Stupid things you’ve done with a gun.

[Kelly Green]

If you’ve been around guns as long as many of us here then you’ve probably done something stupid and because of it, learned a valuable lesson. This is not the only stupid thing I’ve done but it was the earliest.

Back when I was ten years old, my older brother, fourteen, decided it would be a good idea to shoot rats in the barn. While our parents were in town, we took dad’s .22 revolver and a box of ammo from the gun cabinet and into the barn we went. We stupidly used hollow points because my brother thought it would be more fun to try and knock critters off the rafters with a bullet instead of rat shot.

Next day, dad goes into the barn and sees little rays of light streaming in through little holes in the metal roof. Needless to say, he was disappointed in us and mad as heck. Not only had we messed up the roof but we’d also used the gun without his ok. That stunt earned us a trip to the woodshed.

I learned three valuable lessons: first, don’t use someone else’s gun without permission; second, don’t shoot up a barn with solid bullets and third, mending a barn roof is no picnic.

[venomballistics]

the biggest lesson was learning not to talk about it

[CAJUNLAWYER]

Let's see-shot a hole in the floor of my wife's 1 month old Trailblazer with a .45.(grown up) Shot a bird that was on the neighobr's chiminey-it fell down into the fireplace (as a young lad). Well that wasn't really dumb-just a miscalculation
But shooting the wife's new SUV-THAT was DUMB

[sipowicz]

Shot a hole in my mom's closet with my new to me 66 PPK. luckily, it was open at the time so no hole in the door...a few days later i heard her yelling about the moth problem in her closet...whew!

[Gun Smoke]

Had a old ****** 12 gauge pump shotgun and I racked in a shell for some stupid reason and it jammed the action and I couldn't get it to eject no matter how hard I pulled back on the pump action....Well I was almost late for work on the 4-midnight shift and my wife wasn't home yet and I didn't want to leave the shotgun loaded and ready to fire so I got the bright idea to just fire the round to clear the gun...I rounded up 4-5 phone books and fired it into them from an upstairs bedroom in our apartment.. Well not only did the phone books not stop the 00 buck round but the floor and most of the kitchen cabinet and contents below do very much to slow it down either...It blew a hole in the top and bottom of the cabinet and destroyed all the bosses corning ware along with making several real nice dents in the stainless steel sink...It wasn't a pleasent evening for several months after that little woops...

[Out West]

I missed a feral pig this weekend that was as big as a cow. Does that count?

Out
West

[Bullseye 2620]

Originally Posted by Kelly Green

If you’ve been around guns as long as many of us here then you’ve probably done something stupid and because of it, learned a valuable lesson.

Yes, I have, and I did: don't sell 5-inch S-series nickel Model 27s.


Bullseye

[Joni_Lynn]

I sold off a really nice shotgun once.............does that count?

[Smith357]

I tried to super tune the trigger on a 1911 race gun I was building. I went too far and the gun went full auto at the range with about a dozen onlookers checking out the fool with the full auto .45.

[Brian41]

I was training a young English Setter on pheasants one time. I got excited at her point and upon my flush shot a blank out of a Detective Special right beside my right ear. That being prior to our CCW law here I was probally carrying that gun illegally too.
I couldn't hear from that ear for a week very well.

[NCTexan]

Stepped on a snake while I was dove hunting and shot it... while it was still almost under my foot.

I HATE SNAKES!

[DeathGrip]

Bought one with out checking it out.That one cost me more than it was worth.

[Viss]

I was so excited when I got my first revolver. It was Ruger Blackwawk in 357 mag. I couldn't wait the 30 min. to get home to shoot it so I rolled down the window in the truck and took aim at fence post and shot it while still in the cab. My ears rang for a week.

[nun]

My wife's great uncle told us stories about shooting dimes out of each others hands with 22s when they were kids.

[venomballistics]

Originally Posted by nun

My wife's great uncle told us stories about shooting dimes out of each others hands with 22s when they were kids.

so the missing fingers weren't a hereditary trait after all

[ssgmac]

Skipped school with my older brother, went shooting my M1 Garand, he shot my carbine, I loaded the first end block mag. with tracers, after we realized the fire wasn't going out we tried to stomp it out, too late!! We stopped at the nearest gas station and used the pay phone to report a possible fire in the woods. Days later after driving by the scene, those tracers only burned about 3 acres!!! Whew!!

[mod34]

One of the first guns I bought was a Ruger stainless MKII Target. The first time I took it out, I did two stupid things"

1) Got the webbing between my thumb and index finger too close to the bolt! Yes, it bled...and bled...and bled.

2) I wasn't paying too much attention as to how many rounds I had fired and was twirling it on my finger. Luckily, it went "click" instead of "bang"!

