Ever had a ricochet off water?

[Linstrum]

I have tried several times to get a bullet to ricochet of water in a safe place to do so, which was on an irrigation reservoir built into the side of a mountain where any ricochet would have to go at about a 80º angle up the face of a cliff and then go over the top of a tall mountain. I tried .30-06, .22 rimfire, and a .43 caliber muzzle loader pistol. I tried all sorts of angles, from shallow to steep. No go - KERPLUNK! With a big geyser of water in the case of the .30-06.

I never got one to skip, even though I can usually get five good skips with a rock, for what that's worth! I know it happens because I have read about it many times, and in the black powder canon days a ship's canoneers could get their projectiles to skip just right to make water-line strikes to quickly sink a ship.

It may have been Ed Topperwein, the great "toss-and-shoot" marksman who set some records by shooting wood blocks tossed in the air, who used to get a bullet to ricochet off the ground and make a hit on a target. That took some doing, too, although I have had more than a few dirt ricochets at the range that ended up on the side of the 500 foot tall mountain that is the backstop we use. A 500 foot tall mountain is kind of hard to miss, though, although if I hit the big fat wapati that lives up there that would be something! I want him in my freezer.

I'd like to know the particulars of how it happens off water.

So, how many of you have had a bullet ricochet off water, intentionally or otherwise?

rl954

[frkelly74]

In my younger days my cousins and I would shoot at turtles with a 22 and we did observe some skips. "Private lake with no one on the other side"

[docone31]

I had it happen twice.
The first time was when I was a kid. My friend and myself were firing his .22 rifle. We were just below a dam and we were firing over the top. I fired one and it skipped at least three times before missing the target. The skips were unintentional.
The second was at an IMHSA match. I was on rams, on my last one and I fired my .44mag.
I had to use rainbow ballistics with it. It was in a SBH.
I fired the last round, it hit a puddle way in front of the ram, then hit the ram! There were protests, and I was given the point. The ram went down and that was all that mattered.
Only two times in my life. That was the only time I had actually hit something on a riccochet also.

[Jim]

I grew up in Charleston, SC. Not far from Fort Sumpter is a body of water called Clark's Sound. An elderly gentleman, who owned some property on the water, used to let me go down there with my single shot .22. Many times over, I fired my rifle at the water, aiming about a hundred yards out. Every one would skip. On occasion, when conditions were right, I would see the bullet hit several hundred yards out.

[Bret4207]

I had a 32 S+W RN boolit skip off one of my beaver ponds and hit the trees beyond it. At least it sounded like that's what happened. I never looked for the strike area.

[Bass Ackward]

In days gone by, I have used our pond, bouncing off water and hit rocks or the ocassional turtle. They were fun. Carp sometimes too when they liked to surface and put that back out of the water in the shallows.

I would get on the spill way to where I could just see over (gentle angle) (they couldn't see me) and it was fairly easy to bounce one with round nose (ball) ammo. It was more of a challenge to bank one in. 22 RF particularly with shorts. (29 gr)

Not surprising if you look at the front of a ski or sled. Bullet weight and velocity are your enemy. Ice is different. :grin:

[Bloodman14]

Bass, +1; I used to bounce BB's off the backyard pond into soda cans on the other bank. Talk about a shallow angle. Good ol' Daisy Red Rider!

[The Dove]

If the freakin wind will ever quit blowing in western Oklahoma, I'll try it and let you know! Please don't hold your breath though as I don't think the wind will stop blowing here for a very long time!!!

HAHA

The Dove

[CWME]

Decrease your entry angle and they will skip. 22Lr will skip 4-5-6 times if the angle is shalow enough. I have only had 30-06 skip once in 1200 yards or so. 44 mag will skip like a 22LR.

[*Paladin*]

I've skipped .22's many times, goofing off when I was a kid. The bullet had to hit the water at a really shallow angle to get it to ricochet...

[woody1]

.22 LR standing at or near water's edge on a lake shooting ~100 yds. out will get you skips. Regards, Woody

[reloader28]

They used to have a contest at a local bar here every summer that would use muzzelloaders. They had to skip the round ball off the river and hit the target on the other side.

[Char-Gar]

Yes, I have had bullets ricochet or skip when hitting water. That is why I don't shoot at things on water.

[Skipper488]

I was in the Navy and shooting the Browning M2 or the M60 machine gun we would see all kinds of skip. Of the tracers fired I'd say somewhere between 20% and 33% would bounce up off the water and go shooting off in all kinds of bizarre directions. The tracers made it very obvious when they did so.

