Literally, this is a report of damage done at Area 5. I’ll have a match report tomorrow, but these are a couple of funny pictures that I snapped at the match.
First picture is from where I caught a jacket fragment from a .38 Super that did a nice bank-shot off a steel plate in to my calf.
The second photo is a lot worse – somehow this car’s rear window caught a large enough fragment to punch through the glass. Talk about a one in a million ricochet. I feel bad for the owners of this car, I’ve never seen anything like that happen before. Plus, as an insurance agent, I feel really bad – it sucks having a claim like that!
Is this common at these events? Twice at the same event would seem to me to indicate serious safety issues, especially if these ricochets are going back to the firing line!
“One in a million” ricochets shouldn’t happen twice in one day!
Pieces of jacket coming back happens all the time. That’s why we wear eye pro. A full slug coming back like that is a serious issue.
What Jeff said is correct – I was stupid because I was standing at a perfect 45 degree angle of deflection from the plate when I caught that jacket fragment, but the slug that came back and hit the car window is extremely unusual.
“Is this common at these events? ”
Yep. Trash blows back at gun ranges all the time.
You could build a backstop out of cream puffs and sooner or later something will blow back.
I’ve had frag come back and nick me a couple of times. It’s not a big deal, as long as you’re wearing eye protection, the worst you’ll get is a minor cut that can be dealt with using a regular band aid.
I’ve never seen an entire round come back like that, nor have I seen one break a vehicle windshield.
Caleb, what condition are the steel targets in? Are they bulging heavily, or covered with an excessive number of pockmarks from heavy use?