Needless to say, it was a very fine first day at "school".

[cass]

Late one night my chickens were raising cane, and I knew the coon had returned for another meal. I got my 45 and eased in the door - sure nuff, he was on the perch ready to pounce on a hen. I shot at the same time he moved. I missed, he got away. Next morning I discovered a large hole in my new tractor tire that was parked outside the hen house. $$$$$

[OLDFED]

Too stupid to talk about, even if it was over 50 years ago! I still ask myself...."You did what!?"

[anoblefox]

when I got my first hangun. (1973) It was a 5 inch model 27, while camping in the wild, I noticed a big jackrabbit just temping me to take a shot. Well, temptation won over good sense and I rested my weak wrist on the front fender of my old Bronco with my open hand along the cylinder of the revolver for support, drew a bead on the rabbit and the blast from the gap where the cylinder meets the frame blasted, you guessed it, MY HAND! I have not needed to repeat that dumb trick ever again. If I ever develop any memory issues when get older, remembering to keep my body parts away from a revolver cylinder gap will not be an issue!

[29aholic]

Dry firing a 29-3 that wasnt dry...was on the phone with another member who commented "What was that?? Sounded like you knocked over a pile of dishes" to which I responded "Nope that was a 44 magnum" punched a hole through my gun room wall and didnt stop until it went through the front room wall and hit the brick facade on the front of the house. Did I mention it shredded a full pop can in the front room and misted soda ALL OVER on its way out??? Needless to say the Spousal Unit was NOT happy

[seagill]

My first gun was a mini 14. Being left handed, I didn't consider the casing trajectory. Launched a hot .223 shell down the back of my shirt. When I was about 7years old my dad gave my brother and I daisey lever action bb guns. I cocked mine and pulled the trigger while the lever was still down to see what would happen. That thing slammed my finger so hard I thought I was going to die.

[dkees]

Preparing for a move and packing up the gun stuff. For some reason that is still unknown to me, I picked up an old .38 S&W Hopkins & Allen revolver and aim at a knot in the hardwood floor, and pulled the trigger.

The gun went off and I could not believe it. In one of those stupid moments I stared at the gun like it had acted on its own.

Told the home owner and he said he hoped the new renter had a rug.

[truckemup97]

Um, it seems I've done most of the things described above. Maybe I'm not as smart as I thought I was.

[feralmerril]

I wont write about the worst, but one of the lesser ones: As young teen agers, a friend shot a 30-30 near my foot and yelled "dance". It was close enough to sting the bottom of my foot and bounced my foot in the air! In retaliation, I shot the heel off his boot!

[kennyb]

my first handgun was a 2"M10...iwas about 19 or 20...i had it loaded just sitting around the house...decided to do some dry fire...opened it hit the ejector caught the rounds and set them on table...i didn't look in the cylinder or count the rounds.. (not good)my dog came walking in....yep....i took aim... click...as he walked around i aimed...click...as he exited the room i aimed....(hang on now)...click....at this time i aimed at a large bottle of prell shampoo..(glass bottle) BLAM!!!glass in my legs,prell dripping from the ceiling....yes,iwas still living at home and yes,lots of explaining to do....believe me ...i learned a very good lesson...very stupid and careless, and it's never happened since...

[CH47gunner]

Came home from the range & naturally the son decides he can just leave his gun case with me and his .22 will get "magically" cleaned and put away in the safe.
Grabbed his 10/22 out of his case & figured he had enuf sense to have cleared it so I just pulled the trigger, to make sure it wasn't cocked. I'm in the garage, the gun goes off at about a 45degree angle up thru the ceiling and into my bedroom.
Never did find the exit hole.

Bruce

[oldman45]

If I made a list, it would be too long to be considered a post.

One goof I made was taking some glass coke bottles out to the pasture to practice with. This was around age 20. I shot a pickup load of bottles over the weekend.

During the next three years, I had several flats on the tractor while bushhogging in the area of my target practice. One bottle bottom tore the tire up and required replacing the tire. Paper targets would have been cheaper.

Lesson Learned: Never use glass objects as targets.

[JohnnieB]

Hung a target on an old earth mover tire and momentarily wondered why there were more holes in the paper than shots fired before I had an urge to relieve my bladder.

[walnutred]

Once while acting as Range Armorer on a M2 qualification range I was called to a gun pit due to a miss fire. As the range NCO had called a cease fire I removed my hearing protection before climbing into the pit. The gun was pretty hot so I opened the cover planning on letting it cool down a little. Unfortunately I neglected to clear the pit and before I could stop him the over helpful gunner pulled back on charging handle. The shell cooked off as it exited the chamber peppering my left hand with brass fragments and I lost about half the hearing in my left ear. Fortunately I was still wearing my safety glasses.

