Post 1200  Lets hear those ricochet stories - Have you been hit?

A long time ago I was shooting a Mini-14 and I charged up on a target stapled to a sheet of plywood. About 20ft behind the taget, hidden in the brush was a break drum... One 223 round partially disintegrated but came back on a 180 course and went almost through my ear.

When I turned my head into the wind a spray of blood was hitting the front of my shirt - this was when I noticed I had a problem. I turned around and saw the streams of blood shooting out about 5ft with each heart beat. When I reached up to my ear I cut myself on the bullet jacket that was protruding out the back side of my ear just above the lobe.

I pulled out the jacket fragment with a pair of needle nose from my gun cleaning tool box. - For lack of better - 2 patches and a peice of duct tape made a good field dressing. Strangely the only time I felt anything was while pulling the fragment out. It was about half the jacket (width) and was the length of the 55gr FMJBT bullet above the cannular.

YES I was wearing eye protection, things could have been very ugly.

Bowling pin shooting at an indoor range. My buddy was shooting and his bullet ricocheted off the backstop and back off the window BEHIND me and fell on my head.

Ive picked pleanty of copper jackets form my legs while shooting steel too close. Kinda easy to do when i get into a course Ive set up and running around.
Also I shot at a steel target way too close for a 223 and the jacket sepperated from the core and came back and hit me in my mag holster I had on. Hurt like a bitch. Still have a nasty hole in the holster

My dad fired a .357 into a thin steel sign, like a realtors sign. It came back, hit the tree in front of him and took out a chunk, then hit me in the chest right where you heart is. Hurt about as bad as a paintball, maybe a little more. I don't see how the hell it happened, but there you have it. Pretty damn scary, had it not hit the tree first it would have broken the skin and then some.

Shooting subsonic 22lr at about 3yds and there were railroad ties in the backstop....about every other shot was a head weave to dodge the bullet on the rebound...we moved back some...this was an NRA pistol class I took for CCW.

Shooting at a state range and a handgun round kicked back a rock or other debris { I still think it was the jacket of the HP bullet, but we never found it} and hit me in the lip, luckily it had already scrubed all the speed off and just left a welt.

Walked into a indoor range durring an IPSC shoot....

Took a .45 Montana Gold directly in the centre of my chest..

Threw me right off my feet!

The range designer had placed a plate on the FLOOR directly in front of the lead catcher from the venitian blind backstop....it was an ricochete waiting to happen!!

Had a friend's new car at the range a few years ago, while we were shooting some steel poppers.  The car was parked behind us and to the side a bit-  
 The steel was at about 25 feet, and we were hitting it all afternoon with #7.5 birdshot...let's just say that his paintjob wasn't "new" anymore.  I guess we didn't hear the richochets with out hearing protection on.  
 My friend never did drive his car to the range after that!  

I was living in northern WI, & I was in my back yard shooting my M-4 at a steel target about 50 yards away, maybe slightly more. I was shooting FMJ's at it & about the 3 hit I felt a hard hit in my hand & side. The copper jacket had come straight back at me & cut the pinky finger of my right hand, & then spun down, & blew through my thick sweatshirt & cut into my side. Just as I was figuring out what had happened a truck I didn't recognize came down my driveway. I thought it was my next door neighbor coming over to complain about the noise. It turned out it was my mom,& dad in a surprise visit from Texas. So there I stand bleeding from my gunshot wound, in front of my parents!
I have been hit by lots of .22 lead splatter from friend I was standing by who were shooting as well.

I really don't have one but I can tell a pretty funny one that happened a couple weeks ago.

Me and Sniper Wolfe were hanging around two old barns on my property being trouble makers. We were looking for trouble.....

Sniper_Wolfe has his match pellet gun along and we are doin some accurate plinking in the barn when he decides to investigate the oppurtunities under the barn, well he yells that there is a snake.

I jump down through the hatch and I see a snake stuck in between the floor boards of the above level, with his body resting in a barn swallow nest. Well we shot him in the stomach (I thought it was a water moccasin due to the pattern) and that got his attention, he pulled his head out from between the floorboards and kind of hung there in the air, Sniper_Wolfe shot again and it richocheted off of the bricks and nailed him in the lip. We finally shot him in the head and that finished him off. I found out that this is a common water snake which is common to this area, I passed up oppurtunity to kill a couple more, it's nature I'll leave it be.

It was pretty funny watching Sniper_Wolfe absorb the impact...

Good times

...yeah, and this one time at band camp.....


Damn ass plundering sophomores talking about eachother's snakes! [:)]

Friend of mine was hit by a jacket fragment at an indoor pistol range.  Went deep into his calf and he had to go to the ER.

WWhen I was akid I had one of those 1911 style Crossman air pistols.  I remember shooting at a glass jar on the ground at my feet.  The BB bounced right back and hit me in the right eye just as I blinked.  I think if I jad not blinked it would have blinded me.  

I shot a pepper popper with my 10mm glock at an IPSC match. It came back and hit me in the elbow......Damn that hurt. I just about pissed in my pants. I have a friend that was struck by lightning on the range. Ignored it after he realized he wasn't dead and then got hit by a 45 ball round in the top of his hand and it penetrated. He finaly took the hint and went home.

