Yes, two actually.

1. I was shooting with my pistol team members (U.S. Army, Ft. Lewis, WA) when I saw a bunch of “stuff” (smoke and small particles I suppose) fly by in front of me from the left. I heard the soldier next to my left give out an “Ow” (or something similar, but not as polite). I looked toward him, while keeping my 1911A1 pointing down range.

He still had his 1911A1 in his left hand, pointing down range, but was bent over to the right and was holding his right hand over his left eye. I quickly called for a cease fire, cleared my pistol and set it down on the bench; then reached across to secure his pistol from him (I grabbed it across the top of the slide), and yelled “Give it to me” and “What happened?”. He said he got hit by something in his eye. I called for the Range Safety to get a Medic, and had two other soldiers take the injured soldier away.

As they walked away, I tried to clear his pistol. The magazine came out ok, but the slide wouldn’t pull back. A closer look showed that the rear 1.5 inches or so of the slide had jumped the rails, but the rest of it was still mostly in the rail groove – very strange.

Even with the slide popped up like it was I was still able to remove the main spring housing (with difficulty), the thumb and grip safeties, the hammer, plus the other small parts in there, to make the pistol as safe as I could, and placed it, pointing down range, on the shooting bench.

Eventually the armoror and I were able to pound the slide off.

We found that a round had detonated in the chamber (don’t know why), splitting and separating the chamber directly above the link. The remaining barrel (obviously under great pressure) pushed up on the slide causing the rear portion of the slide to jump the rails.

The soldier, luckily, only received some light burn to his eye, and soon recovered.

2. I was preparing to shoot at the Ft. Eustis, Va., Rod and Gun Club range when the sound of the shot coming from a shooter, several shooting points down from me, suddenly sounded much louder and sharper. The shots had been loud before (like .357 Magnums), but this one was noticeably different.

I looked and there this guy was pointing a revolver frame, with no cylinder, down range. At that, I heard a “Cease Fire, Clear All Weapons”, and did so.

The guy, new to shooting, had bought a new Chief’s Special, and the clerk had also sold him a box of SuperVel .38 Specials! This was way before J frames were rated for +P ammo; in fact they didn't even call it +P back then.

When the cylinder gave way to the pressure, it split into two halves (each were lying on the bench), and the top strap of the frame separated from the rest of the frame and was stuck into a wooden beam above where he stood!

Other than a look of shock on his face, the guy didn’t even have a scatch!

Peace,