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30th January 2013, 11:04 AM | #1 |
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Bullet proof boar
http://www.inquisitr.com/501793/bull...n-a-mile-away/
I don't believe this story out of France. Hunters are claiming a bullet richosheded off of a boar and killed a man a mile away. Somebodys lying big time. |
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30th January 2013, 11:11 AM | #2 |
Orthogonal Vector
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Re: Bullet proof boar
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30th January 2013, 11:12 AM | #3 |
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Is there some reason that this is impossible? If they meant it ricocheted backward that far, I'd agree. But if the weapon was powerful enough and it just grazed upward slightly, why not?
ETA: I'm not familiar with weapon ranges. If a "normal" hunting rifle were fired at a 10 degree angle, could it go a mile? |
30th January 2013, 11:16 AM | #4 |
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I'm sure it's not news to those who are more knowledgeable about weapons than I am but I was interested to learn that one of the many reasons to hunt from an elevated hide was that the earth below provides a useful backstop for an errant shot. I mean it's obvious in retrospect.
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30th January 2013, 11:26 AM | #5 |
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It's not impossible with the right freak circumstances. I think it's more likely that they missed and were playing fast and loose with knowing what was behind their target - this is a macabre version of a fish story I'd bet.
I've heard tales before of the thickness of boar skulls, but I've also heard that about alligators...and yet I've seen them killed with single shots by .22 LR on Swamp People (.22LR won't penetrate a 55 gallon drum). It would have to be a rifle of impressive ballistics to ricochet off skull and still have enough velocity to kill a man a mile away. I'm assuming it passed through a side window, since a windshield would make it even more unbelievable (windshields absorb quite a bit of energy and change the trajectory of a bullet). |
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30th January 2013, 11:45 AM | #6 |
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Unlikely, but not entirely unbelievable. They don't say what caliber and they don't say the bullet crashed through a *closed* window. A decent rifle round glancing off a hard skull cold easily travel a mile. Its hard to imagine it traveling at an angle that would allow it to enter a car window and hit someone in the head with deadly force, but I guess its possible.
Remember the woman who was shot in the arm while sitting in her trailer on the infield at a nascar race last year? The shooter was, I think, 2 miles away at a shooting range and missed his target. |
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30th January 2013, 12:00 PM | #7 |
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30th January 2013, 12:03 PM | #8 |
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"There's vastly more truth to be found in rocks than in holy books. Rocks are far superior, in fact, because you can DEMONSTRATE the truth found in rocks. Plus, they're pretty. Holy books are just heavy." - Dinwar "Let your ears hear this beautiful song that's hiding underneath the sound," Ed Kowalczyk. |
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30th January 2013, 12:07 PM | #9 |
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We had a case here not so long ago of a home kill gone wrong, where the bullet bounced off the bull's skull and took out the assistant nearby, but he was not a mile away.
(He survived) |
30th January 2013, 12:09 PM | #10 |
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Here in Georgia hunters shoot boar all the time. I've never heard of this happening.
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30th January 2013, 12:10 PM | #11 |
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30th January 2013, 12:10 PM | #12 |
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30th January 2013, 12:15 PM | #13 |
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"There's vastly more truth to be found in rocks than in holy books. Rocks are far superior, in fact, because you can DEMONSTRATE the truth found in rocks. Plus, they're pretty. Holy books are just heavy." - Dinwar "Let your ears hear this beautiful song that's hiding underneath the sound," Ed Kowalczyk. |
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30th January 2013, 12:20 PM | #14 |
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Agreed. It would have to be a very slight glancing blow to the boar's head, not a 90 degree ricochet as described in the article.
FWIW - found this helpful table on bullet travel distances (and I admit the longer distances should be taken with a grain of salt) http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/learning.../bullets.phtml |
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30th January 2013, 12:30 PM | #15 | |||
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Rounds do not magically stay near their targets. |
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30th January 2013, 12:42 PM | #16 |
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A 90 degree reflection would kill too much of its velocity. I'm thinking they're telling a half truth. A 10 or 20 degree reflection could easily stay lethal at that range, but that would mean they were still firing approximately towards road.
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30th January 2013, 12:43 PM | #17 |
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"Accidental" death by boar? Yeah, right. Cersei Lannister strikes again!
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30th January 2013, 12:55 PM | #18 |
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Looks good compared to the results I get using ballistic tables. It depends upon the ballistic coefficient of the bullet, velocity and the angle of departure. Most bullets need an angle of about 40 degrees to obtain maximum range. If a bullet is traveling this far, then the shooter is either aiming at a target high above or had a negligent discharge.
Ranb |
30th January 2013, 01:14 PM | #19 |
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That highlighted bit was where I was hedging my bets on the table in my link. That is, you'd have to be aiming at an airplane for your 7mm bullet to accidentally fly 5 miles.
