Bullet Ricochet

[skyadrenaline]

Anybody ever wonder what would happen if you were standing in front of a steel wall and fired at it with your pistol? Would the bullets ricochet and come back in your direction?

Something I wondered while taking a shower.

[Hippo]

From my experience with ricochets on steel is that only the jackets ricochet back. The lead has always splashed onto the steel. It could very well ricochet the whole mass in a solid copper round if I had to guess.

[JTROKS]

Depends on how fast and what type of bullet you are using. In my experience I had a semi-wadcutter hard cast bullet ricochet off a steel bumper that belonged to an old car sitting at a dump site we were shooting at. The offending bullet was loaded to target level, around 800 fps and I believe it was a 158 grains in weight in 38 caliber. It hit me on the hip bone and hard enough to create a quarter size bruise. It hit me hard enough to make me think it broke skin, but the denim jeans I was wearing weren't damaged at all. I'm thinking a steel wall and a FMJ traveling at subsonic velocity will give a good chance of a ricochet. A steel core bullet will even increase the chance.

[IMC87]

I've been hit by a few One broke skin!
Well the bullets breakup into lots o little pieces in my experience, thought the one that broke skin sure felt like a big chunk

[G-forceJunkie]

Really depends on the angle it hits. When it hits pretty square on, the bullet just splatters and the splatter goes 90 degrees off to the side/up/down. When you hit steel, or anything hard for that matter, at an angle, then ya, the bulk of the bullet can skip off in a big enough chunk to hurt someone. The worst case is shooting into a pocket of some sort, the splatter has no where to go but back out at you. Especially true with rifle bullets shot into soft steel with enough energy to make a crater, but not punch all the way through. I had a .223 FMJ jacket come back an inbed about 1/2" into my shoulder after shooting a piece of 1/2" mild steel at 75 yards. I was told it was an armor rifle target, but really it was a mild steel pistol caliber target.

[dexter9659]

Ive been hit in the foot by one that hit a hotspot in the impact area at a range and bounced back. It dented my boot. It felt like someone stomping on my foot.

[lotar4life]

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=hickok45#p/u/67/IZuoW3bEsRg

[lazs]

I shoot mostly cast lead bullets from 45, 44 magnum and others... you do not want to shoot at steel car rims no matter what the distance. Maybe the soft lead in jacketed rounds "splashes" but certainly not hard cast.

I also noticed that some jacketed rounds will "splash" on game and do a lot of surface damage without real penetration. shooting at car bodies will show little penetration by even the best jacketed rounds except FMJ.

[randy]

I was shooting a match that had bad steel the ric came back hit Bear308 almost put him to knees cut his open blood everywhere. MEDIC. Moral of the story is don't shoot junk steel, always wear eye protection.

[Munk]

Things I've noticed:
Jackets love to do their own thing. splash/scatter/bounce/full ricochet.
Regular lead loves to splash/shatter.
Hardcast lead loves to shatter/bounce (depending on target).
Steel cores love to penetrate while sending their surrounding lead out and back.

It really depends on what you mean by "steel wall". The many varieties of steel and their thickness and rigidity of their mounting will make an actual determination quite difficult.

Freestanding (loose, can give slightly on impact), and common hanging targets are unlikely to send a full ricochet back, but will send some lead splash and jackets back.

Completely rigid steel (of a hard variety) is more likely to do a full on ricochet.

Softer steels are bent slightly on impact and will have much splash from the soft bits, while being full on penetrated by a steel core.



Just some things i've seen with various handgun and rifle rounds. It's so hard to nail down the variables completely, i'm sure with some strict testing you can confirm/refute my observations.

Edit: Oh yeah, the above poster is right. EYE PROTECTION. I try to never shoot without my eyes on. I've been stung in the cheek by more than a few pieces of jacket and other bits of debris.

[HighLander51]

West End Gun Club 3 gun match one time a shooting buddy of mine popped a shotgun slug into a full size IPSC steel hung at a funny angle, it bounced off, hit the hard pan, and came straight back past the shooter and hit a guy in the chest. Knocked the wind out of him, and made big welt. Course it was the size of a tennis ball when it returned, still most of the mass was there. Funny part was the guy who got hit thought it was on purpose.... Yes, shooting steel with anything has it's hazards.

[IMC87]

[lotar4life]

Nutty... here's another...

[lotar4life]

Hahahaha... sometimes it's just the gun itself that kicks your arse!



another favorite!

[Jonathan Doe]

One day during a training, my recruit shot at a steel target with a Beretta 92FS using a Remington 115 FMJ ammo at 25 yards. The bullet flattened against the steel target, flew back and hit her in the upper arm. Luckily, the bullet hit her with the flat side instead of with the edge. All she got was a BIG bruise, but what if it hit with the edge?

During my FBI SWAT school, we shot at a metal target with a SMG in full auto. A fargment flew back and hit the instructor's chect and pentrated. The instructor had to go to the emergency room and got trated for the injury.

Shooting at a hard object is not a good idea.