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Range Report How far can a .30 ricochet travel? HELP

Highflyer

Highflyer

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Jul 25, 2003
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Honolulu, Hawaii
We have a problem here in Honolulu. Their is only one public range which had steel set at 250, 300 & 450yds.
They have just shut down all but 100yds paper because a person has claimed that a .30 ricochet off of steel plate traveled up 226 yds over a hill then traveled 2550 yds where it hit a house.
Is this possible?
Thanks for your input.


Koko Head Rifle Range is now limited to targets placed at 100 yards or closer
All shooting at targets beyond 100 yards is prohibited at the Koko Head Rifle Range. This rule went into effect Friday, November 1, 2013 in response to a report of a bullet passing through the kitchen window of a residence on Koko Kai Place, in East Hawaii Kai, Sunday morning, October 27, 2013. Subsequently examined by Koko Head Range staff, the bullet was .30 caliber and appeared scuffed. There are two other separate .30 cal bullet recovery incidents from the area. Fallen hanging metal targets propped at an angle on the slopes of Koko Head are implicated.

The report was discussed in the Hawaii Kai Neighborhood Board meeting October 29, 2013. Unfavorable comments about Koko Head safety were made by Chair Greg Knudsen. The issue is added to the next Hawaii Kai Neighborhood Board meeting starting at 7pm, Tuesday, November 26, 2013, in the Hahaione Elementary School Cafeteria, 595 Pepekeo St, Honolulu. On the agenda will be the Koko Head Shooting Complex "safety improvements" and a discussion on the changes that have been made at the KHSC. Public attendance is encouraged.

Koko Kai Place is approximately 2,550 yards directly downrange from the Koko Head rifle range firing line, behind the Koko Head Crater rim which rises a maximum of 678 feet above the floor of the range.
 

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That's definitely plausible. It all depends on the angle its projected and the velocity/energy it loses during contact. A couple years ago I was hunting and about 800 yards away and 100' higher elevation a few bubbas on the neighboring property were shooting there muzzle loaders into their "berm" and in my direction. Their "berm" is a pile of brush with about a 20 degree incline behind it. The first few rounds went overhead and to the side of me close enough I could hear them zinging through the air but far enough up and over I didn't perceive them as a danger until the 4th hit the ground a few feet from me.

This was from a slow muzzleloader that was catching brush before ricochet, not a high velocity round possibly hitting nothing before ricochet.

The general rule of thumb is to either have plenty of distance between you and any dwelling, or have berms large enough it will catch any possible misses. If you have a target setup on a hillside with a gradual slope then you may have issues.
 
traveling one and a half miles after ricocheting off of a steel target? It would have to just barely glance the steel to ricochet that far. I don't really see how that could have happened but what do I know.
 
Maybe out of a 300 wm. Look up max ranges on thirty cal rounds.

Sent from GS3 Synergy
 
I can tell you right now it didn't go anywhere if it hit a plate the was hanging. If that bullet made it there it contacted a light slope.
 
Yeah... Sadly sounds plausible. Angled steel plate set part way up that hill. Even with this scenario it does seem like the bullet would lose a ton of energy after the skip off the steel but if it had just enough to clear the ridge, it would go quite a ways.


--- aim small miss small ---
 
I highly doubt a .30 high power bullet ricocheted off a steel plate and traveled anywhere. First every high power bullet I have fired and contacted with steel has shattered into fragments of bullet jacket and lead. This is always the case out to 1000 yards. The trajectory past 500 yards is plunging. More often I see bullets ricocheting off soft ground as the bullets strike low.
 
After playing with a belt fed and a lot of tracers... The bounces tend to go farther than you would ever imagine. No matter what caliber or how much energy it might or might not have, people get pissed when bullets land nearby.

Plus, it might not have been a richoche. I am always amazed by the number of holes in ceilings at indoor ranges.
 
We had the same issue here in Machias, Washington back in April. Guess what? Range was closed for maintenance the day of the incident and the issue is still being reviewed by police but the range was not the cause. More than likely someone fired a round either close by or within the dwelling. Sounds like your local PD needs to consider that.

