Jerry M
Ultimate Member
Angle steel used for rifle downward and no closer that 100 yards. Getting hit with spatter at IPSC type events is not unheard of.
Good Luck
Jerry
Good Luck
Jerry
Look this up on YouTube:
"50 cal ricochet knocks off earmuffs"
I'm no rocket scientists, but you should not be shooting at any solid surface. You run a very high risk of hurting yourself or others. I would advise you to stop this activity your playing a very dangerous game. Go to Home Depot or lowes and pick up some sand bags, ten or twenty should work and set up your targets on the bags make it three deep, this will greatly reduce the risk of the rounds coming back at you. Hope this helps.
Beg to differ, the one out of 1,000 did.... well within 10 feet of my shooting spot.
I remember my mom smacking the back of my legs with a yardstick...not much pain but that she did it hurt worst. My dad using a belt...that hurt! I remember when my older brother threw a rock at me and bloodied the back of my head...my mom washed the blood off while my dad chased my brother with his belt. "Good Times".
That video is crazy! Saw it years ago. That ping and the twang as it takes his ears off. Guy says that's it were done.
That isn't actually 180 degrees though.
To the OPs question, it would depend on too many variables to calculate. What is the hardness of the steel. How is the steel target mounted. Thickness and mass of the steel target. Exact hardness and composition of the bullet, etc.
A perfect 180 degree bounce back is basically not possible, it'll have to be at some fraction of an angle. The shallower the angle, the lower the imparted energy in reverse is. The harder the target, with higher elasticity, and thinner (so long as it doesn't penetrate) as well as the harder the projectile and the higher its elasticity is, the more velocity imparted in a ricochet.
You don't want to shoot soft steels not because of a ricochet, but because you don't want to deform the target sufficiently that you blast off a piece of steel that ends up coming at you as well as a lower likelihood of shattering your projectile.
As for slightly off angle, again, its too hard to calculate exactly what it would be without knowing all of the variables (and I don't know the equations to calculate it), but that is why you have minimum shoot distances on steel targets and why rifles it is usually 100yds for steel...
On very high velocity projectiles you are likely talking 200-300fps or so. Which is sufficient for a piece or rip clothing and embed in your flesh (generally about 130fps is sufficient to break the skin for a rounded projectile like a BB, sharper requires less velocity). The extra range both makes it less likely you'd be in the path of the ricochet, as well as allowing it to hit the ground first rather than you (well and air resistance to slow it somewhat more).
A much lower velocity projectile like a pistol bullet is going to be more in the 100-150fps range.
It may be 183 degrees BUT it's close enough for gov't work and my curiosity. Your 100-150fps range for pistol sounds possible but can you back that up or is it just a wild guess?
Maybe shooting at a bullet trap is safer?
Love my .45 cal "Shrooms!"
https://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=93082
THIS never gets old