep putting out this type of in depth content.

I'm really glad you guys broke down and included visual aids. Very helpful.

I'd love a podcast that differentiates all your different product lines.

Extremely well done episode. I knew about 1/2 of the information presented, but had never heard such a thorough and complete explanation of the deviation between the G7 and actual BC before. It now makes complete sense why I've struggled to "true" my ballistic solver. For the longest time, I thought it might be the scope not tracking right (tested, proved it's solid) or ammo load variations (I went deep down the rabbit hole of consistency). But when you showed the graphs and said, "All the software know is G7," it made so much sense. The road trip example was excellent, too. Keep up the extra nerdy podcasts...it's great info!

I was a sniper in the 75th Ranger Regiment and have been hooked on ballistics for 25 years after ballisticians from Crane gave an in depth class at one of our schools. I wrote down an equation in my old DOPE book that I cannot remember what it was for or how to solve. a = - 1/C GV Anyway, it’s been bothering me for years and have looked in the dark corners of the internet with no resolve. I absolutely love these podcasts and keep going!!!!! Jeff

By far, this is the most educational video that I have ever seen, by anyone, about ballistic coefficient and drag coefficient. I'm not in the US, and I can say that the limitations imposed to us by our government limited severely the possibilities of fully enjoying the Long range shooting sport, whoever, is still possible at some extent. So information on this topic, at this level of detail, it is definitely a plus and will help me to be a better shooter and this particular video has, by all means, clarify many things that I honestly did not quite understood before, until know. The efforts from the engineering department of Hornady to put this video together must be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys for your outstanding work. We follow your channel religiously down here in C.R.

I am airgun shooter and this changing BC mid flight explains sooo much when you shoot longer distances.Thanks.

Dang, this series is awesome! Y'all really earned this subscriber! Please, keep it coming!

Yeah baby! Dive deep!

Guys WOW!! I love this content. I watch these on my TV and logged into my computer just to write this comment. Thank you for sharing on this information. Great Stuff!!!!

Amazing program gentlemen!

I’ve been loving these!!

Wow, this is an eye opener.

Mind blown....yet I actually think I understand....I don't think I would ever have been able to if it wasn't laid out in this manner. Thank you for bringing it into relatable concepts for an average non physicist man 👏👏

Great information! Would love to see bullet drag and 'Cd vs Mach' in the different bullet shapes (spherical, minnie ball, hallow point, etc). I mention spherical because it was mentioned that funny things happen when spherical shapes go faster. What are the funny things? Also, what happens if the bullet is symmetrical? What happens if you make a bullet look like a surf ski...extreme length and very thin and symmetrical? What bullet shapes have been tested and have shown to NOT be good shapes and why?

Thank you, Guys. A concise explanation of 101 ballistics.

Hello Hornady love all of your Podcast I got a special request can you please get us some 6 mm arc reloading brass out on the market please🙏

Great work as always, Love the information keep it up guys.

Probably the best analogy and explanation in a LONG time.

Awesome series. Loads of info and very understandable. Thank you all for sharing this info.

1 hour and 27 munites!!! I feel like one of the best movies got released. I'm saving this for the weekend :)))))

I just learned how to recalculate my BC using my site variable thanks to your reloading handbook! I love you videos guys! I have my pen and paper right now haha

Points on content: 1. When you say that the spin imparted by rifling on a spherical musket ball does not make a difference, the science shows that it does. A spun spherical ball is more stable in flight than a non-spun ball and will be more accurate as a projectile coming out of a rifled bore than out of a smooth bore. It also applies to cannon balls. Muskets had started to be rifled before the conic projectiles were introduced. Check it out! 2. The early studies on shapes and drag of projectiles in air were helped by previous studies made on ship hull shapes and drag in water. The ship hulls were shown in naval studies to be important to drag much earlier than the studies on projectiles in air. Many of the conclusion reached in hull shapes, including ogive shapes, helped direct the studies on projectile shapes. Fast sail boats builders had produced advanced technologies (for the time) on drag and had hull shapes that catered to many hydrodynamic principles that had their equivalent in aerodynamic physics. 3. You study of bullet BC at Mach points is fascinating! Thank you!

I have encountered the BC errors for sometime. This video explains the why. Thanks again for great information.

Great info, enjoyed the watch and for sure this will help me out!

I'm amazed by all this info- thanks!

