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I just heard today that my wife's colleagues heard "bullets" flying around their lifestyle property. The couple in their 60s were gardening.
The guy walked up to his neighbour 2 properties away and spoke to him.
That guy was shooting rabbits & the bullets ricocheted. He was an ex cop!
I am presuming the rifle was a .22.
Apologies to anyone reading this who is or was a member of the police.
It is my observation that being a policeman / policewoman doesn't guarantee proficiency in either firearms safety or firearms use.
I wouldv rang the cops regardless.Not good when you cant potter around in yr garden with bullets flying around.
So third hand information.... .22lr whizzing past..... Something not right,missing in the details there.and personally I've found territorials to be far worse than coppers in regards to firearms safety.
Yip I have had projectiles bounce away in weird directions at times but not/never, multiple of them at same time....not so much.it does however remind us to ensure safe backstop at all times when others are nearby.
Last year we had a nice Christmas day interrupted by a few "zings" that sounded just about overhead. Turns out a friend of the farm owner was out shooting hares in the paddock our house was in (obscured by a hedge). Went up and told them what I thought, their reply was "he used to be a shepherd he knows what he's doing". Can't fix stupid
Had a 22 bullet hit the flashing at home a couple of months back. About 10pm, couldn't work out what the big "clank" was. Coming back inside, I heard 22 shots from a few properties over...Dent rather visible in the flashing in the morning.
22's are notorious for ricochets and more so over summer when the ground gets harder.
That's another reason why I like the 17 HMR... BUT... never assume anything and always think about where your bullet could potentially go!
Try a 150 grn at subsonic speed and you really start to worry.man can them whizz off super easily.
mate a frontline copper with no firearms training apart from the day or two they get at police school is an absolute danger not their Falt they just don't get enough trainingQuote:
Originally Posted by Cyclops
however, the fact that this guy is or was a copper is pretty immaterial if he's shooting bunnies, he's a FAL holder (unless he has gone to the other side of the law)
this means he has more experience than his basic police training
A .22 bullet 'whizzing' would probably be deformed and ricocheted from a hard object (stone, fence post, water pipe etc.) and would have lost a fair bit of velocity but still have enough power to cause a wound. Such things can easily turn 90 degrees from the line of the shot. Lifestyle blocks are bad news for that sort of thing, especially as many 'lifestylers' are frequently lacking basic country skills and common sense. I will refrain from commenting on Police and firearms use!
My brother had a round break the outer of the new double glazed ranchslider (last house on town boundary). Called the cops as they were at home with the kids. The cops were on the farm within 5 min and the guy apparently lost their license.
yeah, we live on a 3-acre block, and we do have pests, but I will not shoot a firearm around here our land is flat as a pancake with no safe backstopsQuote:
Originally Posted by NZBeeMan
just got to be so careful and the humble 22 is one of the worst alot of pepole still think "its just a 22" eh
Im surrounded by town - 24 neighbours - and I dont fire anything other than my air rifle . Too many eyes , too many complainers
This is the third instance of this I've heard about in two weeks!
It is exactly this scenario that lead me to develop my suppressed 410s, the build up of small blocks, needing to get rid of pests but with reduced noise and minimal range and risk of ricochet
I have sold hundreds and they still seem to be popular as people realise the risks associated with the old 22
.22 is one of the worst for ricochet danger, I have had them come straight back past us when shooting chicken falling targets with target (hard lead) ammo. I don't think a lot of shooters are really aware of how careful you have to be and to be fair, the firearms safety handbook only talks about the cone of fire in front of the muzzle. The other one that is a bit surprising is air rifles, I was having fun with a co2 air pistol at 15m catching the pellets in my shirt pocket shooting the target stapled to the end of a 100x100 H4 fence post offcut. Could easily see them bouncing back at me, and I got about 14 out of 20 in my pocket!
When I was a teenager sighting in my 10/22, put a bit of cardboard in front of a house brick. Went back 25 paces. Into prone position and squeezed off 1st shot, zip into the ground 6 inches from my elbow! Very careful about what I'm shooting into ever since.
That said last night as it happens I was at a local sporting clay range (Licensed) and we were shooting 5 stand. A rabbit target was set up between 2 and 3 going away. There happen to be 2 Y posts about 30 yards in front of the stands that are sometimes used to help shield a trap.
Shooter on 2 let the rabbit go a fair way before shooting it, pellets must have hit the y post, ricocheted and hit me in the shins (I was on 4)
Very good example why it's important to wear eye protection whenever appropriate.
You wear eye protection on your shins!!!
a good mate of mine was telling me just yesterday of a minor accident he had last week
he lives on a big farm, and he can safely zero rifles just behind his house in the gully he has one of those little steel 22lr swinging targets he uses to quickly check his 22 without needing to set up a target
he shot that with a subsonic 22lr round at 50m and the projectile came back and hit him in the chest it didn't hurt him or even leave a mark, but he felt something bounce off him and fall on the ground he picked up the projectile from between his feet
this is a very safe and experienced shooter so it really can happen to anyone
be careful out there guys
But it shouldQuote:
Originally Posted by Cyclops
Obtaining a FAL doesn't require actual shooting experience.Quote:
Originally Posted by rambo-6mmrem
It isn't a requirement to be an experience shooter before obtaining a FAL.
