Myself and a mate were shooting 50 yard rimfire metallic silhouette and we both got hit by fragments from ricochets, me on my hand and my friend on his face just under his safety glasses. In both instances it drew blood. My target was pigs, at 30 yards and my mate was chickens at 20 yards.

 

.22 Magnum perhaps (ballistics are roughly the same as 5.7x28mm), but .22 *penetration*? Wow.

 

What I was told recently at an outdoor range was that the steel responsive targets could be PENETRATED by .22LR, because the bullet is so small.. and that it would eventually damage them... so they wouldn't let me shoot the steel targets, only paper targets.

THe larger calibers, they said, wouldn't go through the steel, due to lower muzzle velocities and more distributed impact.. but .22LR was verboten.

Just repeating what the rangemeister told me...

 

Steel plates target .22lr? increased chance of ricochet? How is that?


_________________
aluminum plate

 

Thanks for your feedback. I'm guessing the rangemasters heard that 30-35yd rule... :roll:

 

FWIW...

I remember (if I recall correctly) reading somewhere that when shooting 22lr at steel, that targets should be placed at a 30-35 yrd minimum...

 

I've used thick steel plate and old brake rotors as targets and haven't had any ricochet using .22LR. We did get some ricochet when firing a SKS rifle. I guess the larger round had more left to bounce than the .22LR. Most of the time the .22LR shattered when it hit the hard targets.