Time to get the MythBusters involved.

Machias residents say stray bullet from gun range hit their home | Local & Regional | Seattle News, Weather, Sports, Breaking News | KOMO News


http://www.examiner.com/article/upd...osed-case-of-machias-home-hit-by-stray-bullet
 
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Improper discharged weapon never hit a target on the range?

Sent from my C771 using Tapatalk 2
 
I think the part of this that is stranger is that it went through the persons window the statistical chances of that make my calculator upset
 
Shooting a 338 snipetac at 1850 one day, after a shot I saw dust about 500 yards up the hill, wow. What I saw was the second bounce, even though in terms of energy, it shouldn't have had much left in it, but it wasn't done there and I'm sure it cleared the hill. Even a horse like the snipetac was falling fast, but something hard on the ground sent it back into the air.
A lot of days after shooting elr, we'll go out and inspect the targets and surrounding ground, dig up a pile of bullets that missed. One conclusion I've came to, even though we think our bullets are falling from the sky, in reality they're trajectory is flatter than one can imagine. And we're not shooting big 30 cals either, mostly 7's, and 6.5's. It's not uncommon to find bullets troughs 40 yards past the target on the flats, yes they were probably over shoots, but some aren't.
 
That sucks I used to shoot at Koko! Good times out there! I would say it's more possible that someone had a negligent discharge over the berm but I'm no expert.
 
It is possible for sure, I would also say that from my experience it would have not been off steel but off the ground also. But knowing how people are I would ask a some simple question. Was the window damaged? even if the window was open the screen would be damaged. I have seen some crazy shit, and the craziest is when accidents happen. I would agree the odds of hitting that window from that far even on purpose would be near impossible. Given that I would hope that a thorough investigation is done and assumptions are not made.

There was an incident a while back (Tennessee I think) where a neighbor to a private range called the cops that rounds where hitting his/her house and falling to the ground. Sure enough when Officers arrived there were holes in the siding of the house and LIVE rounds on the grounds. Home owner admitted poking holes in his/her siding and dropping live ammo on the ground in an attempt to get the range shutdown. He/She didn't know that only the bullet flies through the air.
 
Thanks guys. I was hoping for someone to come up with some statistics to show that this would be impossible. This is mostly likely a long shot but I'm looking for something to take to the meeting.
Jim
 
Highflyer said:
Thanks guys. I was hoping for someone to come up with some statistics to show that this would be impossible. This is mostly likely a long shot but I'm looking for something to take to the meeting.
Jim
Click to expand...


ANYTHING is possible... its just not probable...

the thing is, limiting to 100y still wont stop a "whoops"....
 
I think the key here is "angle" of contact. The OP mentioned that the examined bullet was "scuffed", meaning only a glancing strike, probably where the bullet barely made contact with the edge of the target. It didn't deduct any velocity from the bullet. this is always going to be the potential in shooting steel, unfortunately. At my club the board of dirs. made a rule that any steel target must be placed at or on the berm and not any distance in front of it to more insure that an edge strike will still catch in the dirt. Personnaly, I suspect that there will still be a future issue with rounds leaving the property. I remember back in my silhouett days when a friend was shooting his .44 mag. at the 25yd. chickens. His round barely clipped the top of the chicken and made it hop but did not fall over, amazing to everyone who witnessed it. Could not have duplicated that shot again!! Where did the bullet go???
 
Just some info that might be useful to you, when I was at Ft Bragg.
We just got the XM 2012's and there was only one range on the entire post that had a big enough danger space to fire them. They had to move some stuff around so that they could be fired on the sniper range. The 300 WM has something like a 4800m Danger Space, it is longer than the 50 BMG, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some hits downrange, especially if there is not a TALL and STEEP berm and just an upslope.
 
Some idiot probably cranked one off at the top of the hill and missed. That is how a range here in CA got closed some guy got the bright idea to hike WAY the fuck up the hill behind the place and put his target at the crest of a hill and shot someones house about a mile away.
 
