How big a hole would a 9 mm gun shot put in metal 1 mile away?

Answer 1

Let's look at this logically, rather than your hypothetical question. A mile is a really, really long way away. A Glock has a muzzle velocity speed of 1,230 feet/second. A bullet being shot straight forward, according to Newtonian physics, at a height of 5 feet(being extremely generous), will take about .55 seconds to hit the ground, no matter how fast it's traveling(except if it's traveling about 25,000 miles/hour, in which case it travels faster than the Earth pulls it down). So the distance the bullet will travel is about 676 feet. A bit short of 5280 feet. There is a partial solution which you can work out if you want, where you shoot upward at an angle. With no atmosphere, the ideal angle is 45 degrees, and with atmosphere it tends to be somewhat less, around 30-38 degrees depending on a lot of very complicated math. So, to answer your question, It wouldn't make any hole in metal a mile away(unless you work out that the bullet trajectory would actually go a mile, which I intuitively strongly doubt). However, if it did somehow make it, it would have the energy equivalent of the energy it had after it left the barrel, less atmospheric drag. I think it would be something like 440 Joules, but I'm not sure. It might make a dent.