I was target shooting with a friend awhile back and something very strange happened. i have a kimber pro-carry .45 and i was using Wolf 230 gr. fmj. While i was shooting, about the third round in the mag., I pulled the trigger and the gun kicked, stirred up dirt about 20 feet ahead of me, and i felt something hit my foot. i looked down and the bullet was sitting right beside my foot. the bullet was not deformed, but one side of it was rubbed smooth, free of groove marks. asked a few people what may have happened, and they each had different opinions.
1 a man with a considerable amount of gunsmithing, said the primer went off, but the main charge did not. however, the gun kicked just as hard as always. Wouldn't that disprove the theory?
2 another said the bullet came out like normal, hit the ground causing the rubbing marks, and bounced back and hit my foot. But would it have hurt much worse if that was the case?
3 the last said it justdidn't have enough powder to go anywhere.
2007-11-14 05:48:56 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Sports ➔ Outdoor Recreation ➔ Hunting
Through experience in the military and law-enforcement I can tell you exactly what happened. The person in #3 is right. It's called a squib load.
That is wear there is an insufficient amount of powder to fire properly but enough to feel a kick. You are blessed that God was looking our for you. 9 out of 10 when this happens the bullet gets stuck in the barrel and you think nothing about it and fire another round. Resulting in damaging your fire arm and injury to yourself.
My advice to you is to switch brands of ammo. This has happened to some of my friends and I decided to weigh the powder. I reload my own ammo and have found out they put a lower powder charge in there ammo than other factory brands. Sometimes up to 20% less. Why? I have no idea but that brand does that.
2007-11-14 06:45:38 · answer #1 · answered by K B 1 · 0⤊ 4⤋
You seem to indicate that all previous rounds had functioned properly so I would not suspect a squibb load sticking in the barrel. The fact that the recoil was the same as usual indicates that the round in question had the same charge as all previous rounds. if it had a lesser charge, you would have certainly noticed the reduced recoil when you fired it. I think what happened is that the round in question was a normal round but you hit something at the target and the bullet bounced back and struck you on the foot. The fact that it did not strike you very hard cold be explanied by it having expended most of its energy on whatever it struck at the target. You also said that there was some dust stirred up about 20 ft. ahead of you. This could be explained as the point of initial impact of the bullet as it bounced back at you. Striking the ground would also deminish any residual kinetic energy in the bullet resulting on it not causing any pain as it struck your foot. I have had two bullets bounce back on my in that way. In one case, I was shooting at a knot on a telephone pole with a .22 long rifle ( I know that I should not have been shooting a telephone pole but I was about 15 or 16 and still stupid). Anyway, the bullet bounced back and hit me in the stomach causing a nice welt and later a bruse. On another occasion, I was keeping score in a bowling pin match and was located at a table about 15 ft. behind the shooter. The shooter was shooting a .44 mag. and one of his bullets hit the edge of the metal bench on which the pins were sitting. The bullet bounced back, narrowly missing the shooter but striking me in a very delicate part of my anatomy. Let's just say that it rung my chimes. The area swelled up and I had a good bit of pain for a few days afterward. In neither case did the bullet have enough energy to penetrate my skin but did have enough energy to cause some pain. Neither of the bullets, in my case, hit anything on the return trip so they did not have a chance to loose any energy before striking me. Your bullet appears to have hit the ground and then tumbled the rest of the way to your foot loosihg almost all of its kinteic energy before reaching you.
2007-11-14 07:45:20 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
If the pistol recoiled as much as normal, it's possible you had a squib lodged in the barrel, the 2nd bullet fired driving the squib out where you saw it kick up dirt, and the 2nd bullet dropped to the ground at your feet. This is HIGHLY unlikely though, firing a bullet behind a lodged squib will often blow the gun up. Out of the possibilitys you suggested, the most reasonable would be that it bounced back ad rolled to your feet, all the energy of the bullet was probably displaced upon impact, giving it just enough to bounce back harmlessly at your feet.
I've shot quit a bit of various caliber wolf ammo, and I've never had a squib, I've had a few in .223 that the primer never lit off.
2007-11-14 05:59:24 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
Since you said the bullet was deformed on one side, it was probably one of those one in a million ricochets where it hit like you said 20 or so feet in front of you, lost it's energy upon impact, and bounced back towards your feet.My range no longer allows civilians to shoot at the 15 yard steel plates for that very reason, ricochets. Military and Law Enforcement contracts are still allowed to shoot the 15 yard steel plates because they 9 out of 10 times practice shooting while wearing body armor.It may even be a rule that they have to wear it if they shoot the 15 yard steels.
2007-11-14 06:08:24 · answer #4 · answered by boker_magnum 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
I had a simular thing happen to me at an indoor range. Fired my last round (158gr. .357@about 1000fps) it hit the deflector plate, splashed in the sand and skipped out chattered along the floor and smacked me in the foot. Hit me a pretty good smack in the sole of my shoe. Was the bullet hot? This one sure was. I hot potatoe bounced it in my hand up to the range master and told him what happened. He said "That's impossible!" So I dropped it in his hand. He dropped it out mighty quick too cause it was still plenty hot! He switched me to another lane. Someone else was shooting in my old lane before I left. Never shot there again.
2007-11-14 06:08:17 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
This happened to me also, I was shooting my Ruger Blackhawk 357 Magnum one afternoon with railroad ties for a backstop when I felt something hit me right between the eyes, after recovering I looked down in front of me and there laid a 357 Magnum bullet.* I was very lucky that it didn't have enough energy to penetrate me, although had it hit me in the eye it would have.* True story.*
2007-11-14 08:03:31 · answer #6 · answered by dca2003311@yahoo.com 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