You’ll shoot your eye out!

[Owen Sparks]

I have discovered the fun of back yard shooting with a CO2 powered BB gun. I recently bought a Daisy repeater that is shaped exactly like an Officers model 1911. It even has a light rail but it fits my holster perfectly. This thing is surprisingly accurate within 15 yards and has good sights. It allows me to have realistic practice without danger to the neighbors.

BB’s are made from hard steel rather than soft lead like real bullets and tend to bounce straight back off hard surfaces. I have some 8” diameter steel plates I have used safely as targets for years with my .45’s so I set them up to run some standard drills dinging these targets with BB’s. At first I thought that eye protection was adequate though the few ricochets that hit me did not have really enough power to hurt through my clothes then one came back and hit me in the lip. OUCH! Good thing it did not hit my front tooth. I changed targets.

I ran a string between two trees on the edge of the woods and used clothes pins to hold empty drink cans by the pop top. The soft aluminum cans make great reactive targets for fast shooting at 5 to ten yards and there is no question if you hit or miss. I was dinging away at the cans when I missed one and the BB hit the trunk of a black jack oak a few yards behind it and bounced straight back connecting with the knuckle of my middle finger. That hurt like damn it! That was enough for the day. I am going to move my can of strings somewhere with nothing behind it.

Conclusion.

BB repeaters make for cheap practice and some of the modern CO2 pistols replicate the shape and size of their real counterparts perfectly but BB’s behave very differently than lead bullets when they hit something hard. Lead absorbs energy like a dead blow hammer, BB’s bounce straight back.
BE CAREFULL! Even though both of my “injuries” were very slight, Ralphs mom was right. it does not take much to ruin an eye. I am convinced that this is potentially the most hazardous “ammo” that I have ever trained with.

 

[pockets]

If you 'loosely drape' a piece of canvas or an old blanket behind your targets as a backstop, you won't have to worry about chipped teeth ...... or stepping on your glasses after the BB bounces off the Pepsi sign.
Beats having to tell your mom that an icicle fell off the roof.
.

 

[Owen Sparks]

I really had no idea how dangerous BB's are. When I was a kid my first gun was an air rifle that shot soft lead pellets so I never experienced bouncing ammo like this.

To compound the danger most adult shooters do not take BB guns seriously because many of them don't even have enough power to break the skin, but it only takes one in the eye. A boy I went to high school with had a glass eye as a result of a BB that his older brother bounced back off something when he was little.

 

[GWARGHOUL]

You'll shoot your eye out, kid!

 

[InkEd]

It is going to be REAL fun when you mow the lawn, if you don't have a bag on your mower! I suggest you build somekind of "catch box."

 

[Shadow 7D]

Known two guys who lost an eye, safety glasses are recommended.

 

[Dulvarian]

My little brother shot himself in the eye with a BB pistol. Still not sure on the whole story... But it was a minor surgery to get it out, luckily it missed all the vital parts but I think he still has issues with it.

I have been hit with so many BB ricochets that I consider eye protection for them more than with anything else, including power tools. I am a much bigger fan of lead pellets. And at the lower power, even those can ricochet.

 

[Gromky]

Broke the skin on my foot with a BB pumped to 2 (out of the maximum of 10 in the manual). I was 8, and an idiot.

I would not want to take a pellet to the eye. I always cringe when I see paintball portrayed with people not wearing masks (used to play competitively)...it doesn't take much to blind you. A pellet, paintball, or shard of rock can do it in an instant.

 

[Siggie]

"Wear glasses during shooting or risk to wear glass forever !!"
Is what I always preach and practice.

 

[foghornl]

InkEd has it right...you NEED some sort of 'catch box' for the BB's...you would be amazed how far a mower can throw a rock, nail, etc....

I had to replace a windsheild on a pickup truck i owned...had parked it on the street to mow my lawn. by the time i got out front with my mower, i already had a cracked front glass....landscaper mowing 2 houses down with one of those big "zero-turn" mowers and NO bagger/deflector on mower.

 

[spook]

I've been struck by BB's when I was a kid. I always had my kids and now my grandkids wear safety glasses when shooting BB's or firearms. I've also been struck by .22's when shooting steel plates and had a ball from a cap and ball pistol whiz by my head after striking a pine tree. My shooting club banned the 38 special from our bowling pin shoots due to ricochets. Safety glasses are a must.

 

[MedWheeler]

I learned that, too, with my first BB pistol, which I did not acquire until I could buy it myself, at eighteen years old. I had some of those suckers bounce back, but I cannot recall if any ever actually hit me.
Incidentally, when I was in high school, another student was actually killed with an air rifle. It happened on a weekend at his house; he and another boy had been feuding. The other boy came to his house, knocked on the door, and shot him in the chest a single time when he answered. According to reports at the time, the victim cried something like "you shot me!", then collapsed. Autopsy showed the projectile had penetrated the heart wall. I did not know either the victim or the shooter, nor do I know what type of rifle or projectile was used.

 

[Owen Sparks]

I grew up shooting pellet guns and they are MUCH safer from the standpoint of the shooter because soft lead pellets do not bounce back off hard surfaces the way steel BB's do. It is like the difference between hitting an anvil with a "dead blow" hammer vs. a ball peen hammer.

 

[Big_E]

I accidentally broke the glass on one of my dad's garden solar lamps with a BB gun. I was pretty far away to. I now respect the BB.

 

[o Unforgiven o]

Im amazed that as an adult you didn't read the writing on the package of bb's. Every single one in no uncertain terms says not to shoot at hard objects.

Don't mean to preach but come on man, you'll shoot your eye out.

Oh, and if you shoot lead bb's or pellets you are not immune to richochets. Shot my high powered airgun at the kinds of posts they use for street signs with the U in the middle, pellet came back wizzing right by my ear.

 

[Mike J]

I learned about BB's ricocheting when I was a kid. I remember hanging out with my buddy down the street. We were shooting an old Daisy bb gun at tin cans. He dead centered the can & the bb bounced back & dead centered his chest (cans were much thicker in the early 70's). My Grandfather also had a glass eye as the result of a bb gun accident when he was a kid. That said BB guns can be great fun if proper precautions are taken.

I haven't done it in a while but when I was spending about 10-15 minutes a day playing with a CO2 pistol in the yard my groups magically shrank the next time I went to the range.

 

[Owen Sparks]

...That said BB guns can be great fun if proper precautions are taken.

Right, we just need to understand that different safety precautions should be taken with BB's than when shooting lead. I am getting great results from my back yard practice at a small fraction of the cost and time of a trip to the range.

 

[cleardiddion]

I had the exact same bb gun!
Used to shoot at whatever I could find around the house and a richochet put a perfect little hole in my bedroom window.

 

[LARRTARR]

Have you tried airsoft? Metal 1911 lookalike with slides that actually recoil. They will try to sell you GREEN GAS but you can use Coleman propane bottles from Walmart and shooting is almost free. Little plastic pellets, but they can probably put your eye out, too

 

[Owen Sparks]

Do the soft air balls bounce back like BB's?