Let's discuss .22 ricochets on water.

[Ignition Override]

If you are standing over a small river with deep embankments on both sides, you have a pretty good berm. Both banks are about 18-23 feet above the average water level and are quite steep, with thick trees in most areas above. The nearest home, about 3/4 mile, behind numerous trees.

If you ever take somebody with you and they are willing to hit something about 100 yards down the river, but miss hitting a stump at the bottom of the embankment, but out in the middle, how far will a cheap Rem. fmj skip, and how about a cheap Rem. brass-coated jhp? I don't shoot any distance downstream except with the .22 and bought jhp for this reason.

 

[General Geoff]

Get some tracers and find out.

I'd say a ricochet would have maybe half the range it did before it struck something. So with any centerfire cartridge, a ricochet is still quite lethal out to several hundred yards. A .22 probably will only continue on for a hundred or two hundred yards after even a shallow angle ricochet. But you won't know for certain unless you use tracers to give you a better idea.

 

[Ignition Override]

"Roger that" General. Did not occur to me. Maybe online is the only place to look. Thank you sir (bid good morning with a snappy salute).

Looking forward to any other comments.

 

[bhk]

Years ago I read where someone chronoed .22 bullets skipping off water at a shallow angle. They lost only 50 fps. That means they could continue to go for a thousand or more yards.

The nearest house being 3/4 of a mile away has nothing to do with how close the nearest cattle, hikers, hunters, etc. are. Be careful out there!!

 

[mr.trooper]

on a level trajectory, most 22 rimfire will only travel a few hundred yard before it hits the dirt. but pointed up in the air? who knows?

 

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

Years ago I read where someone chronoed .22 bullets skipping off water at a shallow angle. They lost only 50 fps. That means they could continue to go for a thousand or more yards.

The nearest house being 3/4 of a mile away has nothing to do with how close the nearest cattle, hikers, hunters, etc. are. Be careful out there!!

What he said!

 

[wayne in boca]

I remember reading that a .22 long rifle can retain 90% of its velocity when ricochetting off water at a shallow angle.
Do .22 tracers stay lit after hitting water?

 

[GRIZ22]

how far will a cheap Rem. fmj skip, and how about a cheap Rem. brass-coated jhp

There are too many variables to give a definitive answer. It could be a few yards or over half a mile.

 

[Acera]

Angle of Reflection = Angle of Incidence

While generally used when speaking of light, I have noticed it when I shoot shallow angles into water. Kinda like a bouncing a pool ball off the rail. We used to shoot bb guns, then .22s into the bayou where my grandparents lived, and got to where we were hitting targets on the other side with the bounce.

Something I will have to try at the pond next time I am out in the woods. Used to be real fun.



Before anyone jumps on me for being unsafe, the land on the other side was very wooded, bank of bayou high, and no houses for miles. Grand Pa and Dad both said it was safe to do, but that has been 30+ years ago, lol.

 

[chris in va]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeJus16y4VM

 

[W.E.G.]

Shooting rifles so as to deflect off water is considered very bad form - no matter what excuses are offered.

 

[jpwilly]

Bullets deflect whether shooting off of water or dirt, rocks, the ground etc. Provided you know it's safe to do so I don't see any problems.

 

[ShakyJake]

Riccochet on water

Hi all
Back in the '50s when I was a teenager one of our local doctors was fishing on a local lake, they say about a quarter mile from shore. Two boys in their early teens were shooting frogs with .22's along the shore. Very popular back then. A bullet from one of the rifles riccocheted and hit the doctor in the back. By the time he was found and attended to he died from shock and loss of blood. Since my mother was a nurse, I knew the doctor and I also knew the teens, at that distance they had taken no notice of him and were not shooting toward him. They were also patients of his. That was 50 years ago and I have never forgotten it. Play with your physics all you want, under the right conditions, tragedy is around the corner for the unwary. Just ask 3 families here on the west coast of Fl. Challenge Nature and you pay.
TaKe CaRe
Ted

 

[trstafford]

FYI

In some states like NC it is illegal to fire into water because of ricochets

 

[CajunBass]

Back when I was a kid, we used to shoot our 22's at turtles in the pond. (1) We didn't know any better, and (2) probably wouldn't have worried too much about it if we did. It was MILES through the woods before you got to anything to hit other than a tree, or a very unlucky squirrel.

I don't know how far those bullets went, but I remember well that ricochet sound after the shot.

 

[22-rimfire]

As a kid, you dismiss the "chance" that something will happen and ricochets are just sort of ... "did you see or hear that?" . As you get older and see lots of things do in fact happen, many police themselves. The sooner you realize that there is a fair accident potential (manslaugher), you stop shooting at targets in water.

I don't know what angle would minimize the chance of a ricochet with a 22, but I would guess any angle greater than about 30 degrees makes it a lot safer. But you still shouldn't do it. There are other things to hit than a house at 3/4 mile and there is always the chance of unseen targets that are present. I feel the same way about shooting squirrels high up in a tree. You miss and you have no idea where that bullet may impact.

Shooting into water is a bad idea, but almost all of us have done it.

