Magic bullets and other oddities

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leadcounsel

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I've seen/heard of a few really weird bullet strike events in my life, reminding me of the randomness of our little lead friends from intentional or negligent discharges. Here are a few I'll share, and ask you to share a few of your own stories.

1. The colliders. A few years ago at Gettysberg I saw on display in the museum are two bullets that collided in air and fused. Imagine the volumn of lead in the air for two bullets to strike and fuse! img_8603.jpg

2. In 1991, at a handgun range in Dallas, a teenage boy was struck and killed by a .45 ACP pistol round from an adjacent pistol range. Totally random and improbable. The bullet was an ND double tap from a .45, traveling between the (inadequate) wood plank baffle, barely clearing the earth berm, going through a series of sheet steel walls, ricocheting ever-so-slightly from a common ceiling tile, traveled a fair distance, and struck the boy in the temple, mortally wounding him. Change ANY fact marginally and this is probably a near tragedy, not a death. This was featured on Forensic Files here http://www.hulu.com/watch/643002#i0,p0,d0

3. Cop bullet jams bad guy revolver. In Seattle a decade ago, a cop fired at a perp in self defense and his bullet entered the front of the perp's revolver, disabling it! http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Amazing-shot-cited-as-self-defense-1202092.php#photo-667807

4. In 2012, an Amish girl on a buggy one night was killed by a stray bullet fired from 1.5 miles away, by a man "unloading" his muzzle loader by firing it into the air. The odds are nearly impossible. Highly (criminally) irresponsible, but so remotely unlikely in that farmland rural area that a person would be hit, or otherwise killed by such a shot from that distance. http://video.foxnews.com/v/1340047863001/stray-bullet-kills-amish-girl-in-ohio/?#sp=show-clips
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/amish-m...ith-stray-gunshot-will-serve-30-days-in-jail/

What are some things you remember seeing, hearing about or reading?
 
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Being hit by random gun shots into the air is much more common than thought. There are many examples on New Years Eve, especially in urban areas. It is rarely fatal since it usually happens with smaller caliber handgun bullets.
 
When I was 17 or so, me and another guy were shooting a .380 at an old sink in his back yard. The rounds were blowing right through it, until I hit the curved corner and the bullet came back at us. It landed right between us like someone pitched it back to us. :eek: I still have that bullet.
 
Speaking of bullets you keep on your Bench...and of luck....

Ever been shot in the head by your wife ?

This one's been around THR a few times before, but seems the best final place for it.

45 ACP, FMJ


I still wish I could have seen the trajectory on this one, but here goes :

At an indoor range in California. It ricocheted from somewhere down range that had a very nice round point.... And came right back at us and hit me square in the side of the head as I was bent over picking up brass.

There was another witness to this one who was flabbergasted( sadly not a THR member- great guy, ) - and only one other shooter in the range who was using completely different projectiles.
 

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comical one this past weekend at a match. On the last shot on the stage a shooters 45acp entered your typical blue poly/plastic barrel and you could hear the bullet spinning and spinning around the internal radius of the barrel for quite a while till it finally petered out.
 
Many years ago I came across a bound study that had been done by someone who'd been a friend of my mother's when she was a kid. In WW2 he was a medic and after WW2 he went on and became a doctor. He used a great deal of work he'd done in the Pacific WW2 theater to compile a study of war wounds and how they were treated and...well, the whole medical enchilada. This study went on to be part of a larger congressional study that helped establish the Korean War era M*A*S*H units.
One case in that study stood out as bizarre and truly improbable. It happened on one of those jungle islands in the Pacific where we were "island hopping" toward Japan.
Having fought their way somewhat into the interior on one of these islands a yound soldier was detailed a jeep and to go back to the landing area to pick up supplies, or something...maybe an officer, whatever. Driving off back down the path they'd come he soon started taking rifle fire from a Japanese sniper. He performed what was then called a "bootleg turn," and made his way back to his squad through the hot steamy jungle. Arriving, he drove up to his unit where he started exitedly telling them they needed to get soldiers out there with rifles to take out a sniper.
Finally, his sergeant came over and told him in no uncertain terms to calm down. The bewildered soldier managed to, but didn't understand the men's reaction.
His sergeant reached over and took off the stunned soldier's helmet.
There was a bullet hole in the center.
The sgt. removed the liner, and showed the young soldier the front bullet hole ... turned it around and showed him what was clearly an exit hole.
The now frightened soldier reached up and wiped his forhead. What he'd thought was sweat was blood.
It was a through & through shot -- right through his brain -- and he hadn't even realized he'd been shot!!!!!!!!
The examining medics determined the bullet had precisely transected the "chasm" between the right hemisphere of his brain and the left hemisphere, causing, bizarrely, almost no damage to the brain itself.
A millimeter to either side, however, and it would have been a flatline.
The bound study contained a few other odd stories of soldiers who, in the heat of battle, had been shot without realizing it, and who'd survived supposedly impossible wounds, but no other was as bizarre and as improbable as this.


