We have that 'RPM Theory' dust-up and a few others like it to thank for the evictions of quite a few GREAT members now here--and perhaps for the creation of A&SBC outright. In that respect alone, the RPM Theory has merit--even if in a back-handed ideation.
Enough of that. Bullets/missiles/projectiles can be under-spun and over-spun. They can be stabilized perfectly by an ideal twist rate........and that actually happens in real life--about 3-4 times per lifetime, I imagine.
Do I give a rip? Not really. Unless you are watering your houseplants with Dom Perignon you aren't in a position to have Twist Rates For All Seasons in the calibers you ride herd on. Most .30" bores use a 1-10", and we get along pretty well with that. .224" barrels have gone from pillar to post just in my lifetime--from the 22 Hornet's rimfire rate (1-16") to the javelin-hurlers' pet twist of 1-7". My own pet Mastodon Flattener (9.3 x 62 Mauser) got by for close to a century at 3 turns per meter (about 1-13.1"). Then came the 320 grain beast bullets in .366", and now the 9.3 gets a 4 turns/meter pitch cut into it. I'm here to tell y'all that 286 grains stepping out at 2400 FPS leaves the user with zero doubt that the primers functioned. 'More' isn't always 'Better'. I don't know what you hunt with 320 grain x .366" bullets--probably semi-tractors. I'm certain that recoil on one end of that rifle differs little from the recoil on the other end.
I have only been shooting and hunting for 57 years, so I still have lots to learn. To date, I have yet to see a need to compensate for curvature of the Earth, the Earth's rotation while a bullet I launched was in flight, or the other minuteae that the long-range Creedmoor fanbois seem to obsess over. Far more important theorems occupy my thinking.
The late Ed Zern pointed one such concept out some years ago in Field & Stream magazine. This concerns the wherefores and the whys of missed strikes on rising trout while fly fishing. Mr. Zern advanced the idea that Einstein's theory of the time/space continuum was at work here. In other words, the closer that a thing approached the speed of light, the slower that time advanced. At light-speed, time ceases to exist.
This explains much. Many is the time I have double-hauled a weight-forward line in an attempt to reach rising game fish at a distance from my boat. I have placed the fly or bug right on top of those miserable fish and only had them blow up on the presentation and miss the hook entirely. For years I thought this was my error--in fact it was NOT. You see, that fly/bug/Muddler was hurled at such speed by my double haul THAT WHEN THE FISH STRUCK THE BAIT HADN'T ARRIVED YET. Time/space continuum bit me--not the fish.
