Is this a bullet?

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If it were a bullet it wouldn't be hollow, as it appears to be.

Even if it is a bullet, it wasn't shot into the brick

It was either there when the brick was made, or was inserted into a drilled hole

I suspect it's the former, and is simply a piece of trash that was in the clay when the brick was molded
 
No spiders ? You were cheated ! LOL
That location would be similar to radio antennas and a few other things.
 
Nope, I don't think so.

Some type of metal slag or something embedded when the brick was made.

The trough below the metal is too uniform for this to be bullet impact. Get a magnifying glass or jeweler loupe and see if there are small pieces of lead or gilding bronze in the trough. I suspect you'll not find any there.

The angle of a projectile would be too shallow to cut the trough and then bury into the top side of the brick. The shallow angle required to cut the trough, would almost certainly cause a high velocity projectile to skip off the hard surface.

The projection of flakes of brick over the metal tends to rule out an anchor or fastener. Drilling holes for leadheads, redheads, potmetal zinc, etc. anchors – the mouth of the hole is often enlarged. Try to drill at too shallow an angle and the hard brick will pop apart above the bit.
 
Well we seem to have two other possibilities besides a bullet. Some sort of anchor. Or an impurity in the brick.

As to an anchor, I think the poster above me commented that an anchor could not go in at that steep shallow level. As you can see the brick shards above it.

As to a brick impurity, this piece shines silver and looks like metal to me. If you have a piece of metal, in a brick, in a brick furnace, that metal piece is not going to come out hollow, or like a cup, with thin jagged edges, out of that hot furnace. The metal will melt into a glob. So it was something that was put in AFTER the brick was made.

So still a bit of a mystery.
 
why don't you just try to get it off an find out? if its a bullet, shouldn't be too hard to get a piece of it off. you'll know it's lead if its soft.
 
When they made that brick whatever machine that put the vertical texture into the brick before it was fired put that impurity into the brick. you can see the trough where it dragged below the impurity before becoming lodged and remaining to become todays mystery years later. Fired brick is extreamly brittle. look at the finger like brick material over the impurity, there is no way that was caused by a bullet impact.

My 2 cents.
 
From the picture, it doesn't actually look like there's anything in there.
If it was caused by a bullet, maybe it was from a spent one, fired from a long way off, but didn't penetrate.
Have you looked on the ground directly below there, where something could have fallen after impact ?
 
Absolutely not a bullet or pellet. That is mineral pocket in the brick that stopped the groover when the brick was still clay. It then melted when the brick was fired in a kiln.
 
Yes, but if it was some mineral impurity from the groover, and it melted in the furnace, then how come I still have razor sharp, jagged metal edges on edge of that piece? Although you can't see that too well in my blurry pics, but I saw it in person.
 
I understand you would be quite concerned about a bullet hitting your house.I wpuld be,too.
And,good for you to not just jump to a conclusion.

For what its worth,there was an old brick factory near my house.It made bricks out of the dirt where it was located,so,over time,a large pit was created.

It became a popular place to shoot.There is a possibility bullets ended up in bricks.

I initially thought lead anchor,for a screw,myself.

One thing I have observed.As a lead slug hits a hard surface,it flattens out,and gets larger.It does that even if it makes a shallow penetration.

I think if a bullet hit you brick and stopped short like that,a crater of brick would have chipped away.IMO,instead of the hole being a tight fit,you'd have maybe a 1 inch or1 1/2 inch shallow dished out spot...a crater,with a grey stain in the bottom..I have not shot at bricks particularly,but rocks ,sandstone,shale,limestone,granite,etc,and concrete blocks don't look like that.

I cannot say 100% for sure no chance that is a bullet,it even could be an old bullet cooked into a brick,but I can say it does not look to me like your house was shot.

I'm not CSI,but I think I would not worry unless you get new ones!

Dig it out,if you want,put the pieces on a piece of paper and take more pix.I'll look again.
 
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Looks like a all lead splatter from..

a .22.

Is the camera in below the horizontal or above the horizontal?

Loaned my daughter a J-Frame with some Win 148gr HBBW ammo
stepped into the garage and had her fire into a backstop.
She missed and nailed the cement block wall of chimney and now I have beautiful splotches about 1/2" diameter. Picked up the lead off floor and gave it to a lead caster.

What you have is not similar. If any type of jacket/gas check, check the ground in a four foot radius for something shiny, like a new penny.
 
Can it be pulled out with pliers? If it is a bullet, it should come away pretty easily. If it is an anchor or an impurity of some kind, it might be hard to remove.

Jim
 
Thanks everyone. I am still reading the replies and learning new info from each post. Lot of different viewpoints I see. Which is what makes this kind of a mystery piece.
 
New update. I had another police officer come over here. It had just gotten dark. I just asked him to LOOK at it. He was up on the ladder, and I was down on the ground, not really looking. I look up, I see him scraping away. I said, don't touch it, he kind of stopped. He said, "I tried to take it out, but it wouldn't come out".

I went to look at it later in the daylight, it was almost all gone. I would say 60 to 70% gone. I called and made a complaint about that officer, because he shouldn't have done that without asking me.

There are still some metal fragments and metal powder left in the back, so it still reflects light.

So I noticed before it was very delicate and flaked off. So I think it could be a fragmenting bullet. It obviously broke apart when that officer tried to get it out.

But thanks to him doing that, we now know what is behind it. Nothing. Just more brick. So it was just a hole about a 1/2 inch deep. It was too small to be an anchor, and we also know it was not an old wiring hole, like one guy thought it was.

-- What does anyone think about this piece flaking off so easily? Is that typical of a fragmenting or frangible bullet? How common are fragmenting bullets?
 
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Jroth, the camera is mostly below the horizontal, but if you look at my group pics, one pic is pretty much 'at' horizontal.
 
a frangible bullet would really be a stretch. do you WANT this to be a bullet? the cop was trying to take it out because he was wants to figure out what it was. I really don't think that warrants a complaint, I don't think CSI is interested.
 
Unless you can associate it with a crime, don't bother the cops any more. Get a little brick colored putty, plug the hole, and forget about it.

Jim
 
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