Magnus effect is fun! Way before I even had a car or knew about drag reduction, I played with alternative ballistics. Arrows were expensive and incredibly easy to lose, so I stuck with marbles and steel ball shot. These don’t have good stability, but they were better than what my physics teacher would give them credit for. They’d travel in an arc, and to increase range you would increase your firing angle. That was essentially the limit on range.
My friends got into airsoft, and had high velocity/high RPM guns, while I didn’t really have either (no money). I would build crossbows, slingshots, etc and mess with the $50 hardware store pistols. Anyways, these guns shoot round, 0.20 gram projectiles at some pretty amazing distances, and use a “hop-up” system to do so. That system is an adjustable rubber pad right ahead of the firing chamber that puts back-spin on the projectile before it is shot down the barrel. Employing the Magnus effect, the projectile’s arc can be transformed into a flat trajectory or even an upwards climb. Neat stuff.
I love lurking old threads
