AR-50 Ricochet

[Vince Brennan]

For the shooters (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLTvUNn3Suo) on the Forum... very nearly a tragic occurance.

This is incredible. It almost made the Darwin Awards.

The guy is shooting an AR-50. Watch the dust when he fires. The target, a steel plate, was 100 yards away. You can hear the ping of the hit, then the bullet comes back and hits the earmuffs on his head.

The footage is amazing. You can hear the bullet as it tumbles through the air on its course back toward the shooter. He's lucky it hit the dirt first. He is okay, and obviously very lucky. The bullet grazed his temple.

What a difference a half an inch makes!

[few3]

Are you frickin' kidding?

[The Bigfella]

Nah - it was the varmints shooting back

[Phillip Allen]

a lot of rotational velocity left...

I shoot iron all the time...HOWEVER, I shoot it with soft lead which turns into quarter sized coins with the thickness of a dime...and they gather up at the foot of the gong...this guy seems to be shooting steel at steel

Inelastic collision vs. elastic collision...

[LeeG]

they aren't lead rounds?

[Tylerdurden]

100 yards on a .50? stupid bastards. Anything under a 1000 yds is masturbation anyway.

[Tylerdurden]

they aren't lead rounds?

Usually FMJ . You can get custom rounds .
I prefer the first round API then after you see the puff you can adjust and let havoc fly.

[Phillip Allen]

These people buy the cheap surplus stuff to shoot...sometimes $5 a round and that means mild steel cores with heavy copper jacket...no lead.

[carioca1232001]

A German-descent Brazilian friend invites his office mates to a shooting range one fine Saturday morning.

After a few hours of instructing us in the use of rifles and hand-guns, he then proceeds to demonstrate a trench charge, armed with a Garrand rifle.

As he charges out, we charge behind as he rapid-fires his Garrand at a 30" x 15" x 1" steel armour plate in the distance. A large bullet fragment ricochets and hits one of the fellows in the upper thigh, right by the gonads.

Everyone instantly comes to their senses.:o End of trench charge !

[kc8pql]

Interesting. In the paper yesterday was a report about a woman who was wounded in the arm at a local shooting range. She was sitting 20 yards behind the firing line, hit by a fragment that ricocheted off a steel plate target 200 yards away. Seems shooting at steel targets may not be such a great idea.

[Phillip Allen]

If your German decended friend is in a position of responsibility (such as operating a vehicle on streets and roads occupied by other drivers or near schools etc), his action on the range casts doubt on his suitability to be in that position of responsibility...

[Tylerdurden]

Interesting. In the paper yesterday was a report about a woman who was wounded in the arm at a local shooting range. She was sitting 20 yards behind the firing line, hit by a fragment that ricocheted off a steel plate target 200 yards away. Seems shooting at steel targets may not be such a great idea.

When I do the combat range its steel flips but one person only surrounded by dirt banks. Steel is dangerous and plywood is cheap and works as well for its purpose.

[Phillip Allen]

the only times I have shot at steel (as an adult) was with lead from muzzleloaders or the shilouitte matches with the 40-65 black powder cartridge rifle. I have made it a point to examine the ground around these targets and have consistantly found little round wafers of lead within a foot of two of the steel surface...litterally little coins like tiny flying saucers...as much as 1/16" in the relitively thick center tapering to a foil-like edge at the circumfrence...they may bounce further but lead is not very springy and I doubt they travel far.

In my lifetime of shooting I have been struck three times by 180 degree richocets...once off concrete (.22...I was about ten feet away from the impact the the mangled bullet hit about as hard as if dropped from about waist high), once with a very heavy, home cast .38 bullet deliberetly loaded to very low velocity (it bounced off a junk dryer in a junk pile and hit my leg about as hard as if a child had pitched it...from about ten feet again), now the last one hurt! It was from a reproduction model 1862 Colt cap and ball revolver/black powder. The little lead ball hit the hardwood tree I was aiming at about 40 feet, did a 180 around the cambium layer under the bark and out the entry hole and back to hit me in one of a pair of sensitive spots on my upper chest...OUCH! I had to go and sit down for a while. All incidents involved low power projectiles and relitively hard targets. High speed bullets tend to self destruct...

