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Long range shooting accident.

Ranb

Penultimate Amazing
Ranb
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WA USA
http://www.star-telegram.com/metro_news/story/1019110.html

A woman at the Texas Motor Speedway was wounded in the arm with what appears to be a 50 caliber bullet that passed through her RV. A man who was shooting at a range several miles away told police he may have been the one who shot her. Police are trying to determine if the bullet recovered matches his rifle.

Meanwhile the husband of the shooting victim has created a website; http://www.50caldanger.org/ in an attempt to find the person who shot his wife. He feels that the 50 caliber sporting rifles manufactured for the civilian market are suitable only for the military. In addition to offering details of the incident, he uses fear mongering to promote his political views and accuses the man who came forward and admitted to shooting his rifle nearby to be a fall guy for someone else.

Depending on the software used, a 50 caliber bullet will potentially travel 6500 yards (5980 meters) to 9000 yards (8280 meters) or up to 5.1 miles (8.2 kilometers); range varies with bullet type and velocity. Extreme range of this kind requires that the muzzle be pointed over 30 degrees from horizontal.

Ranb
 
They need to inspect the range. There may be some defects in the design. If there was negligence on the part of the range, or the shooter, then by all means they should pursue a civil suit. It appears to be an unfortunate accident. Banning these firearms would be an overreaction. People are accidentally hurt and killed playing sports, and even while attending sporting events. Perhaps sports should be banned as well.
 
Oh, it's a Vulcan sniper rifle. Based on the description in the article, I think they're referring to this. I guess that's possible, but shouldn't the range be set up as to make this impossible?
 
Sir Robin Goodfellow said:
They need to inspect the range. There may be some defects in the design. If there was negligence on the part of the range, or the shooter, then by all means they should pursue a civil suit. It appears to be an unfortunate accident. Banning these firearms would be an overreaction. People are accidentally hurt and killed playing sports, and even while attending sporting events. Perhaps sports should be banned as well.
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To be fair, people are seldom injured by sports played over a mile from them.
 
TMS is in a largely undeveloped area in very far north Fort Worth. TMS Google image.

Someone could easily be at a gun range in that area or even on private unincorporated property and be close enough for a .50 cal to reach.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
Oh, it's a Vulcan sniper rifle. Based on the description in the article, I think they're referring to this. I guess that's possible, but shouldn't the range be set up as to make this impossible?
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The Vulcan rifle does not have a good reputation on some of the gun web boards, but that is beside the point.

Most rifle ranges I have been to (military and civilian) merely consist of shooting positions and berms. I have only been to two that had concrete barriers in front of the shooting position to prevent bullets from moving down range over the berm. The club I belong to has a safety class an orientation for new members, but no barriers to prevent over-shooting the berm. The only positions I have seen people shooting the 50 BMG from is bench, prone or tripod. This is unlikely to raise the muzzle enough to shoot over two miles. I have watched video of a guy doing the old "spray and pray with an M82, this might result in over-shooting the berm.

Ranb
 
A friend of mine once shelled a completely innocent passing-by highway from his tank, instead of the target on the range. It did not do his very budding career much good. Fortunately, he did not actually hit any person.
 
Definately a range safety issue rather than a "dangerous rifle" issue. This sort of accident should not happen at a properly run range.

By the by, I've read a few media accounts of long range shooting accidents over the years (never from a shooting range though) and this is the first time I've ever encountered one involving a .50 rifle. OTOH they most commonly involve .22 rifles.
 
Years ago, when I was with the local county police, we had a report of a "shooting into a dwelling".
Found that a nearly-spent .30 caliber bullet had penetrated the outer wall of the home near the eaves, then lodged in an interior wall. The angle of the trajectory indicated the shot may have been fired from the adjacent county, some miles away.

In a case I recall reading about, a police officer was driving down a West coast sea-side highway when the vehicle in front of him began swerving and then ran off the road. The driver had been shot, the bullet coming from the direction of the ocean.
It took police several years to track down the shooter, a bored fisherman who had started shooting at flotsam with his .303 Enfield "shark rifle". The bullet had traveled thousands of yards after skipping off the water.

Both of these incidents were with garden-variety hunting rifles.
 
