Dave, I am guilty of the same thing, shooting at wood. It is a scary thing. I read about some guy shooting at a can on a fence post and the bullet went into the post, hit a knot and came back out to hit him in the head. It killed him. I set up a big log at 100 yds, it was 13" in diameter. My idea was to shoot all my lead boolits into it with my TC Contender 30-30 so I could split it and save the lead. I found one that was sticking it's nose halfway out the back. All the rest went through. What got my attention was the one that went halfway in, turned and came out the top. I now stand behind a tree when shooting at a piece of wood.

I was shooting low velocity, hard cast 45 Colt rounds at targets sitting on a log at about 30 steps distance. One of the bullets hit the log and came straight back. It hit me in the leg. It didn't draw blood, but it hurt like hell and left a bruise.

I learned that about BBs when I was a little kid. Shortly after, I learned that .22s will come back at you from the sidewall of a tire. Perhaps not dangerously fast, but skipping right along raising dust from the ground. Bet lots of pistol bullets will, if .22s do. I shudder to see tires used as backstops. Be sure to shoot 'em with something big and fast enough to go through on every hit!

Junior,
Sorry the pictures are too big for you. I left them big to show more of the detail. I forget what it is like to have dial-up sometimes. Right now if I resize them I will lose the large image. I may upload the pictures again and post the smaller size pictures on this thread.

I have been hit in the face and legs before by 45 acp bullet fragments when shooting 6" steel plates on a plate rack at 50 feet. Only once did it draw blood.

I doubt that any of these big bullets that bouned off of the backstop would have drew blood, but I bet it would have left a knot and a couple af bruises.

David