 

[mr.trooper]

If you know how much a bullet drops at a given distance, all you need to do is hold over that same amount to hit your target.

at 1,000 yards, a 40grain hyper velocity .22LR with a 50 yard zero will drop approximately 3,600 inches, or about 100 yards. That means you would have to hold 100 yards above your 1,000 yard target to reach it with a .22.

This is the scary part: 100 yards of hold over at 1,000 yards only amounts to about 6* of elevation above the horizontal. Now, after traveling that far, the bullet will only be going about 340fps, and carrying 10ft-lbs of energy, but the fact that it CAN go that far with so little elevation is frightening. Nothing within 3/4 mile is safe from a .22 ricochet, and given the right conditions, an errant .22 has the potential to travel even farther.

I didn't believe it myself at first. I ran the trig several times and double checked my unit conversions, but I'm certain they are correct.

the GOOD news, if you can call it that, is beyond 500 yards, a .22 probably doesn't have enough power to cause a serious injury, unless the soul in question is unlucky enough to get caught in the eye, temple, or neck. BUT ANY INJURY an inocent person suffers from your ricochet can potentialy come back to you, life threatening or not.

Beyond the catastrophic type of events that could result, even at 1,000 yards it still packs enough punch to cause property damage such as wounded pets, broken windows, and punctured car bodies. Those could all come back to you and get you in trouble.

Gentlemen, we are accountable for every bullet that we shoot. Ricochets are nothing to write off.

 

[Jeff F]

Shooting rifles so as to deflect off water is considered very bad form - no matter what excuses are offered.

+1
And shooting tracers in the woods is equally bad form.

Mr.trooper good post, especially the point about bullet accountability.

 

[WNTFW]

Speaking from the perspective of someone that got pinned down for over an hour by friendly ricochet fire, It is not the best Idea. My first step was to get behind some big trees. When they stopped shooting: step 2 was to yell, step 3 was to fire some rounds. 2 & 3 didn't work so we were stuck. The surprising thing to me was the woods seemed thick enough that the bullets would not have reached us.
If you know what is down range and are confirming the ricochets are landing safely that is one thing. Still bad things can & do happen so If I start getting ricochets of any kind I stop & I regroup for safer shooting.

 

[Harve Curry]

I have read that prior to WWII Germany used to have some real fancy painted targets. Some of these targets were used for skipping a bullet off water to see who could hit the target. Kinda like using enough "english" on the billiards table.

 

[dagger dog]

Robert A. Rinkers 'UNDERSTANDING FIREARM BALLISTICS" states Winchester conducted tests with .22 Super X and found an average of only 45 fps loss in velocity. Water and snow does not deform the bullet sufficeintly to make an appreciable difference.
A right hand rifiling will veer the bullet slightly to the right on ricochet a left rifiling the opposite.
The bullet will leave on the ricochet path at the same angle it entered. The lower the entry angle on a water ricochet the less the velocity is affected.

 

[GRIZ22]

Angle of Reflection = Angle of Incidence



This works with light but not bullets. Minor deformation of the bullet can radically change the angle of the ricochet.

 

[Polar Express]

Mr. Trooper, and DaggerDog posted interesting information with regards to answering your question. The math and physics are interesting, and frankly, it's kinda cool to understand what might happen. The 'unknown' that initially pops into my mind, is that very rarely is water as smooth as a sheet of glass, and therefor, the exact angle at which the bullet hits the plane of the water, cannot be known (ripples, waves, etc.). And, since during reflection the angle of entry=angle of departure, unless you have an exact way to measure the water at the precise moment of impact, there is really no way of knowing where that bullet is heading. I agree with the posts that we are accountable for every bullet that leaves our firearm, and one of the fundamentals of shooting is to be sure of your target before you shoot. It's an interesting concept to explore from a theoretical standpoint, and that can be fun, however, I humbly suggest that it is unwise to test those theories and the physics behind them unless it is done on a properly buffered firearms testing facility. It is our right to own and shoot firearms, our Constitution guarantees us that, but along with that comes a moral obligation to behave in a responsible manner.

I for one would not want anyone to be hurt, and I would also not want to give the political gun-phobes any more reason to want to limit our right. I agree it would be a fun factoid to know, but, I'm not sure that knowing is worth the potential damage.

 

[proplinker]

It sounds to me that we do not know enough about what makes the bullet ricoche, I'm an Indiana farm boy and have always wondered just what my bullet hit to make that distictive sound. I always thought it was a rock. or somthing hard. Ricochets on water no! all you are doing is skipping bullet. sounds like fun!!! There are some places in this country a person could go and try to answer want I think might be the biggest question, at what angle do you have to strike a flat rock -vs- a round rock. and at what speed? Use caution but sombody should explore the subject.....Please DO NOT try this on the Wabash river in Wabash county Indiana as the waleye & white bass are starting thier run. and I will be fishing over the next 5 weeks

 

[GRIZ22]

It sounds to me that we do not know enough about what makes the bullet ricoche,

Simplified, a bullet will ricochet when it is easier for the bullet to go in a different direction than it is going. While things can be controlled for trick shooting it is impossible to predict the direction it takes off in in the field.