[Norman Bernstein]

Thankfully the guy wasn't hurt.... but I have to admit, all I could think of, after seeing it, was that old redneck joke: "What's a redneck's last words? 'Hold my beer and watch this' "

They did sound a bit like rednecks, to my ears :D

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

The video doesn't really capture the denouement. That's when this guy finally comes to the realization that he came within inches of becoming a headless corpse.
So much for owning the world's most powerful rifle.
Will this be on the agenda at the next NRA convention?

[John of Phoenix]

A steel target that's not angled to deflect the ricochet?

Here's another guy who shouldn't be allowed near sharp objects and things that go BOOM. If he'd been wearing ear muffs it would have knocked them off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqOeDW5wu_E

Note the beer cans in this snub nose .50 cal revolver. Another guy gone deaf.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6BBAe9W3WY&NR=1

Amazing that people put their friends on YouTube after doing this stuff.

[TimH]

" we aint doin dat agin bubba...huh a huh ahuh a huh..."

[Phillip Allen]

Ain't it amazin what folks place the highest value on...more noise (not...hitting the target), bigger bullets (not...hitting the target), higher recoil (not...hitting the target)

I have a friend who thinks any woman with huge boobs is gorgeous...all the idiot sees is the boobs (there "may" be other things to consider...including weighing in at less than 300 pounds). Oh no! All he uses to determine beauty is BOOBS!

I think he is average in a lot of pitiful ways

[Paul Pless]

.577 T-Rex (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm8zdNFYpF0)

massive recoil

[Spin_Drift]

Sorry, but what a bunch of "DUMB ****S" Really, Who would want an AR-50 anyway...?

I'm a NRA trained and certified fire arms instructor in five categories. (Pistol, rifle, shotgun, personal protection and firearm safety)

These guys :mad: shouldn't be handling guns at all. Or they should learn to handle them with caution and respect...

Guys like that give guns a bad name. (It's not the guns, -it's the shooters...:mad: ) All there guys shooting in these videos probably have an IQ of less than ten.:eek::mad::mad::mad:

Bottom-line, Gun control is "hitting what you aim" not just great bangs and beers...:mad:

[Spin_Drift]

P.S
Some people seem to think "the bigger, -the better". Actually that's not so....

[Phillip Allen]

bigger is better? Those two teens I've been taking shooting prefer to shoot the High-wall 40-65. I try to get them to shoot the 10/22 and they do but the high-wall is more attractive to them. Yes, it's a fairly big cartridge (bullet is over 400g) but they are black powder loads and really just a big shove vs. a sharp kick. There is lotsa smoke too and they also like the muzzleloaders. Tomorrow we go to the match at Barryville, Ark and I get to buy 25 pounds of swiss powder...(no more Brizilian stuff, it's all over the paper)

[carioca1232001]

Even BB can bounce back...
Yup, shot a basket ball with a Daisy "Red Ryder", that little bugger bounced back and got me on my right upper leg... Oh yea it smarts like nobody business...
And that movie "The Christmas Story" haunt me ever since... "You'll shoot yer eye out"...

Had that experience.

Shot a nº 1 Diablo/Wembley pellet at a car tyre through the (unrifled) bore of my Diana Mod. 27 (Made in GB) air-rifle. It ricocheted almost instantly and hit me right in the middle of my chest. Might have killed me or at least blinded me if it hit my eye.

I know of a young fellow who was killed instantly as a friend passed him a loaded air-rifle while he was up on a tree. Hit him in the eye, at point-blank range.

BBs are a whole lot less vicious than, say, the nº 1 and nº 2 (larger) pellets. Three Persian brothers I used to go to school with had these BB guns....the brand name was 'Daisy' (US), if my memory is not failing me.