[waksupi]

I've also skipped a lot of bullets, in safe areas. This is why most states have a law against shooting rifles over water. When I was young, a neighbor shot his brother on the other side of a pond doing this.

[Ohio Rusty]

I had a .22 skip off a small pond. The guy I was with heard it whistle thru the air after it skipped. I would have never known it didn't penetrate the surface if he hadn't heard it .
Ohio Rusty ><>

[Echo]

If the freakin wind will ever quit blowing in western Oklahoma, I'll try it and let you know! Please don't hold your breath though as I don't think the wind will stop blowing here for a very long time!!!



Wind stop blowing, in OK?

Ha!

[lwknight]

I think you need a rounbd nosed boolit and a low angle.
I used to do it many moons ago. You know you got the bounce when you hear the hollywood style " hwiieerew " kinda sound. I never skipped a boolit though.
Most boolits just thunk into the water if everything is not just right.

[Freightman]

If the freakin wind will ever quit blowing in western Oklahoma, I'll try it and let you know! Please don't hold your breath though as I don't think the wind will stop blowing here for a very long time!!!

HAHA

The Dove
It will quit when the temp. is 100+ and humidity almost that. It might quit when it does in the Texas Panhandle "NOT"

[clong]

Hard to get a skip with a bullet going supersonic. But move down to something moving at 800-900 fps and it is fairly easy to do.

[nanuk]

I was in the Navy and shooting the Browning M2 or the M60 machine gun we would see all kinds of skip. Of the tracers fired I'd say somewhere between 20% and 33% would bounce up off the water and go shooting off in all kinds of bizarre directions. The tracers made it very obvious when they did so.

+1

a buddy and I were out at a pond shooting tracers, him with 30-06, me with 308.

only a couple of mine skipped, but ALL of his did. the pond was maybe 100yds away.

and the most amazing thing to me was NONE skipped straight away. ALL took off on all kinds of directions. a few even took off one quite sharp angles. There was noway you could have hit anything by aiming under an object on the far side and trying to skip one into it.

Yes.. the water as smooth with little to no wind.

it really opened our eyes to the risks of shooting into water

[Linstrum]

:kidding:So, - - - - Let me see if I got this right - - - - I can get a bullet, or boolit, depending on what I'm using (I'm sure boolits work quite well) to ricochet when the wind stops blowing in Oklahoma or the Texas Panhandle, or was that the Oklahoma Panhandle? Whatever, when the wind stops blowing over there then I can get a projectile to ricochet, as long as it is a round nose, and going just right, and at the correct angle? :Fire: Oh, I forgot, I got to hold my mouth just right, too. Do the turtles help?

But seriously, thanks for the input, I can see that I was shooting way too close and consequently at too steep an angle, and at possibly too high a velocity. Unfortunately I no longer have access to the irrigation reservoir where I could try what has so kindly been offered, and as so many of you have aptly pointed out, shooting a rifle or handgun over water is dangerous besides illegal in many places, so I will not be doing anything like that anytime soon. But dirt ricochets at the range are another matter, that big fat 1200 pound wapiti is still up there on Dry Mountain and I may just get him by accident yet! He had the audacity to come down and bugle at me one morning last summer just before dawn when I was up at the range waiting for it to get light enough to start shooting. He knew it was not elk season, too, that's why he did it.


rl955

[303Guy]

I shot at a target on water with a 22rf and observed an impact on the far bank while a companion observed a splash on the water. Or did he shoot and I observe ... ??? Maybe I shot and saw both through the scope while he only saw the splash ... ??? Aah ... who cares! It happened. :mrgreen:

[Flip]

Years ago a buddy and I were able to get .22LR's to skip across a river using a single shot rifle.

[Fire_stick]

Had it happen a lot of times shoting turtles at the old fish pond when I was a younger boy.

[Linstrum]

A lot of us have probably seen the dam buster documentary about the WW2 Mosquito bombers set up to "bounce" a spinning dam buster bomb across a reservoir or lake to disrupt hydroelectric power and flood farmland. Now that is some fancy water-skipping or ricochet expertise, putting on the "back english" spin with an electric drive to make the barrel-shaped bomb roll down the dam face under water before going off.


rl956

[beagle]

Not water but when I was in college, myself and a friend were at the local police range shooting. We were about to leave and a sparrow landed in front of the targets at about 45 yards and my buddy pulled down on it with a M28 Smith using handloaded 358156 .38 Specials. A cloud of feathers ensued and we walked down to check. The bullet hit on a shallow angle, cut about a 12" groove through the grass and ricocheted up through the bird and into the berm. Must have been unstable after the ricochet as it made a heck of a mess.

