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The more solid and heavy the target the more damage to the pellet. A light weight target absorbs much of the energy from the pellet by moving itself, allowing the pellet to remain somewhat intact so it can bounce off. In other words a heavy solid target completely destroys the pellet. (See my Avatar pic) Also if you get a glancing blow it can ricochet of the edge of the target. There are many forces at work when a projectile hits something. See this interesting video: http://airgunnation.dev/topic/projectiles-at-1000000-fps-frames-per-second/
 
"30cal"The more solid and heavy the target the more damage to the pellet. A light weight target absorbs much of the energy from the pellet by moving itself, allowing the pellet to remain somewhat intact so it can bounce off. In other words a heavy solid target completely destroys the pellet. (See my Avatar pic) Also if you get a glancing blow it can ricochet of the edge of the target. There are many forces at work when a projectile hits something. See this interesting video: http://airgunnation.dev/topic/projectiles-at-1000000-fps-frames-per-second/
I noticed material that flies parallel to the target face almost seems to speed up. The distance from the center of the impact point to the circumference looks like it is further away than the amount of pellet consumed. Maybe just my misunderstanding of what is physically happening almost instantaneously.

If one shoots a piece of solid delhrin the pellet will "from whence it came, so shall it return". Dangerous stuff. I would think the pellets' energy would be mostly absorbed, but it ain't. That's for sure. That's for durn sure. 
 
Plastics are almost as bad as hard rubber for bouncing pellets back. The primary reason is that the energy of the strike is stored in the plastic as a temporary deformation much like a compressed spring. The plastic springs back sending the pellet on a return trip. Also, the plastic is too soft to allow the pellet to use up all its energy into deformation of the pellet itself, like steel plate does.

Thin spoons also act more like springs and the curved concave surfaces tend to send the pellet back toward the shooter, while convex surfaces will send the pellet off in a diagonal direction. Thick plates, though do indent and spring back slightly, the amount of energy stored is much less since most of it goes to deforming the pellet and sending fragments off to the sides. The spring is too stiff. If the target can indent more, it is capable of absorbing and storing the energy without it disrupting the pellet as much and will send it back with more velocity.