This is an image of a balloon being shot with a pellet from an air rifle. In this image there is only a very small delay after the pellet first touches the balloon before the flash fires, so the hole in the balloon is pretty small.

The small silver shape in the hole is the pellet.

The flash was to the left, and the air rifle was angled from the left as well. I shot the balloon on the right side (from the perspective of the air rifle) so that it would look fairly centered from camera perspective.