I wish you'd ask your friend for some more details about exactly how this happened, and to confirm that it was a SDVE. Unless he had his finger on the trigger, it's hard to imagine how that happened...unless maybe he had the slide locked open, knocked the slide release off, and there was a slam fire, which would involve the striker sticking in the forward position.
I'm no expert, to be sure, but it's hard (for me, anyway) to imagine how bumping a SDVE on a picnic table could make it fire.
He said he raised up quick and hit the back of the slide on the bottom of the table and it discharged. He's a very big guy and hit it fairly hard. He is knowledgeable about firearms, carries and owns many firearms and works on a lot of his own stuff. He said this one was not modified in any way and he is well known to be trustworthy and honest so I'm not sure what to make of it. I have heard of firearms with very light trigger pulls drop firing or bang firing,but, from everything I've read, the SDVE's can't get down low enough for that to be a problem. He had just purchased it so it may have been used or modified and he was not informed on purchase or could've just been a rare defect. I do know he got rid of it after that. He sold it to a gunsmith for what he had in it.