I hear .50 caliber gun accident and am immediately reminded of the one range death we had where I shoot. Idiot was rapid-firing a Desert Eagle and had a misfire, which caused the gun to blow back in his hands. Gun went straight backwards, and because he had his finger on the trigger...

...they cleaned his head off the wall with paint scrapers. For years I was sure it was an urban legend until recently learning the guy had worked for one of my dad's business partners.

This gives you a general idea of what happened (nws because of the guy's shirt):



ETA: Long-term effect of his stupidity is you can't rapid fire weapons there anymore.
 
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Somebody was negligent here. But I don't think this calls for any new rules
 
This incident will be used by others to promote new rules restricting large rifle use at ranges; you can bet on it. I read on other forums about people being denied use due to their rifle not fitting the local politically correct definition of a proper firearm.

The last time I went to Kokohead range on Oahu, I was told that the 50 BMG is banned there due to some fool targeting a rock on the rim instead of a paper target down in the bottom of the crater that makes up the range.

Ranb
 
Ranb said:
This incident will be used by others to promote new rules restricting large rifle use at ranges; you can bet on it. I read on other forums about people being denied use due to their rifle not fitting the local politically correct definition of a proper firearm.

The last time I went to Kokohead range on Oahu, I was told that the 50 BMG is banned there due to some fool targeting a rock on the rim instead of a paper target down in the bottom of the crater that makes up the range.

Ranb
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I'm not a gun expert, but do these .50 jobbies have a significantly larger lethal range than the usual run of the mill rifles people would be using at shooting ranges?

It sounds like the fundamental problem is that conventional shooting ranges aren't sufficiently idiot-proof to keep the most idiotic gun owners from firing the occasional shot over the range and into some poor sod standing a mile or two away. However that problem might well be exacerbated if said most-idiotic patrons were using weapons with particularly large lethal ranges.
 
It depends one what you think of as a typical firearm. A 22 rim fire rifle will send a bullet a little over a mile. A 30-06 hunting bullet (a cartridge to which all other game ammo can be compared to) will go more than 2 miles, a match bullet more than 3 miles. A 338 magnum will go almost 3.5 miles. With the 50 BMG bullets going about 5 miles, it is more of a problem when overshooting the berm. It also has more power due to the heavier (usually +700 grains) bullet compared to a 165 grain bullet commonly used in a 30 caliber rifle.

In my personal opinion, the smaller firearms (especially handguns) are more likely to be accidentally shot over the berm while the larger 50 caliber rifles or bench rest target rifles that are usually shot from the bench or prone position are less likely.

If you go to a range that has concrete slabs set up just above the bullet flight path downrange from the shooting position, you may notice that there are some bullet impact holes from those shooters that did not keep their finger off of the trigger until they had a sight picture. I agree when you say that problem might well be exacerbated.

Ranb
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
I'm not a gun expert, but do these .50 jobbies have a significantly larger lethal range than the usual run of the mill rifles people would be using at shooting ranges?
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There's a .50 caliber Barret sniper rifle in service in Iraq which in the right hands has had confirmed kills of about two miles away, as I recall. But, the weapon mentioned in the article's different.

Here's a YouTube video about the Barret M107.
 
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ImaginalDisc said:
Here's a YouTube video about the Barret M107.
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Stealth rifle? Only when fired from very long range. It is amusing that Richard Machowicz calls the 7.62x39 cartridge (a 311 caliber round) a 308. He also says it takes 15-20 seconds to fire a bolt action rifle twice, while it takes less time to shoot the M-107 ten times. He is correct if he wants to hit the target with the bolt action rifle and miss with the M-107. :)

When I was competing with 50 caliber rifles, the only time the M-82’s (civilian M-107’s) did not come in last was when a bolt gun had a problem that kept the shooter from completing the match.

Here is a video of a guy getting his hearing protection knocked off when shooting his 50 cal. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ABGIJwiGBc&feature=related I shot a plow blade with my LAR, I stopped after I found out the AP ammo would not penetrate and go into the berm. The bullets merely cratered the metal and bounced off.

I think the rifle you are thinking of that was used for the long range sniping was a MacMillan bolt action. It has a good reputation and a waiting list of at least a year. The waiting list gets longer each time a bill banning these rifles gets publicity.

Ranb
 
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