[Honda_Shadow]

Well, I can see where these individuals just need to have more respect for a firearm. There's nothing wrong with owning a .50 cal rifle, It's not excessive by any means, it just needs to be respected for what it is and handled accordingly.

Only the government would say that no citizen needs to own a .50 BMG, and that's only because they don't want you to own one. (Remember, an unarmed citizen is one who is easily controlled)

After all, what better weapon to hunt elephant or rhinocerous (spell?) at 2000 yards? Maybe a Cheytac .408, but it only posses hard target penetration out to 700 yards or so.

[Phillip Allen]

"...posses hard target penetration..." Sounds like a Cealis(sp) ad :)

[Tylerdurden]

Only the government would say that no citizen needs to own a .50 BMG, and that's only because they don't want you to own one. (Remember, an unarmed citizen is one who is easily controlled)



I don't know if you remember what they did to Bob Stewart when he started producing .50 Maddi Griffin Kits. Damned nice rifle but when the gubmint got wind that the common guy on the street could afford one the went after Stewart with as much fabrication as they could.

[Honda_Shadow]

Tylerdurden:
No, I didn't know that. But that's probably why the .338 Lapua is so expensive. (the cartridge that the Brits use as a sniper rifle, and has a ballistic coefficient of over 1.00) To get a rifle chambered in this cartride, say an Armalite-30, is relatively inexpensive, around $2 grand I think (hey, admit it, your average hunting rifle + scope is close to that), but the brass is stoopid expensive. Anyone who does a TON of shooting would be hit hard by the reloading supplies. Why? Because the govmint wants to discourage the average citizen from owning a rifle capable of taking out targets at well over a mile.

[CK 17]

After all, what better weapon to hunt elephant or rhinocerous (spell?) at 2000 yards? Maybe a Cheytac .408, but it only posses hard target penetration out to 700 yards or so.

I spent 2 long years in Georiga and there are lots of elephants for sure:D Never saw any Rhinos though. . .

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

Well, we are into ballistics now!
No solice to offer the dummy that who almost decapitated himself with his own round?

[Phillip Allen]

time for a reality check Chuck...the bullet was pretty well spent by the time it hit him...a full power bullet would have exploded the side of his head...(The bullet was spinning enough without us spinning it even more)

[Spin_Drift]

Well, I can see where these individuals just need to have more respect for a firearm. There's nothing wrong with owning a .50 cal rifle, It's not excessive by any means, it just needs to be respected for what it is and handled accordingly.

Only the government would say that no citizen needs to own a .50 BMG, and that's only because they don't want you to own one. (Remember, an unarmed citizen is one who is easily controlled)

After all, what better weapon to hunt elephant or rhinocerous (spell?) at 2000 yards? Maybe a Cheytac .408, but it only posses hard target penetration out to 700 yards or so.

I agree with you. I think the world would be a better and much safer place if everyone owned and knew how to properly use guns...

Well, let me re-work my statement... big guns are great if you know how to use them correctly. (That goes for all guns) I have guns ranging from a 22 to 50cal muzzle loader and several of "just about everything" in between.

I love guns, always have. When I was nine years old I was in the back room of a gun shop taking apart and putting back together Mauser's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauser_C96 (http://www.iar-arms.com/mauserinstruc.htm) and Luger's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luger_pistol while my mother was buying ammo etc. (She loved guns too)

I have enough of a rebel in me that it would not be easy to take my guns away from me... or to make me into a docile citizen...

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

time for a reality check Chuck...the bullet was pretty well spent by the time it hit him...a full power bullet would have exploded the side of his head...(The bullet was spinning enough without us spinning it even more)

Is it your forensic judgement that he would have survived being struck between the eyes by a .50 cal. slug traveling sideways at about 500 MPH?
Can you offer a remedy if he suffers nightmares from almost shooting himself in the head?
Do you also have a yearning for a gun that fires a .50 cal.?
Inquiring minds want to know.

[Phillip Allen]

yes, depending on how fast 500mph is...can you tell me where you got that velocity figure from please?

[Paul Pless]

Tylerdurden:
No, I didn't know that. But that's probably why the .338 Lapua is so expensive....

