[7.62mm.ak47]

My friends and I went shooting on state land today and passed a few hunters on the road in to our normal plinking ground. It got me wondering about how many accidents actually happen out there. We normally shoot at targets with a big sand/dirt hill behind them but ricochets/bullets that fly off into the air do happen occasionally. What is the chance of someone getting hit by a bullet that ricocheted off a target or backstop? I hate being paranoid but I definitely don't want to take a round from someone else who is hunting nearby or injure someone myself (particularly with a .223, will it still have much energy after it hits something?) Thanks!

[gathert]

I have been hit several times by ricochets and its not exactly fun. If you are actively shooting I doubt a hunter will accidentally aim at you but you could always wear bright orange just to be safe. All ricochets are different but most of the time its just jacket pieces flying back off hard surfaces like metal or rock. Occasionally whole bullets, usually lead, can come back at you. Those are none to fun to get hit by I'll tell you that much.

[firesky101]

ricochets are no fun, but for the most part non-lethal. You sound like you take necessary precautions to avoid tragedy unlike one of our local police departments. One local small town PD was using a neighboring towns range when an officer overshot the backstop. With incredibly bad luck a citizen walking his dog down a nearby road was struck by this .223. I don't remember hearing he died, but not too fun. This happened about 2-3 years ago.

[T Bran]

I normally dont target shoot during hunting season just for this reason I've had people shooting down the trail that I come in and out on. I know how PO'ed I was and would never take the chance of accidentally having someone down range. Even on my own property I refrain from shooting during season since it may spook game on my neighbors place. It is not illegal just a matter of courtesy that we all adhere to in the area. After season it sounds like a war zone once again.
Stay safe
T

[7.62mm.ak47]

Wow, that's always scary to hear firesky. It's kind of nice being in the middle of nowhere because there are very few people in case something does happen. Also, maybe you can answer this; if you're shooting at a frozen lake from a hillside, will it generally penetrate or deflect? My friends were shooting at targets on a lake covered in about 4"+ of ice recently and luckily every shot penetrated. Later it occurred to us that this might have been a bad idea since we didn't know how steel core ammo would react when hitting the ice. (For the record, hills and trees surrounded the lake for an added buffer.)

[firesky101]

not something I would generally do, but I am no expert. Mythbusters recently did some bouncing of handgun rounds off of a frozen lake, other than that I can't say one way or another.

[7.62mm.ak47]

@T Bran- That's something I've always been a little concerned about. Up here I think it just became bow season but I'm not entirely sure.

[7.62mm.ak47]

The frozen lake test was actually to see if a handgun bullet would keep spinning from the rifling of the barrel if I remember correctly. Pretty cool stuff.

[armedwalleye]

During hunting seasons a lot of states ban target shooting except at approved ranges. I suspect both to allow some margin of safety for hunters as well as reduce the number of folks illegally taking animals with the claim of "target shooting". I'd check your state regs if you've going to shoot on state land during an open hunting season.

[rcmodel]

1. All guns are always loaded.
2. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
3. Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target.
4. Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.

—Jeff Cooper[


See this about shooting in at non-approved "plinking areas" in the woods.
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/feb/26/sheriffs_officers_seeking_answers_girls_shooting/

rc

[Gunnerboy]

i agree on ricochets they hurt like crazy ive been hit out duck hunting by bbs so your not paranoid just thoughtful

[rcmodel]

Gettin hit by shotgun pellets at a distance is a far cry from getting hit by a .30 cal bullet whining along at 2,000 FPS.

One stings and the other one will kill you.

rc

[7.62mm.ak47]

I checked; It's always legal to shoot targets even during hunting seasons as long as you have targets set up and are on state land. We are miles and miles away from any homes I assure you but thanks for the heads up.

[7.62mm.ak47]

PS - In my state at least.

[sig220mw]

A friend that is a locomotive engineer like myself was accidentally shot several months ago while on a train in Frierson, Louisiana. The shooter was approximately 400 yards from the tracks and shooting a 223. I don't know what type of rifle. The engineer side window was open. He was hit on the right side of his face just below the corner of his mouth. His lower jaw was wrecked and the bullet exited out the left side in almost the same exact place. The bullet then hit the conductor, who sits on the left side of the engine. It hit him in the wrist but didn't penetrate it. He said it just stung like hell. Luckily the conductor had worked for a fire department in the same area in previous years and knew who to call immediately. I went to visit the engineer in the hospital a few days later. His jaw was wired shut and he will be off work for a year or 2 in order to have several reconstructive surgeries. He is happy to be breathing. The shooter was found and it is reported that he started crying when he learned he shot someone so I am assuming he didn't mean to do it.

