Do they look like bullet holes?
Yes. Something big and slow, maybe .45ACP or .380
Yes, those are pretty big bullet holes from a handgun.
Yes, and as far as I can tell they were fired low and from the left of the sign.
Caliber is indeterminate, but they do look larger than a .22 LR. The width of the actual opening will be the approximate diameter of the bullet, which is close to, but not exactly the caliber of the weapon which fired the bullet.
Stranger
Do you think it’s a handgun or a rifle?
Large caliber handgun, almost certainly. The holes are big and the dimples are deep and wide, meaning a slower velocity. A rifle would have to be something like a .44, and likely would have dimpled less. (Smaller diameter but deeper punch.
I’d bet on a .45, maybe a 10mm.
There is no way to tell for sure. There are rifles that fire pistol-caliber rounds, such as the Marlin Camp Carbines. However, a pistol would be eaiser to carry and conceal, and is probably more likely if this is in a populated area.
Stranger
Those are definitely bullet holes.
I worked road construction signage in a rural area for a few summers. We’d get back our signs shot full of holes all the time. I don’t understand it, myself, but some people just view them as legitimate targets. Probably on the misconception that the signs are “public property” (they usually aren’t) and its a victimless crime (yes, somebody like me had to fabricate new ones to replace them).
I remember one time somebody shot a sign with size 7 or 8 birdshot. You could see the count the little dimple left by each and every piece of shot.
This is actually an advanced reconnascience party from the of the Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax. They couldn’t find a sack of potatoes and just coudln’t help themselves.
Stranger
Right. It isn’t 100% provable based on the photos but it is well within the 99% confidence interval that they are larger caliber handgun rounds. The dimpling shows that it isn’t a typical rifle round because they typically punch through metal much more cleanly and it is much too small to be a shotgun slug. That combined with the terrible accuracy of the shooter means it almost certainly handgun bullet holes. Rifle shots should be much more closely grouped.
Tangent: in the movies, when cars get shot, how come the holes and the area surrounding the holes are devoid of paint? I’m talking about a huge area too. Something like the image below, but even bigger sometimes. Is this just for theatrical effect?
http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/prop-car-267x200.jpg
Why isn’t the sign reacting the same way? I see the paint cracked around the bullet hole, but it clearly hasn’t disappeared.
Not all rifle rounds will punch cleanly through metal. The .223 Remington/5.56 x 45mm NATO is noted for readily becoming unstable and keyholding through even modest barriers, although these holes are clearly not caused by such a small caliber round.
In movies (and television) when a shot penetrates a car body, what really happens is that the skin is previously punctured (often by actually shooting the car), the resulting dimple is filled in with putty in which a ‘squib’ (pyrotechnic device to simulate bullet impact) is embedded, and then painted over. Because the ‘bondo’ fills in the entire deformed area and readily separates from the metal skin when tthe squib, it gives the impression of a large impact, where a real bullet pentration would make a more modest hole.
Stranger
Ignorance annihilated guys. I now know that these are likely bullet holes, the likely caliber of bullet, how bullet holes on cars in movies work, a likely reason people shoot at street signs, and that my local street sign shooter’s aim sucked. :D.
Is there anything else that can make that kind of hole? Has to be a bullet.
I don’t know, they looked pretty big.
But of course, there are big bullets.
Bullets do clear the paint around the hole in real life too, just google image search ‘bullet hole car’ and you’ll see a few photos like this. I don’t know why but I assume that when the metal bends, the paint comes loose and just goes flying. Perhaps the paint is too fragile to bend as much as the paint. You can see the same thing in dents on vehicles like this. The paint came loose at the most acute part of the dent, the impact that caused the dent was lower. And what is a bullet hole really but a very acute dent?
Yeah, but I’m talking about plate-sized areas around bullet holes in which paint is missing. Just watch Terminator.
I looked up “keyholding” and could not find a definition that was pertinent to terminal ballistics What does it mean?
I know that the 5.56 has a tendency to yaw and sometimes fragment but that happens a few inches within the target, not at the very surface.
IceQube:
Stranger answered the how, I think I have a guess as to why: It looks better, more bullet-holey and is easier to notice. Small realistic holes on a dark car would be easy to miss in action sequences.
It’s not ‘keyholding’ it’s keyholing.
When a bullet enters a target tip first, it leaves a nice round hole. If the bullet enters the target sideways or close to it, it leaves a ‘keyhole’.
In my experience I’ve only seen it happen when the bullet has impacted something first. Nicking a sandbag before entering the target. Passing through multiple layers where there’s a round hole in the first layer and a keyhole passing through subsequent layers.
The shape of the holes tell you they ‘keyholed’ either in flight or on impact. Handgun alright.