couldbeanyone
New member
I had my first encounter with a ricochet in 30 years of shooting yesterday. Was shooting in an impromptu steel plate match with several buddies at about 20 yards, when a piece of a bullet came back and hit me. I have been shooting plates about 5 years now. The fragment came back and hit me barely above my glasses, an inch to the left of the center of my nose in the bottom of my eyebrow. It felt like I got hit with a rock and blood began to flow down the corner of my eye. I got the blood stopped and felt the area of the wound and felt a bump under my skin. It hurt in quite a bit broader area than just where it hit and cut the skin. I went to the emergency room and they x-rayed my head. I now have two pieces of lead in me, one about the size of bb but thinner about quarter of an inch above my eye and a slightly smaller piece a little higher up. I have to go to a surgeon monday so they can decide whether to try and take them out or whether they are just going to leave them there. I guess the thinness of the tissue and the hardness and curvature of the bone behind it was what allowed them to penetrate and travel to where they did. The good news is that my eye and everything else important seems to be unaffected, however I hate to think what a little more velocity might have done. The plates were about 7/16 thick and looked to be in pretty good shape. Don't really want to get wound up on the hows or whys as I am sure it was just a fluke thing. I read a thread on here about three pages long of people being hit at the range, had no idea it happenned that much and most people didn't take it very seriously. I for one will never again shoot at anything harder than a paper target or a coyote again. I don't expect anyone else to stop shooting steel, I just wanted to share this as if you are unlucky enough to get hit just wrong it could be very serious. Always wear those glasses folks for sure. Good luck and good shooting.