I said I assumed he didn't mean to do it because I know of several cases in which trains have been purposely shot at and hit. This is the first case of a friend or at least someone I personally know being hit.

[olafhardtB]

OK Curnell Cooper, I don't hunt any where but thick woods. I once went on a measuring spree and determined that in the woods arround here the furtherist away I can identify a target is 35 I say agian 35 yards. Your rifle can easily reach a lot futher than that, so lf we are going to be sure of what's behind our target we can't hunt in the woods especially those delicious squirrels. This is a minor reason that I like a 20 gauge. The big reason is I can't hit squat with a rifle.

[rduchateau2954]

I can tell you from experience that 20ga #8 ricochets back at you when shooting at ice.

[1911 guy]

7.62AK47, I'd double check on that. My reading of the state game laws says that shooting on state land, other than while taking game or on designated target ranges, is illegal.

In fact, let me go get my booklet and give you a page number right now.

[Ditchtiger]

The frozen lake test was actually to see if a handgun bullet would keep spinning from the rifling of the barrel if I remember correctly. Pretty cool stuff.
Did not see the Mythbuster's episode but from personal experiance I saw this.
Shot my SKS down at a 45% angle and saw something odd on the ice.
Went down to the frozen pond and found a slug spinning on its point like a top on the ice surface.
An other time after shooting at the ice with a .22 rimfire I found a slug sitting on the ice and at liked like it was vibrating. I reached down to pick it up and when I touched it, the slug spun out of my fingers. The .22 bullet was not vibrating it was still spinning.

[Owen Sparks]

Back in the summer I was talking to the woman across the street and a bullet whizzed right between us. One of our idiot neighbors was using the woods as a back stop and a bullet glanced off a tree at a 45 degree angle nearly hitting us. Another time a local moron was shooting into the lake behind the house at an angle and the bullets were skipping off the watter and rattling through the trees right behind a residential neighborhood.

[1911 guy]

It is unlawful for any person to use a rifle, pistol, revolver, shotgun or other firearm at any time on any land or water area, controlled or administered by the Division of Wildlife except while lawfully trapping, or hunting wild animals, or target practicing on a designated Division of Wildlife target range.

Taken directly via cut and paste from ohiodnr.com hunting and fishing regulations, public hunting lands section.

[7.62mm.ak47]

@1911 guy- sorry I should have said that I'm in Michigan now. Good to know for when I go back to Ohio though.

[hso]

During hunting season I would consider the risk too high to go plinking/hiking/birding in a area known to be used by hunters.

[Double Vision]

My property backs up to state land where a lot of folks hunt deer. On Saturday at around 5:00 PM, I heard the roar of a shotgun nearby (a lot closer than usual). It was pretty dark out by that time. I gotta question how wise it is to be shooting near homes when your target may not be certain.
Be safe.

[gilgsn]

I was flying an ultralight once, coming in for landing at a public airfield. It was duck season.. My plane was peppered with pellets from a shotgun.. There was no damage, but the engine being idle, I clearly heard the heavy-rain-like noise..

[Owen Sparks]

I visited a state park that borders a hunting club. There was a big sign in front of the nature trail warning people not to walk there during deer season.

[pockets]

During hunting seasons a lot of states ban target shooting except at approved ranges.
Which reminds me of the absolute most idiotic thing I have personally seen a hunter do.
A couple years ago during deer season, I was at the local state park shooting range. It is quite a decent size range, well marked, has separate areas all well defined; a shotgun area, a rifle range, and a pistol range.
I had just arrived and was saying howdy to the full-time Range Officer. Then the shooters on the firing line start yelling downrange. We all looked at the backstop/berm. There were two hunters just meandering across the top of the backstop at 100 yards, from one side of the rifle range to the other....just as stupid as stupid can be......
I mean there were people shooting downrange when these two Einsteins decided to stroll across the range....as if deer were hiding out behind the backstop?
I am not sure what they were thinking or not thinking.
Luckily for them, the rest of us were looking out for their welfare that day. Morons.

.

[Daveboone]

I remember well being taught in hunter safety class (35 years ago) a rifle is never to be discharged over open water...frozen included. Open refering to any lake, river, pond, etc. There is no telling how far a round will richochet. A friend and I were shooting his .45 carbine on private land, backstopped. a week later we returned hunting. When we returned to our vehicle a local LEO was waiting for us. It turns out the previous week a richochet from our shooting hit a house 3/4 of a mile away. Luckily for us (and everyone else) no one was hurt, we denied shooting there, and didnt have the weapon with us..end of story EXCEPT- never again will I target shoot unless at a range. There is too much bad publicity from trash shooters, and no real call for it.
Usually a club membership can be found very inexpenssively (starts around 35.00 a year around here), and much more productive range time can be spent.

