Kenneth L. Kieser
Some of you may have found a new rifle or pistol under the Christmas Tree. I know there is nothing better than shooting that gun the first time. But before you pull the trigger, be aware of the dangers of ricocheting bullets.
The Christmas Story, about a boy getting his first BB gun came with the line, “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid.” Most of you have seen the movie and know Ralphie almost did. I almost did too.
I was a farm boy at age ten and got a Daisy BB gun for Christmas. I loaded the gun with BB’s, put on my warm clothes and went out in the snow for my first shot. My father’s disk that pulled behind a tractor to cultivate the soil for planting looked like a good place to set a can.
I positioned the can on a steel beam, stepped back to take careful aim and shot. The BB shot low, hit a disk blade and ricocheted straight back and hit just above my right eye, yep, just like in the movie that was made some 20 years later. My folks never knew but I had a sore spot on my face. A bit lower and my right eye might have been lost forever. I was amazingly lucky.
Science has proven that BBs bounce back with almost all their velocity. How fast they return depends on what they hit. The harder and more immovable the object, the faster they rebound. There is no place for the energy to go but back into the BB’s velocity in the opposite direction.
A few years later, I was frog hunting with cousins. One of the boys got a .22 rifle for his birthday and was aiming at a frog. Before pulling the trigger, his brother walked down to the pond shore directly across from the intended target for a closer look.
His brother shot, hitting the frog and his brother. The bullet skipped across the pond and grazed his leg, luckily only a minor injury. Shooting at water is never a good idea. Bullets skip off water and go out of control in often dangerous directions.
Sometimes a thrown rock “penetrates” into water, and sometimes it skips along the surface. Same with a bullet on water or the ground. Sometimes a bullet fired down at an angle could turn parallel to the ground, occasionally striking someone in the leg—it has happened.
So how fast does a bullet actually travel? Everything depends on bullet weight, amount of gunpowder and the length of the firearm’s barrel. I don’t have enough space to outline all bullets and sizes but here are some examples:
When bullets fly through the air, they do so at amazing speeds. The fastest bullets travel more than 2,600 feet per second. That's equivalent to over 1,800 miles per hour.
The muzzle velocity will depend on the type of firearm used. Longer barrels will generally produce higher velocities. A short barrel 22 long rifle will produce a muzzle velocity around 800 feet per second and a longer barrel will produce a velocity of about 1100 feet per second. Imagine a piece of lead hitting a flat object at this speed and there is little wonder why ricochet accidents happen.
Many .22 long rifle cartridges use bullets lighter than the standard 40 grams and are fired at higher velocities. Hyper-velocity bullets usually weigh around 30 to 32 gram and can have a muzzle velocity of 1,400 to 1,800 feet per second.
A 22 long rifle bullet can ricochet off the surface of water at a low angle of aim. Severe injury may occur to a person or object in the line of fire on the opposite shore, several hundred yards away. A 22 long rifle bullet is capable of traveling 2,000 yards or more than one mile. Most 9mm pistol rounds have a velocity somewhere around 1,200 feet per second at the muzzle and ricochets have been estimated at 500 to 600 yards.
This is a brief example of the importance of shooting in a safe direction, at a safe angle. You may shoot the bullet in what is considered a safe direction, but where exactly will that bullet end up?
Shooting ranges are no exception. Ricochet without proper safety protocol is a widespread occurrence, even in some shooting ranges and can be caused by any firearm. Poorly positioned targets can be dangerous. Surface angle and velocity/energy are factors that must be considered to design an effective range for eliminating or avoiding the risk of ricochet. However, I will note that most state and private shooting ranges are well set up with a sharp-eyed range master.
Many of us that teach Hunter’s Safety courses are trying to eliminate firearm accidents or at least decrease the number of annual mishaps. This is best accomplished by choosing location wisely and implementing safe handling of your firearms.
Shooting at flat areas like ponds, rivers, lakes or any hard surface is definitely a mistake. You never know where that bullet might stop or worse, who might stop the bullet.
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