Pretty common for .45 ACP bullets to ricochet off water.

In VN, we were test firing some guns off a UH-1 over water into a small island. Common for mini gun 7.62mm Nato to ricochet and I once fired at a white cattle egret with an M-60 and had a tracer ricocheted and hit the bird after it hit the water.

Tracers seem more prone to ricochet than ball. Maybe due to lighter, longer bullets.

.50 tracers are really bad about it./beagle

[Centaur 1]

Years ago whenever it rained a huge puddle would form right in front of the 50 yard berm. We would set soda cans on the berm and ricochet .22's off the water and hit the cans.

[Tom-ADC]

Years ago maybe mid 60's we used to go long range fishing on a Specail Service run fishing boat, we would bring 1 gal milk jugs and put a break & shake lite inside and at night toss them over the side, now we were in the middle of the ocean not a boat in sight or sound.
We had a M1 carbine on board and a bunch of tracer ammo, we'd shoot at the jug and those tracers went off the water in every direction except straight back.

[Linstrum]

Hey, beagle, it's been awhile!

That's interesting about the .50 BMG tracers skipping off water, the tracers really are pretty long compared to a standard jacketed solid core bullet. I just bought a LAR Big Boar .50 BMG rifle and I also bought a bunch of 643 grain tracer projectiles to load for it so I have seen first hand just how long they are compared to the standard boat tail 650 and 750 grain projectiles.

I wish it was legal to shoot at the beach. Because of the long distance visibility on the ocean that would be a pretty safe place to try skipping shots. Back when I was in high school I used to go deep sea fishing along with 20-25 other guys on a Navy tug boat off the coast of Port Hueneme in Southern California, and the tug crew used to shoot sharks and try scaring off seals with a couple of Garands they had for the job. I'm trying to remember if I saw any of those shots ricochet, but I don't recall even though I can still see plain as day in my memory the shots splashing up geysers of water. I never got to shoot, but it was still a lot of fun to watch and because I was just a kid the crew would show off how well they could shoot (they were Navy and us other guys were Air Force personnel and dependents/buddies). A big shark showed up one time and was tangling up fishing lines by swimming through them, so the pilot emptied a full 8 shots into its head. Some of the other guys got gaff hooks and dragged the shark on board to cut it up to take home for steaks and fertilizer - I got my first taste of how darned good some shark is, I don't know what kind of shark it was but it was not small, maybe 8 feet long, and light grey on top. Kinda funny how high class restaurant "swordfish" tastes just like shark! Darned good eatin', though! But I don't recall any of the shots ricocheting of the water, although the waves and swells were about 2-3 feet tall and that would have hidden from view as well as prevented a lot of skipping anyway.


rl958

[DIRT Farmer]

I responded to a call, guy shooting at turtles and bouncing thim into the neighbors moble home, when I arrived, the homeowner was preparing to return fire.

[beagle]

Yeah, it's been a while but I'm still hacking along.

There was an article in the Fouling Shot maybe 10 years ago where some guy had a .50/70 Contender barrel made and was shooting .50 tracers out of it up in Alaska on the tidal flats. He was having a ball. Think it was throated especially long and the velocity was way down but he was really having a good time.

The .50 tracer is like a tootsie roll....it lasts a long, long time. In Hawaii, we shot them on the lava field ranges and they seemed to go for miles after ricocheting. In VN, I saw one ricochet off the ground and through three rubber trees one night and continue out of my sight. The French owner was pleased about that to the tune ofr $75 per tree charged to the US Army but it impressed me./beagle


Hey, beagle, it's been awhile!

That's interesting about the .50 BMG tracers skipping off water, the tracers really are pretty long compared to a standard jacketed solid core bullet. I just bought a LAR Big Boar .50 BMG rifle and I also bought a bunch of 643 grain tracer projectiles to load for it so I have seen first hand just how long they are compared to the standard boat tail 650 and 750 grain projectiles.

