[Vikingdad]

Please tell me it is not "common practice" to unload your black powder rifles by firing them into the air.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/12/amish-girl-buggy-shooting-freak-accident/

[JonM]

No. Its just how morons do it.

[thdrduck]

Something just doesn't pass the "smell test". I am really having a problem with a muzzle loading gun that can spew a bullet 1.5 miles let alone still have enough energy to do much harm. This guy just matched the world record sniper shot with a muzzle loader and with a head shot at a moving target. If this really did happen that way... that is a true "freak" accident.

[Jeepergeo]

Know your backstop and what's beyond it. Keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction. The guy with the black powder firearm broke some basic rules...the child is dead and this guy will live with that for the rest of his life.

There's just no room for breaking the basic safety rules, and as we can see in this case, the cost of breaking the rules can be enormous. I can't imagine the pain the child's family is experiencing.

[Hawg]

Originally Posted by thdrduck

Something just doesn't pass the "smell test". I am really having a problem with a muzzle loading gun that can spew a bullet 1.5 miles let alone still have enough energy to do much harm.

You haven't been around smoke poles much then. They were making 1000 yard kill shots during the Civil War with 65 grains of powder and a 500 grain minie. This guy was probably using a modern contraption with 150 grains of powder and a 300 grain bullet. I doubt he would have made the hit had he been trying to, that's where the freak accident comes in. The girl is dead and that's the sad part. It could have been avoided had he just fired into the ground.

[PanBaccha]

Shooting firearm into the air does have consequences, unfortunately.

[thdrduck]

Hawg, 1000 yard kill shots with a mini is a bunch of spunk! If a 1000 guys aimed at the moon in the general direction of 1000 other guys and all shot at once... maybe someone would get hurt. I've been shooting bp for over 30 years and a mile and a half, I don't think so. I bet there will be more to come out of this, but none the less it is tragic.

[ninjatoth]

When I was a kid,our neighbor was "cleaning"his gun and it somehow went off and the bullet traveled about 100 yards and hit our house exactly where my head rests at night.I don't remember the circumstances or the caliber,but it was a deer rifle.The lucky thing is that we weren't home at the time and the amazing thing was that the bullet hit at just the right angle that it went into the siding and ricochet'd out of the siding about 6" away from the entrance hole.The house is only siding and like 3/4" plywood so I don't know how the bullet managed to not get inside the house.

[ninjatoth]

One thing i'd like to add to some people's opinion that a falling bullet don't have enough energy to kill someone,that they need to have a better understanding of science.Like,a .22 bullet falling onto even someone's head may not kill them,but reguardless of the caliber,all falling bullets travel at the same terminal velocity(about 150mph),so a miniball or shotgun slug coming down out of the sky has 10X's the energy of a falling .22,and that my friend will kill ya.

[Wilder]

Originally Posted by thdrduck

Hawg, 1000 yard kill shots with a mini is a bunch of spunk! If a 1000 guys aimed at the moon in the general direction of 1000 other guys and all shot at once... maybe someone would get hurt. I've been shooting bp for over 30 years and a mile and a half, I don't think so. I bet there will be more to come out of this, but none the less it is tragic.

It's called volley fire, and it comes from the days of military archers. The idea is to arc the bullet into an enemy formation at maximum range. You would have a few thousand guys fire at another few thousand guys all standing in a densely packed military formation. If 1% of the shots hit the formation you had a compounding effect on the enemy morale. Most old military rifles like the mauser have iron sights set up for out to 2,000 yds/m. A ridiculous range for the rifle and sight combo when you think of accurate fire. When you think like a military commander who remembers going to war with bows and arrows it makes sense. Start scratching at their morale as early as you can. Remember their targets at that range covered at least several hundred square yds. Think indirect fire at a hillside.