Well not really but this was a first for me and as close as I ever want to come to the real thing.

It’s hunting season in Maine and as is often the case this time of year I was in a tree-stand this afternoon (40 feet in the air). Off in the distance (way off) I heard two shots. These had an odd echo I think because they were pointed directly at me. About 2 seconds after the last report I heard a “buzz”. It closed on me rapidly passing directly over my head. The projectile hit a dead branch in a tree 30 feet in fount of me and fell to the ground in the leaves.

I stood there stunned and oddly grateful. Not grateful because I escaped injury but grateful to be a part of this freakish coincidence. I still find the whole thing astonishing. I assured my wife that if the bullet had hit me it would have done little or no damage.

I have a question for some of our “brainiacs”. If the sound arrived approximately 2 seconds ahead of the bullet how far away do you estimate the shooter was? I’m guessing something like two miles. Maybe there’s no way to make even a guess.

Anyway; I thought it was cool.

The speed of sound at sea level is just under 1100 fps. If you SAW the muzzle flashes, you could guess distance on that basis:

Two seconds would give a distance of about 2200 feet.

However, you stated that the bullets arrived about 2 seconds before the report of the gunshot. Now the distance depends on caliber and muzzle velocity: A .30-06 would be quite different from a 45-70 or other big bore.

Sound travels a mile in about 5 seconds

If the sound arrived 2 seconds before the bullet... that was a rather slow bullet for hunting. How warm was it? Sound slows down as air temp drops. At 40 degrees you're looking at about 1,100 ft / sec

Also.. in 2 seconds, sound would travel about 2,200 ft.

__________________
- The Federalist #46 -

The speed of sound depends on temp, not pressure.

__________________
- The Federalist #46 -

I said ""About 2 seconds after the last report I heard a “buzz”"".

It was about 40 degrees.
I was in a valley and the round cleared the treetops. There is a ridge about 1'5 miles away and the projectile sounded "small" when it hit the branch but the buzz sound seemed to indicate a significant spin.

It's actually a function of air density, which varies with both temperature and altitude (pressure).

You don't hear the one that gets you.At the least you have no time to react.
Stay safe out there.

__________________
Dum vivo cano

pics of the bullet or it didn't happen

OK, I promised myself I wasn't going to get into the weeds on this one, but...

If we believe in ideal gas law, the relationship between pressure and volume are constant. Therefore, the only variable that impacts the speed of sound is temperature.

The way the speed of sound is typically referenced is very misleading. When it is listed as the speed at sea-level, what is really meant is "standard day" conditions at sea-level (the important part being 59 deg F). When you see charts listing speed of sound varying with altitude, what they have done is used a lapse rate (typically 3.57 deg per 1000 ft of altitude) to break out the speed at a given altitude. It's really all still based on temperature though.

I feel better now.

I'm glad everything worked out with no one hurt. If we aren't careful, our rounds have the potential to go a pretty good distance.

Chubbs

Hmm... Two seconds after hearing the boom, you heard the buzz (bullet). So the bullet was slower than the boom. The boom was traveling at about 1,100 ft per second so the bullet was traveling slower.

Lets pretend the shot was fired from 2 miles (10,560 feet) away. The sound would have taken about 10 seconds to reach you, which means the bullet would have taken 12... the average velocity of the bullet would have been 880 ft / second.. which is a realistic velocity for a handgun round.

If it were fired from a mile away, the sound would have taken 5 seconds and the bullet would have taken 7 seconds giving an average velocity of about 755 ft / second.

Of course none of that mattes. The problem is.. since we don't know how long it took for the sound to reach you.. the two second difference is meaningless in determining how far the shooter was. We need to know the time between when the shot was fired and when you heard the boom to determine distance (which we don't know).

This is a common misconception when it comes to the speed of sound in air. The speed is dependent of temperature, which varies with altitude. Generally, the higher the altitude, the colder the temp. Also, the composition of the atmosphere changes with altitude which accounts for differences as well. With an ideal gas, the speed of sound will be the same at 14,000 ft as it is at 0 ft if temperature is the same. However since the make up of air changes with altitude.... that's where the difference comes in.

Aerospace engineers have actually come up with a formula that accounts for the change in temperature with altitude on earth. This is used by NASA, the USAF, and others.

__________________
- The Federalist #46 -

All the science is nice, but what's really important here, is that you're still capable of reporting this event .....

40 feet up a tree is a looooong ways up!

My head hurts now................glad your fine...........

__________________
Go big or stay home

I just want to know how you got so high up that tree. Forty feet is the same as a four story building. Any bullet hitting around you at that height was likely intentionally fired at you.

As an aside: Several years ago locally, we had a man and his wife go deer hunting. Some how, someone fired a round that struck the tree she was in. The bark shattered and fragments went into her back and the left shoulder. Her screams brought her husband and he carried her to the hospital. Three weeks later she was back in the woods and took a round to the chest that killed her. About a year later, her husband was charged with her murder.

When someone has a bullet fired in their direction while up in a tree, it is likely an intentional act.

AH! A true sketpic!!

If that was my ex wife, she would have told her boyfriend to use a .50BMG next time. Did anybody see her swoopin around on her broom Sunday night? 40' does seem more than a bit high. Unless the tree was totally bare, you couldn't get a shot through the leaves n limbs.

__________________
SOS USA

Yes it is. I use a climber and in this case I was in an oak.

My thinking was that if I had been say 1000 yards away I would have heard the bullet before the "bang" and of course the branch would have been damaged/broken.

If that is reasonable then we could deduce that the distance was great enough for the sound catch up and then to over take the bullet by about 2 seconds.

I'll freely admit that I'm no brainiac.

Cool. I learned something new today.

If the bullet were not travelling in a straight line, it seems to me the sound of the shot could easily reach your ear before the buzz of the bullet.

__________________
Bob

Ya got to admire a guy who doesn't let failure get in the way of a project
I guess I'm going to hell for that one

__________________
Forum consigliere

I would propose that the bullet had deflected off some object and made a looping trajectory towards you - the deformed bullet would be tumbling and account for the buzz, as well as a slower speed.

Hmmmm, I think I like this.

As soon as I read what you wrote it got clearer to me what had likely happened.

Now I’m convinced that the bullet was deformed or tumbling or both. The buzz had a chopping characteristic to it, like the prop of a model airplane. Hell it could have been a through and through.

I think you nailed it!

other people is the ONLY thing i don't like about hunting. i've been peppered with shot from duck hunters on the other side of lakes up in sleuths/swamps, etc. nothing really gets me uneasy as seeing someone else when i'm in my stand. especially when it's on family owned private property. i'm armed with a 7mm Mag, but immobile. they have all the space and cover to get around. my biggest ponder ever was "what if i see bigfoot?" do i shoot or no. what if t was real, or what if it was a guy in a suit then i get charged lol. anyway, im done

Quite a sobering experience to see or hear a bullet go by while hunting - and if you ever had the experience of opening day of deer season in Wisconsin, you would find it surprising that bullets weren't buzzing by like so many flies. In 2004, a Hmong "hunter" from Minnesota, while trespassing on private land, shot and killed 6 deer hunters and wounded two others - this took place about 50 miles from me, and I knew one of the victims...what a tragedy.