I wish it was legal to shoot at the beach. Because of the long distance visibility on the ocean that would be a pretty safe place to try skipping shots. Back when I was in high school I used to go deep sea fishing along with 20-25 other guys on a Navy tug boat off the coast of Port Hueneme in Southern California, and the tug crew used to shoot sharks and try scaring off seals with a couple of Garands they had for the job. I'm trying to remember if I saw any of those shots ricochet, but I don't recall even though I can still see plain as day in my memory the shots splashing up geysers of water. I never got to shoot, but it was still a lot of fun to watch and because I was just a kid the crew would show off how well they could shoot (they were Navy and us other guys were Air Force personnel and dependents/buddies). A big shark showed up one time and was tangling up fishing lines by swimming through them, so the pilot emptied a full 8 shots into its head. Some of the other guys got gaff hooks and dragged the shark on board to cut it up to take home for steaks and fertilizer - I got my first taste of how darned good some shark is, I don't know what kind of shark it was but it was not small, maybe 8 feet long, and light grey on top. Kinda funny how high class restaurant "swordfish" tastes just like shark! Darned good eatin', though! But I don't recall any of the shots ricocheting of the water, although the waves and swells were about 2-3 feet tall and that would have hidden from view as well as prevented a lot of skipping anyway.


rl958

[derek45]

Yep, when I was in the Army, I saw tracers skip and bounce in all kinds of directions.

I've seen them roll around in the dirt back stop too.



DILLON MINI GUN TRACERS....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EpHi0kKqsU



:)

[leadman]

12 gauge forester style slugs skip really well on the water. I was deer hunting in Michigan years ago and did not see any game, but came upon a large pond with a tall sand dune on one side. I had heard about bullets skipping so I fired about 5 to see what would happen.

They all skipped multiple times and hit the sand on the other side. Most went fairly straight IIRC.

[camaro1st]

7.62x39 skipped many off a pond shooting at turtles and anything else that would stay on top for a few seconds. 22lr will skip off water as i have the boolit to prove it. I caught it in the back the knee as a "buddy" was shooting from the other side, roughly a 75yrd shot. I now luckly can say 6ft tall and boolit proof.

[firefly1957]

Me and two friends spent a calm evening skipping bullets on a lake the water was mirror smooth it was over a mile to the heavy cedar swamp on the other side with no people there.
44 magnum Hornady 200 gr HP @ 1590 f/s no skips even out at long range.
44 magnum 262 gr semiwadcutter @ 1430 f/s one skip @ about 200 yds out of 18 tried.
44 special 246gr factory round nose all skipped and some all the way across!
22 rimfire yes except hollow points.
.223 hard ball yes and all the way across started at 100 yds closer would dig in.
30-06 hard ball yes soft point no it would dig in.
38/357 we could not skip any hollow points but one flat point and all round nose and pointed bullets would skip many times.
Round ball .562 no but later I did it at about 30 feet from me.
The most entertaining was those big finned German "rifled" slugs (Benneke) in 12ga. hitting out about 150 or more yards . They would hit turn slightly hit then turn and a couple actual made complete circles before stopping a little over a half mile out. These were fired from 18" smooth bore barrel.
With the exception of the shot gun slug all bullets skipped strait in the very calm water waves or ripples do change the direction of bullets if they skip. The 30-06 black tipped armor piercing bullets did go into the cedar trees on other side of lake and we heard the impact echo so I suspect they were fast enough to still be lethal.
After dark we fired some tracers but not into the water they went high and into lake when they came down.

[C1PNR]

Back in the "old days" when I was a kid (early 50's), I went to a Summer Camp and a few of us were chosen to take a canoe trip down a river in Oklahoma or Arkansas, I forget which now.

One of the Counselors had a pistol with him and I remember specifically watching him shoot the pistol up the river and us watching it skip many, many times off the water and well upstream of us. It was a very shallow angle.

It was such a dramatic event that I've remembered it ever since and keep it in mind whenever shooting near any body of water.

[AZ-Stew]

When I got my first .22 (1966) I used to go shooting at a local quarry. Someone had pushed a junk car nose-first into one of the quarry ponds. It stopped with the water up to the top of the windshield, leaving the car roof fully exposed at water level and about 4-5 feet up from there. I use to shoot across the pond, skipping the rounds off the water, then off the car roof. I can still remember the sounds: Crack! -- Splat! -- Clunk! -- WHZZzzzz! as the bullet ricocheted off the car roof.

Yeah. They bounce off water.

One time in the Navy we were shooting Fam (familiarization) Fire off the fantail of the destroyer at dusk with the M-60. As the bullets hit the waves (2-4 feet high) the tracers went EVERYWHERE. Several miles down range (beyond the range of the M-60) was the Commodore's Flagship. He called us on the radio and told us to knock it off.

Regards,

Stew

[Mk42gunner]

I was in the Navy and shooting the Browning M2 or the M60 machine gun we would see all kinds of skip. Of the tracers fired I'd say somewhere between 20% and 33% would bounce up off the water and go shooting off in all kinds of bizarre directions. The tracers made it very obvious when they did so.