[bitstream]

Not me, but the Range Officer I was chatting with back a few years ago related to me that he had, during a period of about 10 years, only had to kick one guy off the range. The guy's eyeglasses had slipped down on his nose, so... He calmly used the barrel of his loaded M-9 to push the glasses back up... by rotating it up, placing the business end against the eyeglass bridge, and shoving upward. The Range Officer said he saw it happen, hurried over, grabbed the gun out of the idiot's hand, and escorted him right off the range.

Almost forgot, the guy's finger was inside the guard at the time... Genius!

[brucev]

I am to cool to ever mess up with a gun. However... once upon a time before global warming fogged up my otherwise crystal clear thinking, I had a M-27. It was a real beauty. I was showing it to my wife. Doggone thing up and went off, all by itself! Put a .357 Silvertip through the left corner of the bed. The cat tried to run but couldn't seem to move as its four (yes they were still all attached) leg were trying to go four different ways. The other cat just had a stunned dumb (not unusual for that cat) look on his face. I don't think either cat was ever the same. A few years later I had a new P-220... stuffed full of 230 gr. Hydrashocks. I think the Germans were trying to get revenge for WWII because that thing popped off and punched a hole through one door and three walls... hit a stud in the fourth wall and bounced off the ceiling of the room and back against the opposite wall finally landing on the floor. I kept that bullet for a long time on my desk at the church... looking at it made me remember how I got it. Then there was the time my identical-twin brother came to visit! Oh boy! His visits were always a real trip! We went shooting down at a sand pit. When we got home he was fiddling with his revolver and put a round through the window of the spare bedroom. I really laid into him for being so careless. After all, he deserved it now didn't he! A few years later after the birth of my first daughter, he and his new wife came up to visit. We were in the back yard shooting pistols and he decided to check the zero on his rifle... a nice little Winchester 9422. Well the grass was to tall for him to shoot prone so he climbed up into the back of my beloved pickup truck and braced his arms on the cab to do some shooting. He decided he'd get more accurate results if he got real low on the cab. He fired a shot or two and all seemed well. Then he fired a round and it made a odd sound. He completely missed the target! We couldn't figure out what had happened, so he checked the barrel. It was clear. We didn't know what could be the matter. So, he chambered another round, got real low, aimed real careful and fired. Once again same sound and no hit on the target. So as he raised up he started laughing. He had creased the top of my pickup truck cab with both rounds. It didn't even break the paint... just left long grooves in the metal. Man my brother was so careless with guns! Since those days I've bought better guns that don't just up and go off for no good reason at all. In 2004 I buried my brother. I'd be willing to buy a new pickup truck if he could shoot it again.

[Swissman]

I've bought a Beretta 92FS.

[venomballistics]

Originally Posted by Swissman

I've bought a Beretta 92FS.

I came dangerously close to doing this

[ChattanoogaPhil]

After cleaning a new rifle, I picked up a rag on the bench to wipe down the receiver. After the first swipe I knew what had happened... a bore brush had clung to the the underside of the rag... I can't describe how mad I was at myself...

[roymack]

Sold my WWII Remington Rand 45 for $85.00

Went squirrel hunting in the city park. (The police didn't like that.)

Switched SN grips from one pistol to another, then sold one of the pistols.

[Jst1mr]

Rested the butt of a Model 29 on the edge of a pickup bed...never found the chips from those Goncalo Alves target grips....my face gets red every time I see those Hogue monogrips on that 29.

[wbraswell]

When I was a teenager, my best friend was sitting on the floor of my bedroom talking on the phone to his girl. I was "playing" with my blank pistol, and pointed it at him and pulled the trigger. I was shocked that it went off, but I knew when it did, that I had loaded it with tear gas. You should have seen the look on his face when he just said "Uh, goodbye." and hung up. We quickly opened the window and crawled out. I also once forgot to put powder in about 20 rounds of .38 spl. reloads. First rule is "If you're not too careful, you're not being careful enough."

[MFPD 10MM]

When I was 16 my brother and I took my .357 Magnum Colt Trooper out to our burn pile on our farm so I could show him how to shoot apart a Master lock like they did on T.V. I loaded it with copper jacketed hollowpoints and shot the UNSUPPORTED lock from about 1 foot away. The bullet hit the lock and went straight backwards into my hard forehead, resulting in a giant bruise and a good butt chewing from my father. I miss the farm life.

[truckemup97]

Originally Posted by roymack

Went squirrel hunting in the city park. (The police didn't like that.)