...Anyone who does a TON of shooting would be hit hard by the reloading supplies. Why? Because the govmint wants to discourage the average citizen from owning a rifle capable of taking out targets at well over a mile.

Lapua .338 brass isn't anymore expensive than most other large calibre brass these days. Its price is where it is, because its a high quality component sold in limited quantities to the general public. Compare the price of Lapua components to components for big Weatherby rifles and things like the .416 Rigby and You'll see that's it not really out of line.

[Phillip Allen]

Lapua .338 brass isn't anymore expensive than most other large calibre brass these days. Its price is where it is, because its a high quality component sold in limited quantities to the general public. Compare the price of Lapua components to components for big Weatherby rifles and things like the .416 Rigby and You'll see that's it not really out of line.

What's the parent cartridge for this Lapua round?

[Paul Pless]

What's the parent cartridge for this Lapua round?It originally was developed using the .416 Rigby, but its now a proprietary rimless case, thus another reason for its high cost...

[Norman Bernstein]

Only the government would say that no citizen needs to own a .50 BMG, and that's only because they don't want you to own one. (Remember, an unarmed citizen is one who is easily controlled)


Hmmmm...how about a 20mm cannon? Maybe a shoulder fired missile?

If the rationalization for the second ammendment is to provide the citizens with the weaponry necessary to bring down a tyrannical government, then why ban ANY sort of firearm? Why not permit people to own mortars, cannon, missiles, and so on? How about explosives? Mines? Where do you draw the line, if at all?

[Phillip Allen]

we all HAVE the weapons needed to bring down the government...brains (we just have to load em first)

[Honda_Shadow]

CK 17:
Awww, come on, us Georgians can at least DREAM about going to Africa to get the "Big 5" can't we? And if I ever DO go to Africa, I want to be as far away from those elephants as the range of my gun will allow!

Norman:
I don't there's anything wrong with owning any form of firearm. I think that certain people shouldn't own guns (felons, ect...) but the measures are already in place (albeit they're not perfect) to keep those from owning one. There's no difference between a .22 and a 20mm. They both kill. The reasons for citizens to own guns are threefold: hobby, defence, hunting. Explosives of any kind are unsafe at best and not suited for these tasks, therefore, I've got no problems with banning that. But banning a shoulder fired 20mm cannon is stupid. :D Sure, it would take some guy who could hear a clanking noise when he walked, but it would make an AWESOME dangerous game rifle.

[Tylerdurden]

Hmmmm...how about a 20mm cannon? Maybe a shoulder fired missile?

If the rationalization for the second ammendment is to provide the citizens with the weaponry necessary to bring down a tyrannical government, then why ban ANY sort of firearm? Why not permit people to own mortars, cannon, missiles, and so on? How about explosives? Mines? Where do you draw the line, if at all?

I draw the line at long rifles, what any militia man would have as a personal side arm. The Swiss have full automatic rifles at the stoop.
So think of what a modern squad carries and thats what should be allowed. Explosives are a different matter, so lets not muddy the creek.

[John of Phoenix]

There's a couple of miniguns in that mad minute YouTube sequence. I can't believe they're legal.

[Nicholas Carey]

I draw the line at long rifles, what any militia man would have as a personal side arm. The Swiss have full automatic rifles at the stoop.
So think of what a modern squad carries and thats what should be allowed. Explosives are a different matter, so lets not muddy the creek.Zat mean I can keep one of these 'round the house?

M252 81mm mortar.
http://www.army.mil/-images/2007/05/14/4959/army.mil-2007-05-23-170652.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M252_Mortar)

"The M252 provides long-range indirect fire support to light infantry, air assault, and airborne units across the entire battalion front with sufficient range to engage targets out to the limit of the battalion zone of influence."