Excellent stuff gentlemen. I have been getting into long rang air guns. We really only see velocity as high as mach 1.2 at the max usually .95. We have a long way to go with the tech side of thing but it come a long way in the last 3 years.

I'm not even into firearms but this is hugely interesting and you are great at explaining

Excellent content, thank you guys.

THANK YOU SETH. THANK YOU JAYDEN.

Really really interesting and educational video! The penny drop moment is real!

Quinlans Quantified Corner 😂. Love this knowledge drop, love Hornady ELD-VT projectiles

Excellent.

Amazing explanation of the formula itself. Thanks!

IIIIIIIIIIII'm gonna have to watch that 2 or 3 more times. Appreciate the detail. That's good stuff. I learned a bunch just listening and glancing over from the reloading bench. Will have to give it another more attentive listen for sure.

Drag is a frictional function based on momentum (delta work = KE). After all, you can’t have drag without motion. This is why drag goes up 4x when velocity doubles. 2^2=4

Thank you for teaching ''what's Ballistic Coefficient''. I understood B.C.. B.C. is Cd in air resistance force's equation.

Thank you guys for this amazing explanation! You guys explained it perfectly

I didn't know that a "ballistician" was a thing. Well, I know what I'm going to be next Halloween.

I'm currently carrying mail while listening to this in Colby KS 😅

58:16 I suspect the vast majority of big game hunters aren't going to care about being less than an inch off target out to five hundred yards. For long-range precision shooters and maybe some varmint hunters, yes, it's going to matter. When I was a kid, I tried to match Pejsa's closed-form ballistics equations against published tables of velocities for a particular bullet from a particular cartridge. I soon found out that the only way to get the equations to give even close to the right answer was to tweak the form factor for a given velocity range. I had inadvertently stumbled across the phenomenon being discussed here, but wasn't sufficiently inquisitive enough to take the next step. Where I lacked was in being able to determine the relation between Cd and BC. At the end of the day, "if it looks like this it will fly like this" is actually correct, with the caveat that "this" has to _exactly_ match the shape of the standard projectile for the assumption to hold. I suspect the assumption a lot of people make is that that even if it doesn't match exactly, a G7 shape will match far better to the standard G7 curve than it will to the G1 curve. How correct is this?

Thank you guys, excellent information

Fantastic, I am using the Hornady 4DOF app for my 7MM Rem Mag with Hornady ELDX 150 grain bullets 9 1/4 twist. I would like to hear Jayden address windage in a similar manner on a podcast. I am about to purchase a better chronograph and wonder what you recommend? I would also like to see some long range shooting proving these concepts. Be great if you got some regular guys shooting their rifles and have Hornady techs change up some things like use 4DOF and load some rounds and see the improvements (have a contest, or just pick me) Great Job, keep em coming!

Awesome video!

I know I’m way late on this video series, however, Another great way to show this is, is to graph of bullet flights over distance, assuming that muzzles are pointed at the exact same angle over the horizon For example a G7 trajectory graph and a 308, or 6.5 trajectory graph overlaid with each other. The Cd changes tell the scope how to adjust angle, so you’re pointing the barrel a little bit higher or lower, but you would see on the graph how the bullet flights change, and at what distance the paths overlap

lower mach gives a more normal shock which has greater losses than the oblique shock at higher Mach.

Love educational stuff. Really appreciate the visuals at an engineering level. Unfortunately the execution wasn’t great. The visuals were barely visible. Small screen and the small print that doesn’t fill the screen. Couldn’t really read much at all. Definitely have no idea what the pictures are. At this level of discussion the visuals are a must and unfortunately I can’t really see them.

It's a long coffee break between the two podcast's

Somebody at Hornady needs to give that guy a raise.

You could use the analogy of a fishing boat’s wake at different speeds to visualize the shock wave at different Mach speeds.

Question: Do you generate a drag curve, for a specific bullet, using different powder loads and then go with the average? Excellent content; keep it coming!!!

Love it

Starting my 4th viewing of this video

Makes a lot of sense and you just clearly explained the issue of some ballistic solvers!!! So I have the 4DOF app on my phone and using a Weather Meter for the environmentals... I have not quite delved deep into it yet and I was wondering if buying the all in one 4DOF Kestrel unit makes a huge difference?? I see some variations on the readings from the weathermeter on a calibration sense...any thoughts??