Four legged, bushy tailed squirrels, or the two legged kind?

[Engineer1911]

Loaded a 50 caliber ammo can with 357 mag reloads. One MTM loading block (I had 5 of them) of 50 cases didn't get powder, but did get 158 gr SWC bullets. The 50 no-pwder rounds were in the middle of the ammo can. Carried a wooden dowel and small ball peen hammer in the ammo can.

In a field emergency, a truck radio antenna will knock a stuck bullet out of a barrel. It was a short day at the range.

[Babalooie]

In the 1970's I was at RAF Mildenhall, England TDY with the Air Force. It was the Fourth of July and I was feeling a bit froggy. I made an Un-Gun / Polish Cannon (it's OK I'm Polish) out of pop cans taped together. Using lighter fluid for propellant, I was shooting tennis balls across the barracks parking lot, when a member of the local constabulary made me aware of several things. 1. The barracks and parking lot were not part of the base and, therefore subject to English law. 2. An Un-Gun (remember, 7-Up, the UN-Cola?) is considered a firearm under English law. 3. They don't celebrate the Fourth of July in England.

[crsides]

#1 was the worst. It was 40 yrs ago and I still won't talk about it.

#2. My buddy calls me @ 10pm and says we're going groundhog hunting in the morning with our pistols. Which one will get the nod? Wanted to take my mod 19, but I had been modifying the hammer spring and ignition wasn't 100%. Didn't want the guys laughing when it went click. Couldn't take the K22 with that puny little round, so decided to switch hammer springs. Took the sideplate off both, pull the hammer tension springs, switch them and replaced the side plates. By this time it was around 1:00 am, and of course I had to try the trigger pull on the 357 - right thru the sliding glass door. I just sit there with blue smoke hanging over the kitchen table. Wife called out from the bedroom, and since I couldn't possibly talk, called out again , and the third time came running down the hall.

Just a little 3/8 " hole with a litte spider webbing ... but everytime the wind blowed, the glass cracked a little more. It two weeks for the whole mess to come down.

My brother's father-in-law told me about shooting the leg off his ex-friends coffee table - right there in the living room.

And my cousin's husband told me about his daddy and uncle ... found a whole wagon load of dynamite sitting in a field on the back forty. you guessed it.


Charlie

[rburg]

Boy, are you guys ever stupid!

No, not for doing all that stuff, but for talking about it.

In my youth, I was a little angel. Better still, the witness list won't talk, either. At least they can still talk, they just won't. Smart guys.

[cjw3]

Once as a pre-teen, I thought it would be fun to try to set off a shotgun primer with a BB gun. I cut a shell open and removed the shot and powder (the powder was POOFED with a match...I learned much later that the shot was useful when taken to school and thrown at people). I propped the shell (base towards me) on the edge of something and backed off about 15 feet. The first shot hit it, but a little off center. The next one hit the primer with a nice bang, which was all well and good except the primer cup flew back and hit me just below the eye.
(Ralphie )

Uh....didn't try that again.

A strange thing is that some years back, my now 30 year old son admitted that he had done the exact same thing when he was about the same age. I guess the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree after all........somehow, we grew up and MAYBE are a little smarter.

[JoeR]

10-12ish skinny kid. Shooting snakes around Grandpa's pond in Southern Mississippi. I somehow thought it would be cool to extended one hand that old Iver Johnson 12 guage like I had done with my little 410. That ole 12 almost broke my jaw.

JR

[RdrBill]

All.
Stepped forward with my M14 and said, "Sure, I'll go".
Bill@Yuma

[jhs]

Originally Posted by Out West

I missed a feral pig this weekend that was as big as a cow. Does that count?

Out
West

Only if it was a cow.

[smith revolver cop]

Originally Posted by Bullseye 2620

Yes, I have, and I did: don't sell 5-inch S-series nickel Model 27s.


Bullseye

That's similar to my first thought when I read the title of the thread... don't trade your like-new K-22 on a bunch of reloading stuff that you never ended up using!

[fas111]

This still makes me cringe when I think about it. Went to the range - this is about 30 years ago, I was using my Ruger Mk1 bull bbl which by the way I still have. Had a cold but went anyhow. Next morning took a sick day and was just laying in bed, for some reason I had my gun case in the bedroom. Our dog Pumpkin jumped up on the bed while I was fooling around with the Ruger. I pointed it at Pumpkins head and had my hand on the trigger, actually was pressing it. For some reason before it broke I stopped, pulled the bolt back and it was loaded. I am so careful-(everybody says that), it was such an eye opener and a real good lesson. Pumpkin was the best dog and I would have never been able to live with myself if I hurt her. She is long gone but I still miss her.