foot-seconds

Updated: June 17, 2025

I want you to do an autopsy, and find out how I can kill things by missing them." "How far away was it?" "Call it forty feet; no more." "What were you using, Charley?" Ayesha Keithley called from the table. "Eight-point-five Mars-Consolidated pistol," Loughran said. "I'd laid my shotgun down and walked away from it " "Twelve hundred foot-seconds," Ayesha said. "Bow-wave as well as muzzle-blast."

H. Beam Piper - Naudsonce

All three were nearly enough alike small weapons, rather heavier than they looked, firing a tiny ten-grain bullet at ten thousand foot-seconds. On impact, such a bullet would almost disintegrate; a man hit anywhere in the body with one would be killed instantly, his nervous system paralyzed and his heart stopped by internal pressure. Each of the pistols carried twenty rounds in the magazine.

H. Beam Piper - Last Enemy