Thread: Funny what a bullet will do

So I shot a stag today with a 123gr eldm. Crease shot quartering away. Bullet went through the crease then must have hit something solid on the offside shoulder, quite a lot of bruising under the skin on the offside. Thought bullet must be stuck in there somewhere. Was skinning back for back steaks and found bullet just in front of the hip on the offside. Took a big deflection.

For a great many years I have been investigating and experimenting with the unusual performance of bullets after they have contacted something. This has also given me a fair bit of 'expert witness' experience in the Courts regarding shooting incidents, homicides, etc. One thing I have learned and personally experienced on a few occasions is the ability of bullets to perform U-turns in unlikely materials. Similarly, the ability of shattered bone to travel long distances through a body and cause fatal wounds some distance from a normally non-fatal bullet impact point. The only thing predictable is their unpredictability after contacting a hard object. It is a fascinating subject and the bullet path can usually be traced, sometimes defying logic, but never changing course in mid-air as was hypothesised in the JFK/Connelly shooting!

I shot a big red hind at about 100yard with a 6.5 156gn Berger at 3080fps and that exited the same side as the entry it was a real head scratcher

I shoulder shot a fallow hind some years ago, it was a bang flop and I found the lead core in the hind quarter same side.

Another anomaly was shooting a rabbit which was a bang flop and I heard the whizz of a ricochet, I was checking the rabbit for entry/exit to see if I could get some idea about the ricochet, but I couldn’t even find blood. Not sure if the bullet bounced off or what but I skinned it when I got home and couldn’t find any wounds then either. I did find an air rifle pellet under it’s skin and another pellet in the skin of a rabbit shot 10 minutes earlier.

7mm 175 berger elite hunter, big hind at less than 10m, massive internal damage in the lungs, stood for over 30 seconds before falling over, didn’t find a single piece of bullet, no exit wound, only one hole on entry side, muzzle velocity of 2830

Must've been quite a shot. That bullet trajectory sounds wild, hitting bone like that. Good thing you found it though. Did it mess up the meat much, or were you able to salvage some decent steaks?

Cape Buffalo, 375 h&h monolithic solid. 3/4 away. Client shot behind ear. Buff went down. Walking up to it , started standing up. Both me and client shot again
Original bullet entered ,hit 1st vertebra. Traveled under the skin to exit just above opposite eye.
Pig side on 308 softnose. heart shot, hit hit rib ran under skin to exit on far side rear knee , follow up shot went right through

Firepower displays in the desert in Waiouru: belts of tracer show that bullets hitting hard surfaces even a km away can indeed circle back at you. Quite spooky watching these fireflies floating back towards you

A colleague in the British Army that I worked with in Germany had just come back from a tour in Northern Ireland: He had shot a 'terrorist' in the calf as he was departing the scene of a crime. Bang flop. FMJ had ricocheted off the tibia and turned 90 degrees, worked its way all the way up his leg and exited after gutting him.

Originally Posted by XR500

Firepower displays in the desert in Waiouru: belts of tracer show that bullets hitting hard surfaces even a km away can indeed circle back at you. Quite spooky watching these fireflies floating back towards you

A colleague in the British Army that I worked with in Germany had just come back from a tour in Northern Ireland: He had shot a 'terrorist' in the calf as he was departing the scene of a crime. Bang flop. FMJ had ricocheted off the tibia and turned 90 degrees, worked its way all the way up his leg and exited after gutting him.

I worked on a homicide a few years ago where the victim was shot in the shoulder. A bone fragment passed through his chest and sliced into his heart, while a person behind was untouched by the exiting bullet but wounded by bone fragments. It was an interesting case as there were other shots in the victim as well but non-fatal. It was just the small sliver of shoulder bone that killed him.

Once when shooting out of a machine .308 150 gr FMJ at mob if Chammy in a greywacke bluff system @ 40yrds I missed,the round came straight back and hit the bubble.Not a Rick O'Shea but a full on 180° bounce with plenty of energy left.Yeeks

Be aware of lead shed from the pill, it can break into tiny little chunks when this happens and gets everywhere - some bits not much bigger than powder... Probably not good to ingest that stuff, I've had to avoid a lot of a couple of animals through finding shrapnel everywhere it wasn't meant to be.

Originally Posted by bluebaiter222

Once when shooting out of a machine .308 150 gr FMJ at mob if Chammy in a greywacke bluff system @ 40yrds I missed,the round came straight back and hit the bubble.Not a Rick O'Shea but a full on 180° bounce with plenty of energy left.Yeeks

FMJ is an unpredictable bastard at the best of times, had one come back 180 on a range off the previous bullet that had stuck into the timber backing board, right in a very hard knotty bit. Target had one oval hole with a perfect FMJ shaped keyhole right next to it as the pill came back... Previous bullet had a nifty flared bum, you'd have though the second would have stuck into the lead core but...

The pilot with in excess of 15k hrs on venny had never experienced it before,despite using the same ammo(cheap)during those hrs.Until the new chum comes along....

Shot a pig side on in the temple of the head with a subsonic 230gr Berger OTM using a 300BLK at 15m, it entered the skull and did a 90 degree exit turn going through the the neck and stopping between the shoulders.

Last week shot a hind (500m+) with the 338 edge/ 285gr ELD-m impact on the shoulder the bullet exited the off side shoulder and a the gut with a massive hole. I think it was jacket and core separation? Still was a quick clean kill.

I had interesting one a few weeks back. Stag at 220m, 150 nbt perfect broad side shot in the crease. He dropped on the spot which looking back was a bit weird. After the shot I sat down for 15 mins had a drink and bite before heading down and he hadn't moved. Half way to him and his head starts flying around which put me in panick mode. Trying to get another shot in him but the angles where all wrong. Picked up the pace and dropped out of sight for a bit but when I got to him he was clearly still breathing but unable to move his body, head was still flinging around. A shot to the neck and he was done. When I cut him open the bullet had entered perfectly in behind the front leg but then shot straight up into the side of the spine and back where I found the bullet. Obviously enough to paralyze but not kill.