Just note on safety

[oldred]

I just posted this in a discussion on shooting safety on another site but thought it worth posting again, safety should be a primary concern to all of us and a little reminder can't hurt. I did something really stupid (and I mean STUPID!) back in my younger days and I will tell this in hopes it makes someone think before being careless.


Some years back (well a LOT of years back) I was shooting at a paper target I had set up under a small hill that I thought was an adequate back stop as long as I was careful not to shoot over it. I was thinking "no way am I going to shoot 3 to 4 feet over the target" so the hill would be a safe back-stop, BUT!! What I did not notice was a flat rock directly behind the target and EVERY shot had ricocheted off that rock, went over the hill and across a highway! I was scared out of my wits and fully expected the police to come knocking looking for the sniper who had been shooting at cars, luckily nothing was mentioned on the news that evening but I sure learned a valuable lesson that time. That was back in the 70's and this is the first time I have told anyone about that incident but probably I should have before now. That was a fairly busy highway and I have no doubt at all that due to the angle of the ricochet those bullets were traveling across that highway about 2 to 4 feet of the ground and could easily have killed someone! Twenty shots (a full box) of 30/30 went across that road between passing cars!


Why would someone tell something like this on himself? Well like I said it was a dumb move caused by the urge to shoot my new rifle when there really was no safe place to shoot, the desire to shoot made me convince myself that what I was doing was safe when in fact it was not! If I had of been honest with myself I would have to have admitted the situation was dangerous but I made several mistakes. First I was unfamiliar with the area and although I knew the highway was there I thought is was well below that hill, still shooting in that direction was just plain dumb hill or not. My reasoning was that no way was I going to shoot high enough to clear the hill at that distance but I failed to take into account every possibility. Young and dumb is no excuse, NEVER,EVER take a risk no matter how slim the chance something could go wrong! If things can go wrong then all too often they will!!!!

[Echo]

Red, how did you determine that the ricochets were going where you indicated?

[Triggerhappy]

Another instance.

We shoot in an active quarry here in town with owners permission. We can stretch out to 300 yards if the equipment is out of the way and it's nicely out of the wind. Well, I'd been shooting at golf balls hanging from strings at 200 yards and a friend with an AR-10 .308 wanted to try. Certainly capable with the rifle and scope he had. Starts shooting, never touching one. So he tries it on paper, nope, no holes. Spotted while he tried the paper and he was hitting 12 feet above the target stand. Turns out the front bell of his scope was bent down toward the barrel, the scope tube was bent at the front mount.
We were perfectly safe because of where we were shooting. The quarry had walls much higher than 12', in fact we use them for rappelling practice. However, had he been shooting elsewhere, that angle would have takes the .308 a long ways, over most berms.

Lesson learned.

TH

[oldred]

Red, how did you determine that the ricochets were going where you indicated?





There was a hill on the other side of the road (this was in rural Kentucky mountain country) and the bullet impact spot(s) was clearly evident in the dirt on the opposite side of the road from where I was shooting, this is how I determined approximately how high the bullets traveled. It's been 41 years since that incident but to this day, and every day since that time, I can not hang a target without remembering it. There was a curve in the road and at the time I believed that the line of fire would have missed the road even if it had of cleared the hill, the problem was that in my haste I simply assumed the bullets were going to stop in the dirt and I failed to check! Of course there simply is/was no excuse, the fact is I failed to verify that there was nothing to be harmed behind the hill (more like just a mound than a "hill") I was shooting at. I assumed the bullets were going to simply impact into the ground behind the target and nothing behind the hill was in any danger, simply ASSUMING without verifying is dangerous! It would have gone as I figured had it not been for a flat rock about the size of a dinner plate hidden under leaves behind the target, as it happened the bullets struck this rock then traveled over the hill and through some brush then on across the road that was slightly up-hill from where I was shooting but hidden from view. My big mistake was in not verifying the down-range safety if the backstop failed, which in this case it obviously could when I ASSUMED it could not.