I got shot at the range

Just a couple of times:

1. At the CATM Range (Air Force) down line from a guy whose very hot .223 brass kept bopping me in the head. The range master caught it before I got burned too badly.

2. At the CATM Range during the day that the LEO's honor their fallen. The SP's were having a fund raiser shot and one of the shooting sections you fire at metal targets. The first target was about 5 feet away from the line and I shot that one and the bullet came back and hit me in the leg. I just kept on shooting and just checked after I had completed the run. Just a welt / buise so all was good.

Wayne
 
That's my biggest fear when I go to the range, being hit by a ricochet. When not shooting I always try to stand behind something and out of the way. I also shoot at outdoor ranges too though, where the background is dirt.
 
The only time I did not volunteer to go to the range...

We were teaching a Army Nusrsing Class how to make rifles and pistols safe in case wounded soldiers come in with them. This is one of those classes where they take civilian Nurses teach em how to put on a uniform and tie thier boots and then they go to classes in military medicine.

My first student for the day was a brand new 2nd LT who said she knew nothing about guns... I think she slept in the safety briefing/classroom instruction before the hands on part of the class. I indicated the safe direction the weapon should be pointed in and handed her a "simulated" loaded pistol and told her to make it safe.. she then pointed it at me and started waving it at me like it was her finger and was talking...:eek: I grabbed it pointed it in a safe direction then proceeded to chew her out with the last word being Maam.

After class was over I was invited to be a RSO at the range... I declined..lol
 
A friend of mine and me were shooting in an indoor range about 3 years ago. He felt something hot hit his left forearm and thought it was hot brass. He reached down and felt blood. A ricochet hit an artery in his forearm and he lost a lot of blood. EMS took him to the local hospital and told him he was very lucky that medical aid was close by or he could have bled out. It was a scary experience to say the least.
 
I think something needs to be mentioned here... Don't just wear eye protection. Wear ANSI rated protective lenses. The range I go to allows people with eye glasses to just wear those and I'm pretty darn certain that regular glass lenses won't do a darn thing against a ricochet round. In fact, glass lenses will probably be even worse as you it will send shards of glass into your eye. People who wear glasses need to wear the hard plastic safety glasses over them to properly protect themselves. The same goes for sunglasses. If you are shooting outdoors, wear protective plastic lenses over your sunglasses if they are not rated by ANSI as protective eye wear.

Eye patches look cool during Halloween but they look pretty stupid if you have to wear one every day. You only get one set of eyes and ears... protect them!
 
During our qualification shoot with the Remington 870 pump, it was just my fellow officer, instructor and myself out on the range and the rest of the group standing in the safe zone behind us. We had some old slugs which we thought would be a bit of fun.
We were just shooting at these little steel targets about 30 feet away and the first shot made by the other officer went well... the second round however hit the plate and split apart and sent a few bits back at the three of us. One chunk whizzed past the right side of my head, and a piece hit the other officer in the right leg. He claimed it stung a bit, but when I noticed his jeans changing colour I thought that we should really pay attention to that.
Funniest thing would have been the sight of us three out on the field and one guy dropping his jeans to his feet in front of the other two.
He ended up pulling a nice piece of the slug out of his leg which penetrated the jeans and got lodged in his skin. No more slugs for us today we all decided.

Chris Cullen
 
Last year I was in a IDPA type match at an indoor range and was sitting with my wife waiting for my rotation to come up at the back of the range. We were watching the action and my wife fliched and said "Ouch".
Aparrently, a round had ricocheted off of a steel target, then a wall, and came flying 30+ yards back towards my wifes face.:eek:

Even though we were only observing, we wore our eye protection. The round hit her glasses right where the bottom edge meets the cheek. There was a red spot for a couple of days but she come out fine.
 
I was timing a friend on a course we designed hitting steel plates at bout 20yds out. I was behind him another 3yds or so when on of his 9mm rounds came back and hit me right on the back of my right hand. It left a nice blood blister in the spot it hit. I found the round and it was the whole thing, not a fragment.
 
This happened quite a while back, but SirLoneWolf and I were shooting full house .357 mags at an old stove, when one of my rounds bounced back and hit him. I'd never seen anyone hit with a ricochet before, and I thought he'd actually been shot at first. Really freaked me out! I'm a lot more careful about what I shoot at today.
 
I'm starting to think shooting is a very dangerous sport. :eek:
I also thought an indoor range is a safe place to shoot, now I might have to ask someone if anyone has been hit by a ricochet at that particular range.
 
It can be dangerous, but so can golf, or racecar driving, or scuba diving, or boxing....
Nothing worse than getting wacked in the head with a speeding golf ball! Thats one I experienced.

Chris Cullen
 
I don't know a lot about...