In the boar ricochet scenario I'm envisioning a shooter downhill from the boar. The bullet ricochets off the boar's head, continues over the top of the hill and down the other side where the roadway is. Even then, the driver would have to be mighty short to be hit in the head by a bullet coming in through the window at what I imagine would have to be a pretty steeply declining trajectory. |
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30th January 2013, 01:37 PM | #20 |
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Re: Bullet proof boar
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30th January 2013, 01:40 PM | #21 |
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What if there were a second boar, on the grassy knoll?!
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30th January 2013, 01:42 PM | #22 |
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Oh, I see. I had misread that sentence in the article as the bullet glancing off at "(just) the right angle" not "a right angle".
If the translation didn't screw up anything and that was the actual report, then I completely agree with the bogosity of the claim. Only a glancing blow would have been possible. If nothing else, I'd expect such a severe deflection would cause deformation of the bullet. That would cut down on the range even without the energy loss. |
30th January 2013, 01:52 PM | #23 |
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"There's vastly more truth to be found in rocks than in holy books. Rocks are far superior, in fact, because you can DEMONSTRATE the truth found in rocks. Plus, they're pretty. Holy books are just heavy." - Dinwar "Let your ears hear this beautiful song that's hiding underneath the sound," Ed Kowalczyk. |
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30th January 2013, 01:56 PM | #24 |
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30th January 2013, 02:49 PM | #25 |
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A ricochet off of a hard target, like steel, would deform the bullet too much for it to retain good ballistic coefficiency. It wouldn't go as far.
But if you can get a bullet to 'skip' off of a softer surface, like skipping a stone on a pond, the bullet might retain most of it's ballistic coefficiency, and travel a long ways, retaining enough energy to do damage. Any mention of evidence of a hawg with a headache? |
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30th January 2013, 02:51 PM | #26 |
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"There's vastly more truth to be found in rocks than in holy books. Rocks are far superior, in fact, because you can DEMONSTRATE the truth found in rocks. Plus, they're pretty. Holy books are just heavy." - Dinwar "Let your ears hear this beautiful song that's hiding underneath the sound," Ed Kowalczyk. |
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30th January 2013, 03:03 PM | #27 |
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Boars have very thick skulls. More than one person has told me they have shot them in the head with a small caliber gun and thinking they have killed them they try to gut and skin them only to have them become instantly awake and rather upset at the attempt to gut them or skin them.
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30th January 2013, 03:09 PM | #28 |
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30th January 2013, 03:11 PM | #29 |
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30th January 2013, 03:13 PM | #30 |
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"There's vastly more truth to be found in rocks than in holy books. Rocks are far superior, in fact, because you can DEMONSTRATE the truth found in rocks. Plus, they're pretty. Holy books are just heavy." - Dinwar "Let your ears hear this beautiful song that's hiding underneath the sound," Ed Kowalczyk. |
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31st January 2013, 11:00 AM | #31 |
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Yup - water is deadly that way. My brother and I used to skip 22 bullets off the mill pond in our backyard. We spent hours trying to get good at aiming the skipped rounds to hit targets we set up on the other side, but were never really successful other than a couple of random lucky shots. But, we could easily manage to skip 100% of our shots after the first few minutes of practice.
Yes, we were very poorly supervised and there were no neighbors for miles. It was still pretty stupid of us. |
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31st January 2013, 11:37 AM | #32 |
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"There's vastly more truth to be found in rocks than in holy books. Rocks are far superior, in fact, because you can DEMONSTRATE the truth found in rocks. Plus, they're pretty. Holy books are just heavy." - Dinwar "Let your ears hear this beautiful song that's hiding underneath the sound," Ed Kowalczyk. |
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1st February 2013, 08:13 AM | #33 |
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... People ask me how I do it
And I say "There's nothing to it You just stand there looking cute And when something moves, you shoot." And there's ten stuffed heads In my trophy room right now: Two Game Wardens, Seven Hunters and a purebred Jersey Cow. (Tom Lehrer) |
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1st February 2013, 08:19 AM | #34 |
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If ever one should be skeptical of a claim it is this one.
A .308 after traveling about ~1 mile will be traveling about 800 fps, down from 2700 fps without hitting anything. Just wind resistance and gravity. Ok so you take this fact, that a common high powered round has lost over 2/3'rds of its velocity having traveled that far without:
Quote:
I am not believing this at all what so ever. Skipping bullets off of water is VERY different than what is being claimed. A water skip tends to be under 30 degrees of angle to work, and water does not deform the bullet the way a unyielding surface will. Something hard could offer a skip at a higher angle, but would deform the bullet, which would hinder the distance the bullet could travel. |
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