Buckshot and liabilities of stray pellets.

[Unobtanium]

What is the furthest distance that a stray 00 pellet is likely to cause lethal damage? I live in a rural area, but this is still something I ponder.

[Tabasco]

I watched a video with some guy shooting standard 00 buckshot at various ranges, back to 200 yards. Beyond 200 yards, pellets did not penetrate the plywood, if they managed to hit it at all, so he guesstimated that 200 yards was the lethal limit. Not scientific, but something...

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Just as an incident, one should listen to the Mas Ayoob podcast interview with Greg Ferris about his gun fight in San Antonio. Mr. Ferris used a shotgun in part and pointed out that he missed some shots with it. Also, some of the pellets went out of the shop and into a house across the street. He said he felt lucky that no bystanders were hit. Obviously, this is not in a rural area but just FYI.

Folks usually claim they won't miss with a shotgun and they don't worry about stray pellets. Ah, the Internet.

[txdpd]

http://www.ctmuzzleloaders.com/ctml_...allistics.html

I don't know what the lethal energy is for a pellet. Standard 00 buckshot is .33", and flitecontrol and versatite 00 buckshot is .32".

I think that it's safe to assume that if a pellet can kill or cause serious injury at any distance it can travel.

Edited: my math was way off.

[GJM]

It’s been a number of years, but in a Bill Jeans Morigan consulting class, he gave an example of a police officer killed at 50 yards or more by a single stray buck shot pellet.

[psalms144.1]

The last victim killed at the WNY was killed by a single pellet as well. I don't remember the distance, but it was CONSIDERABLY further than I would have ever taken a shot with a 12-ga short barrel loaded with buckshot. Of course, I'm not a psychotic mass murderer...

[DocGKR]

I am aware of an officer killed by a stray pellet at about 60 yds distance.

[GJM]

I am aware of an officer killed by a stray pellet at about 60 yds distance.

I wonder if this was the same incident as I was referring to? As I recall, it was LE in CA, and one officer fired at a bad guy, and the stray pellet struck another officer well behind the intended target.

[41magfan]

I previously mentioned, I would think an impact within a couple of hundred yards could still produce a lethal wound. I've seen deer killed by a single large pellet at 100 yards and I know of at least one hunting accident fatality that involved a single 00-pellet at over 100 yards.

[Unobtanium]

So far the longest distance fatality I have found is this:

http://www.thecountyrecord.net/archi...-accident.html