While practicing at a local indoor range today, I was hit by a ricocheting bullet fragment in the chin. It hit hard enough to draw a tiny amount of blood, and at the time I thought that was the extent of the damage. However, a cursory check in the mirror reveled a piece of lead just under the skin. I considering (briefly) trying to dig it out myself, but then common sense kicked in and I went to an urgent care facility. That turned out to be a good call, because the Doc needed to cut open the hole to find the crumb sized fleck of lead, and it had traveled about 1/4” under the skin. A tetanus shot and Band-Aid later, I’m on my way.
Some of the particulars:
1. I was on the leftmost lane, and the concrete under that lane was broken on the left side, so I was on the right side of the lane.
2. There are small triangle shaped protrusions on the wall, that I think are meant to protect the wall from gunfire.
3. I was shooting close (3 yards).
4. I was shooting a 9mm loaded with 115 gr plated bullets at around 1050 fps.
5. I was shooting a paper target.
I think I nicked one of the steel outriggers mentioned in 2 above, and maybe it’s caved in from repeated hits so it sent shrapnel back instead of down range. I told the ‘range officer’ (i.e. guy who was emptying the trash, but the only one out there), but I don’t know if it went any further than that. I also left a review on their survey (per their automated request), but it didn’t have any contact information. Also, I’ve seen this happen once before at this range, but I figured they did something dangerous and/or stupid.
So, my question is this simply a risk of shooting, or is this rare and a range defect? I wasn’t shooting at an unapproved target or at an unapproved angle, even if I should have made sure I was hitting the rubber backstop instead of glancing off the wall. Also, should I ask to speak to the manager just to detail what happened so they can prevent it later on? I’m not looking for money or anything, but something like this can turn a new shooter off for life and shut down an otherwise great range.
As far as lessons learned:
Know thy target and what lies beyond. It’s one of the 4 main safety rules for a reason, and doesn’t turn off because you’re at a range. Even if this is a bad range layout, doing this would have saved me a $50+ trip to the Doc-in-a-box and some discomfort.
WEAR SAFETY GLASSES!! Freak ricochets occur, and if this had hit my eye it would have surely blinded it. Regular glasses don’t cut it, and cheaper ‘over glasses’ safety glasses can be found in hardware stores for about $10.
Sorry for the length, and thanks for the responses.
Some of the particulars:
1. I was on the leftmost lane, and the concrete under that lane was broken on the left side, so I was on the right side of the lane.
2. There are small triangle shaped protrusions on the wall, that I think are meant to protect the wall from gunfire.
3. I was shooting close (3 yards).
4. I was shooting a 9mm loaded with 115 gr plated bullets at around 1050 fps.
5. I was shooting a paper target.
I think I nicked one of the steel outriggers mentioned in 2 above, and maybe it’s caved in from repeated hits so it sent shrapnel back instead of down range. I told the ‘range officer’ (i.e. guy who was emptying the trash, but the only one out there), but I don’t know if it went any further than that. I also left a review on their survey (per their automated request), but it didn’t have any contact information. Also, I’ve seen this happen once before at this range, but I figured they did something dangerous and/or stupid.
So, my question is this simply a risk of shooting, or is this rare and a range defect? I wasn’t shooting at an unapproved target or at an unapproved angle, even if I should have made sure I was hitting the rubber backstop instead of glancing off the wall. Also, should I ask to speak to the manager just to detail what happened so they can prevent it later on? I’m not looking for money or anything, but something like this can turn a new shooter off for life and shut down an otherwise great range.
As far as lessons learned:
Know thy target and what lies beyond. It’s one of the 4 main safety rules for a reason, and doesn’t turn off because you’re at a range. Even if this is a bad range layout, doing this would have saved me a $50+ trip to the Doc-in-a-box and some discomfort.
WEAR SAFETY GLASSES!! Freak ricochets occur, and if this had hit my eye it would have surely blinded it. Regular glasses don’t cut it, and cheaper ‘over glasses’ safety glasses can be found in hardware stores for about $10.
Sorry for the length, and thanks for the responses.