Shooting rifles in the air(was Savage 250-3000)
Question:
>In the good old days at Jeff Cooper’s Gunsite students in his rifle >class were given a crack at clay birds going away. Even I hit one. >Quite invigorating. Of course in his neighborhood one could be pretty >sure there was nobody down range.
I’ve seen this done also (we had a mountain backstop). The shooter was using a scoped .243 Win and didn’t miss one. I was amazed, but didn’t try it. Rifle bullets fired in the air aren’t very likely to hit anyone, or any animal, or anyone’s property–but that doesn’t mean they won’t, and the price could be high for the unfortunate victim. A rifle must be fired into a safe backstop. This includes shots at flat surfaces that can cause ricochet (water). Rifle bullets can travel one to several (?) miles–too far to know for sure that the shot is safe. We must behave better than the soldiers in third-world armies, whose wildly fired shots into the sky seem not to come back to earth (this must be what they believe?). author of CD-ROM "Tim Calvin’s Hunting the West"
Response:
>Rifle bullets fired in the air aren’t very likely to hit anyone, or any >animal, or anyone’s property–but that doesn’t mean they won’t, and the >price could be high for the unfortunate victim.
Certainly true in rural areas. We get a few deaths each decade in Denver, typically New Year’s Eve, when you can step outside and learn that ATF or not, there are really quite a number of full-auto weapons around, owned and operated by imbeciles. I have read that in Los Angeles, they actually lose several each year to bullets returning to earth.
