I've had a few very skilled, people who know me would say lucky, shots at small targets with open sights. But the single shot I remember best was made at a target about 8 feet away. I was power testing my old .25 Career 707 carbine on Helium over a chrony (~105fpe) in a small basement brick walled room about 12 feet across. Had it in a rest and a good pellet catcher behind the chrony. After adjusting the rest one shot just glanced the outer edge of the steel pellet catcher, ricocheted at an angle off the rear brick wall, then past my head and off of the edge of the brick wall next to where I was seated, whizzed on around behind the back of my neck and buried itself into the plywood wall on my left.
I learned several important and all too obvious lessons about safety that day which I have never forgotten. The main one was that a lead slug can bounce like rubber off of a very solid surface, even bounce several times if you happen to get the angles just right. Safety is an ongoing process of learning for me, and no matter how careful I still have a close call now and again as another wake-up call. But thanks mostly to safety glasses and general caution all major systems are still intact.
JP
