Darwin must have been sleeping!
 

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Just Wow!

I shot steel plates in competition a few years ago. We required lead bullets, nothing jacketed.
This was pistols, 38 cal, 9mm, 40 cal, 38 super and 45 cal.
9 inch round x 3/8 thick steel hinged at the base.
A low hit with all but a 45 cal 180 grain bullet, would result in a slow falling plate.
Even with lead we would get an occasional richochet of fragments. This was at 10, 15, 20 and 25 yards.
Safety glasses were a must.
The worst I ever saw was small scratch on a face with a little blood.
Plenty of little ticks of lead bouncing off my shirt.
It did remind you to have on safety glasses for all involved including spectators.
More fun than killing paper.

When I was young(er) and stupid(er) my brother and I were interrogating and then executing some old toilets at an illegal dump in the woods from about 20 feet using a 12 ga. and slugs.

The first three blowed up real gud.

On the fourth one, most or all of that slug came straight back and embedded itself in a tree about 18" above my brother's head. Never did understand the physics of something as soft as lead ricocheting straight back, but suffice it to say that was the last toilet bowl we shot that day.

Well, I was either younger or stupider than that. Like many gravel pits taken over by shooters, one of my old favorites also quickly turned into a dump. Guys dumping anything from old furniture and appliances to cars. Of course they all got shot up in very short order. As an aside, some folks wonder why these gravel pits get shut down. Anyway, I thought it might be a good idea to shoot the compressor motor on the bottom of a shot up old fridge, so I unlimbered what I considered to be the proper tool for the job. My .44 Mag Virginian Dragoon, with a 300 grainer doing about 1200 fps. Well, the damn thing bounced right off that compressor motor, which sat there defiantly, undamaged. "Is that all you got?..." It hit me right in the stomach. Luckily, it was a cold winter day, and I had a couple of heavy sweaters on under a heavy Carhart jacket. Even more fortunate was the fact that I was wearing a pretty stout belt buckle and, unbelievably, it hit me right in the buckle. Not to say I didn't buckle; I don't think Mike Tyson could have hit me that hard. I had a bruise about the size and shape of a football on my abdomen by the time I got home. And it ruined my jacket. I learned a lot that day about a lot of different things...

A builder I know picked up some thick polycarbonate (bullet resistant glass) from a bank when they remodeled. We are going to shoot it up with some guns, hopefully this summer. What safety precautions should we be taking besides eye and ear protection?

When I was 16 I had just gotten back from the desert where we went shooting. I had an extra 22 cal long rifle round in my pocket for some reason and like a dumass decided to throw it. Yep, it discharged (rim fire).
I'm not sure if the round or the casing hit me in the hip, but it tore my shirt and left a nice little scar about 1/4" long.

Jeff,

Great story. It's good to know that I'm not the only dumbass out there.

As far as that lead stuck into the tree, I dread to think what would have happened if it had hit one of us.

Do you think your .44 round would have pierced skin if it hadn't hit your belt buckle?

I doubt it, Jamie. I had a lot of clothes on, and it didn't even dent the belt buckle. I just shudder to think what might have happened if it hit me in the mug or something. That would have left a mark...

What about just a few inches lower :(! I consider you to be one of the "gun experts" here, and now come to find out, it's not a natural trait, but "learned behavior" :)

How about stand behind one sheet of it to shoot at another?

One of the keys to this kind of operation is the beer. Bring lots of it. Have a "friend" drink enough of it until this sounds like a good idea to him. Then make sure you are off somewhere, like behind the truck or a big tree, taking a leak or something when he pulls the trigger. With just a cursory amount of forethought and planning, you should be able to easily escape any personal injury.

Yeah Jeff but I hate the sight of Blood, especially my own...problem is if someone gets hurt your left with having to clean up the mess.

I've fired a friend's M82-A1 Barrett .50 at an inch-thick steel plate at 200 yds, and it punched right through. Ditto at 100 (natch).

This friend has probably put 1000 rounds from his .50 through such targets. He works for a company that designs and manufactures mobile defensive shields for militaries around the world, and gets to play with SLAP and other really cool ****, fired at close range towards (hopefully) ballistically resistant material. No injuries yet (though the SLAP rounds put out enough shrapnel to destroy the fluorescent lights in the garage!)

If I'd been hurt while firing, or if he gets hurt while taking reasonable precautions (including distance), I don't think it's "Darwinism", in the sense of the eponymic awards. It's just a fluke.

That guy must've been shooting at inches thick steel.

JP

You forgot to mention the video camera.

Funniest post I've read in a long time ;) Wish I could say my friends and me were smarter.

I used to shoot steel falling plates. There was nowhere in the indoor range where you could hide from getting hit. When not shooting my motto was "Stand behind someone thick." :D
I had an arrow bounce back and almost hit me once though...
-Chris

The parents of a friend of mine in high school moved into a new house, with a totally unfinished basement. It was huge. And it was filled with moving boxes, etc.

We ended up arranging the boxes into "forts" and barricades, and had BB Gun fights. We were smart enough to wear safety goggles we'd ripped off from chemistry class, but we still ended up with many subcutaneous BB's and their resulting infections for about a month... until his parents unpacked all their stuff.

Ok, I shot myself in the eye with a bb gun. I was in Germany and my cousin took me to his friends farm so I could shoot my new bb gun. My cousin was an avid photographer and had a lot of film canisters lying around... We set them up on cinder blocks (whoops!). One bb bounced back and I saw it a split second before it hit me and I closed my eyes. I was very lucky...

"You'll shoot your eye out kid!"

Dave