Magic bullets and other oddities

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In 1983, Chicago mobster Ken Eto was shot 3 times in the head in a hit attempt. He was knocked unconscious. When he came to, he made his was to a local pharmacy where he dialed 911 and was taken to and recovered in the hospital. The failed hit men didn't fare so well, being found strangled to death in a car trunk in a Chicago suburb 5 months after the failed hit.
 
Arizona_Mike said:
Obtuse angle ricochets have very little energy and very little potential to injure. It is the acute angle ones that are deadly.

Mike
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Could you please explain? I always thought that obtuse angel (greater than 90*) ricochets were quite dangerous. I understand that an acute angle ricochet has the potential to penetrate light clothing and, especially in the case of shrapnel, go to the heart. Is that really "much" more dangerous than a 7.62x39 bouncing off of the frozen earth into the horizon beyond?
 
I still have the .45acp jhp that hit me in the chest. I will take picture and post when I dig it out of the safe. My buddies and I were target shooting and decided that we water to set up a steel plate rapid fire setup and videotape everybody shooting. Whoever knocked 7 down with 5 shot revolvers slowest bought dinner at the Mexican restraunt. So I'm up with a taurus 405, no speedloader, and I knock 7 down with 7 shots reloading with 3 I held in my mouth for easy access. My buddies run theirs. It's too close to call last place so out come The carry guns. My keltec p11 was first against a Para warthawg. At 6 yards the bullet from the hawg connected with a 1/8 inch steel plate bounced off of the dirt and hit me in the ribs hard enough that I hit the ground. John quit shooting worried that he had killed me (adding significantly to the time on the clock and letting my horrendous, fumbled mag reload win). That is the only reason I believe the video on the 50bmg that takes a guys earmuffs off. Same scenario, different weapons.
 
WolverineFury said:
Could you please explain? I always thought that obtuse angel (greater than 90*) ricochets were quite dangerous. I understand that an acute angle ricochet has the potential to penetrate light clothing and, especially in the case of shrapnel, go to the heart. Is that really "much" more dangerous than a 7.62x39 bouncing off of the frozen earth into the horizon beyond?
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Just to make sure we are on the same page. I'm referring to no change in the bullet trajectory as 0 degrees and a reversal of the bullet direction as 180 (seems the logical way to quantify a ricochet).

Mike
 
Ok, I was thinking from the opposite perspective. The gun location being 0* with the LOS of your barrel being the plain. Then any deviation in the bullet path creating your angle. Of course when you think about it simply in terms of numbers calling the shooters position 180* does tend to make more sense. Regardless, it's simply a matter of terms at this point.
 
About thirty years ago, a groundskeeper at a local cemetery located on a bluff overlooking town was sitting on a bench eating lunch. A mile and a half away and several hundred feet lower elevation, a resident was unloading his car after returning from a hunting trip three states away. His .30-06 was loaded, and he accidentally fired a round when taking it out of his trunk. He saw on the news that the cemetery worker was struck and killed, and turned himself in.

No way on God's earth the investigators would have solved that one, but the hunter had a strong moral compass. Talk about The High Road.
 
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.
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iv heard of this happening a few times (all anecdotal) but three separate ones with .22 and one with a 44 magnum

22lr #1 a young man got shot at at a intersection during a road rage incident leaning out his window to yell at people in the car next to him.

22lr#2 guy was hit by a stray from some one shooting off random shots in the city.

22lr#3 was a failed suicide guy stuck a rg 22 revolver straight to his forhead and pulled the trigger with his thumb

And the 44 mag one was some off duty cop that was packing a big Ole m29 under his winter coat some place in the north east I forget where, and was a attacked by some great big drugged up guy,
he shot the guy dead center of the forhead big guy stumbled, the cop could see a bloody hole on his forhead, it managed to piss the drugy off he charged the cop again,
the officer wet him self and popped off the 5 remaining shots one hitting the guy in the chest the rest clean misses and mr bad guy dropped.

this last one is one that happens to a family friend his elderly father had alzhimers and tried to commit suicide. He put a ruger mk1 22lr in his mouth and pulled the trigger, he then laid down only to wake up later not remember doing it and put the gun away
A little later his son came by and noticed his mouth was stained with blood, well one 911 call and a ambulance ride later the find the slug logged in the roof of his mouth. After that he no longer was alowed to live alone
 
Hunting mishaps....

I heard/saw a recent media item about a hunter who had his big dog jump in the back seats of his pick up(unknown model).
The dog's paw hit the trigger of the gun owner's loaded 12ga shotgun. :eek:
The fired shell blew the back of the hunter's head off.

Hunters and outdoor guys(fishing, hunting, hiking, camping) need to be careful. :uhoh:
Dogs, brush, branches, small kids, etc are all safety hazards if you aren't careful with loaded firearms.
 
About 20 years ago I was out with a buddy shooting bowling pins. They were set up on a board about 4 feet high and about 25 feet away. We were just taking turns shooting at pins and having a good time when he mentioned he had an old bowling ball in the trunk, to go with the pins we were shooting.

I was shooting a 4" S&W M19 using a handload pushing a 158gr LSWC along at about 1000 fps.

I was up first, and taking my first shot resulted in a sharp, painful "thwak" just about 3" above my navel. Hurt like the dickens. I looked down and lying at my feet was a perfectly smooth, disc shaped piece of lead. Even flattened out, you could clearly see rifling and grease grooves on one side.

After I stopped using colorful language, we walked down to the bowling ball and just about dead center there was a dime sized pucker of disturbed rubber.

I had a bulls eye shaped bruise on my stomach for about 2 weeks.
Yes, that was the one and only shot I've ever taken at a bowling ball.
 
