An older article that I came across. IPSC shooter or not, I say no possible way. An attention grab and nothing more. The markings are far too deep to have been caused by a falling empty case and therefore must have been forced in some way.
Not that big a deal, just don’t know why they would have printed this nonsense.
http://www.gunsandammo.com/content/weird-stuff-happens?packedargs=pagenum%253D2&rendermode=flush
That sounds a little far fetched. But he does have pictures, and there`s always a Darwin wannabe pushing the envelope.
Sorry, you are wrong and G&A is actually right (for once).
This phenomenon has been documented numerous times. Post a link over at www.brianenos.com and you will receive confirmation from several people.
Futhermore, when I worked at an indoor range (Shooters Paradise near Quantico) this same thing happened to a customer. Local police were called & their CSI team recovered the casing from the overhead sound-deadening material.
Actually, G&A probably got the sanctioning body wrong since most of the competitions held in the USA are in fact governed by USPSA - which is an organization within an affiliated region of IPSC - thus making them USPSA shooters & not “ipsc” shooters.
I personally know of someone who dropped a .45 ACP round which ignited when it hit the gravel.
On the same range, I know of someone who sustained a hand injury when he tried to catch a round he was ejecting from his pistol. The round hit his hand and bounced back into the open chamber where the ejector struck and ignited the primer. I don’t remember the injury but I think he fully recovered from it.
I am not surprised that what is in that article happened.
I’m just happy that things went swimmingly. 
Drop an empty .40 case on anything at any angle from say 8ft and see what the result is. Happen to have a couple laying around, and based upon my testing I suspect that some balsa wood might be affected, but that’s about it.
Look at the depth if the two v shaped divots in that rim, let alone the depth of the primer dent. There is just no way unless the speed was somehow greatly accelerated. And not only that, they appear to be machined to an extent rather than impacted.
Ive heard stories before of ejecting casings landing on a tray of live rounds and hitting the primer hard enough to fire…
Really have no dog in this fight, but in this particular case anyhow I simply don’t believe it. And the more I look at the rim, the more blatant the milled notching.
But maybe with a rifle or a .45 at just the right speed and angle, who knows.
silly me, I just thought that was the avg. firing pin mark from a glock…jmb:D
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Lucky that the round didn’t set off more rounds below it in a cascading effect that ends with the destruction of the universe.
Just thinking that the real culprit could be the rotation of the case? I can’t think the ejected round has enough energy from the fall, but if it is rotating I guess it could have a pretty good whack to it, plus it would have a greater chance of the case lip hitting. Since most of the mass is on that end, I’m thinking it would have a tendency to continue rotatating into the primer rather than bouncing off the live cartridge.
I personally think that it’s more a factor of the other guys being unlucky.
Still one of those things I’d have to see to believe, but if a round does go off outside of a chamber/barrel I’d imagine the shell casing would be more of a threat to injury than the bullet.