Help me make sense of what could have happened

[Spitty]

Earlier this year a close relative of mine was killed by a gun shot wound to the chest while trail bike riding.
During the ride those with him had heard rifle shots but not close. The bullet hit him while he was riding at moderate speed and struck him in the chest killing him almost instantly.
At the time of the incident there was not evidence that he had indeed been shot, meaning no obvious impact wound, it was only discovered after paramedics arrived that a bullet had hit and exited his body. No bullet was recovered.
Obviously a tragic incident like this leaves a lot of unanswered questions, and loved ones trying to make sense of what might have happened.
The police report (still under investigation) suspects a stray bullet or ricochet!
I have very little knowledge of hunting rifles but wonder at what range could this have happened ? Would a hunting round pass cleanly through the body ? Is a ricochet plausible?

I understand this may not be 'an appropriate' topic for this forum. If so I understand the moderators may wish to remove it.
I am just trying to make sense of something that doesn't make sense.

 

[Malo83]

All possible,
Sorry for your loss.

 

[Zee09]

All possible as stated above.
Shotgun slugs and pistol bullets like 45 acp and many others can bounce around and easily kill people at long distances.

I used to shoot Tommy guns in the day and you would not believe how they bounced around.
That is a very sad situation and i am sorry for your loss. The shooter most likely knows nothing about the incident.

 

[Pablo]

I agree that many calibers can ricochet but to have such velocity must have been a necked rifle cartridge IMHO.

My guess is some clowns were not aware of the backstop. Fundamental rule. Bullet from rifle passed unimpeded through the woods.

This assumes riding was in proper place.

 

[BMWTurboDzl]

Possible. The effective range of a 30-60 cartridge (typical round for deer hunting) is 500 yds. Depending on the terrain density of the forest it the shooter could've been much closer and just deer hunting. A miss is a miss. There's no backstop when hunting big game.

 

[vw7674]

Freak Accident.
That was not a .22 rimfire. Hopefully the medical examiner can get a measure to get to caliber range & police can start there, .243/.270 /.300s etc.
Crazy World. My own local police use(d) a range here, then a lady behind it complained about projectiles sailing through her living room one day....

 

[Kira]

Hunting calibers have soft tips which cause expansion. Some target rounds are fully jacketed.
There's a lot they can discern even absent the slug.

 

[ekrampitzjr]

All someone has to do is to point a loaded firearm up and pull the trigger. No telling where that round is going to end up. A boy in Virginia was killed that very way several years ago during Independence Day festivities, and the culprit has never been found.

 

[JohnnyG]

In addition to all of the above, most of which is correct, a lot of "practice ammo" is commonly known as "hardball" or military surplus ammo. These types of bullets are not designed for hunting, and (according to the Geneva Convention) are designed NOT to expand upon impact.
A (roughly) 30 caliber bullet, leaving the muzzle at around 1200 fps, would be lethal at a minimum of two miles, for a hit in the vital areas of the body.
So a clean pass through is entirely possible as well as lethality.

r.e. Pristine bullet, cir. 1964

 

[ZeeOSix]

Earlier this year a close relative of mine was killed by a gun shot wound to the chest while trail bike riding.
During the ride those with him had heard rifle shots but not close. The bullet hit him while he was riding at moderate speed and struck him in the chest killing him almost instantly.

Wow, that sounds like a freak accident and sorry this happened. Did the police ever try to find out if someone was shooting at a known shooting area out in the area where this happened? Was there some kind of hunting season going on at the time? Was it just a few shots, or on-going like people were target shooting?

If the gun shots sounded very far away, then as others said it was probably someone out target shooting if they were using full metal jacket ammo, and that's most likely why it passed all the way through.

 

[Spitty]

It is my belief there was target shooting going on, not hunting, based on the # of shots being fired.
Police did question some guys in the area, but it was not immediately apparent that this was a gunshot wound until the paramedics examined his body. As it happened late in the afternoon anyway whoever may have been shooting likely had gone home by the time the police arrived.

 

[ZeeOSix]

It is my belief there was target shooting going on, not hunting, based on the # of shots being fired.
Police did question some guys in the area, but it was not immediately apparent that this was a gunshot wound until the paramedics examined his body. As it happened late in the afternoon anyway whoever may have been shooting likely had gone home by the time the police arrived.

The police need to watch that area and start questioning anyone who shows up to target shoot to get leads on who was out there on that day. Maybe they are doing that. Did you are anyone else go look to see if there was an obvious place where the shots were heard coming from where people target shoot? Maybe the people that own the land around there go shooting on their property if it's out in the woods someplace, and it could also be someone like that.

 

[CharlesInCharge]

I'm sorry for your loss. I concur with the general assessment in that someone likely fired a rifle and through absolute dumb luck, accident or pure negligence, the bullet struck your relative and passed thru, causing fatal injury. Probably large caliber full metal jacket rifle round. It could probably be located with a metal detector and a lot of looking if you have the location and direction of the shot fired. That would give you a piece of evidence to match caliber and rifling (unique fingerprints a barrel imprints upon a bullet) against any suspected rifles.

Bullets sometimes do really strange and unpredictable things. For example, about a decade ago a man in Ohio cleaning his rifle FOOLISHLY unloaded it by firing it into the air. It struck and killed an Amish girl 1.5 miles away. You can search for the news article. The odds of that are remote but the consequences life altering. Another ricochet example is one video showing a man firing a .50 caliber rifle and the bullet comes hundreds of yards straight back and clips his head, knocking his hat off! I recall seeing fused bullets at a war museum in Antietam or Gettysburg, cannot recall which. But two fused lead bullets striking each other in mid-air...

Bullets do act in bizarre unpredictable ways sometimes. Alternately someone might have fired in the air or over a berm and it traveled thru trees and struck. Sad, random, unlikely. But it happens.

Please don't condemn guns, though. It's generally true the owners were acting poorly.