Me too.  As a kid they were great fun.  Were you trying to make a 'Diamond'?

At about 10 years old, I was shooting BB's from a rifle.  In the second floor of a garage or barn, sniping out the window.  Being such a great marksman, I took aim at a spot on a small hardwood tree squarely in front of me (had to be less than 20 feet away).  

Still remember seeing the BB bounce straight back. Hit me right between the eyebrows.  

That's what, less than an inch from being blind?



 

One time in an indoor range, I took a flattened out wadcutter to the cheek.

A friend & I were shooting up an old Pontiac with AK's, we both managed to pop each other with ricochets.

My wife last month was shooting poppers, it didn't fall over and the round went into my arm. Luckily it didn't hurt bad and only bled a little.
But how many guys can say their wife shot them and are still married?

I was shooting subsonic .22lr a little to close at a tree and it bounced off, went through the side of a thin steel shed and right through the window of an old tractor at my grandmothers farm


She sold it 3 weeks later, so she didnt care.

Once I was shooting a friend's 1928 at a stack of railroad tie he used as a backstop.I had about 25 rounds left in the drum,so I just cut loose with a burst and one hit a steel plate in the pile and it came back and tagged me in the sack, which dropped me like a rock [but I didn't drop the thompson] luckly no real damage, but it hurt like hell for about a week.

i was up in Cuero, TX at my aunts ranch shooting w/some buddies....my bud was firing a 7mag at a steel plate about 100 or so yrds down range....i still dont know for sure what it was...but he fired and almost instantly i fell down..something had hit me in the shin ..it felt like a baseball bat..i looked down and had a huge knot and was bleeding pretty badly.  i dont know if it was shrapnel from the plate..or a piece of the bullet.  either way...it sucked.  

Of course there's always the story of the two Oklahoma Highway Patrolmen who are out shooting time trials on a line of pepper poppers...Beeep the buzzer goes off and both of them blast away at the poppers. A ricochet hits the first trooper right in the chest and he grabs his chest and says "I'm Shot" The other trooper says "The hell you say, look at that time".

[slap]

By the way, the trooper who took the ricochet was not hurt to bad.

123grn/fmj 7.62x39mm vs. 1/2" plate @ 10yds.
Sks w/20" bbl
Ricochet into the face.Blood EVERYWHERE(pulse spurting too)Knocked me stupid for what seemed like forever.(I thought I was dead)I STILL have a perfect circle dead center in my forehead as a permanent reminder.My dad was standing behind me and thought (by the blood spurting 5 or 6 ft)
that I had blew my brains out.(me too)I remember coming back to reality(the BADDEST man HERE,EVER,couldn't hit me as hard as that bullet did)covered in blood,realizing where I was,what had happened, and not moving from the sitting position I was in and holding the rifle away from me demanding that he take this POS rifle from me and that I NEVER wanted to shoot that rifle again!lol


ricochet's SUCK!!!!

Took a bounce-back .44 mag in the ribs from about 30 feet once. It hurt alot and left a small bruise.

SMG Operator's School was a veritable cornnucopia (using big words helps me wake up) of ricochets. Everyone at the course had suffered multiple minor cuts from flying bullet jackets by the end of the week, especially when shooting the standards drills on steel at 10 yards, and because our department insisted that we only shoot JHP duty ammo. None were particularly bad though, so you just sucked it up and drove on. Eyes, ears and armor were absolutely mandatory, so no major injuries, and most folks had their sleeve down and wore gloves. After Day 2 and one particularly nasty cut, all of our guys decided that helmets weren't a real bad idea, either.

At a county range in Nassau - was shooting my 158gr wadcutters, no biggie. Then this one shot, bang, a ricochet right in the left leg shin level. I was wearing boots at the time and they took a lot of the sting. There was no blood, just a red spot.

Don't know if this counts as ricochet - at the same range shooting my .22LR PPK/s - firing pin must have puncture the rim, gas and sh*t flew straight back AND under my shooting glasses. Sh*t got under my hard contact - hurt like a MF'r. When at the eye doctor the net result was nasty corneal abrasion - resulting in 3 months of assorted eye drops and no contacts. It healed, but the scratches took a long time to go away.

Was shooting with a friend up a local canyon at an informal range, drawing my CCW 9mm and popping a homade steel target... just a little too close. At first I thought I had limp wristed the second round of a "hammer" and the shell had hit me in the head. Didn't notice the more severe wound in my leg for a second or two then it felt like someone hit me with a hammer with a hot nail. Took a fragment in the left scalp, one in the left elbow... and a big chunk in left thigh, about the size of a pencil eraser."Ohh Shit Burt... I shot myself" [shock]

Friend drove me down to the hospital, in which time (10 minutes) I had stopped the bleeding from my leg to a slow trickle and the headwound had stopped bleeding. Finally noticed my left elbow bleeding on my seatcover in my truck just before we went in. Had called mom and pop on the cell to let them know what was going on... and that I was ok. Spent from 9:30 PM untill about 2AM in the hospital mostly sitting in agown... cold, and ocassionally being wheel around 5 turns to the x-ray room where they scanned my crotch area several times [naughty] (good looking nurses)... then they just sent me home with some loratab and some antiseptic cream. "keep it clean and if the pain dosn't go away come back"

Finally parents drove me over to pick up my truck from my friends house. Father had to drive it home for me cuz my leg was stiff as hell. Popped a L-tab and went to bed... leg was stiff in the morning

The fragment in my scalp, after about a month and a half, I had my girlfriend pull out with tweezers when it started to abcess.  That hurt like hell-- scalp seperating from skull...[:|] about 1/8"x1/16"x1/2" size

The one in my elbow came out at Doc's with a little help from a scalpel and some topical anisthetic (sp?)... bout the same size as the last one.

