Round balls ricocheting?

[nkbj]

Just depends on the angle and what gets hit. Once saw my brother skip a round ball across a lake from a .44 percussion revolver like a miniature version of the "Dambusters" movie. Never made it skip a second time.

 

[Rifleman1776]

In case you didn't pick it up from previous responses: YES! It can happen and dangerously. :shocked2:
DAMHIK :redface:

Well, I know full body armour isn't HC but you have now scared the stuffing out of me and I see no alternative than to go shooting in full body armour to protect myself. :blah:

Here is the story. I almost killed a very good friend. He was standing next to me, just behind my left shoulder.
A bunch of us from our ml club were in the forest on our annual "Squirrel hunt and deer scouting rendezvous". Not a real ronny, as most would think but a great get together.
Ennyhow, one evening, someone tacked a target to a tree and a shooting contest happened. All except me were using rifles. I had my Brown Bess. For this, I loaded up a big ole punkin ball and shot. We immediately heard a loud "whizzz" as the ball came back and brushed the ear of my buddy standing next to me. Had that hunka lead hit him square it, no doubt, would have killed him. Never will forget that lesson.
I can only surmise the higher velocity rifle balls embedded into the tree and my big slower ball just did the bouncy thing.

 

[Dean2]

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Here you go! http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/39/e4/8e/39e48e92da848e60e29537eed1fc9d67.jpg
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Great deal, full protection and HC. Perfect. :thumbsup:

 

[Heelerau]

as a kid I shot up a rolling tyre and had round ball bounce back and brush my trouser leg a couple of times, never shot at an old tyre since.

 

[nhmoose]

All balls, bullets will ricochet duh WATCH YOUR BACKSTOP standard shooting safety.

States that are shotgun only are looking at that problem with the new sabot shotgun rounds as one of the problems why they only have shotgun only..

 

[azmntman]

Never had one with BP but I used to skip bb's off lakes all the time so I suppose the PRB would act similarly

 

[phoenix511]

Sure it can ricochet off the ground, or anything else for that matter, plus the direction will be random. "Grazing fire" is a different matter, and often done intentionally by firing nearly parallel to the ground. While loosing much kinetic energy, the projectile is always near the ground. The direction of the projectile will usually be close to the aim point.

There are tales of 18th and 19th century naval gunners intentionally "skipping" the cannon ball across the water to make a hit near the enemy ship's water line. If true, I suspect the range was 50 - 100 yards, and a miracle considering the ship was rolling with the wind and waves, and requiring exquisite timing. I suspect more likely the gunner got lucky and saw the ball splash in the water and hit the enemy ship's hull. Like many shooters, claimed that was the plan all along!

 

[nkbj]

With any wave action much at all must have been a fine art to calling the roll on when to touch them off.

 

[Mickc01]

Had a piece of a ball hit me high in the ass :redface: bounced of a clay bird holder on a split the ball target. A small piece and the cloth from my shirt and breeches had to be dug out along with the piece of lead.I t was all dug out on-site with a sharp knife and tweezers. We got some great pictures :rotf: and I finished the shoot before I went to round two of the surgery! :youcrazy: Two others were hit, one in the coconuts and one in the neck.
Nit Wit

OUCHHHHHHHH!!!!!