BULLET FROM THE SKY

[jaeger45]

I post in another gun forum, and this was posted today by another member. Since it was found on the driveway, and from the deformed slug, it is obvious it hit nosefirst, it must have come from the sky, shot up into the air by a careless gun owner (or gun holder). Don't miss the add'l info given after the pictures. That's Richmond CA, not Richmond VA. I heard they've a real ba-aadd place over there, a ghetto.

Can anybody id the bullet?

I found a bullet (not sure if it's a rifle or a pistol caliber). Didn't know what it was at first until I picked it up.



Another view



I live close to Richmond (1-2 miles) and not too far away from the Iron Triangle. There's been some recent shooting in that area so It might have strayed over at our place. Kinda scary if you think about it, it missed our house about 7-9 yards.

[wlambert]

Looks like maybe a 9mm. It had to hit pretty hard to deform like that. Bullets shot straight up tend to tumble and fall pretty slowly. Learned that on Myth Busters. Big surprise. I think it was shot at something pretty hard and bounced off.

We actually found a similar bullet in our parking lot. Ours wasn't dented as bad. We think it traveled a fair distance and then hit a hand rail. It is spooky knowing this stuff is flying around.

wlambert

[Bullseye]

Somewhere in the neighborhood of a 38 cal (.357-.358 in dia.) or a 9mm, .380 (.355-.356 in dia.) bullet, hard to exactly tell from the picture.

It definitely fell from the sky and landed on its nose. Looks like it hit on some concrete or pavement by the indentations on the nose. Could have been a ricochet initially that went straight upwards. Looking at the bullet and the relatively little deformation it has, other than the nose, it had lost a lot of energy before hitting the ground.

R,
Bullseye

[toyfj40]

I'll probably mis-quote/remember most of this, as it's been a while
since I read it... but an appendix in "Hatcher's Notebook",
(mine is packed away for a while...)
mentions how he set up an experiment ( Florida ?) to determine
some characteristics of straight-UP/DOWN bullet flight...

turns out... it was only a few that were detected when they returned...
(looking for a "plop" on a still pond...) and it had to be a .30-06-size
lump of lead to have enough return energy to "wound"...
so... wearing your helmet would likely protect you from falling bullets...

if anyone has a copy handy... kindly correct/embellish the story...
-- toy

[jaeger45]

We were in the funeral parlor business back in the old days. Couple of times, my father rendered funeral services to victims with head wounds-- from bullets that fell from the sky, both on July 4th.

Another time, a Latino worker of a friend heard a loud thud on his tin roof, and a glass shattered on the table: a bullet went through the tin roof and fell on the empty glass. It was July 4th also. Our friend showed us the bullet.

[Bullseye]

The television show Mythbusters did a few episodes on falling bullets too. But I'm not so sure I agree with the Mythbusters conclusions on the falling bullet myths. There's plenty of documented incidents of people being injured by bullets falling from the sky. I remember a similar situation that happened somewhere near San Jose, CA., approximately 20 years ago, where a bullet crashed through a roof of a house and landed on a coffee table. That time it was New Years eve revelers who launched the bullet into the sky. I also remember way back, a story of a man who had been having chronic headaches and he went to the Doctor only to find out he had a bullet embedded in his skull. He said many months before he remembered being struck by something falling from the sky but had no idea it was a bullet.

That Richmond and Pittsburgh California areas were pretty rough places even back when I lived in the bay area. But as I hear it these days, the Stockton and Modesto areas are getting pretty bad too.


R,
Bullseye