Thank you, Seth, for bringing us these wonderful, educational podcasts. I especially appreciate Jayden Quinlan's ability to take very complex subjects and explain them at a level even I can understand. Being fascinated by the physics and practical application of ballistics, your presentations prove that loyalty to Hornady is well founded! Thanks to all of you.

Moral of the story. We are using archaic scale for our modern ballistic calculators. Solution - an accurate ballistic calculator does not need a BC input or a G scale input but a given value for bullet shape, equating to the specific shadow scale for said bullet. Since you've shown the technology exists to generate this shape value I think it's time we ask ourselves, " What's the hold-up?" Time for industry to change the standard? Shooters are adapting to/ and creating change in regards to long range shooting and accuracy, as are manufacturers. We don't want the the average hwy mileage sticker on our car if we can get the actual mileage sticker.

Where can we obtain or could you please share with us the educational material used in the video? Thank you.

Is anyone still chambering 375 Ruger and 416 Ruger rifles? Are Ruger Compact Magnums still being made?

excellent content, where do the drag coefficient numbers come from when calculating the form factor? I feel i need to retake statistics and physics

When using a personal chronograph, what distances would you use for your data points? Not caring about power factor.

This video is awesome. However, it looks like you have to use the manufacturer BC in order to perform the calculation. Since I am reloader, what would be the best way to calculate the BC myself?

I love boomsticks and boolots but this was a lil much for this West Texas boy!

Why did you guys discontinue the 7mm 162 AMAX? I have a recipe that will clover leaf 1 inch under target at 300 yards in heavy winds, while my factory 150 corelokt fell about a foot off with the wind and a foot low holding maybe 6 inch groups. (cci 250 lr primer/61 grains reloader 19/7mm162AMAX) set "just a hair" off the lands on a Old model 700 7mm rem mag/old leopold vx2.

Do you wind tunnel test ?

Can you do a more in depth podcast about using your A-Tips for precision shooting like F Class? Do they provide more consistent BC than trimming and pointing? I can’t really find any in depth info about them other than the “product launch” videos. Thanks!

you need to put links in the description to the 4dof etc.

I would love to see the graph for my 308, 1:12 twist, shooting 155,5 Berger Full bore target bullets, plus how to adjust from am morning temp of 15 degree C, to an afternoon of 35dgr Celsius

Jayden, how much research has hornady done on bullet base shape vs Drag ?

What would it take to design a 25 caliber rifle cartridge with a bullet that goes 4,000 fps mv?

Brilliant podcast as usual. How do we get 4Dof to work on iPhones. I’ve tried several times and the app won’t open.

What is the app to download?

Where can we find BC and SD on Russian ammo?

7PRC should have a lightweight superfast 300 yard hunting load

Now if y'all just made a High B.C. bullet like the eld-x that stayed together and didn't fragment like a v-max when it hits a caribou bone.

Tx for nr 34 and 44

25 SFRC = 25 super fast rifle cartridge

Has anyone tried to do these calculations from a volume/mass displacement point of view

Will a kestrel perform this math after you input your data?

No wonder my Hornady bullets were terrible. I don't care how good my bullets compare to a G7 standard, I want the best BC I can. The only way this error would matter is if you use a calculator. Knowing what your gun does at each range is way more important. I want a flat shooting bullet not one that matches a certain profile. Berger/Sierra/Lapua for life.

Thanks for the name drop, Bro!

Like German Salazar said, heavy bullet with a high bc, can't go wrong!! So tell me I have a 700 LR 3006, 26 inch barrel but hates your 178gr ELD'S. I've tried many powders and nothing is worth bragging about. So what powder? I've tried Superformance, H4350, 4350, Ram Shot hunter, can't find any RL-22. So what's your opinion on a good powder???

So why do we not have calculators and CD numbers that alter with speed/ distance? Seems like it wouldn’t cost any more to publish a CD at different speeds in large increments and make ballistic calculators that can adapt the drop for the change in speeds

Devil is in the details huh

Ha ha ‼️ "That's not so bad"😂 can you imagine what people with no engineering / science comprehension are hearing 🤣🤙🤷🏼‍♂️

Has anyone ever tried a 30-06 AI?

the "p" stands for PRESSURE.

Lol , think the 7mm 162 eldx bc is around 625, or close if I remember the last hand loads

Bullet train