Ouch! That was a mistake.

T

tstr

New member
So I bought this nifty little Derringer that shoots .45 Colt or .410 shotshells thinking it would be a fun little gun. Out of four shotshells I tried, it only managed to make one of them go off. There wasn’t enough impact on the primer. So I try a .45 Colt round. I’m shooting into a stump with a target taped to it. The bleeping bullet bounced off the stump and hit me in the forehead. I bled all over the place.

I was pretty upset that I’d bought a boomerang gun until it occurred to me that it would be flying back to the dealer today.

tstr
 
Glad you're OK.
So now we know the .45 colt is not a manstopper on bounce back. That is good.
Was that an ironwood stump?

------------------
"Keep shootin till they quit floppin"
The Wife 2/2000
 
Hi, tstr,

I am glad you were not seriously hurt. With a low power round (which the .45 Colt would be out of that short barrel), it is common to have the bullet bounce back from a tree or a fence post. The old .41 derringer rimfire round did it almost routinely. With softer wood, the bullets would stick and could be picked out with the fingers. Black powder revolvers with round balls are also very subject to bouncing back.

Remember the often repeated warning against shooting at hard surfaces?

Jim
 
Glad you're ok...but i have this image in my mind...

[[Man aims derringer at stump.]]
~BLAM!~
~bounce~
~THUNK~
"OUCHIES!!!!!~

HAHAHAHAHAHahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!!!!!!
 
What's the last thing an Oregonian says before they perish?

"Hey, watch this..." :D

Glad your booboo had a happy ending.



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Make mine lean, mean, and 9x19!
 
Ah, the old Bounce Back Syndrome! I first discovered this with a Blackhawk, medium loads, and a cedar stump at five yards. Mesquite logs provide some bounce, also.

A buddy of mine was shooting his Python with some hot SWC loads at my hanging steel target; some 15 yards. Center-punched himself in the belly-button. Bruised himself into being a sho-nuff "outie"! (Good that he was wearing a winter shirt over a tee-shirt!)

:), Art
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR> [[Man aims derringer at stump.]]
~BLAM!~
~bounce~
~THUNK~
"OUCHIES!!!!!~ [/quote]

Yeah that was pretty well it. Actually a little bit funnier except for the blood. We'd been shooting other things at the stump no problem. But when I got ready to fire my new Derringer I started out cautious and fired the first round into a dirt bank. My shooting partner said, "arn't you going to shoot at the target?"

I said, "I dunno, I think I might get hurt."

My partner said, "ah come on."

I said, "It'll bounce off and hit me in the head." (swear to God I really did say that.)

Partner says, "no way."

So I aimed at the target.

~BLAM!~
~bounce~
~THUNK~
"OUCHIES!!!!!~

I yelled “OUCH!” slapped my hand to my head and turned to my partner and yelled, "I told you I'd get hurt."

My partner, of course, did not believe me -- at least not until the blood started pouring down my face. Partner kept saying, "I would have sworn you were just joking when you did said that."

Anyway. The .45 Colt is designed to fire in a larger gun and with such a short barrel it couldn't generate any velocity, especially since it was a 255grain bullet. I probably could reproduce the same energy with a good sling-shot. (I'm not going to, I just said I probably could :) )

tstr
 
I shot one of those mini derringers in .44 Mag a few years ago. The first shot dislocated my thumb.

Never did take the second. :)

------------------
Beware the man with the S&W .357 Mag.
Chances are he knows how to use it.
 
I had a standard velocity .22 long rifle bounce back off a fence post one time and I heard and felt it zing past my ear. Very unsettling. I don't know if it would have penetrated or not if it had hit me. Also, when I was going through an NRA instructor school at a Marine Corps indoor range in Quantico, one of my classmates caught a bounced back .45ACP FMJ round square in the chest while we were doing night fire training. It didn't penetrate his skin, but left a heck of a big red welt. He said it hurt accordingly - definitely got his attention. Glad you survived your event.

-10CFR
 
You must be mistaken, M&S confirm that the .45 Long Colt one shot stops stumps 97.8564347% of the time. :) ;)

---

I am glad to hear you are OK, considering the potential for grievous injury.

The most painful bounce-back I had was a 9mm returning to my ankle from about 15 yards.

I had a bullet bounce back and smack me in my shooting glasses a few years back- that will get your attention in a hurry!
 
Is that the Cobray? Black, two barrels side-by-side, with a switch on the hammer to select which barrel fires?

The other surprise (or maybe not) is that .410 shotshells are amazingly weak out of that teeny barrel. We were shooting dad's at a soda can one day--and the shot failed to DENT the aluminum. You could hear it hit the can. I moved up to about five feet, which was as close as I cared to be, and never did manage to pierce that thin aluminum.
 
Eye protection? Check. Ear protection? Check. Helmet with face guard? Why do I need a bloody face guard? You know I heard about this guy who was shooting this .45 derringer once and ...
 
Sorry to hear about your accident! I own a couple of .45colt/.410 derringers and find them to be the most powerful guns I could find in such a small package. Silvertips are great in it and .410 000 buck does a heck of a job on cans, melons and whatever else I can hit. Maybe you were shooting reduced velocity cowboys rounds? I've never had any such trouble with mine and have blasted clean through many a fencepost!

Canis
 
When I lived in central California, we used to be able to drive 5 minutes out of town and we would be in a dry riverbed with very high sand dune sides. All the locals would shoot in this dry riverbed. One day aabout 5 of us were firing away at an old abandoned car left in the riverbed when we saw some old tires on one of the banks...we switched to center punching the tires when two of the guys went head over heels in a somersault.

Apparently, both of them caught slow moving slug ricochets coming off the "hubcaps." They both had welts on their shins from those hunks of metal, but we kept on shooting, but from within a trench.
 
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