Sonic boom

[dave_in_cw]

If a bullet travels through the air faster than the speed of sound, why does it not make a sonic boom?

[The Rutt]

A complete guess: Somethig to do with the amount of air being displaced? i.e. very little.

[treaclefight]

i thought it did :-)

[templeman]

A bullet does make a sonic boom. You hear it before you hear the *crack* of the gun being fired.

[doristwonk]

As the others say ..it does. In the days before the advent of Myxamatosis I used to shoot rabbits for a local farmer, and make a copper or two myself to supplement my meagre income). I used a .22 rifle with high velocity bullets. I was surprised to find that at distances over 60/70 yds the rabbits would often not be hit, but less than that I would add another to my bag. One day I could not get any high velocity bullets and had to settle for the standard ones. I got more considerably more long distance hits. The explanation is obvious. The noise of the sonic boom of the H. V. bullets notified the distant rabbits, whilst sub sonic standard bullets arrived at their destination unannounced.

[dave_in_cw]

Thanks for the answers. Doristwonk, I don't know if that really makes sense though. If those high velocity bullets of yours travelled faster than the speed of sound, then surely they would have reached the rabbits before the rabbits were able to hear the boom. Or are you saying that the bullets had slowed down to sub-sonic speed by the time they reached the rabbits, in which case the rabbits would have heard the boom before the arrival of the bullet. Yes, I guess that makes sense?? By the way, those rabbits must have been delicious?

[doristwonk]

You got it Dave the sonic boom is being continously created ahead of the projectile.

[Marksman]

The rabbit cannot of heard the bullet coming as this is the whole point of the Doppler effect. This is the reason the Concorde is perfectly silent during flight, even though a god awful noise is coming out of the engine. The bullet is travelling FASTER than the noise it is making so no matter what happens, the bullet will hit the rabbit before the sound will.