Interesting and technical topic!

When a bullet is fired almost vertically into the air, the bullet would keep going upwards in the sky, while it speed reduces, until it reaches maximum height. Its speed reduces because of gravity and air drag. At maximum height, the speed of the of bullet would be zero.

For the return path of the bullet's journey (i.e. falling down), it's initial speed is zero. It's like a mango hanging on a tree about to fall.

As the bullet falls, it's speed increases (i.e. it's accelerating). This falling speed would not keeping increasing forever. This speed would keep increasing until it attains Terminal Speed. Terminal speed simply means maximum constant speed the bullet would attain while falling.

After the falling bullet attains terminal speed, it would continue to fall with that same constant speed with no acceleration.

Falling objects attain terminal speed because of the presence of air i.e air drag. So, the falling terminal speed is considerably small when compared with the muzzle speed (i.e the speed with which the bullet was fired at the beginning.).

Assuming there is no air drag, the bullet would return to the ground with the same speed with which it was fired! Deadly!

So, the bullet returns to the ground with terminal speed, a relatively small speed when compared with the bullet's starting speed.

The bone of contention: How dangerous is terminal speeds of bullets?

Bullets are highly streamlined to defy air drag as much as possible. They are highly dense so as to cause as much damage as possible. With this two factors, the terminal speeds of bullets are considerably high when compared with other objects.

Even though when a falling bullet is not accelerating, it could still be lethal depending on the weight and the height it's falling through.

Kuwaitis were having end of war celebration one particular year and their soldiers were firing bullets into the air. Falling bullets killed about 20 of the civilians who came to celebrate with them! Even though the falling bullets were falling with terminal speeds, the bullets still killed some people at that ceremony.

Summarily, falling bullets can kill depending on the type of bullets and angle of projection. So, take cover when armed men start shooting even into the air!

You didn't use the word. Viscosity


Fallen bullet will hardly strike hard enough to kill in its deceleration

all am seeing in this post is bla bla bla bla��� ;

Thanks for the explanation but a bullet is asdangerous as a bullet


Expect when it's on the floor

This whole thing just depends on the type of gun and bullet caliber in question.

As a scientist, I bet to disagree with the OP where he said 'a bullet would return to the ground with same speed with which it was fired, if there were no air drag'... rather a bullet will travel farther upwards and returns to the ground with a constant speed through out till it touches the ground.

ArewaOduduwaBia:
As a scientist, I bet to disagree with the OP where he said 'a bullet would return to the ground with same speed with which it was fired, if there were no air drag'... rather a bullet will travel farther upwards and returns to the ground with a constant speed through out till it touches the ground.

@bolded is a statement of fact.