When I read of arguments between people on the 'net about such-and-such round being better, faster, more "hard-hitting" than others, how the .30 carbine was underpowered, or the 5.56mm. being a "poodle-killer" or how the Garand was a terrific supercharged battle implement, I reflect on this story, and that the old bromide, "placement is everything," is quit true, really!!
 
Being shot between the brain is a helluva tale. I mean, wow. That's really something if true.

Almost as crazy as getting shot in a moving vehicle from the 6th floor of an adjacent building with a single bullet and having that projectile enter through your neck and traverse 5 layers of clothing, 7 layers of skin, approximately 15 inches of tissue, and a necktie knot to exit your body and enter the body of your friend seated beside you in your limousine, ultimately lodging in his thigh.
 
sequins said:
.....Almost as crazy as getting shot in a moving vehicle from the 6th floor of an adjacent building with a single bullet and having that projectile enter through your neck and traverse 5 layers of clothing, 7 layers of skin, approximately 15 inches of tissue, and a necktie knot to exit your body and enter the body of your friend seated beside you in your limousine, ultimately lodging in his thigh.
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Obviously you're refering to the Kennedy assassination.
Governor Connally was not sitting "beside" John Fitzgerald Kennedy, his wife was. Connally was sitting in front of Kennedy on a folding "jump seat."
Given the distance involved and the type of ammunition used I have no problem believing that Oswald managed to shoot Kennedy and that the bullet did perform that way, it was a FMJ type of ammo that did not "mushroom" like hunting ammunition does. The most unusual feat was that the bullet was found on a stretcher in the hospital, having worked out of Connally's thigh while being transported on said stretcher. Yet, the bullet was definitively ballistically matched to Oswald's Mannlicher Carcano.
 
While hardly on the same level as the soldier surviving a head shot, this kind of demonstrates the stopping power myth of the magnum.
One round from a .44 magnum misses the intended target, skips off the ground just behind it and stops in the tread of an old tire behind that.
Total distance is maybe ten feet from target to tire.
Could have caught the bullet bare handed - and maybe even with yer teeth, like the illusionists do.
 
I sat in on a trial where a guy was shot in the head with a .25 auto round. The projectile struck him in the forehead, went under the skin, followed the outline of the side of his skull, and exited the scalp at the back of his head.

Other then the 2 puncture wounds, and probably one hell of a headache, he had no other damage.

In another case, a large guy was shot 7 times at close range with a .25 auto. None of the hits were in critical areas. When the gun emptied, the victim grabbed the shooter, beat him badly, and held the shooter until the police arrived. He survived, and testified in court against the shooter.

As an aside, the above incident started when the shooter was asked to move his car in a supermarket parking lot by the victim, who was an employee collecting shopping carts.
 
I've read of a few instances spanning several wars, WWII, and I think OEF, where bullets penetrated helmets, traveled the curvature of the helmet, and exited elsewhere, sparing the life of the GI who would have otherwise certainly suffered a mortal headshot.
 
I remember an old rancher's wife that was accidentally shot dead center in the forehead at eyebrow level with a .22 short. Had a headache for a while and 20 years later blew the bullet out her nose and into a handkerchief..
 
A number of years back I visited the Smithsonian museum. They had displays for different wars the US had fought, one of the displays being on the Civil War. There was tree trunk about 12-14 inches in diameter and about the height of a man. The tree had been cut down by musket fire at the level of a man's chest by fire from the Confederate forces . The tree trunk was cut off at the ground level and sent to President Lincoln to show him the ferocity of the battle. The volume of fire must have been tremendous to cut the tree off. I believe the battle was Gettysburg.

