Hit by Ricochet

[H&R Glock]

I know why it happened to me. I was using a GREEN LOG as backstop. Hot .22 bullet smacked my thigh. Years ago this happened to my neighbor. He got hit between the eyes with a lead ball from his black powder revolver. His was the case of a slow bullet and a green log. You could almost hear the "sprong" as the bullets rebounded. We were both lucky.

 

[BigAlShooter]

Anybody do some framing with wood? Wood has knots that sometimes you can't get a nail to go through it. Most wood has a lot of knots. Just think of all the knots in your woodpile and think about all of the accumulated bullets around those knots....

 

[CoalTrain49]

Despite common use, wood is not an ideal backstop material.


Our rifle range doesn't use wood for back stops. It's old tires with fill dirt and a dirt berm about 8' thick behind that. Pistol range is a plate steel trap and a beyond that a hill side. The steel plate trap forces the bullets down into a dirt filled bin. Never seen or heard of a bullet reach the firing line.

Subsonic rounds are the worst for ricochet. 22 LR is especially bad.

 

[BigBL87]

Never been hit, but a couple years ago had a 22lr apparently ricochet off something in the backstop and come back between me and the buddy I was shooting with. At least that's where it sounded like it passed to both of us.

 

[Ric]

Only been hit once. At an indoor range, I don’t know if it was mine or the idiots in the next lane shooting the target hanger

 

[Godsgunman]

I know why it happened to me. I was using a GREEN LOG as backstop. Hot .22 bullet smacked my thigh. Years ago this happened to my neighbor. He got hit between the eyes with a lead ball from his black powder revolver. His was the case of a slow bullet and a green log. You could almost hear the "sprong" as the bullets rebounded. We were both lucky.

Wow, thats pretty scary. Glad he wasn't hurt badly

 

[Godsgunman]

I had a bunch of .38 Wadcutter rounds partially penetrate and others bounce clean off the conveyor belt materials our local sheriffs range uses to staple targets up on. None came back like angry bees, but they were a good 5 yards back from the target stands when I walked up to check my scores


The “Angry bee” strikes in this oldie but goodie:



Glad you’re ok!

Stay safe.

Yeah, I've seen this one before. Dude was extremely lucky. Just think if it wouldn't have bounced before it got to him!

 

[Waveski]

Closer you are to target , the greater the risk.
Shouting payer with lots of space to the backstop , sure.
7-10 yards into any backstop is risky.

 

[Ignition Override]

Don't even walk into an Action Pistol lane without Wearing safety glasses.

Wearing them at all times is highly-stressed during the AP qualification at our very nice private club (by far the best within 200 miles?). They ask us to remain a minimum of 11 yards from any target plate or any other target.

You don't need both eyes - you have a spare.

 

[guyfromohio]

I used to shoot bowling pin matches with a model 64 .38spl. Getting hit with ricochets was just part of the game for me. They had little velocity and rarely even left a red mark.

 

[bersaguy]

One of the ranges I used to shoot at has a shredded tire backstop. Usually a good material, but it was getting close to needing to be replaced. I was shooting 45acp with jacketed rounds and got hit with a lead 38 slug that got flung back from the backstop. Figured there was just a lot of lead back there from, I don't know, months, years maybe of use. Now, my brother, whom I love dearly, but who lacks a great sense of firearms safety, was shooting a 9mm into a bowling ball at something like 10 yards. He took a ricochet to his ribs that knocked the wind out of him and left an awful bruise. Yeah, not a bowling pin, but an 18lb bowling ball.

 

[Steve Milbocker]

Got hit by a 22 short bounce back off a shooting gallery at the fair when I was young. No damage. I’d love to see the old shooting galleries return they were a lot of fun! Wishful thinking I’m sure. The worst one I ever got was at a skeet shoot. A ricochet off a clay bird on another field hit me in the neck and drew blood but didn’t imbed. I never shot another round without glasses.

 

[lightman]

The pistol backstop at our small private range is made from tires. Huge heavy equipment tires from mining equipment, 20+ plys. If you shoot too close to them they will throw a bullet back at you.

 

[Axis II]

You wanna talk about a pee your pants moment. I was in an open enrollment police academy a few years ago and had some real goofballs in my class. They made 16 of us line up arms length apart and fire on the whistle and when we would reload we would bring the weapon into our workspace/in front of your face which means your basically pointing at the person next to you. This made me nervous because she never paid attention and I complained and was told in 20yrs they never had an issue. Its pouring rain for 8hrs and we break out the 870's, slugs and buck shot, standing about 20ft from the berm and the girl to my right is about 5ft1 90lbs soaking wet, she can barely hold this shotgun up let alone shoot it and I am nervous. Everyone's shotguns go off and I get slapped right in the center of the chest with something. My heart sank and I thought for sure this chick shot me. I looked down and it was a glob of mud about the size of a tennis ball plastered on the front of my chest. We did have some rounds hit the homemade steel target tree someone made and send buckshot flying everywhere.