I still have the big chunk in my leg... no problems yet. Scar is almost gone, but I still have a pair or jeans with a nice hole in the left thigh.

Havn't shot steel since. But my New XD-9 Sub Compact may change that. [pistol]

I was 2 feet away from an AD in the mens room. A 9mm silver tip (115 grain) hit the tile floor. I got hit in the chin with a piece of the bullet fragment.

My ears were ringing for a week.

It was NOT an ND. The gun (S&W 639) was defective.

Mike

I had a .32 ACP FMJ come back on me at a range I no longer shoot at.  One of those 1 in a million shots.  It popped back and buried itself in my left shoulder.  You could see the back end sticking out of the skin.  So, being the idiot I was, I grabbed a pair of forcepts and yanked it out.  As soon as I regained conciousness from the pain, a friend drove me to the hospital to get patched up.  

We were testing out my father in laws new shotgun at the local range.  There is a special place to shoot shotguns with wire fencing set up at about 15 yards.  About the 3rd time I fired I took a ricochet in the tooth (must have been smiling or something).  Talk about pain!

I was shooting with a friend one evening at his house.  I was shooting my Glock 30 into a steel plate about 35 yards away and he was shooting an 8 mm Yugo M48 rifle at a target about one hundred yards away.  Well, as I am squeezing off a round his rifle shoots a round and intantly it was like someone had hit me in the nose with a fist.  Dipshit had shot the steel plate with his rifle and the bullet jacket had bounced back and hit me in the nose, under it right between the nostrals!  Blood was everywhere and cartilege was sticking out.  He freaked out, my wife freaked out.  I thought I was going to be a mutant the rest of my life but the doctor pulled it all together with 8 stitches and now you can't hardly notice it is there.  My friend felt terrible about it.  I still shoot with him.

patsue

i caught an 8mm jacket splatter from a friend's 1927 dwm built maxim machine gun. the gun was 30 yards to my left. we were shooting at a car.

the round went out 80-90 yards and came back and hit me in the groin (whew! that was close!). just a few drops of blood.

the lead was gone and i still have the 3/8" square piece of copper jacket that hit me.

Geez, with all you guys shooting at steel plates 30 feet away, it's a wonder you're not all dead.  Especially shooting rifles!

I had the same experience someone else already posted, seeing the BB coming straight back at me.  Can't remember what I was shooting at, but the BB hit me in the forehead.  No penetration.  

A friend shot a steel silhouette at 25 yards with a .30-30, and a fragment of the jacket hit the guy standing next to me in his hand.  Nasty gash on his knuckle, but didn't hurt too bad.  He was cool about it, didn't get pissed or anything.  

I've heard ricochets go all around me, but never been hit.  

BB reminded me of "Christmas Story" - 'I wanna Red Ryder BB Gun' [b] ...you'll shoot your eye OUT![/b]

I caught a grenade fragment in the back of my neck at Ft. Benning.  I was all the way back in the bleacher area far behind the firing line talking to my bud's at the time.  

I guess someone must have thrown like a pansy and didn't get the damn thing very far downrange.  It was a small shard that broke the skin but didn't go all the way in.  I pulled it out and a band aid took care of it.

45 ACP FMJ fired against berm struck middle of mychest and dropped at my feet.

I never had much use for big, slow moving bullets anyway [;)]

So I guess your trip to Ohio is canceled?


Oh, Elad also failed to mention the fact that he cowered behind me like a little girl as I bravely shot the snake! [:D]


Edit: I guess I should tell a story too. One time I was shooting at this bell with my BB gun, and I felt a BB come right back at me and go through my hair. Like an idiot, I continued to shoot right there in the same place. Never happened again.

I only did it because I didn't have any eye protection.... [baby]

9mm lead bullet that bounded back from a pepper popper. Hit me in the chest. No damage
to jacket, just felt like someone poked me good.

Closest I've come to being hit was while plinking with a .22 -- had a round come pretty much straight back and bury itself in the front of the stump I was sitting on.  Started me thinking about wether I should consider an athletic cup as standard shooting equipment.

[LOLabove]  MUUAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!  Ever wonder what that movie "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" would have been like if Arnie had a pellet gun?  

Hey! that's where I was born :)
HTH did i end up in Kalistan?!?

you guys are crazy. When I go shooting at the local outdoor range I hear stuff richocheting all around me.. never been hit by anything (yet)
Mental note, never shoot at steel or metal targets @ 10-30 yards...