I told this story before on this forum. A soldier in my MP platoon was living off post with another soldier. One morning while setting on the "throne" his roommate opened the door to the bathroom and shot my soldier between the eyes with a .22lr pistol. The bullet didn't penetrate, just gave the guy two black eyes and a severe headache.
 
Wild tales & other true gun-shot wound incidents...

These are some wild tales. :eek:
I've heard and read about a few I could add:
A ex-cop I worked with in 2004 told me how a local guy they always had problems with was murdered during a heated domestic dispute with his long time girlfriend. The former small town police officer said the victim was about 6'10" :eek: and was very muscular. The girlfriend reportedly shot him once in the center of the chest with a .22short handgun. The huge guy fell over & died at the scene. The ex cop said the EMTs, MEs and crime scene people were all shocked by the way he died, just from one .22 bullet.

I read of a guy shot twice in the head with a military sidearm in Central America in the 1980s. The victim was then buried in a grave but lived.
:uhoh:

Finally, about 1/1.5 years ago, I read a media article of how a stray 9mm bullet fired by accident nearly a mile away entered a open window of a trailer.
The 9mm struck a 22 year old man in the side of the head, killing him instantly. :uhoh:
What was sad is that the young guy just got married that day!
I think it was in IN or WI.
 
sequins said:
Being shot between the brain is a helluva tale. I mean, wow. That's really something if true.

Almost as crazy as getting shot in a moving vehicle from the 6th floor of an adjacent building with a single bullet and having that projectile enter through your neck and traverse 5 layers of clothing, 7 layers of skin, approximately 15 inches of tissue, and a necktie knot to exit your body and enter the body of your friend seated beside you in your limousine, ultimately lodging in his thigh.
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Can we please not go down this road? My tinfoil hat is at the cleaners this week.
 
sequins said:
Almost as crazy as getting shot in a moving vehicle from the 6th floor of an adjacent building with a single bullet and having that projectile enter through your neck and traverse 5 layers of clothing, 7 layers of skin, approximately 15 inches of tissue, and a necktie knot to exit your body and enter the body of your friend seated beside you in your limousine, ultimately lodging in his thigh.
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Not this garbage again!!!
160gr 6.5mm projectile and only 60 yards distance. It would have gotten much further if it had not have shattered Connally's radius.

Oswald qualified as "Marksman" twice in the USMC and not only was it a fairly close range, the declination was only 18 degrees. Not exceptional shooting at all.

Sbt2.jpg

Mike
 
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Carlos N. Hathcock II shooting a VC sniper in the head through the latter's scope tube from 500 yards away.

Mike

Honorable mention to Michael Plumb saving a suicidal man by destroying his .38 snub nose from 60 yards away (I'd just turn the audio off rather than listen to the ignorant narrator).
 
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There was a case some time ago in NYC where an offshore fisherman took a shot at a shark with, if I remember correctly, an SKS. The shot bounced off the water and killed a motorist miles away driving on the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn.

Police at the time were baffled for a while as to how it happened and motive.
 
This was really stupid but nobody got hurt. 30+ years ago my BIL and I were shooting a 9mm. I propped a 2x4 against a steel t post. The 9 went through the board like a needle. As I recall, I could see where the bullet entered and exited but I couldn't see through the hole. My BIL tried next but completely missed the board. He did hit the t post. It must have been steel core ammo as the t post was cut cleanly into two pieces. The bottom piece stuck in the ground like nothing had happened. The upper piece was suspended by the barb wire, just gently swinging back and forth. As stupid 20 something males we learned an instant appreciation for firearms that day and it was years later before I realized how lucky we were that the billet didn't ricochet back at us.
 
Obtuse angle ricochets have very little energy and very little potential to injure. It is the acute angle ones that are deadly.

Mike
 
I went down range to service some Saab target lifting devices, of course the whole range complex went on a Cold Status before we took my Tank down range.
Everything went boringly normal until we returned from down range to find a .50 caliber bullet had impacted and stuck in to the front slope. it was stuck so tight we had to remove it with a hammer and chisel.
It made me wonder where that "Magic" bullet had come from.
 
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