cast bullet ricochet risk

[lcclower]

FBI training film with some info on ricochets, https://youtu.be/Ri4e_wpDc54

[BCB]

They definitely will richocet. Why, I remember as a kid, every shot that Roy Rogers or the Lone Ranger made, always richocheted~! Peeow!Wheeee!

That is correct. Hell, I even remember when Roy fired a warning shot straight up into the air, it ricocheted...

But, here is a link--don't know if it is real or not...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=0ABGIJwiGBc

Good-luck...BCB

[Digital Dan]

Ricochets are a study of infinite improbability theory or something like that. No matter how unlikely it might seem, if it can happen, it will. It only takes a few months/years jerking the trigger on a minigun to appreciate that. It matters not what the alloy or velocity and sometimes not even what takes the first impact of the bullet. Some things can minimize the risk, but there in never a sure fire solution. Judicious application of common sense seasoned with abundant caution is the best medicine.

[square butte]

I had a 22 mag hollow point come straight back and split my left eye brow - Shot from a rifle with a right hand hold. No eye protection. Shooting at the ends of fired shot shells laid on a stump at about 25 yards. A young and foolish 18 years old. I call that Grace - That I can see to tell about it at age 65

[shooterg]

All our Range members attend an orientation - all are instructed to place targets at heights that will result in impacts in one of the multiple berms(50 yards on Pistol - 110, 210,and a big ole hill at 300 on Rifle) . Sure , we still get some, but generally from some knothead that gets sent back to remedial Range orientation ! We are surrounded by subdivisions, so we have to be stricter than you lucky guys that have miles of empty downrange !
Was walking to the 100 once in a "walk and paste" match when the fellow next to me was clipped in the ankle by a .38 wadcutter richocheted from Pistol , hard enough to bruise. Had to have bounced at about a 70 degree angle. Weird stuff happens.

[w5pv]

I shot at a steel band around a utility pole and the bullet came back and hit me in the chest,I am glad that it was in the winter and I had extra clothes on.This was with a 22 single shot rifle and 22 shorts it bruised me but no broken skin.Lesson that I never forgot

[OS OK]

Bow hunt.

[quail4jake]

We must always think about where a projectile may go on secondary trajectory, know your target and beyond, always be sure of your backstop. Some of the worst are soft, heavy, slow musket balls and shotgun slugs. My backstop is soft sand and I monitor carefully what happens with our steel targets, I truthfully think these are some of the safest slug absorbers provided we do it by the rules...A500 armor, free hanging, downward angle, smooth...
Think about the likelihood of anything bouncing at a low angle to the horizontal...The Civil war era artillery practice with canister shot was to sight for below the feet of the enemy infantry line to strike the shot at about 4 degrees and the bouncing shot would scatter and open the pattern to about twice the linear distribution of a direct hit. Yeah, it's that reliable!

[PS Paul]

This happened back in '94, so I believe the statute of limitations has run out.....

i was at a range in coastal Bay Area. One of the very few that allowed shooting of objects (plates, water bottles, bricks, etc) rather than just paper targets.
i had a friend who enjoyed loading and shooting big-game rifles same as I did. I was shooting my model 70 in 458 win mag and he had just purchased an absolutely gorgeous Art Alphin custom rifle in Alphin's 500 A Square. He'd brought some ammo loaded with 600 gr bronze solids(!), so we were truly enjoying blowing up some 2 liter bottles wed frozen overnight. Spectacular impacts!
well, after a bit of this, a local Sherriff pulled up right behind us and parked broadside to the range. I noticed him walk up to the RO's office as I was launching one of those 600 gr bronze solids at what remained of one of those plastic bottles. Just as the office door closed behind the Sherriff, that 600 gr solid hit a rock in the backstop and came back DIRECTLY at my forehead. It was moving slowly enough that I could thankfully see it and I leaned to the left as that solid whizzed past me and smacked the driver's door on that Sherriff's patrol car! It left a pretty nice dent in the door, of course.....
We looked around to make sure nobody else witnessed what happened. It was busy that day, but in all the noise and commotion, the solid denting that door went unnoticed. I ran over and picked up the projectile. It was intact, but had oddly butterflied open from tip of the nose to about halfway down the shank!
We scrambled and grabbed up all our gear and hightailed it outta there quick as can be. Whew.
i suppose you could say I dodged a bullet that fine day in more ways than one!!!!
Paul

[Plate plinker]

​F the POLICE.

[beagle]

Don't know who resurrected this thread but it's pertinent at any time especially here in Kentucky where there are loads of cattle and some high dollar horses..

I was fortunate enough to borrow GeorgeXXXs Ness Non-ricochet mould and cast a bunch. It's a .30 and was designed for shooting groundhogs back in the days when Springfields were cheap and ricochets were not desired. I tested them in a Number 1 Ruger at 100 yards by firing into the flat ground in front of the targets. I detected no ricochets into the berm behind it. I did this with about 25 rounds out of a 50 round box. Then I plinked a few at small rocks on the berm with some more. The last five I shot at my buddy's target at 100 yards. Now, the ness non-ricochet is a .30 bullet with a flat wad cutter nose and a huge hollow point weighing in at 152.5 grains and I expected little accuracy from it but the five I fired at his target clustered into 3/4". "Almost had a big one, Ethel !"

I've read Ness's work on it and from my experiments and George's, it appears that it works well and is very accurate. See castpics for the articles./beagle

[castalott]

If you can shoot across ground that has been worked fine in prep for planting, you can see the original impact and up to 4 or 5 'poofs' farther on.....

Watch the 'Knob Creek' machine gun video of the nighttime tracer shoots if you want to see ricochets...

Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot Night Shoot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31vm3-BQRJU

[popper]

just getting my GKs into shooting pellet rifle. Shot at a paper late on a tree 10 yds. from the house deck. Ricochet hit the wall behind me. Plain ole lead 177 target pellets.

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

One of the worst richochet prone rounds ever invented was the 12 gauge foster slug.....I have seen them end up 300+ yards away and at a 45 degree angle from their starting position...If you can find a huge dry tilled field away from anything and everyone you can see it for yourself...slug gun laws are just as ignorant as the lawyers that suggest them...it always has and always will come down to the nut behind the gun...not which caliber he is currently in possession of..

when our county went from shotgun only to Rifle the Sheriffs deputies noticed a significant decrease in the number of trucks ,out buildings and farm equipment hit by stray
projectiles. they would take calls each year for slugs through tail gates or into outbuilding.
r

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

just getting my GKs into shooting pellet rifle. Shot at a paper late on a tree 10 yds. from the house deck. Ricochet hit the wall behind me. Plain ole lead 177 target pellets.

yup , people give me a hard time when I make even the spectators wear safety glasses when the 4-H kids shoot air rifle , in one day of shooting air rifle silhouettes I got hit 4 times , the pellets don't have the speed to penetrate wood so they bounce and come back , it stings.

the reason we get away with shooting steel targets with pistols at as little as 24 feet is because they have the energy to deform flat and spray flat out from the plate just check a wood target base you can see the line of lead fragments embedded in it.

[kmrra]

All bullets will ricochet , the only one I have been hit with was at an indoor range shooting bowling pin match and one of mine came back and hit me on the knee. But I did winthe match LOL