[Trent]

Our local range at Tremont, IL caught some flak not so long ago from an escaped round.

Despite it being marked EVERYWHERE that there is no shooting of anything except paper targets in front of a backstop, some idiots kept bringing stuff and setting on the ground well in front of the backstop (the worst of these was a bowling ball, that person was subsequently and very permanently banned from the range).

Anywho, on the other side of our rifle range backstop is some big fields, and the Mackinaw river. One of the local fishermen leaves a plastic white seat out there all the time (he must like that spot).

Comes out one day to find a bullet hole square in the middle of the back of the seat. Rifle round. 30 cal.

Someone overshot the backstop, or skipped a round off the ground, up and over.

If he'd been sitting there, he'd be dead. The hole was right where his heart would be if he were fishing.

So, yeah. Backstops matter when target shooting. So does rule #4. :)

[Pyzon]

Shooting at any target (paper, tin can or animal) without being sure of what exists behind it within the range of that firearm is asking for heartache, sooner or later. Target shooting on state land during hunting season anywhere is not wise, is it ?

[xfyrfiter]

I have been shot at while in camp while deer hunting, I no longer hunt big game because of this type of idiot.

[12gaugeTim]

I've had my fair share of #8/7.5 shot. Usually raining on me but all too often stinging on my back and chest bit luckily never my eye. This cannot compare to a rifle at all. A child once dropped dead at a water park near me from a stray .22 to the head.

[destrux]

I was hit in the leg with a burning tracer round that I fired out of an SKS. Happened about ten years ago. I was shooting 150 grain .308" tracers (reloads). They were a bit heavy and small for the barrel size/twist I was shooting them out of, so they didn't stabilize well, but since they weren't loaded to be match target ammo I didn't think anything of it. I mostly just used them to shoot just to see the tracer effect. Well one day I was at a friend's range and we were firing into wet phone books from 50 yards away to compare the power of various calibers and I wanted to see what a spent tracer bullet looked like. When I fired the bullet "keyholed" into the phone book stack and blew up out of the top of it and flew straight up in the air. A few seconds later, while I was still crouched down, it landed right on top of my leg. All it did was leave a welt, but talk about weird and unexpected. The bullet DID set the leaves on fire that were next to me. I pulled the bullets from the rest of that ammo and I don't mess with .308" in a .310" barrel anymore.



So it goes to show, you have to expect the unexpected and consider everything when it comes to knowing where that bullet will end up when you fire it.

[shiftyer1]

My last home was backed by a field and the property line was the only tree line around. The doves just loved this but the dove hunters didn't pay much attention to the direction they were shooting which resulted in my kids and I getting "rained on" pretty often until I had enough. There was also a child shot off of a trampoline nearby a few years ago. The neighbor across the field was plinking with his 22. Sadly the child didn't make it.

The odds of anything happening is probably pretty low BUT it does happen and i'd hate for it to be me firing the shot. I've been considering getting a truckload of sand for a backstop at home.

The bullet spinning on ice sounds far fetched to me, i'd have to see it to believe it.

[gathert]

Here ya go. its the video that started the whole bullet spinning thing. Not the safest or brightest guys it seems, but they prove their point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foZlciP6gUQ

[shiftyer1]

Thats pretty cool:) I stand corrected.

[jmstevens2]

@T Bran- That's something I've always been a little concerned about. Up here I think it just became bow season but I'm not entirely sure.
Sept 24 to Feb 5 actually for bow in Ohio. Deer season for gun is shorter, but there are several kinds at different times during that period.
If you are in the woods without Orange during amateur week you would be very foolish.

[lono]

A friend and I were shooting 9mm into an old fiberglass basketball goal in the woods. He had a ricochet that went straight up and came down onto his left shoulder. It resulted in what he described as someone thumping him with a fingertip. No damage but both of us left with a healthy respect for ricochets.

[Double Naught Spy]

During hunting season I would consider the risk too high to go plinking/hiking/birding in a area known to be used by hunters.

No doubt the burden of assured safety is on the person who potentially may be shot, but usually the liability is on the shooter and the shooters don't always take safety to heart. Every year, there are a couple hundred people who get shot by hunters, sometimes themselves, sometimes other hunters, and sometimes other people who aren't hunting and occasionally it is people who are even on their own property or even inside their own homes. It can be hard to defend against idiots.