POSSIBLE. IF it retained much of it's energy I'd reckon it could.

While it isn't all that obvious when shooting regular ammo, firing tracers in the army will show quite a few rounds will go vertical if they hit the berm just right. They go WAY up there too, but they burn out and I don't know where they go after that. Judging by the trajectory, it seems most go straight up, but I've seen some go other directions too. I've seen 'em skip off berms, just touch them, and that kicks 'em back up with almost all of the energy left, so that's a scenario. Seen 'em go down after touching too. So they're totally unpredictable.

Short of a cover for your berm, a berm behind that berm, or keep all the shots low on the existing berm so that none CAN ricochet back, only up or maybe to the sides, I see no fix. A top cover over your existing berm would be safest IMO. I don't know how much they cost, but I've seen 'em before.

You could try firing a bunch of tracers at your berm to see where they are going in general. It's the only way to find out. If you have NODs, that can help a lot with spotting them during and after burnout. I'd try to avoid touching or kissing the berm though, that's asking for it, because if one did come from your range this is likely how it happened.

In addition, I'd work out the physics and see if it's physically possible for what the fellow said happened to have happened at that range. It could be a clever way to shut the range down. I know of a place where hunting was stopped because a guy shot up his own trailer and blamed it on hunters. You could also have had an idiot simply fire at a high angle way over the berm. Our range is such that if you do this, you are almost guaranteed to hit a neighborhood, despite our berms. In either case, I'd try to use the math to demonstrate that a round fired from the range taking all proper precautions isn't feasible (if it isn't --if it is, then yeah, it should be closed down). Illustrate situations that could cause an errant round, rectify those situations (cheapest/simplest is not to fire over or near the top of the berm, ever). May have to increase size of berm or add a cover. Negligent shooter, may need to add cameras and prosecute those guys. It's what we do. We have no cover, just the berm, been open since 1940. No problems, and there are neighborhoods and stores right behind it. This one goes to 600y for matches, 240y approx. daily. If you get caught breaking safety rules, you're gone. If you hurt someone or cause damage, you get prosecuted. We aren't a public range either, and that eliminates a LOT of the problems, trust me.

I'd be willing to bet nobody considered to actually run the numbers on this. You could probably get your range re-opened if you got to the root of the problem and then demonstrate that it's been rectified.
 
I don't think that energy retention is the issue, when a bullets strikes something it will destabilize, if it deforms even the smallest amount the BC goes to sh*^. There is no way it carried that far after striking something. This leaves us with the idiot theory. I would say in light of the fact that there are more idiots than errant ricochets, this leaves us one conclusion. Often times the easiest answer is the correct one.
 
Even the idiot theory is a means to an end. The range is obsolete due to progress going on around it or so it seems.
 
Not a chance...after a ricochet. Guys are pushing the envelope to shoot less than that with extreme projectiles aimed in the target direction. Now after a ricochet you have diminished the BC of that bullet to that of a rock not to mention the loss of energy by simply glancing a steel target. Correct that "anything is possible" but I'd say not in this case
 
I'm not sure of distances involved after impact but I shoot a lot of .308 tracer and I've seen ricochets off all sorts of surfaces including a 90 degree soft grassy bank. It never fails to amaze me just where they shoot off to at a healthy velocity no matter what the surface the initial hit is on. And just to clarify this shooting takes place on military field firing ranges with miles of danger area. The .50 cal ricochets are very impressive - I've seen a 3000 yard impact off a tank turret take off vertically and disappear into the stratosphere. Yes slightly different from a .308 but it demonstrates what 'spent rounds' that have hit their intended target are capable of.
 
They have just shut down all but 100yds paper because a person has claimed that a .30 ricochet off of steel plate traveled up 226 yds over a hill then traveled 2550 yds where it hit a house.
Is this possible?
Click to expand...


Downrange Safety Hazard math for 7.62. Draw a straight-line Distance X from your firing point. Check the vertical height hazard.

kf5ngo.jpg
 
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