One in a Billion Shot

[LeadFarmer74]

I have a Springfield XD so this was drawn to my attention. Link Here

One of Marquez's bullets struck the suspect's pistol, traveling straight down that gun's barrel and disabling it. Officials say such a shot is "one in a billion."

[waawaaweenie]

I hear Kim Jong Ill (or whatever the current dictators name is)could make that shot every time

when he isn't hitting continuous holes in one

[dwalker]

the real trick is shooting a .45 down a .40 barrel...

[Win231]

There were a couple of other incidents where a cop shot a gun out of suspect's hand:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y54aONB3dns

And who can forget that priceless shot in "Saving Private Ryan?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZv550Ofye0

[MrOrange]

Bullets striking an opponent's gun and gun hand/arm is very common. It's due to the shooter focusing on the thing that kicked their adrenals into high gear, so your brain construes the gun itself as the threat, so that's where the return fire goes. You see it all the time even on paper targets with representations of guns in opponent's hands.

But yeah, down the barrel is a bit rare.
(I'm thinking maybe 9mm in a .45 barrel helped a bit.)

There were a couple of other incidents where a cop shot a gun out of suspect's hand:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y54aONB3dns

And who can forget that priceless shot in "Saving Private Ryan?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZv550Ofye0

A sniper deliberately targeting a stationary suspect's stationary pistol is not comparable to face-to-face, mutual exchange, down the barrel.

All the various movies and TV shows that have shown a down-the-'scope shot are an homage to the popular account by a VN vet USMC sniper who inadvertently pulled it off. As he himself humbly noted, in order for that to happen, it had to mean that the opposing sniper also had him dead in his sights; he was lucky enough to get his shot off a lil' faster.

[tnlrat37]

^^^That was Gunny Hathcock, greatest sniper of all time

[Epaphroditus]

If you never aim for the barrel you are likely not to make that shot ...

[chris]

that is one hell of a shot though.

[God Bless America]

I hear Kim Jong Ill (or whatever the current dictators name is)could make that shot every time

when he isn't hitting continuous holes in one

While riding the magic unicorn.

[sloppy joe]

That will cause a malfunction for sure

[I Swan]

^^^That was Gunny Hathcock, greatest sniper of all time

He is up there but some of the WW2 snipers would give him a run for his money.

[dwalker]

But yeah, down the barrel is a bit rare.
(I'm thinking maybe 9mm in a .45 barrel helped a bit.)

According to the report the Deputy fired his .45 off duty weapon and the slug went into the .40 XD barrel. Very impressive and it just show .45 does beat .40 after all..

[k1dude]

John Wick could make that shot.

[billped]

We could calculate the odds given fair approximations.

If the tolerance is 0.1 inches (roughly the difference in diameter between .45acp and 9mm), the error range is 2 ft (made up, represents the real world error tolerance, think of the spread on a paper target during real world shooting at real world distances), then it is (2ft x 12in per foot / 0.1 inch tolerance) ^2, or 57,600:1.

I'm not accounting for bullet drop issues as I assume this is so close that bullet "tilt" or tumbling is negligible.

I'm also assuming the gun being shot into is pointed *directly* at the other gun. The math gets tricky if there is significant deviation here as I would need to understand bullet length, shape, crown geometry, etc.

As I said, fair approximations so perhaps it's 100,000:1 or 200,000:1, but not "one BILLION to one".

Critique/correction encouraged. I'm not yet completely conscious.

NOTE: if this was .40s&w, not 9mm, then multiply my odds by roughly four.

[j-shot]

Pure chance