Posted on 02/25/2017 9:31:58 AM PST by w1n1
When we think ricochet, we usually think danger. But can a ricochet be directed and actually used as a bullet?
When we are planning our hunting lanes or setting up our targets for a little range practice, we often think of a ricochet as one of the things on our safety list. In some circle of tactical shooting, shooting down the hallway, you can actually ricochet a shot from the side walls.
What we don't often do is think about using the ricochet to actually hit our target. And to be honest unless you are planning some trick shots you probably never will, but unless you watch this video you’ll always be left wondering if you can actually ricochet a ricochet? See the footage here.
Nothing like the good old crotch ricochet.
Right off the side bricks or the concrete.
Its like playing snooker.
Ask the Warren Commission.
Did it with my 1911 at 120 yards or so quite accidentally.
L
Uncle Jed seemed to find it easy enough.
Mythbusters did it.
Decades ago one gun magazine writer proposed using ricochets as a gunfighting tactic. IIRC the guy was one of Jeff Cooper’s instructors. Seemed rather silly at the time and still does. Its hard to know how hard the ground is, what the angle of incidence should be or a bunch of other unknown variables that could cause a miss. Shooting a direct line from Point A to point B seems much simpler, especially during high stress.
There's a .50BMG round with a ring of RDX inlaid in near the tip. It not only goes through the bricks/concrete, the exploding RDX spalls the material for that added effect.
There's a documentary on a guy that was killed by a ricochet. He was in the back room of a building, above a shooting range, not in the LOS.
The shooter was in some fast firing pistol competition, and had his automatic smithed to lower trigger pressure. He had just finished rippling a burst, brought his gun hand up, and let loose one more round. It missed the secondary shielding planking, somehow entered the building above the berm, through the drop ceiling, hit the hard roof at enough of an angle to ricochet down through the drop ceiling again, with enough energy to kill a guy sitting in the back room.
I have heard of people,shooting at the concrete floors to get people in the legs/lower torso that may be under cars or,down,low.
It is possible to do this but as far as wall shots you better have a plan b. Sometimes dont know what they are made of.
when deer hunting i insist on having at the very least, 3 ricochets when i fire otherwise i don’t consider it sporting
We’ve talked about this in the military for years. When you’re out on the quality range, you always aim low. A high shot will miss, but a low shot can bounce up and still hit your target even if you missed.
Also, at distance shots that ricochet tend to hug the ground. Without any concealment and cover, you generally don’t want to hit the ground when shot at.
Ever play pool? 90% ricochet.
Hitting the bark of the tree, right near the squirrel...works best with large diameter round, such as roundish, old fashioned black-powder rounds ;
There used to be a comic strip (set in the Old West) called Rick O’Shay.
I’ve heard the same, third hand from an operator. He would go so far as to carry a mag of lead wadcutters for shooting under cars. Nothing like a little lead frisbee to the ankle to drop somebody.
Q... What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back???
A... A stick.
Shooting rapid fire tracer rounds at night will show just how
ricocheting there truly is. A lot more than people might think.Sometimes they jink up into the air for a thousand feet.
Isn’t that even printed on the box of ammo? I do recall being told not to do that as one of the primary rules in my childhood.
I wish they had taught me not to wedge a shotgun shell in the fork of a tree limb and try to fire it with a .22! First shot the .22 came right back at me and it me in the chest! Thank goodness I didn’t shoot my eye out! (Talk about a ricochet!)
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