Glock 18....

About a year or so I saw a Youtube video of a hapless shooter using a full auto Glock 18 9x19mm.
He wasn't properly trained or ready because he pulled the Glock trigger & shot the side of his support hand thumb off. :eek:
Machine guns and full auto weapons are nothing to joke around with...
 
I got a couple, though one is slightly off topic.

This first one is about an incident that occurred while I was squirrel hunting some 25 or so year ago. I was down in a thick ponderosa pine forest shooting squirrels with my compound bow. This was something I had done before, lots of fun, but shafts returning to earth can pose a deadly risk. So to remedy that, I never took shots that were at near vertical angles and well angled at no more than approx 75 degree angles. Well one afternoon while hunting like this, I took a shot from probably 200 - 300 yards down in a canyon, and then in what seemed like a few seconds later I heard a distant "BAM".

The only thing I could think of that was up on the flats above, would be my truck. But I really couldn't imagine having hit my truck, I figured it was way beyond the range of a stray arrow. To my complete surprise I had an aluminum arrow sticking dead center in the hood. And considering how thick the hoods were on that old 1969 GMC truck, i was really surprised it actually drove all the way in, stopping only when it slammed into the block.

The other incident was while deer hunting with my brother in law in 1970. We had stopped to take a break at an old abandoned cabin, and I was sitting against the exterior of the chimney, out side in other words, with my back against the dilapidated rock & concrete chimney. All of a sudden, I get hit in the face and neck with rock and bullet fragments, which happened simultaneously of hearing the thwack sound of the projectile impacting the large rock my head was up against.

I was with my brother in law, and also a best friend, both of which said they never heard the report of a rifle. And even though I was in obvious shock, I was certain I never heard the report of a firearm. All I could conclude is someone fired a round from the other side of the mountain, and then it just traveled unobstructed for a few miles. But one must also consider that a bullet from a high powered rifle leaving the muzzle at over 3000 fps, and possibly having the advantage of angle enhanced trajectory, it might be capable of traveling 5 or 6 miles, maybe more depending. At 5 miles away, it takes the sound of the firearm discharging a good 26 seconds to reach you, and that's if it even reaches you at all.

GS
 
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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Oh no, not again ! :uhoh: :D


I shot a buck with a 308 Win @ 90 yds he was facing away looking back at me over his left shoulder, the bullet hit him in the neck and exited out about where his belly button is located.

Shooting at a quarter stuck in the bark of a tree branch with a 1911 45 ACP, hit the quarter and it ricocheted back at me, I caught it my right hand and immediately dropped it because it was HOT, looked down to retrieve it and found out it was the FMJ bullet and not the coin.
 
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I don't have many years of experiences at all but even I have witnessed a .45 ricochet and stub the shooter's toe.
 
I was bringing a new BPCR rifle online 2 years ago. The trajectory would have been similar to my other rifles so I hung targets about 5 ft high to dial in the trajectory. The first shot went next to the bull a 200 yards, The next about a foot low and to the right. I went and looked and they were keyholing.

I went home and was double checking the load and my alloy to make sure I was not shearing the lead bullets as I was using a fast twist for caliber barrel.

Back to the range, first couple shots did the same (I have a good spotting Kowa scope I can see bullets hit at 1000 yds).

On the way down to collect my targets, I noticed some peculiar tunnels through the grass. Ah ha, what would the odds be that I messed the elevation setting up to the point that I could bank shot through the center of the target I was shooting ?

I did get the rifle dialed in, but the odds of banking the first shot from a new rifle through a 200 yard bull are astronomical.
 
My story isn't as cool as many of these but it happened years ago and still has me scratching my head as to what happened.

My brother was shooting his .40 at a target at 12 yards. Next to him, his daughter was shooting her .22 rifle at 100 yards. She had taped her target to the backer board and one corner of the tape was kind of hanging down with the sticky side up. When she retrieved her target, there was a perfectly intact .40 caliber bullet stuck to the tape.

Somehow, one of his bullets had just the right trajectory and speed to land softly enough against the tape to stick.
 
Printed gun magazine article; 1990s....

I recall reading a printed gun magazine article in the early 1990s that documented how a SWAT cop's fired 9mm JHP(147gr) went completely thru a active shooter :eek: & wedged into a building wall.
The crime scene techs and forensics unit recovered the fired bullet saying it was in near perfect shape & could be reloaded, fired again. :uhoh:

This was one of the main reasons why I never really bought or carried 147gr JHP 9x19mm rounds for duty or CCW. I use 124gr +P JHPs mostly but I also like the Hornady Critical Duty +P 135gr round and the Ranger T/T Series 127gr +P+ JHP.

Rusty
 
Close to ten years ago I was at an indoor pistol range trying out a new XD .40 I had just purchased. A CHL class entered the range and I was asked to move to the last lane against the wall. I do remember the class being comprised largely of elderly men and women. Once they began their course of fire, I saw ricochets off of the floor and decided at once to leave. As I stood there unloading my pistol, I felt something "slap" the slack in the right leg of my jeans followed by the near simultaneous smack of it hitting the the wall behind me. I didn't hang around to look for the projectile or check the wall. My pants were undamaged though so it couldn't have had too much steam.
 
I was fairly perplexed by that one. How does a double action revolver advance the cylinder? It must have somehow cocked the hammer while the guy was reaching for it
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Gun goes bang and the recoil rotates it in the bad guy's slack hand, the bad guy instinctively grabs the gun harder, and winds up pulling the DA trigger as the barrel rotates in line with his forehead.

Oops.
 
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