... the reasons for shooting steel targets, so I can't really say "DON'T DO IT". Maybe some kinds of training require it.

But, if you can avoid it do NOT shoot anything hard. If you have to, don't shoot it with anything hard. The most dangerous combination is a piece of spring steel shot with a full metal jacket. It's like throwing a superball against a wall. The round can EASILY come back at you. The harder both things (round and target) are, the more energy is still in the bouncing round.
An example of something safer is shooting at an aluminum road sign (not that do that). The aluminum is usually thin enough that the round deforms it and/or goes through it. The energy it takes to deform the sign is energy the round no longer has, even if it does bounce back at you. Shooting anything that absorbs the round (soft wood, a BG) uses ALL the round's energy so that's completely safe, assuming BG (or the wood, for that matter) is unarmed.

The range I'm using now has what looks like a huge sheet of rubber (I'm sure it's not) standing at a 45 degree angle to the floor. I'm guessing that rounds hit it and are reflected up toward some sort of absorbing stuff (wood, maybe) in the ceiling.

Funny that I know how all this works but have been shooting with my (plastic) eyeglasses only. From now on, I'll get eye protection as well.

I don't know if any of you have ever done this one. Years ago I was shooting my Cougar 45 at the range with my daughter. I wanted to know how loud it would be if I ever had to use it in an emergency (i.e., without ear protection). So I told her to stand to my side and, when I said "go" to pull my right ear muff away till after I shot.

Well, I'm here to tell you that it was LOUD ! I've flown in foreign countries where they let you board through the rear of a DC-9, so I've been standing in a hurricane of warm jet exhaust while the pilot revs the engines. That doesn't even come close to how loud the .45 was. I found out what "ringing in the ears" meant.
 
Yep, been hit three times with ricochets. Once while shooting concrete (not cement) blocks outside. I was breaking them with my 41 Mag that I sold. My buddy could not break even one with his .357. Well, those bullets were going somewhere. One hit me in the chest. We thought it might be prudent to shoot something else...
The other two times were at an indoor range; once in the foot (barely noticed) and once in the thigh (that one stung a little).
 
I'm shooting at a dirt hill covered with snow and mud. Hope that's safe enough. :)

Sometimes I go over to the hill and look around for the bullets.
 
45 Colt to the forehead.

There were only two of us shooting at the indoor range and we were about 10 feet apart. Both of us were using 45 Colt LRNFP 250gr. The other guy took a shot and a split second later my head snapped back and I almost went down. Sitting the the table in front of me was a fragment of the bullet that had fragmented and ricocheted out of the traps 75 feet down range. It landed smack in the middle of my forehead, just above the brim of my ball cap. I usually would wear the cap to keep hot auto bbrass from bouncing between my glasses and face, as I saw happen to a buddy once. This time it kept my head from getting cut at the least. I still have the fragment. As it had never happenned before I was not overly concerned.

One week later I took my own 45 Colt round off my foot. Same range and similar conditions, very empty. I could tell it was mine since I hand loaded the damn thing! That one hurt and left a nasty bruise. Having reatined almost all its weight it carried a good bit of energy, although most of it had been lost bouncing around the trap at the end of the line. Since then the range has cleaned out all their traps and replaced the steel. No problems since then!
 
Everytime I go to the range all I think about is getting hit again. My concentration should be on the target and what I'm doing, but in the back of my mind its still there.

Sounds like this is a not so uncommon experience from all the replies. Hmmmm, do I want to buy another gun or a bullet proof vest to protect my life. Sounds like the indoor ranges especially need to be designed better to prevent these incidents.
 
I look at it this way. The bruises I get from fencing far exceed anything I had from my two range incidents. Even with a full bullet trap those rounds lost so much energy that what did make it back was incapable of causing serious harm as long as proper safety gear is worn. I know far more people with scars from fencing accidents than from ricochettes at the range.

I wouldn't fence without my mask and other protective gear, I also won't shoot without hearing and eye protection.

I don't worry about the small chance of a non-life threatenning injury when I fence and I also don't worry about it when I shoot when all the rules are followed.
 
full auto...

at a 25 yard pistol range a guy with an uzi fired full auto in a stall next to me and about half a dozen flat lead discs came back and hit me in the chest while i was shooting. the bruising was no where near as much as you'd get from paintballs but it was still a bit unnerving. hence i refuse to shoot at pistol ranges shorter than 50 yards now.
 
Getting hit at the range...

Last Friday at the indoor range during our defensive pistol league night while shooting at the steel dueling tree from 10 yards, I got smacked in the forehead by a richochet. No big deal. It felt like someone pelted me with a small stone. A few months back while shooting from one of the stalls, the range officer got a richochet back from one of the jacketed bullets that someone was using. The jacket was imbedded in his upper lip and he had to get someone to help his remove it to cause minimum scarring.
 
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