When I got my first .22 (1966) I used to go shooting at a local quarry. Someone had pushed a junk car nose-first into one of the quarry ponds. It stopped with the water up to the top of the windshield, leaving the car roof fully exposed at water level and about 4-5 feet up from there. I use to shoot across the pond, skipping the rounds off the water, then off the car roof. I can still remember the sounds: Crack! -- Splat! -- Clunk! -- WHZZzzzz! as the bullet ricocheted off the car roof.

Yeah. They bounce off water.

One time in the Navy we were shooting Fam (familiarization) Fire off the fantail of the destroyer at dusk with the M-60. As the bullets hit the waves (2-4 feet high) the tracers went EVERYWHERE. Several miles down range (beyond the range of the M-60) was the Commodore's Flagship. He called us on the radio and told us to knock it off.

Regards,

Stew

I have personally skipped a 5"/54 BL&P round five times, I was shooting from OMC in MT 52 at the time. With a smooth surface (the middle of the Indian Ocean is very good for this) it was very common to ricochet BL&P rounds, since we normally shot our PAC rounds fairly level.

Small arms were a lot harder to see, tracers from machine guns quite often went at varying angles. If you ever want to see a LOT of ricochets, get a platoon of Marines firing tracers after dark off the Flight Deck while wearing night vision goggles; the tracers show up purple.

Robert

[Got-R-Did]

Mk42Gunner.
The 5"/54 Caliber is quite a cannon. If I recall my Navy JROTC days the tube would be roughly 22.5' long and in a single turret, perhaps even with a cone style flash suppressor. What a magnificent gun. I saw one when we did a Summer Camp at the Orlando Training base working on the USS Blue Jacket. The gun was on a flat bed rail car, apparently for transfer elsewhere on the base, to a refurbishment facility,or perhaps retired to become a display. Our Chief served on a Battleship (sorry I forgot the name of his ship) just off the coast of Vietnam, and I was genuinely interested in his MOS. His ship sent supporting fire to one of the Units my Father served with in Vietnam. Chief Stein was a great man, and likewise a great teacher. I wonder if the Chief ever considered how far one of his 16" shells would skip.
Cheers,
Got-R-Did.

[Mk42gunner]

Mk42Gunner.
The 5"/54 Caliber is quite a cannon. If I recall my Navy JROTC days the tube would be roughly 22.5' long and in a single turret, perhaps even with a cone style flash suppressor. What a magnificent gun. I saw one when we did a Summer Camp at the Orlando Training base working on the USS Blue Jacket. The gun was on a flat bed rail car, apparently for transfer elsewhere on the base, to a refurbishment facility,or perhaps retired to become a display. Our Chief served on a Battleship (sorry I forgot the name of his ship) just off the coast of Vietnam, and I was genuinely interested in his MOS. His ship sent supporting fire to one of the Units my Father served with in Vietnam. Chief Stein was a great man, and likewise a great teacher. I wonder if the Chief ever considered how far one of his 16" shells would skip.
Cheers,
Got-R-Did.

Got-R-Did,

5" x 54 = 270"= 22.5'

No flash suppressors on the barrel, the powder had a flashless component, I don't remember offhand what it was. Normal operation was either radar or director controlled, neither of which sighted directly down the barrel so a flash suppressor isn't needed.

A nominal 70 pound projectile at 2650 fps, the service charge was twenty pounds of powder, reduced was 15.

Robert

[Linstrum]

Depending on the powder formulation, they normally use nitroguanidine to make the powder flashless. Another material is ammonium nitrate, but it has a lot of problems and it has not been used for military cannons since WW1. I use ammonium nitrate powder, called ammonpulver, as a smokeless rifle powder. It is a bit finicky but works well if boosted and has no flash whatsoever.


rl971

[AZ-Stew]

The 5"/54 Caliber is quite a cannon. If I recall my Navy JROTC days the tube would be roughly 22.5' long and in a single turret...
Got-R-Did.

Well, to straighten out the nomenclature here, to my knowledge the Navy does not have any "cannons". We have guns and naval rifles. To my knowledge, there were never any 5" "turrets". A "turret" has multiple barrels that will elevate separately. 16" guns were three-barrel turrets. 5" guns these days are single-barrel mounts, and during WWII and for some time thereafter, some ships had 5", twin-barrel mounts. In a "mount", the barrels elevate together, as they are mechanically connected. Just to set the record straight.

Regards,

Stew

[Trapaddict]

Skipping a bullet is really no different than skipping a rock. You have to have an extremely shallow angle in order to get it to riccochet off the surface.

Jeff