The application of the ballistic pendulum for the bullets velocity measurements

Abstract

© Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd. The accurate values of the initial velocity of bullets are significant for the quality and precision of small arms. The application of the simple measurement methods, during the tests of the weapon and ammunition, enables the determination of the velocity values from the group of shoots. The accuracy of bullet trajectory, appropriate trajectory correction parameters and terminal ballistics parameters are depended of the quality of initial conditions as initial velocity. The ballistic pendulum, as simple and old-design device, enhanced with optoelectronic encoder sensor and computer acquisition system, can be one of the good start-up device platform for measurement of velocity and observation of the terminal ballistics effects. The function principle of the considered device is based on the energy conservation. Initial data are mass of bullet, mass and dimension of pendulum, and result is velocity, according to the values of time and angle of pendulum. The output signals of measured angle in time are captured, and as required values for calculation the velocity on the microprocessor platform, for each shoot in the test group. The microprocessor platform saves measured and calculated values in memory and generates statistic report of results. The presented method can improve weapon and ammunition tests, by decreasing the time of measurement acquisition and increasing the quality and speed of results without errors. The method and system is simple and low-cost, and enables the design of small arms ammunition database of testing results.