Can you Ricochet a Ricochet?

When we think ricochet, we usually think danger. But can a ricochet be directed and actually used as a bullet?

When we are planning our hunting lanes or setting up our targets for a little range practice, we often think of a ricochet as one of the things on our safety list.
In some circle of tactical shooting, shooting down the hallway, you can actually ricochet a shot from the side walls.

What we don’t often do is think about using the ricochet to actually hit our target. And to be honest unless you are planning some trick shots you probably never will, but unless you watch this video you’ll always be left wondering if you can actually ricochet a ricochet?

After watching that, the possibilities seem almost limitless.

Of course, unless you are taking extra safety measures, it’s never smart to just start shooting at steel plates with no idea of where the bullet is heading. But as long as you take time to plan out your shots you can probably come up with some incredible, unthinkable shots, that you can actually hit.

Video Transcription
You guys comment all the time, ‘Matt you are Tactical AF’ or ‘man, I wish I was as tactical AF as matt is.” I know, I know I know. I am.

…I don’t know what that means. I don’t get it. Tactical AF? Tactalaff? TacticalAff? That doesn’t mean… or if it’s an acronym? Like… Tactical… Around firearms, maybe? I mean yeah, if that’s what you mean, yeah. Tactical… about family? …That’s not what y’all mean. But I am, but… Tactical… a lot frequently? No, that’s stupid. Tactical… and friendly? Aw, you guys stop it!

Hello! welcome to Demolition Ranch. I’m gonna try to do something today that I’ve never purposefully done it, I might’ve accidentally done it, but I’ve never purposefully done this. What I want to try to do, and I don’t know how easy it’s gonna be, but I want to try to ricochet a ricochet. You can’t triple-stamp a double-stamp [movie clip] but I think you CAN ricochet a ricochet. Let me show you what I have set up.

Over here, we have a steel plate at an angle, going in to another steel plate at an angle, stopping on a steel plate back there. So my plan is to stand -well, squat– woah! Fall over. Squat back here, shoot at that first plate, ricochet off that plate into that plate, and into the back plate. They’re all steel, they should bounce a bullet. The problem here is, bullets are made of lead. Which is a very soft metal. So it deforms when it hits steel, a hard metal. So there’s a chance the bullets are gonna come apart, or squish so much that they’re gonna lose a lot of their velocity. If I was shooting like, steel bullets? They would probably have a better chance of bouncing. But I think I can do it with lead. We have very slight angles, as you can see from above. Just a slight angle there, and a slight angle there. So -pew pew pew- that’s the sound the bullet should make, as I ricochet a ricochet.

Shooting first, a 22 longrifle. I have eye protection on, because there’s a fair chance that something might bounce back over here. I’m gonna lay down, ‘cuz I need to get low. Ok. We have the plates painted, so I should be able to tell where they go.

[PTING]

Sweet.

Guys don’t freak out, but I just ricocheted a ricochet. The first hit right there, pretty obvious. -pyoow- the second hit, right there, that black mark, and then the third hit, right there. Now, we got two ricochets. First one, second one, and our bullet carried on. Which I’m pretty happy about. Can we do three?

One, two, three plates now, all at slight angles so it’ll hit here, I’ll be aiming at this plate again, hit here, bounce to there, bounce to there, hit our back plate. Ideally. We shall see.

[P-TING]

YESS. We just triple-stamped a double-stamp. [Film clip]

Here’s our first hit, right next to the other first hit, second hit was right next to the other second hit, so I’m pretty precise here. There is-wait where is it- there it is, it’s scraped some of the paint off right there. And then there’s our fourth, right there. Ok! Yeah, that’s where it went through, and then hit our plate back there.

I just feel like we could do better.

This is getting sketchier and sketchier. First plate- everything has a fresh coat of paint by the way- First plate, second plate, our third plate, and I’m hoping -this might be too sharp of an angle, but- here’s our new fourth plate, and the back plate. So if we can hit our back plate, it means we made it through this mess. There’s no straight shot you can see.

[P-tink]

One, two, three… where’s our fourth? I thought that down there was bullet fragments, it may not have been, though. Oop, nope, here it is. We hit the rock. So we did ricochet off the third one, but we went into that rock. Oh yeah, so, we just barely missed. It went right there, hit the rock, and went off. So I need to move this back a bit.

[PTINK]

Hit, hit, hit… we have a hit! and it splattered, these were not here before. So yeah, that bullet was just coming apart by then. So I would count it as four successful ricochets, but we’re not gonna get anything else outta there. You can see there’s a few little spots there, it’s not one bullet anymore, it’s still pretty well held together, but by here, it’s just not there anymore.

So I’m pretty happy with that! We got a quadrouple ricochet!

BUT WAIT. There’s more. 380 ACP, this is a bigger cartridge, a bigger bullet, and this bullet –this cartridge comes from Underwood Ammo, and this bullet is the Extreme Defender, and so, you can see it looks kind of interesting, like a screwdriver on the end, and it’s all copper. So copper is a soft metal as well, but I think it’ll stay together a little bit better than lead, plus, it’s got a little more power out of a 380, so, just wanna see if I can get all the way to that end plate. And we have fresh paint.

[P-TANK]

Oooh we did it.

Just when I’m about to give up, something amazing happens.

One, two, three, four-where’s four. There it is right there, and it hit the back -see if I can get the camera to look at it- right there! Sssooo, maybe we can try for five ricochets now? Because four worked out, and it looks like we can maybe make it happen again.

[Clanking while changing the targets]
Take a picture, it’ll last longer! Oh wait, I’m videoing. It’s gonna last forever.

This is gettin’ crazy! One, two, three, four, five, and a backstop.

Ok, I just did it, and then realized I was not recording. BUT it worked. So I’m not gonna do it again, I’m just gonna go to the next one. So we have hit, hit, hit, hit, hit, and a final one there. SO. Five ricochets, and then we hit the bullet on the back. So I think we can do six ricochets. One two three four five six, and then the backstop. I’d like to get six ricochets outta this.

[P-TANG]

We did it again, folks! Hit, hit, hit -woah, fall over-, hit, hit, hit, hits are getting small, hit, and then right there, not the shape of a bullet anymore. So I think that 380 was starting to come apart at the end as well.

I think that’s all the ricochets I’m gonna get outta these, so one two three four five- six ricochets, and we also hit the back plate so we hit SEVEN plates with one shot. Which I’m pretty happy about! If there’s ever a zombie apocalypse, you all are welcome to come to my place in Texas, because I am going to be building the most awesome bunker out of all this bulletproof metal that I have. If you can’t make it to Texas, don’t worry, I’ll still be uploading to Youtube so you can watch what we’re doing from your bunker. Thanks for watching–!

I just got the Tactical AF thing! It stands for TACTICAL. AS. FUDD.

Like Elmer Fudd. [Warner Bros clip]

[Outro]

Sources: Chris Buckner, DemolitionRanch Youtube