I went to my gun clubs very modest outdoor range with my best friend and his three college aged girls. Plus on extra girl friend and a boyfriend.
I set up on out single lane range at the 100yd mark. I was giving them all their first taste shooting an AR-15 rifle. Our range is in a marsh area. It didn't feel very humid at all, about 70F.
However while observing one of the shoot typical ball 5.56 at my steel, I saw what looked like the bullets exploding or hitting something mid flight. Sometimes I'd see a burst of mist only 20yds from the muzzle. Other times I would see a huge "smoke" trail all the way to the target.
At first, I thought maybe the bullets were exploding, you know from too much spin. But that thought went away because I would hear the steel ring. Then I thought the rounds were hitting bugs. But there weren't any out today. So we surmised it was simply a very visible contrail. I mean it was like they were trailing a smoke trail. I've never seen this before.
I've seen videos of guys shooting very long range and the camera in the spotting scope would pick of the faint shock wave trail. But today, the rounds looked like they were trailing smoke. It was crazy cool. I even tried a different round, some hand loads since at first I thought the billet was coming apart. But the hand load 53gr vmax did it too.
Has anyone seen this? Would I need near 100% RH to get this? I'm pretty sure it wasn't anywhere near that humid. I'm in western NY, not Florida.
Just bringing it up since it was so unusual and strong of a trail. The ground was swampy so near the ground level maybe it was much more humid. It's marsh on either side of the shooting lane. But the lane of grass doesn't usually ever fully dry out. I'm thinking there might be a micro atmospheric condition within the first 8 feet above ground before the surrounding air soaks up the moisture and disperses it more.
Just a curios observation. Wish I had video of it
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