Good shot!

[Nero]

I heard a story the other day, which I've been unable to find any information on, but I believe it to be true.

Tommy and Jerry in two opposing trenches in WW1. Tommy takes aim, and at the same time, Jerry lets fly with his rifle. Just as Tommy pulls the trigger, the German bullet (slightly smaller diameter than the British rifle) enters Tommy's rifle at the pointy end, and meets the oncoming bullet.

Tommy gets a larger than expected recoil, but otherwise OK.

Anyone heard that one?

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Sounds more like Tom and Jerry than Tommy and Jerry, to me...

 

[Nero]

I agree, it does, but allegedly the rifle in question is in a museum in Warminster

 

[JensenHealey]

You may need to invoke the infinite improbability drive for that one!

 

[ABCaudio]

I'm sure mythbusters would have done a story asking these lines?

 

[Nero]

I'm having trouble deciding what to put in a search engine....

 

[dweezil]

Given the incredible number of shots fired in human conflict it might be even more unlikely that this hadn't happened.

Apologies for being a boring statistician!

 

[mansr]

I agree, it does, but allegedly the rifle in question is in a museum in Warminster

Well, King Arthur's round table is on display in Winchester.

 

[Joe Hutch]

You'd sort of expect the rifle to be in Winchester. Or Enfield.

 

[Nero]

Given the incredible number of shots fired in human conflict it might be even more unlikely that this hadn't happened.

Apologies for being a boring statistician!

I agree. Similarly, I'd love to know how many people have been randomly killed by bullets falling from the sky, after typical middle eastern celebrations involving firing AK47s upwards

I'm having a quiet day today

 

[mansr]

There's also a story of a soldier, possibly in Vietnam, shooting an enemy through his rifle scope just as he was taking aim.

 

[Cesare]

I think the bullet diameter makes little difference, the metal would deform as it's softer than the metal of the barrel, and even if it was a radius off, it would still do something like this. As for how you'd know (as a soldier) that this is what had happened beats me though. I'd expect the rifle maybe to have damaged rifling?

 

[Nero]

I believe what's left of the two bullets is still in the barrel

 

[JensenHealey]

Thing is... an incoming bullet is not travelling in a straight line - they never do. Which makes the alleged incident even harder to fathom. I suppose if the two bullets did meet it would have been right at the tip of the barrel?

 

[Vinny]

There's also a story of a soldier, possibly in Vietnam, shooting an enemy through his rifle scope just as he was taking aim.

Take a look online for sniping records - you'd not even think to question this, but how anyone would know..........................

 

[Vinny]

Thing is... an incoming bullet is not travelling in a straight line - they never do.

they do, compared to length of a rifle barrel, otherwise sniping would literally be impossible.

 

[Vinny]

 

[eternumviti]

There's also a story of a soldier, possibly in Vietnam, shooting an enemy through his rifle scope just as he was taking aim.

That wasn't in Vietnam, it was in Saving Private Ryan

 

[mansr]

That wasn't in Vietnam, it was in Saving Private Ryan

I haven't seen that film, but the story could well have originated there. Or the other way around.

 

[Nero]

Interesting. Starting to think this did actually happen