With its illumination rounds, it ought to be perfect for celebrating New Year's eve and the 4th of July. :D

In all seriousness, though, that's a good argument, IMHO. In Sanfor Levinson's 1989 article in the Yale Law Journal, "The Embarassing Second Amendment (http://www.constitution.org/2ll/2ndschol/70embar.pdf)" [99 YALE LAW JOURNAL 637-659 (1989)], he makes much the same point in discussin the 2nd Amendment and United States v. Miller:
The Supreme Court reversed unanimously, with the arch-conservative Justice McReynolds writing the opinion. Interestingly enough, he emphasized that there was no evidence showing that a sawed-off shotgun "at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia." And "[c]ertainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense." Miller might have had a tenable argument had he been able to show that he was keeping or bearing a weapon that clearly had a potential military use.

Justice McReynolds went on to describe the purpose of the Second Amendment as "assur the continuation and render[ing] possible the effectiveness of [the Militia]." He contrasted the Militia with troops of a standing army, which the Constitution indeed forbade the states to keep without the explicit consent of Congress. "The sentiment of the time strongly disfavored standing armies; the common view was that adequate defense of country and laws could be secured through the Militia—civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion." McReynolds noted further that "the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators [all] [s]how plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense."

It is difficult to read [I]Miller as rendering the Second Amendment meaningless as a control on Congress. Ironically, Miller can be read to support (pg.655) some of the most extreme anti-gun control arguments, e.g., that the individual citizen has a right to keep and bear bazookas, rocket launchers, and other armaments that are clearly relevant to modern warfare, including, of course, assault weapons. Arguments about the constitutional legitimacy of a prohibition by Congress of private ownership of handguns or, what is much more likely, assault rifles, might turn on the usefulness of such guns in military settings.

[elided]

III. TAKING THE SECOND AMENDMENT SERIOUSLY

There is one further problem of no small import: if one does accept the plausibility of any of the arguments on behalf of a strong reading of the Second Amendment, but, nevertheless, rejects them in the name of social prudence and the present-day consequences produced by finicky adherence to earlier understandings, why do we not apply such consequentialist criteria to each and every part of the Bill of Rights?

As Ronald Dworkin (pg.658) has argued, what it means to take rights seriously is that one will honor them even when there is significant social cost in doing so. If protecting freedom of speech, the rights of criminal defendants, or any other part of the Bill of Rights were always (or even most of the time) clearly costless to the society as a whole, it would truly be impossible to understand why they would be as controversial as they are. The very fact that there are often significant costs—criminals going free, oppressed groups having to hear viciously racist speech and so on—helps to account for the observed fact that those who view themselves as defenders of the Bill of Rights are generally antagonistic to prudential arguments. Most often, one finds them embracing versions of textual, historical, or doctrinal argument that dismiss as almost crass and vulgar any insistence that times might have changed and made too "expensive" the continued adherence to a given view. "Cost-benefit" analysis, rightly or wrongly, has come to be viewed as a "conservative" weapon to attack liberal rights. Yet one finds that the tables are strikingly turned when the Second Amendment comes into play. Here it is "conservatives" who argue in effect that social costs are irrelevant and "liberals" who argue for a notion of the "living Constitution" and "changed circumstances" that would have the practical consequence of removing any real bite from the Second Amendment.

As Fred Donaldson of Austin, Texas wrote, commenting on those who defended the Supreme Court's decision upholding flag-burning as compelled by a proper (and decidedly non-prudential) understanding of the First Amendment, "[i]t seems inconsistent for [defenders of the decision] to scream so loudly" at the prospect of limiting the protection given expression "while you smile complacently at the Second torn and bleeding. If the Second Amendment is not worth the paper it is written on, what price the First?" The fact that Mr. Donaldson is an ordinary citizen rather than an eminent law professor does not make his question any less pointed or its answer less difficult.

[Bill R]

Hmmmm...how about a 20mm cannon? Maybe a shoulder fired missile?

If the rationalization for the second ammendment is to provide the citizens with the weaponry necessary to bring down a tyrannical government, then why ban ANY sort of firearm? Why not permit people to own mortars, cannon, missiles, and so on? How about explosives? Mines? Where do you draw the line, if at all?

"...shall not be infringed..."