A few years back, there was the lady killed (mistaken for a bear) on the Sauk Mountain hiking trail. She was killed by a hunter who was hiking the exact same trail ahead of her. The trail is a popular and well travelled trail and she was shot close to the trail's starting point. http://www.wta.org/trail-news/signpost/hiker-killed-by-hunter-on-sauk-mountain

This Marine Reservist was killed this year while hiking with a buddy. He too was thought to have been a bear. The hunter has been indicted. http://www.kval.com/news/local/133927573.html

While it may not be prudent for hikers to be out during hiking season, ironically there are hunters who hunt hiking trails where people and horse riders are known to be.
http://www.northernnews.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2169991&archive=true
This guy got off because his rights were violated when he was arrested.

Some of the mistaken shots are pretty outlandish...

This guy mistook a white horse with a 12 year old rider on it for a deer. He got probation and a fine for shooting the horse. http://brainerddispatch.com/stories/112202/sne_1122020004.shtml

Another horse shot, across property lines...
http://www.wfxg.com/story/16150190/rider-devastated-after-beloved-horse-shot-by-hunter

Pet donkey on own property shot and killed as a buck...
http://spencerangeltvedt.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/pet-donkey-killed-by-hunter/

Karen Wood was shot in her own back yard and locals blamed her for getting shot.
http://www.yankeemagazine.com/issues/2008-01/interact/10things/karenwood/all
The hunter was indicted, but found not guilty of manslaughter. He had fired 2 shots, one supposedly at a deer and thinking he missed, fired a second shot at the flash of the deer's tail that turned out to be Wood's white gloved hands. http://bangordailynews.com/2008/11/14/news/bangor/twenty-years-ago-two-shots-rang-out-forever-alteringlives-and-laws/

But heck, it isn't even being out hiking or outside on your own property where folks aren't safe from idiot hunters. Some aren't even safe inside their own homes.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2276018/posts

This guy didn't hurt anyone, but shoot a home across a highway while deer hunter.
http://www.wivb.com/dpp/news/crime/police-say-hunter-shot-warsaw-home

You do bring up an interesting conundrum. If it isn't prudent to hike where people are known to hunt, how do you hike to your hunting spot to hunt?

[EmbarkChief]

In my experience there are a siginificant number of people out there who have no idea about ricochet's and how bullets react after hitting a hard object. Case in point:

My best friends wife wanted to shoot my AR-15, so we went down to the river (private property) for some target practice. This location has a high bank on the opposite side (30' at least) which provides a good backstop. I throw a few sticks out there for targets and she gets to work. Well, she keeps shooting way below the target and I keep telling her to shoot higher but she says "I can see the bullets hitting the bank on the other side so I must be too high". That's when I explain the rounds are bouncing off the water and hitting the bank. She doesn't believe me so to prove my point I loaded up a couple of tracers and shot the water. That cleared things up real quick. She had no idea that rounds could bounce and change direction like that... BTW, she was a police officer in a major city at the time.

[mgmorden]

Ricochets vary in potential harm. Its not much of a problem with a pistol. Dirt stops them pretty good, and most stuff that will bounce them back (ie, steel plates) fragments them and they lose velocity fast. I've been struck plenty of times from splatter/ricochets off steel plates from 20-30 yards away, and it doesn't feel like more than a gentle thump (excellent proof on why you should wear eye protection though).

Shotguns also lose energy fast if you're talking pellets. If you've ever hunted a crowded river during duck season you've almost certainly had some steel shot rain back down on you. Doesn't even hurt.

The problem comes in from bigger stuff like rifles, and moreso glancing hits that merely deflect the bullet a bit rather than a true ricochet. I know one person who was hit by a 00 buckshot from nearly over 100 yards away as it skipped off of a highway. It did penetrate the skin and he had to be hospitalized, but that was mostly just to pull it back out - it was just a flesh wound.

[eye5600]

I had a vacation in Colorado this summer. In the vacation house was a guide to climbing all the peaks. In the writeup for one mountain, it said flatly, don't hike this mountain during hunting season because in the past there had been as many as 200 hunters on it at one time.

[JustinJ]

My aunt got peppered while dove hunting. Some pellets actually penetrated the skin of her leg resulting in a horrid infection that required a powerful antibiotic to knock out.

My father's best friend got nailed in the kidney with bird shot from about 15 yards away. He was starflighted out and was in hospital for a while with organ damage but is luckily okay now. The idiot who shot him was walking back to his car and accidentally managed to pull the trigger as he swept my father's friend.