I'm an example of that. I obtained a FAL then learnt how to shoot (and how to shoot safely).
So a police officer with a FAL may not have any more experience than the occasional police training.
In keeping with the thread title - when I first got my FAL a couple decades back, the firearms instructor running the test told us all the the previous instructor had to quit as he'd accidentally shot his mate in a hunting accident (non-fatally), thinking he was a deer. I think he thought it was a useful example to share, however it didn't instil a lot of confidence that being a firearm safety 'expert' made you any safer in the bush...
And it better, if they end up armed, like many apparently (from Cahills lips, so...) want.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maca49
Whats the difference between say a 36gn 22cal air rifle slug doing north of 1000fps and a 36gn 22lr bullet doing the same- ish fps?
One is propelled by compressed air; the other by the combustion of an explosive charge.
Do I win the chocolate fish?
I noticed that 0.22lr ricochet turned my 7 wires fence into a guitar string every so often,
it got me thinking, what was the chance of 0.22lr projectile hitting 1 of the 7 wires?
After few hours on youtube and Google, it turned out that all my 0.22lr projectiles shattered into smaller pieces when it hit the target (gong).
Not sure if this is worse or less lethal.
In the 70s I read a Reader's digest story about a woman driver who started veering off a highway.
A cop following her noticed it and stopped. She was disoriented and died. During autopsy they couldn't find anything until someone noticed a pink spot behind her ear.
Further investigation found a 303 bullet in the brain stem.
They dis all the simulations and concluded that the bullet entered from a ventilator (old molde car) and must have been fired from a long distance.
Finally it was proved that the shot came from out at sea where a guy was doing target practice on a buoy.
Even more strange is that they knew each other.
Here's one for yi's..
It was aways back during that crazy meat hunting era eh.
Myself and a good mate were heading through the Makarora area to the Coast.
As quick as a flash the windscreen shatters and everything glass is covering both our knees.
Sitting amongst the bits and pieces was a battered .22 pill...reckoned it was a 50grn job at the time.
We can only speculate where it may have come from.............one thing we do know is that it had to have been nearing it's journey from some distance.
Anything can happen any time eh.
I remember reading that story to, as I remember it he said was shooting a shark, but still the the odds of working it out!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Nakihunter
Just because it docent make a sound doesn't mean it hasn't ricocheted either. When doing goat control I bought a few thousand rounds of 7.62 tracer ammo. That stuff changed how I shoot too this day. The number of shots that flew in weird directions was incredible. Back over our heads a few times. But the one that really got me thinking was its ability too hit the ground, go over a crest of a hill, and then get airborne again.
I don’t understand why for pest control people don’t use 410s and ring around all the neighbours to tell them prior. Much safer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by whanahuia
Much the same how my old man taught me about how projectiles behave, one sopping wet evening on dark he took me out on our pine block at the time, he dumped a magazine of 7.62 nato tracer across the valley to a face above the track above one of the old haul road and watched them piss off in all directions bouncing around.
“All bullets can do that, just because you can’t see it don’t assume it hasn’t”
Probably not the best way to teach a 10 year old how dangerous projectiles can be, but I still remember it to this day maybe 65% of those red beams whizzing on all angles, probably the best educational display of visual lethality I’ve witnessed.
Makes one wonder if the causal shooter is actually aware of what a projectile is able to do once it has contacted a surface/object and if that is something taken into consideration.
I have been present to witness a 7m08 pinhole a sitting stationary goat, ricochet of the dry clay ground behind it and get airborne again and ping into an adjacent clay face, the shooter was able to dig out the projectile remains and was rather stunned as he expected it to just stop when it hit the goat.
I very nearly kneecapped myself with a 12 ga solid.shot a big ram through brain inside Woolshed,slug then bounced all around the walls n rails,stopped by my feet spinning on the grating. It had lasting impression on me. I was killing dog Tucker's and rams were just too hard for my young teenage body to overpower...used the .22 outside of shed after that.
Yes they can be, but in some places not easy to feed and also not as common as bog standard 12ga. Short shells can be quite useful for pest work if you can get the right loads - a mate was using light clay target loads for relatively short range rabbit work and with the right choke setup they were quite nice to use. Lead pellets though, so not everyone can use those...Quote:
Originally Posted by omark
410 very limited range and killing power - the rifle is safe its the nut behind it thats not - when I was a firearm instructor we taught everyone supervision is right alongside the young or new shooter- I got a hard lesson in that one day teaching a 12 year old to shoot - he had no strength after a life of watching bloody space games - I gave him a standing shot with my BRNO .22 - he put it up and tried to get a bead on a can I put out - ohh god he says its heavy and drops it down towards his feet fully cocked - I was able to tip the barrel up in time to avoid him plonking a round thru his foot - packed it up and went home still shaking