Question about brush and bullet deflection...

[Marlin60Man]

I only shoot with .22lr and the last time I went to shoot, was trying to hit my 2.5" wide spinner. It wasn't hitting at all, yet I could hit right where the cross-hairs were a little higher up on the tree that I was using as a back-stop.

Long story short, there was some brush in front of the spinner. I didn't think that it would really deflect the bullets that much. While I don't really hunt I thought, "If I was hunting rabbit, I'd shoot at it behind that brush."

Anyway, is a little bit of brush enough to deflect a .22 bullet from hitting a 2.5" target? It didn't really seem like it could deflect that much, but it was pretty thick (as in many reeds per square inch, the reeds themselves were less than 1/8" in diameter ) grasssy type vegetation so there was an awful lot of chance of the bullet hitting the reeds, I just assumed it would go right through with its path unaffected.

I'm assuming it had to be the brush because I took it back out today and it was nailing it dead-on with no brush obscuring the line of sight. Just didn't think little bit of grass could throw it off that much...

 

[PapaG]

IMHO there ain't no such thing as a brush bustin bullet. Brush guns are called that because they are easy to manipulate through the thickets. Many, many tests have been run with bushes, dowels, and whatall and whether it is a 500 grain 45-70 or a 40 grain 22 or a pointed soft point or whatever, they all get deflected.
On game, if you don't have a clear/clean shot you shouldn't take it.
On targets, have all the fun you want. Can't help but learn something.

 

[hogshead]

Yes a little bit of brush will deflect a bullet a lot. I have seen this happen with my 308 while shooting at a deer. How far it deflects has a lot to do with the size ot the stick and distance from target. Some high velocity bullets will fragment on twigs.

 

[Float Pilot]

We did testing with 50 cal machine gun rounds and thick alders. Even the mighty 50 cal bullets tumbled through the cardboard targets we had set up behind the alder branches.\\

We lined up a target in front and a target in back, with a stack of alders wedged into a frame.

But, even with yawing bullets (Impact was at 200 meters, with the second target 5 meters behind the adlers) the 50 cal rounds were much closer to the original straight line from the bore, than the 5.56mm rounds and the 7.62mm rounds.

 

[ChefJeff1]

interesting. I want to do some testing shooting through sage brush. Some tests with the sage near the barrel and tests with the sage near the target.

 

[Tim the student]

Just to see what would happen, I've shot slugs through small (1/8" max) brush. It was small brush, and there was a small amount of it. I could still clearly ID my target - it really wasn't more than maybe 2 linear feet of brush. I hit where I wanted to (as much as is possible with a smooth bore), but I didn't have a control group to compare.

I'd probably shoot at a deer with a 12g slug if there was a) a tiny bit of very small brush and b) if the deer was immediately behind the brush, as opposed to the brush being immediately in front of me.

 

[Art Eatman]

Used to be, about every ten years or so, somebody at the NRA's "Dope Bag" would do the "brush test" on various calibers and bullet styles.

Nothing ever changed. It was just like what was said in Posts #2 & #3.

A "brush gun" is a light, short, handy rifle for working in confining vegetation. It's the same reasoning as using short-barrelled ARs for home defense.