AFTE Store - Bullet Ricochets on Wood

This article provides a summary of two recent ricochet studies performed on wooden boards. The first study focused on the critical ricochet angle, at which 50% of a given bullet type will ricochet from a given wood type. The results show that the critical ricochet angle increases with increasing hardness and density of wood. The results of the second study confirm that a bullet’s ricochet angle from wood (a yielding surface) usually exceeds the angle of incidence and has a tendency to deflect to the left or right, depending on its rotation. The left or right deflection can be increased or counteracted by the direction of the grain of the wood. In this study, the deflection was strongest when the angle of the wood grain, in relation to the bullet’s plane of impact, lay between 30° and 75° and the angle of incidence came close to the critical ricochet angle. The magnitude of the effect also depended on the type of wood. Ricochet marks from heavily deflected bullets often showed a curved appearance. The curvature was less defined for bullets that produced a ‘tunnel’ shaped ricochet defect with a separate entrance and exit hole.