 

[CapnMac]

.I mean, back from oak!

Well, an oak 4x4 will support something over 8000#, and that's clear, no knots, heartwood.

Mind, I've seen oak root burl knot dull a brand new drill bit, too.

 

[Ranger99]

Wood is tricky. . . .
. .Despite common use, wood is not an ideal backstop material.

This ^ ^ ^
Only had it happen once.
Shooting a BP single peestolla once
and had a round ball fly back into the
. . . . well. . . It flew back.
Luckily, I have habitually carried a pen
and a memo pad in my front pocket for
many years. It helped considerably.
That's all I have to say about that

 

[792mauser]

Have been hit a few times.
Worst was when I left my A1 DPMS on the table.

A ricochet from around 50-70 yards hit the handguard and broke it.

Normally it's a small irritation.

 

[flightsimmer]

When I was working a gun range, a couple of guys came in and set up a piece of some kind of plexiglass with permission, and fired a 44 magnum at it, the bullet came back right between their two heads and took out the large glass window behind them that separated the range from the showroom, hmmm, lucky.

 

[Hooda Thunkit]

Back in the early 1980s I was prepping a demolition derby car - a big late 60s Chrysler of some sort I don't remember what it was.

Part of the prep was to pull out the interior, and all the glass (of course). About 1/2 way through pulling the glass, I had a wonderful idea.
Breaking out the glass was quicker than removing it,and shooting out the glass was more fun than using a hammer.

Out comes the Jennings 25 Auto. I get about 12" from the back door glass and shoot.

I hear BANG ZINNNGGG!!!

The little 25 bullet bounced off the glass, and zinged right by my head. The glass didn't even break, after being shot at from a foot away.

After that, the hammer seemed appropriate to finish the job.

I traded off the Jennings shortly after, it was part of a deal for an Astra 400.

 

[GEM]

Had a fragment come of steel in a class using reactive targets cut my chin open . Swat guy teaching the class wanted to shave my beard but we stopped it. Saw:
A Fed friend get a big cut on his belly from something.
A 45 ACP bounce off a steel radial truck tire and whack a guy in the chest for a big bruise.
Saw a round from the rifle range bounce of something and cross to the pistol lane and clobber an Army guy in the head. I would have gone to the ER but he wouldn’t. Then another round came in and we heard it whistle and bounce off the tin roof of a structure, hilarity ensued.
I wasn’t there but some idiots decided to shoot at rocks rather than the targets and a round came back and truly shot a guy. The shooters tried to leave and were stopped. The law was rolled and hilarity ensued.
Last a very famous trainer was showing us his new reactive target that would prevent blowback. As he was shooting it, small flake of lead landed on my tongue.

 

[Bigdog357]

Several years ago I shot a 45acp at a empty propane tank, just dented the tank and sent the bullet straight back at me, lesson learned.

 

[Alte Schule]

I posted this on THR last July.

53 years ago. Old rock quarry by my house was a perfect habitat for snakes. Older fella in town made belts and hat bands from snake skins and paid up to $5 for a good size snake skin. In the evenings when it was warm and the snakes would be coming out to hunt I would walk down to the quarry a couple of times a month with my trusty .22 bolt action fitted with a Tasco scope.

One evening I was in the quarry and saw a big diamondback head poke out of a pile of rocks about 15 feet way flicking his tongue and looking around. I lined up a quick shot and squeezed the trigger. The pain in my shoulder was instantaneous. It felt like someone hit me with a baseball bat.

Took me a minute to figure out what happened. I missed, of course, with the .22 Short, yes short, ricocheting off the rock behind it and angling back hitting me above the rifle stock in the right shoulder, just to the right of my arm pit, fracturing my humerus. The bullet then split into three pieces where it still remains. It was a long walk home and a longer ride to the hospital.

Lessons in life come hard sometimes. Always know what's behind your target before you pull the trigger.

 

[Waveski]

Not exactly ricochet , but related -

A while back I was shooting my Marlin 30/30 lever in a private dump. It was a clear calm day. Lots of junk to choose from as targets. As I was wrapping up , I had 3 rounds left and decided to burn them up by seeing if I could poke a hole in a large concrete culvert section at about 25 yards. About 1-2 seconds after my first shot I heard what sounded like sleet or small hail landing on my truck directly behind me. I turned to see numerous tiny bits of concrete sprinkled all over the black Chev. Puzzled , I figured it had to be a 1 time fluke. I shot another round , exact same think happened ; raining tiny bits of concrete. Being mature and sensible , I repeated with my third and last round. 3 shots , 3 sleet storms.

I can't explain how that debris was propelled back in the opposite direction of the projectile , but I did learn that most anything is possible with all that energy at work. Oh - culvert was pockmarked but not holed.

 

[GEM]

It's pretty well known that if you shoot steel and have a target with a concave hole in it, a round can hit the hole and be focused right back at you. That's why if I see steel targets with such craters, I'll pass.

I imagine other media could do that with the right configuration.