"Shooting steel at 50 yards is suicide."
+1 on that.
About 30 years ago me and some friends were shooting in the mountains and doing some exploring. We found some old, abandoned mine equipment and started slinging lead at it. I fired a round and it came straight back at me and hit me in the chest. I ended up performing a fragmentectomy on myself with a pocket knife. I got very lucky on that one, the fragment lodged in my sternum, I literally had to pry it out. A couple of inches to either side could have been a serious problem because we were over an hour from anything.
I was shooting an old 30-30 with iron sights at the time and saw some fresh metal and took a shot at the center of the plate. My luck I hit it about a 1/2 inch above my aim point. The plate had a recessed hole dead center and I hit the top edge. Part of my bullet splattered on the flat surface and the other part cleaned the rust out of the detent and came right back at me.
I got religion that day in regard to eye protection and knowing what I'm shooting at. I also learned that I needed friends who weren't squeamish about blood. How do you claim to be a hunter and be afraid of blood? LOL
BTW - The only reason I took the fragment out was I couldn't get the bleeding to stop and putting pressure on it with the the fragment (mostly jacket material) still in me hurt like SOB.
Maybe next time I tell you guys about the time I grabbed a 4x4 buck by the horns as he ran past my hiding spot. Hey I was 16, what's that old saying, young, dumb and full of, well you know. LOL
Southpaw