http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/s...=2011-12-20-17-50-11
This is shocking.

Irresponsible !! Know where that bullet might go !

The story would not load up for me but I'm calling B/S on it.

How am I supposedf to know who may be in their woods a mile and a half away. If you didn't hunt because you could not be sure who or what was a mile and a half away that would stop a whole lot of deer hunting east of the Missippi.Just more foder for the anti hunting bunch.

Sharp sticks,Rocks on the end of sticks, and a bow and arrow would be what was left toi hunt with.

Al

FREDERICKSBURG, Ohio (AP) -- A man cleaning his muzzle-loading rifle shot the gun into the air, accidentally killing a 15-year-old Amish girl driving a horse-drawn buggy more than a mile away, a sheriff said Tuesday.

Rachel Yoder was shot in the head Thursday night while traveling to her home in Wayne County, between Columbus and Akron. She had attended a Christmas party for employees, most of them under 18 years old, at an Amish produce farm and was riding home alone when she was shot, Wayne County sheriff's Capt. Douglas Hunter said.

The horse continued to cart the girl after she was shot, and she fell out of the buggy near her home, Holmes County Sheriff Timothy Zimmerly said. Her brother found her after he saw the horse walking in circles and went to check it. Authorities initially believed she had fallen out of the buggy and hit her head until a hospital test revealed the gunshot wound.

Hunter said his department traced a trail of blood along the road for about three-eighths of a mile into Holmes County in an area of farms and rolling hills.

Zimmerly said the gun-cleaner's family came forward and his neighbors reported hearing a shot at about the time the girl was wounded.

The man had fired the gun in the air about 1.5 miles from where Yoder was shot, Zimmerly said. State investigators were checking the rifle for a ballistics match, he said.

"In all probability, it looks like an accidental shooting," Zimmerly said.

No charges have been filed.

Yoder was born in nearby Mount Eaton and attended the Old Order Amish Church, The (Wooster) Daily Record reported. She is survived by her father, 10 brothers and sisters, 26 nieces and nephews and two grandparents.

Hunter said earlier there was no indication the shooting was related to a rash of beard-cutting attacks against Amish men in a feud over church discipline.

Still, the mystery of the shooting in the wake of the beard-cutting attacks had left the Amish shaken and "on pins and needles," Zimmerly said.

Zimmerly said he informed the Yoder family that the shooting appeared to be accidental.

"Obviously, that makes them feel a lot better than if someone might have been targeting the Amish or (if it was) a random shooting murder," he said.

Gun violence in Amish communities is rare but not unheard of. A man shot 10 schoolgirls, killing five, inside a one-room schoolhouse five years ago in Nickel Mines, Pa. The Amish were praised for their forgiveness after the shooting and reaching out to comfort the gunman's widow.

I made a BS call on this and got torn apart in the blogs on yahell. So I ask you guys that muzzleload is it possible for a muzzleloader(for the sake of argument any black powder rifle)to fire a bullet 2600 yards, as the article claims. According to a long range ballistics calculator I have it's not, but I would like to hear what some of you that do it think.

Also need to factor in the news media and/or police department's need to sensationalize/misinvestigate everything so it's entirely possible 1.5 miles was actually substantially less distance... Could also have elevation as a factor as they reported it occurred in "rolling hills" which would again make me question how they arrived at the exact distance so quickly... A terrible tragedy regardless...

I'll wait and see what the ballistics test shows. Like others here I find it hard to believe that a muzzle loader bullet can travel what, 2500 yards as is claimed but nonetheless it is a tragedy for the family, even more so as another article said that their mom was killed in a car wreck earlier this year too.

My .54 caliber BP rifle shoots 420 grain maxi balls with the BC of a brick 1600 fps. With a hundred yard zero, the hold over to two hundred is measured in feet. 120 yards Is my personal maximum range for that rifle. I have a hard time believing my setup could shoot that far, but some of the new inlines might be able to make it. But that's just speculation on ny part.


The question I have is how do you have an A.D. with a BP rifle while cleaning it??? Someone please explain the chain of events that could lead up to that! This story leaves me with a lot of questions. It is a very sad story, and my thoughts and prayers go out to that girl and her family.

I don't believe that it was reported as an AD. Rather, the guy shot into the air to empty the barrel before cleaning.

Also, a 45 caliber flat base spitzer fired at max velocity in a 50-54 caliber sabot could well make something close to 2500 yds. Depending on the style of rifle and whether it was black powder or one of the newer substitutes, muzzle velocity could have reached close to 2200 fps.

http://findarticles.com/p/arti..._11_53/ai_n20512665/

"At a maximum firing angle of elevation of 35-degrees, the rifle, shotgun and muzzleloader projectiles travel 13,926', 10,378', and 9,197' respectfully. Because of the angle of descent, there are no ricochets."

Worth a read.

Thanks underclocked, interesting how far the muzzleloader and slug both traveled, much further than conventional wisdom would indicate.

We've long been told that a .22lr can travel over a mile. 1.5 for a conical and especially a sabot fired in a ML seems possible.

Whatever happened and however it happened is not as important as that it happened.

Whether the gun went off accidentally or the person holding the gun intentionally fired it, a family lost a child.

quote:

Originally posted by alleyyooper:
The story would not load up for me but I'm calling B/S on it.

How am I supposedf to know who may be in their woods a mile and a half away. If you didn't hunt because you could not be sure who or what was a mile and a half away that would stop a whole lot of deer hunting east of the Missippi.Just more foder for the anti hunting bunch.

Sharp sticks,Rocks on the end of sticks, and a bow and arrow would be what was left toi hunt with.

Al

Al I was taught and still practice the safety principle of being aware of the targets backstop. Skylines deer would be a no-no, much less shooting into the blank sky.

Shooting the rifle into the air to empty it in order to clean is simply stupid.

Muzzleloader target compilations were often held at 1000 yds. It does not seem at stretch at all to me that in rolling hill country an accident like that could happen at considerably longer distance. It would have been so easy to empty the rifle into the ground.....sad.

a muzzel loader can easy easy with out a problem hit 2500 yards alotho i kinda feel for the familie i find it hard to have toatle sympathy for them when accidents do happen and ill be the first to admit the guy should of fired the rifle into the ground common sence not the air.
She is survived by her father, "10" brothers and sisters, "26" nieces and nephews and two grandparents.