
Originally Posted by
kartoffel
Maybe the confusion is this: projectiles don't fly straight like arrows with the pointy end going exactly into the wind...
...but projectiles ALSO don't remain at the exact same attitude as they left the muzzle.
There's a bunch of effects at work: precession, nutation, plus aerodynamic drag, plus factor in that the center of pressure of the projectile changes with respect to Mach and sideslip angle.
So on long shots with appreciable drop, the bullet tip does tend to stay high, yet it's not a perfect gyroscope either. Nennstiel's "tractability factor" is a quantitative way to describe how much the bullet wants to fly "pointy end into the wind" across a long trajectory arc. An arrow shot from a bow, for example, would have a very high tractability factor, whereas a gyroscope would have a very low factor.
Check the wikipedia link I posted above: note that M193 (5.56) has 23 inches of gyroscopic drift at 1000 yards, whereas M118 (.308 Win) has only 11.5 inches of drift at the same range. Some listed VLD bullets have even less, thanks to having a higher "tractability factor".
So to answer MistWolf's question: yes, tractability is real, and so is the phenomenon of bullets falling ass end first when shot up into the air.
Long range rifle shooters already know about this shit and compensate for it. Cannon cockers know about it to, and as the Naval Academy paper confirms, they take it into consideration as well. In both scenarios it's not so much a "concern" as just another factor that's understood and accounted for.
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